Frye Opening
• February 13, 2014

The Frye Company’s Pop-Up Gallery opened Thursday, Jan. 30. Frye Georgetown welcomed D.C. photographers, artists, influencers and media to preview the collection curated by Worn Creative. Guests circulated through the space, admiring the work of featured artists Martin Swift, Amber Mahoney, Jim Darling, and Jessica Lancaster on the second floor, and browsing the Frye collection on the first floor. Attendees sampled specialty cocktails provided by Catoctin Creek Distilling Company. John Thornley, lead singer of the indie-rock band U.S. Royalty, provided the soundtrack for the evening. [gallery ids="101628,146133,146140,146138" nav="thumbs"]

LuPone, Patinkin, Cole Porter and ‘Moby Dick’
•

When you have a large performing arts
community, as we are fortunate to have
in Washington, diversity—and connections—
make themselves felt during the course of
a season.

To begin with, there’s “Moby-Dick,” Captain
Ahab’s hunt for the great white whale, Herman
Melville’s great American novel that has often
seemed almost operatic in its themes and symbolism.
And so it is as the Washington National Opera
brings us Jake Heggie’s opera “Moby-Dick.” With
Carl Tanner as Captain Ahab, evocative, powerful
sets by Robert Brill and directed by Leonard Foglia,
it’s the East Coast premiere of a production commissioned
by the Dallas Opera Company. Evan
Rogister conducts. At the Kennedy Center’s Opera
House, February 22, 25, 28, and March 2, 5 and 8.
American theater and music legends Mandy
Patinkin and Patti LuPone—aka Che Guevera
and Evita Peron—reunite since their spectacular
co-starring stint in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s 1980
rock opera, Evita. Both Patinkin and LuPone have
had spectacular Broadway careers buttressed by
appearances in television and films. Patinkin has
had three hit television series, including “Chicago
Hope” (doctor), “Criminal Minds” (FBI profiler)
and “Homeland” (CIA spy). “An Evening with Patti
Lapone and Mandy Patinkin” is at the Kennedy
Center’s Eisenhower Theater, February 18-23.
The theatrical and musical programing company,
In Series, presents “The Cole Porter Project: It’s All
Right With Me,” at the Source Theatre. The revue
celebrates the words and music of the American
master, February 22-March 9.

And there’s rock and roll on the horizon. The
national tour of “American Idiot,” featuring the
music of Green Day, with music and lyrics by lead
singer Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer,
comes to town next week. The show—a musical
about the search for meaning in a post 9/11 world by
three boyhood friends—runs at the National Theatre,
February 18-23.

And, as they say, now for something entirely
different….but then we’re talking about Woolly
Mammoth Theatre, where different is a matter
of course. This time it’s a play called, “We are
Proud to Present…” (Full title: “We are Pround to
Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia,
Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the
GermanSudwestAfrika, Between the Years 1884-
1915).

The play by Jackie Sibblies Drury is about a
company of idealistic actors, three black and three
white—who try to tell the story of a centuries-old
conflict in South West Africa, the extinction of the
small Herero tribe at the hands of German colonizers.
The story follows the actors and how their
own feelings about race in contemporary times
affects their work and the play they’re producing.
Directed by Michael John Garcés (who helmed
“The Convert” at the Woolly Mammoth last year).
“We are Proud….” runs through March 9

Washington Women & Wine at Primi Piatti
•

As Washington Women & Wine prepares to embark on a March wine tour of Northern Italy, co-founder Karen McMullen invited members to “come join the fun” at Savino Recine’s Primi Piatti restaurant on Feb. 3. Savino welcomed guests and regaled them with several card tricks from his other forte, magic. The evening began a reception followed by a multi-course seated dinner accompanied by wines from Italy’s Friuli Venezia Giulia, Umbria and Tuscany regions. After two successful forays to France, on the upcoming trip wine lovers will visit Milan, the Lake District and Venice in the company of Best of Europe’s tour leader Robin McKenzie Smith.
[gallery ids="101636,146050,146040,146045,146047" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetown Arts 2014
•

The Citizens Association of Georgetown held an opening reception at the House of Sweden on Feb.
6 to showcase the talents of Georgetown residents and artists who have studios in Georgetown. The
attendees deemed the fifth annual event, which ran through Feb. 9, the best to date. Sale proceeds
support CAG to preserve the historic character, quality of life and aesthetic values of Georgetown.
In the same spirit, Georgetown Village, a non-profit membership organization established to help
seniors age safely in their homes, will hold volunteer training at 3 p.m. on Feb. 24 in the lobby at
3000 K St., NW. [gallery ids="101626,146207,146185,146209,146203,146190,146193,146199" nav="thumbs"]

