Arts & Society

Robert Devaney • September 21, 2012

“My dad was a artist, who became a lawyer, and he told me: ‘Get a job where you don’t have to be in an office,’ ” says Washington photographer Patrick Ryan.

Well, that son listened to his father. Known around town for his Capitol Hill work as well as his commercial, movie premiere and fashion shoots, Ryan has merged his two great interests of politics and style into his own photo exhibit, “Red Carpet D.C.: The Capital and Cult of Celebrity,” at the Embassy of the Czech Republic July 19. It will feature paparazzi snapping pictures of the guests as they walk on the carpet to view photographs of such stars as Michael Douglas, Nicolas Cage, Jessica Biel, Al Pacino and Sharon Stone.

The unique show with its oversized images meets at the confluence of what is called “Hollywood on the Potomac” and where members of Congress listen to actors and others testify about a cleaner environment, stopping a famine and other causes. They may even get to meet the president.

“Sooner or later, they all come to town,” Ryan says. “There is a sense of humor to it. The celebrities feel important, and the senators are like schools kids. I observed Sen. Tom Harkin repeatingly telling Robert DeNiro, ‘You’re my favorite actor.’ Both sides benefit. Sasha and Malia met the Jonas Brothers, and they got to hang out at the White House.”

Indeed, Ryan was interviewed by ABC News on photographing the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner and knows how things can get out of hand to the point where, “It doesn’t matter what you’re famous for, just as long as you are famous,” he says, recalling his photo of Kris Jenner and Lindsay Lohan at a Georgetown party before the dinner. “When you think about it, it’s pretty silly.”

His photographic journey began decades ago, when Ryan’s mother Edith gave him a 1950s Kodak camera. By the age of 10, he was developing film. The local boy grew up in Chevy Chase, Md., on Western Avenue. His father went to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and his mother to Visitation Prep next door, meeting years later at the Brickskeller. He and his brothers attended Gonzaga College High School on North Capitol Street. “It was during the 1980s, we liked the underdog aspect of it,” Ryan says of his prep school. The neighborhood is in better shape now.

Today, the 46-year-old Ryan’s parents are gone, but he and some of his siblings still live along Western Avenue (three houses) and worship at Blessed Sacrament Church. His family is and has been made up of lawyers, artists and actors. His father Robert worked for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. One sister is a lawyer and worked at the State Department; a brother works for Reuters. One uncle was an artist and another a television actor.

Always entrepreneurial, Ryan did legal research for out-of-town law firms, getting documents for them from various federal office (this was before the Internet). A few years later, his mother died after suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. It was during this time that Ryan again picked up a camera after going to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, as a retreat. “I shot tons of film,” he recalled and re-ignited his true love of photography.

After freelance photo assignments and meeting editors at the Georgetowner Newspaper, Ryan began full-time work at the Hill Newspaper during the election of 2000. He is still amused by the question he would get on Capitol Hill: “Where are you from? Here? No, really where are you from?”

Later, as photo editor of the Hill, Ryan led the switch from film to a fully digital newsroom and originated the still-popular feature, “The 50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill.” He left the Hill with mentor Martin Tolchin to become founding photo editor of a newspaper that later became Politico.

Another mentor, the Hill’s Al Eisele, has this to say of Ryan: “He’s that rare Washington creature. He combines an insider’s access with an artist’s objectivity, which allows him to portray the reality of the social and political scene like no other photographer I know. I’ve been privileged to watch him work — and play — at close hand from K Street to Kazakhstan, and I never fail to be impressed with his artistic ability.”

Today, Ryan’s freelance assignments read like a who’s who of the Washington scene: official photographer for Vice President Joe Biden’s media and beach party, for the Miss D.C. America pageant and for the premiere of “J. Edgar” with Clint Eastwood for Warner Bros. Add to that the “Harry Potter” premiere at the British Embassy as well as a screening with First Lady Michelle Obama for Warner Bros. There’s photographing the groundbreaking of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American Culture with President Obama or the Susan Komen Race For The Cure. Of course, there are inaugurations, the national political conventions and countless social events. You get the picture.