Washington Ballet Celebrates the Jazz/Blues
•

The Washington Ballet’s “The Jazz/Blues Project,” appeared at Sidney Harman Hall, Jan. 29 – Feb. 2. Three ballets were performed to the music of Charlie “Bird” Parker, Keith Jarrett and Etta James. The jazz and blues themed work was choreographed by Val Caniparoli, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Trey McIntrye.The Howard University Jazz Ensemble and award winning vocalist E. Faye Butler added their talents to the dancing. A reception for the performers and major donors following the Jan. 30 program was hosted at the Embassy of Brazil. Ambassador Vieira said “the show was fantastic.” Board Chair Sylvia de Leon spoke of the “broad diversity” of jazz and led a toast to Artistic Director Septime Webre. [gallery ids="146141,146174,146146,146150,146154,146158,146163,146167,146171" nav="thumbs"]

Helen Hayes Nominations Announced
•

This year’s nominations for the 20th anniversary of the Helen Hayes Awards were announced on Jan. 17 from the stage of the National Theatre where at age five Helen Hayes began her “lifelong love affair with the theater.” theatreWashington Board Member Glen Howard hosted the program which was also streamed via a live webcast. Nominees for outstanding achievement were selected in 27 categories from among 198 eligible productions during the 2013 calendar year. Former Board Chairman Victor Sharghai will receive this year’s tribute award sponsored by the late Jaylee Mead during the Apr. 21 awards ceremony which will be held this year at the National Building Museum. [gallery ids="101629,146128,146131,146111,146116,146120,146124" nav="thumbs"]

A New Tradition of American Music: Gypsy Sally’s
• February 3, 2014

There was a time—during the 1970s,
the 1980s and a little beyond—when
Georgetown and its surrounding areas
vibrated with the sound of music coming
from all sorts of venues, up and down M
Street, on Wisconsin Avenue and on K
Street by the waterfront.

Almost all of that is gone, surviving only
as legend. Neil Young recently issued an album
based on his appearance at the Cellar Door, and
there was a movie documentary shown on PBS
about the golden age of the Bayou. Only Blues
Alley, still presenting top-tier jazz in a classy
(and one-of-a-kind setting) remains, just off
Wisconsin Avenue in Blues Alley, NW.

But wait. There’s a new kid on the block,
or rather there are new kids on the block.
That would be David and Karen Ensor, who
remember the Georgetown music scene well and
hope to begin to revive that scene with Gypsy
Sally’s, a new music club which opened last fall
under the Whitehurst Freeway at 3401 K Street,
also known as Water Street that far west in town.

The club—more of a total environment than
just a music venue—specializes in the elastic
genre of Americana music, which goes back
as far as folk legends Woody Guthrie and Pete
Seeger (who died yesterday) and runs through
Appalachian-rooted banjo music, the kings and
queens of singer-songwriters (Emmy Lou Harris
and Bob Dylan) come to mind. It’s got its own
Grammy category (Harris and Rodney Crowell
won the best album honors). It’s roots music
steeped in tradition, but it is also as new as
tomorrow, when the next legend, packing a
guitar on his or her back, comes in and sets up
on the main stage at Gypsy Sally’s.
We stopped by Gypsy Sally’s on a quiet,
icicle-cold mid-week afternoon to talk with
Karen and Dave Ensor, the couple who are
fulfilling a long-held dream and hope to jump
start a Georgetown music renaissance.

“We remember that time when if you were
talking about D.C. music, you were talking pretty
much about what was going on in Georgetown,”
Karen said. “But right now, as far as Georgetown
is concerned, what was left was Blues Alley and
that was pretty much it. I think we complement
Blues Alley, right down the street from us, and
maybe we can start something going again.”

“We love Georgetown, we live here, we’re
raising my two teenaged daughters here,” she
said. “Almost ever since we knew each other, we
wanted to open a club. That was what we wanted
to do. We looked all over the city at first, but
then a friend of ours told us about the space here.
He said, ‘You’ve got to check this out,’ and we
did. We thought the space was perfect for what
we had in mind.”

“It’s more than just a rock club or something
like that,” said Dave Ensor, who knows a thing
or two about rock clubs. “We’re trying to give
folks an experience, so that they have options
about how they want to experience things here,
or what they want to experience.”

David, a local from Northern Virginia, spent
some time in Los Angeles, wanting to be an actor
at first, then working with bands, including his
own. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think you really
have to want to be an actor. It’s really hard. I
think music suited me better. I did everything—
singing, playing, the roadie thing, the process,
you know. But I got to know a lot about how the
business operated, what it took, touring, getting
gigs, booking, the mechanics of setting up bands
in venues.” He calls himself a big fan of Bob
Dylan and Cat Stevens.

The Ensors make a circular kind of couple in
the sense that they round each other out, opposite
on the surface with a passionately held dream
that they’re working on together.

She was raised in the South, went to
Vanderbilt, has a law degree from the University
of Maryland, is a registered nurse and
businesswoman. She’s an admitted Dead Head,
i.e., super-fan of the Grateful Dead, but also
of the kind of rock-and-roll—a rite of passage
in the South—personified by the sound of the
Allman Brothers. She’s high-energy. He’s more
reserved and cautious, except when he’s talking
about music. He still has the kind of quiet
charisma of a guy who would be comfortable in
front of a camera or raising the roof on a rockand-
roll stage. He came back from L.A. in
1990 and had an album in 2009, called “Building
a Life,” and he still teaches guitar. He acquired a
nickname—“Silky Dave”—which seems exactly
right in a good way.

Gypsy Sally’s—the name apparently comes
from an old Townes Van Zandt song called
“Tecumseh Valley”—displays an eclectic
personality.

When you get the tour—minus the music,
but with lots of atmospherics—you get the
seating arrangement, a tiered experience for a
capacity of 300 with both seating and standing
(and if you’re inclined) dancing room.

“We love it that you can do that if you
want,” Karen said. You also have a dining
option, with a menu that’s ripped from the
pages of some of today’s healthier and funkier
cookbooks: hello hempseed fudge brownies, as
well as hempseed hummus, Lake Caesar Salad
and voodoo potato chips. “We wanted above all
for people who come here to find their comfort
zone, to be comfortable,” she said. “We know
we have great venues in the area—the Birchmere
or the 9:30 Club. But in one place you can’t
stand, in the other you can’t sit. Here, you can
do both. That’s for starters.”

“This isn’t just about nostalgia,” Karen
continued. “It’s about contemporary music, a
particular kind of music. It’s the Americana
genre, roots music, singer-songwriters, with
bands and groups that tour and record nationally,
but also new musicians, local musicians, we
hope it will be a place for that kind of thing, too.
We’re not hip hop or Euro-pop or anything like
that, there’s plenty of other places in town that
do that.”

You can get a sense of the music just
by the sound of the band names who are
either coming there soon or have already played
there—the incomparable Kelly Willis, for
instance, or “Covered With Jam” with Ron
Holloway, Lindsay Lou and the Flatbellys, the
Walkaways, Yarn, Steel Wheels, the Railers,
Rico America and the Midnight Train. It’s a
flavor, tinged with banjo and guitars, railroad
cars and diners and songs written by young men
and women waking up feverish with a line that
sticks in their minds, a beat and a rhythm you just
have to fashion a song out of. Upcomers include
a Johnny birthday celebration on Feb. 26, John
Hammond on Feb. 19 and the Flashband Project.

Physically, Gypsy Sally’s comes at you
in sections. It’s on the second floor of a
building that fronts K Street with the restaurant
Malmaison.

When you walk in you’re in the Microbus
Gallery, which features an old “hippie bus,”
designed to give you a feeling for the rustic days
of touring cross-country or hanging out with Ken
Kesey and his merry pranksters.

Exhibitions are a regular thing here, too.
The William Adair construction, “The Golden
Doors to Infinity,” which honors the late and
legendary musician Gram Parsons, and “Martyrs
of Rock,” portraits of lost rock musicians—Jerry
Garcia, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious
and others—by Walter Egan will be seen here,
beginning Feb. 4.

There’s also the Vinyl Lounge, with its own
entrance, a shiny bar, and a small stage—for
open-mike nights—and a collection of vinyl
records, singles and albums, which are making
something of a comeback these days. On the
stand, you can see a collection of old albums,
including the blue hues of a Dylan greatest hits
album. You can bring your own—records, that
is—and play them.

“We care about each and every artist—
roadie or lead singer, or drummer or bass man
who comes in here,” Karen said. “That’s what
we’re about on the whole. It’s the music and
musicians and the audience.”

To meet that goal, Karen and Dave split the
stuff that keeps Gypsy Sally’s going.

“Dave knows everything about the music
business and being a musician—the setting up,
the mechanics, the burnt out fuse, the decibel
level, all the music and creative stuff,” she
said. “Everything on paper, that’s me—the
books, the money, the dates, the business end.”