Two unusual assignments came back-to-back two years ago: covering UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon’s state visit to the Republic of Kazakhstan and then, in New York, Bridal Week (shooting an average of seven fashion shows per day).

Fashion shoots are always in the mix for Ryan. One of his favorite subjects remains Kate Michael, Miss D.C. 2006, now a new media maven with K Street Kate, who credits him for helping her start her D.C. career. “I’ll never forget working with him on my very first fashion photo shoot at ‘the Exorcist’ steps that eventually landed me the number-one spot on the Hill Newspaper’s 50 Most Beautiful,” Michael says. “He encouraged me to get agency representation. Years later, I’m still turning to Pat for his great eye and inspiration.”

As for photojournalism in D.C., “the best in the business” right now, according to Ryan, are Stephen Crowley and Doug Mills, both of the New York Times. “I still shoot politics. A campaign is like a horse race, and I regularly shoot the Preakness.”

Photography is recording history as it happens, Ryan says. “When I was reading Bob Woodward’s ‘State of Denial,’ I thought to myself: ‘I was in that room’ during the episode he describes.”

“I find it interesting that subjects often speak freely around photographers,” he says. “Most people like photographers unless they have done something wrong.”

“The difference between reporting and photography is that reporter can call someone or look over documents later,” Ryan says. “The photographer has to be there. A photographer can wait hours to get the shot. Photojournalism is sort of like tennis: You have to figure out where the ball is going to hit it — to get that shot. Photojournalists and sports photographers try to anticipate subjects as well as the lighting. A studio photographer controls the light. We are running after butterflies with a net.”

Ryan’s photo blog, SnarkInfested.com, began in 2009 as a mix of “political types, models and party types,” he says. To his own chagrin, the blog gets lots of hits not when the president is shown or a protest covered but when “photos show people with less clothing on” — in such events as No Pants Metro or the Cupid Undie Run on Capitol Hill.

“I’m trying to depict a different side of D.C. and showing that it is more well-rounded than most people think,” he says of his blog. “D.C. has an international flavor. There’s Capitol Hill, the White House and the embassies. New York is international, too, but more insular. They are thinking about themselves and their neighborhoods, but D.C. is actually thinking about the nations represented here.” (He still contributes to this and other publications as well as websites like Urbandaddy.com.)

While he has traveled to such places as the Galapagos Islands and Spain’s pilgrimage destination, Santiago de Compostela, not to mention Central Asia, the question arose: Ever have a desire to photograph a war zone, whether Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere?

“No, I would not make a good war photographer,” Ryan shot back. “My photos celebrate life. I would hate to take a picture of a dead person. There’s a sense of humor, a joy of life to my work.”

And if you know him and a few other members of the Ryan family, you know that’s true.

Red Carpet D.C.: The Capital and Cult of Celebrity, Thursday, July 19, 7 p.m., at the Embassy of the Czech Republic, 3900 Spring of Freedom Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20008 [gallery ids="100904,128339,128331,128327" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

Jamaican Women of Washington, Inc. (JWoW) recently celebrated its 10th Annual Tea-Off to Good Health charity fundraiser and silent auction at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel. Founder and President Dr. Jacqueline A. Watson noted that this is also Jamaica’s 50th year of independence. The organization has donated more than $275,000 to charities in Washington, DC, and Jamaica and has brought attention to important public-health and social issues. Washington Channel 7’s news anchor Leon Harris served as the master of ceremonies. Entertainment included a dance by Miss Caribbean Metro USA, Stefanie Belnavis, and fashion show highlighting apparel with a Caribbean flair. The group awarded Jamaica’s renowned reggae star Orville “Shaggy” Burrell for his outstanding contribution to the Bustamante Hospital for Children in Kingston through the Shaggy Make a Difference Foundation. [gallery ids="100896,128267,128256,128263" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