Together, they’ve got Gypsy Sally’s
humming to a point where people might hear an
echo all over the city up on Wisconsin Avenue
and M Street, the way it used to be. [gallery ids="118495,118491,118486" nav="thumbs"]

‘Peter Pan’ So Old, Yet So Young
• January 31, 2014

Peter Pan is old. The boy hero—who
refused to grow up, who could fly and
who lived in Neverland—is beyond “back
in the day.” He goes way back to 1904 and the
first book and stories penned by J.M. Barrie,
featuring Peter, Wendy and Captain Hook. He
moved to the London stage and silent movies.
Then, proceeded to the Disney cartoon and to
when Mary Martin, a middle-aged woman and
Broadway star played him on stage and in a live
television production. Recently, he goes back
to Robin Williams and Julia Roberts as Tinker
Belle in Stephen Spielberg’s “Hook.”

Nobody who could be called a lost boy—or
girl—today would remember any of this.

Not even Joey deBettencourt, the 27-yearold
actor, now on stage at the Kennedy Center,
who gets to say—somewhat awestruck—surrounded
by his fellow lost boys:

“I am … Peter,” transforming from a character
called “boy” to, well, you know.

The national touring company production of
of the five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway
hit, “Peter and the Starcatcher” is running now at
the Eisenhower Theater through Feb. 16.

This prequel to Peter Pan is based on the
best-selling novel by Dave Barry and Ridley
Pearson. It began off-Broadway before to its successful
Broadway run. It is now in the midst of a
national tour that has taken deBettencourt, who
is part of a 12-member cast that is on stage all of
the time, all over America. I caught up with by
phone in East Lansing, Mich.

“The touring part of this is amazing,” said
deBettencourt, sounding a little like one of those
wide-eyed boys that included Peter before he
was Peter Pan. “It’s a whole different kind of
life, but where else could you see so much of
this country, at this level, not only being in a new
city, but performing before different audiences?”

DeBettencourt has had some experience touring,
but “nothing this extensive, this expansive,”
he said. The Skokie, Ill., native was a member
of the Chicago-based Griffin Theatre, whose
self-described mission is “to create extraordinary
and meaningful theatrical experiences for
both children and adults and building bridges of
understanding between generations that instill in
its audiences an appreciation of the performing
arts.”

That’s a mouthful, but “Peter and the
Starcatcher” seems exactly the kind of theatrical
project that’s in line with the Griffin approach,
appealing as it does to both young and adult
audiences.

“That’s exactly so,” deBettencourt said.
“You should see the differences in the audiences
when we have a matinee where a lot of
young people and children are on hand. That’s a
lively audience, hugely responsive. The kids get
into it. A night audience is a little different, but
also responsive, in a way you can sense.”

DeBettencourt, who last appeared in the
more adult-oriented play, “Punk Rock” by
British playwright Simon Stephens. “That was
very different, even difficult,” deBettencourt
said. “It’s about young people in the age of
school shootings, but it’s set in England where
that kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen.”

“It’s amazing to be with this show,” he said.
“My fiancé (Julia Beck, an education director
who runs arts programs for children in hospitals)
heard about the auditions for “Starcatcher” and
said ‘you’ve got to do this.’ So, I auditioned,
and I felt really strongly about the show. I was
asked to come to New York to audition again,
and here I am.”

“I’m glad to be here in Washington at the
Kennedy Center, and it’s also going to be a
kind of family thing,” he said. “I have aunts and
uncles who live in Bethesda, Md.”

“This is a different—but also old—form of
story-telling,” he said. “It’s adventure. It uses
old props and costumes. It’s a show with music
and a kind of origin and prequel to the Peter Pan
story—pirates, villains, a Hook-like character,
orphans being kidnapped, a high seas adventure—
one of the ships is called the Neverland.

“What I really like about being in this is that
it’s a play, a show, that tries to connect directly
to the audience,” deBettencourt said. “It’s not a
matter of making people work, but rather having
a truly shared experience. It’s not a literal kind
of thing. It’s the theater. You’re asked to imagine
things, believe things. It’s not something you
can get anywhere else, and I believe that people,
in this tech age, are hungry for such a experience.
I’ve seen it in the audience.”

“There’s no app for that,” I suggest. “Right,”
he says. “I’m going to steal that.”

Like the “boy” becoming Peter. “The thing
is that you know, not wanting to grow up also
means knowing you’ll never have certain experiences,”
deBettencourt said. “And that’s a loss,
too. But there is always the star catcher, the
magic, all of that. Right here on stage.” [gallery ids="118498,118502,118493" nav="thumbs"]

Winter Theater Season Off to Lively Start
• January 30, 2014

Washington’s 2014 theater scene
offers an eclectic mix of entertainment.
We’ve got Shakespeare,
Moliere, Oscar Wilde. We’ve got new plays
and old plays and new ways to put old plays
on stage. We’ve got musicals and Peter Pan
and Ella Fitzgerald. And of course we’ve got
politics.

Shakespeare—he’s always here in one way
or another. The accent right now is “another.”
The redoubtable Georgian duo of Paata and
Irina Tsikurishvili of Synetic Theatre star in
and direct “Twelfth Night,” another in a series
of the group’s “silent Shakespeare” productions.
While there are no words there’s a lot of dancing
and music, all set in the Roaring ‘20s, which
seems almost perfect for the Bard’s story about
disguised twins, mistaken gender identities, bad
pranks and a sot named Toby Belch. Through
Feb. 16 at Synetic Theatre.

Now is the (horrible) winter of our discontent,
which kicks off a new production
of “Richard III” at the Folger Library. It’s
Elizabethan Theatre has been reconfigured into
a theater-in-the-round seating plan, for the first
time in the Folger’s history. Now through
March 9.

The folks at Constellation Theatre are
always fresh and new, even when they’re telling
old tales. This time it’s a new adaptation
of “Scapin” by Moliere—the Neil Simon of
his day, which would be the time of Louis XIV.
This production, adapted by Bill Irwin and Mark
O’Donnell, nicely blends Irwin’s dry contemporary
humor (and a song called “The Schener’s
Boogie”) with Moliere’s irreverent, sardonic
view of man in his times — at the Source
Theater on 14th Street through Feb. 16.

As for Peter Pan, he’s part of a new, musical
re-telling of the story of how Peter became the
boy who never grew up. well, you’ll have to see
“Peter and the Starcatcher,” a musical tale that
won five Tonys on Broadway, now on a national
tour in the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower
Theater through Feb. 16. It’s called a grownups
prequel to “Peter Pan”, based on a novel by
Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.
Speaking of music, there’s “Violet,” with a
blend of gospel, country and rock, a talent-heavy
show set in the 1960s about a scarred young girl
in search of a miracle traveling to Oklahoma.
It’s at the Ford’s Theatre, it features the Ton
Award-nominated composer Jeanine Tesori (of
“Caroline or Change” fame) and is directed
by Jeff Calhoun (“Newsies,” “Big River”) —
through Feb. 23.

Drama-wise, you should catch the new play
“Tribes” by English playwright Nina Raine,
directed by David Muse at the Studio Theater.
It’s presented in cooperation with Gallaudet
University, a play about a deaf member of an
academic family who wants to communicate in
his own way. Through Feb. 23.

At Arena Stage, Daniel Beaty, playwright,
actor and singer, gives a stirring one-man show
performance as Paul Robeson—athlete, all-
American, actor, singer, activist and civil rights
leader—in “The Tallest Tree in the Forest”
through Feb. 16.

At Metro Stage in Alexandria, Ella
Fitzgerald is revived in “Ella, First Lady of
Song,” conceived and directed by Maurice
Hines, through March 16.

Oscar Wilde’s most popular play is being
staged by the Washington Shakespeare Theatre
Company. That would be “The Importance of
Being Earnest,” which features one of the juiciest
roles for men or women, Lady Bracknell.
Keith Baxter—known for his genius for staging
Wilde—returns to direct. Sian Philips is Lady
Bracknell through March 2 at the Lansburgh
Theater.

As for politics, “The Best Man,” arguably
one of the best plays ever written about
American politics (not counting “1776”) was
penned by Gore Vidal—who could probably
have matched wits with Wilde—and staged on
Broadway in 1960. It’s a tale about principles
and their loss during the course of a tough campaign
for a presidential nomination. It’s been
revived often and was made into a terrific film,
starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson. It’s
at the Keegan Theatre, Jan. 30 through Feb.
22.

Myron Belkind Inaugurated as 107th President of the National Press Club
•

The “International Gala” on Jan. 25 was a vibrant fashion display as many ambassadors, journalists
and other international guests donned attire of their country of origin. At cocktail hour,
music announced the arrival of lion dancers to herald Chinese New Year. Former NPC president
and master of ceremonies Gil Klein introduced three generations of the Belkind family. In tribute
to Nelson Mandela, the national anthem of the Republic of South Africa was sung by Roger
Isaacs, and Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool served as inspirational keynote speaker. Chair of the 2014
International Inaugural Committee Jan Du Plain closed the program with the words, “Make new
friends but keep the old. One is silver, but one is gold.” [gallery ids="101612,146819,146815,146811,146807,146803,146798,146795,146790,146781,146786,146820" nav="thumbs"]