Kitty Skallerup drew an enthusiastic crowd as guests responded to her invitation to celebrate “Diplomatic Gardens of Washington,” the stunning new book by photographer Ann Stevens and her husband Giles Kelly, a former U.S. diplomat and author. The crowd fit comfortably into the City Tavern Club June 19 and eagerly waited for signed copies as they enjoyed good company. Several diplomatic spouses, including the wives of the ambassadors of Germany and Italy, who enjoy the lovely gardens featured in the book, were present to share their good fortune. [gallery ids="100883,127541,127533,127525,127557,127517,127562,127567,127508,127573,127549" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

There are actually several audiences for “First You Dream: the Music of Kander and Ebb,” a musical revue of the song and show book of John Kander and Fred Ebb, now at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater through July 1, and all of them are going to be peachy-pleased with the results.

There’s the group which saw the original production, created and mounted at Signature and co-conceived there by David Loud and Signature artistic director Eric Schaeffer: it will be delighted to find four of the original cast members performing with newscomers and a 29-member orchestra in a much less intimate, but much boldly brassier, setting.

There is a potentially large number of persons who know about Kander and Ebb. The lyricist of the pair, Ebb, passed away in 2004. Their unique, rich and prolific partnership spawned such huge hits as “Cabaret” (stage and screen) , “Chicago” (stage and screen), “The Rink,” “Liza with a Z,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” “Woman of the Year,” “The Act,” “Zorba” and “The Happy Time.”

And there is still a larger group which has at least lip-synched to the title song of “Cabaret.” Some of them have sung aloud, either in the shower or at a karaoke bar, the line, “What good is sitting alone in your room?” That would be most of the rest of us, old chum.

And no question—beyond an interest in Kander and Ebb, if not a passion—there is a group which appreciates terrific songs, beautiful songs, dazzling songs that are sung with great style and emotion by a group of six terrifically talented actor-singers or singers, born to sign on Broadway or formed there in performance. That part of the audience will be richly rewarded, whether they are singing “Cabaret” and “Chicago.”

Taken together, those audiences ought to do well by this thoughtful, passionately performed and staged whammy of a musical revue. But it is so much more.

Several degrees of separation are in order here. I can make no comparison with the Signature original, one way or the other, but I’ve seen numerous versions of “Cabaret” on Washington area stages, including one at Signature. I’ve always been puzzled by the lack of breakout success of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” an astonishingly original musical. I’ve talked with George Hearns, who did “The Visit” with Chita Rivera at Signature, although the show never quite made the Broadway leap. I also talked with the late Harry Guardino about his experience with “Woman of the Year,” who told vivid stories about working with Lauren Bacall. I’ve seen Liza Minelli on stage at the Kennedy Center, and it should be noted that she was a Kander and Ebb favorite, who could “ring them bells” for sure as well as just kill you with “Maybe This Time.”

Mostly, what you marvel at in “First You Dream”—the song (from 1997’s “Steel Pier”) snakes its way through the show like a seductive, but not pushy, hurdy gurdy man—is the sheer variety and diversity that’s in the body of work in terms of theme, substance and style. The creators have thankfully chosen many songs that are less familiar to a general audience, which gives the show the quality of one of those happy, bottomless swag bags from which emerge a constant parade of happy gifts for the audience. I’m thinking here of songs like the ridiculously giddy “Boom Ditty Boom,” the combination of “Walking Among My Yesterdays” and “Go Back Home” (a touching, beautiful turn by the three male singers, who also do the jaunty “Military Man”), the beautiful and tough love-for-life song, “My Own Space” and “Love and Love Alone,” paired with “Life Is.”

While the gifted collaborators roam all over the thematic, stylistic landscape, there is still a constant. At the core, there is: show biz, shows, showmen, stage rats and royalty, the urgent need to bare your heart in songs and music, the gotta-sing-gotta-dance, the glitz and rags of it all that informs Broadway, musicals, broken hearts that break under a spotlight. You can see why they liked writing for Minelli. You can see why Bob Fosse was drawn to “Cabaret” and submerged himself in “Chicago.” Here are music and songs which often manage to be both lurid and lovely. Hear how they string together “Only in the Movies,” “Happy Endings” and “At the Rialto.” Behold the sleazy soft-shoe sale of “Razzle Dazzle”and the wonderful finale of “Show People.” Feel the pairing (beautifully segued by Matthew Scott) of “Cabaret” and “I Miss the Music.” It is why we go to shows, remember the songs and rub old wounds in the dark like that.

Finally, a few words about the performers. They deliver. They have killer voices. They reach out and touch someone. To be fair, I remember the remarkable Heidi Blickenstaff (Is that a great stage name or what?), who starred in a musical version of the vastly underrated “Meet John Doe” at Ford’s Theatre several years ago. I was happy to see her again, blasting out “Sing Happy” in a sequin dress and lead the way in the deliriously funny, iconic “Ring Them Bells” to cap the first act. Then, there was that moving pairing of James Clow and Patina Miller in “Blue Crystal” and “Marry Me.” Alan Greene dominates “Life Is” and surprises you with his authority and presence and emotional power. Leslie Kritzer knocks “I Don’t Care Much” out of the park.

As a group, after a lengthy first act, they accomplished a remarkable thing. They elevated their game in the second act. I already miss the music.

“First You Dream: the Music of Kander and Ebb” at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater through July 1; 800-444-1324 or 202-467-4600; Kennedy-Center.org. [gallery ids="100859,126832" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Over the phone, Natasha Trethewey’s voice sounds warm. It’s a voice inviting you to talk, as opposed to maintaining the interrogatory stance of an interview.

Thursday, Sept. 13, the tone may change a little, become more authoritative and firm when the poet from Mississippi gives her inaugural reading as the 19th Poet Laureate Consultant—the United States Poet Laureate—at 7 p.m. in the Coolidge Auditorium in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress.

It’s an auspicious, even historical occasion for Trethewey, as the reading marks the 75th anniversary of the library’s Poetry and Literature Center while establishing her as the nation’s most visible and official poet, another landmark in a somewhat meteoric career which has seen her garner and garlanded with achievements and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for “Native Guard” in 2006 and the Book Prize from the Mississippi Institute Arts and Letters. She is also the current Poet Laureate of Mississippi.

“I was a little bit shocked, truth be told,” she said of being named poet laureate. “It’s a great honor, of course, and I know I’m expected to do the reading and give a lecture at the end of the term. And it will be an opportunity, naturally, to advance the reading, the nurturing, the education and the writing of poetry. I will do everything I can to do that. And it gives me a chance to be here in Washington, where I used to roam the stacks some time ago and did research for my collection, ‘Native Guard.’ ”

In a time of information overload, Trethewey brings a unique gift as a poet of note. In her four collections so far, she has written about people who are often ignored by poetry, the shadowy people who have lived intense and forgotten lives in the midst of history, black soldiers who fought in the Civil War, the servants and nannies of the South, her own relatives, the victims of catastrophe, the ghosts that seem to linger in every tree branch and furrowed field in the South and in her own history.

The history of the South is a treacherous subject to navigate, and her own memories can be equally daunting. “I try to bring memories with me, to air them out, cleanly, vividly,” she said. She has been called “the poet of memory” by some. The Librarian of Congress James Billington chose her in part, he said, because “she intermixes her story with the historical story in a way that takes you deep into the human tragedy of it. It is her ability to weave the present and the past to engage the public and the personal and to give language to the unsaid that makes her poems of such lasting impact.”

Her story is specific: she is the daughter of a bi-racial marriage that was considered illegal, with a white father and an African-American mother, who lived in Mississippi. Her father, himself a poet and writer, and her mother divorced. Later, her mother was murdered by her second husband, who remains in prison. The horrific event led Tretheway to poetry. “It’s when I first thought of being a poet,” she said. “It was an effort to digest, to understand and deal with what happened, and that leads you eventually, to everything else, the atmosphere of Mississippi, the South, the Civil War, the lives of forgotten people.”

Her poetry is by no means stylistically consistent or even recognizable as hers except by its subjects. It has the strange quality of being powerful, deceptively and often simple in its use of words and language, diverse in the method and style. Her words are sometimes discursive, sometimes as haunting as a dream whose meaning is stark and elusive. There are also poems like “Elegy,” written for her father, Eric, to whom she remains devoted. It’s about an episode of fly fishing, daughter and father in boots in the water. It’s a poem that is at once full of atmosphere, and attention to details of her father with her, other things beckoning. “I rewrote quite a bit,” she said. “He says he liked it, and then he said, but it’s strange having an elegy written about you when you’re still alive.”

The past, she thinks, recedes from us, sometimes willfully, sometimes at our behest. “When we lose memory, we sometimes lose it forever. I try to retrieve it, tell stories about things that we don’t always want to think about it.”

Hurricane Katrina figures in her poetry but is also a subject of non-fiction book. “People forget,” she says. “Not Katrina but the havoc and destruction, the loss of living not just life, everywhere, it hit Mississippi with a violence that was different from what happened in New Orleans.”

Talking with her is kind of easy. In some ways, words have a way of taking on understood meanings and stories sound familiar, even universal, shared, especially the more specific they get. She still teaches at Emory University in Decatur, Ga., where her husband Brett Gadsden is a professor specializing in civil rights history. Georgia is also the place where her mother died, where she has made a home, the place of good and bad memories.

“I love teaching,” she says. “I love the fact that so many of the students can be electrified by poetry, want to understand it and do it.”

You might think she writes carefully, digging. “Actually, part of my process is walking my dog, a Boston Terrier named Maggie, and I get a lot of ideas doing that, being with her,” she said. “I think dogs, you look at them and you want to be the person they think you are. They give so much.”

As the new poet laureate, she’s in heady company—Robert Penn Warren, who influenced her work greatly, Philip Levine and others. They comprise a kind of poetic past.

The conversation after a while is like a gift—dogs, the Civil War, fathers and daughters, words in the wind, inspiration in a stream, family, the past. She can handle the past in her writing, where poems become a memory’s gift, such as fishing with her father in “Elegy”:

“I think, by now, the river must be thick

with salmon. Late August, I imagine it

As it was that morning, drizzle needling

The surface, mist at the banks like a net
settling around us—everything damp

and shining. That morning, awkward

and heavy in our hip waders, we stalked

into the current and found our places —
you upstream a few yards, and out

far deeper. You must remember how

the river seeped in over your boots,

and you grew heavy with that defeat.

All day I kept turning to watch you, how

first you mimed our guide’s casting,

then cast your invisible line, slicing the sky

between us; and later, rod in hand, how

you tried — again and again — to find

that perfect arc, flight of an insect

skimming the river’s surface. …”
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Gary Tischler •

If Gaetano Donizetti’s 1830 work, “Anna Bolena,” makes him the virtuoso of bel canto opera, it also presages what comes next. In the dexterous, emotionally powerful soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, we might just have the perfect performer that connects the Verdi generation to bell canto.

At least, that’s what she demonstrated in her star turn in the title role of the Washington National Opera production of “Anna Bolena,” ably abetted by a strong cast, by the inventive direction of Stephen Lawless and by a story that is familiar to contemporary audiences through the outpouring of contemporary and older pop culture versions in books, literature, television mini-series and films.

In short, we know these people, we know Henry VIII, the impetuous and sexy object of his desire Anne Boleyn, her lost lover Percy, the woman who replaces her, Jane Seymour, even if they’re called Enrico VIII, Anna Bolena, Riccardo and Giovanna Seymouor, as is the Italian wont of Donizetti.

Now, we know them a little and a lot better, given the emotional and dramatic intensity of the production, the seething, soaring quality of Donizetti’s music and Radvanovsky’s voice and acting ability, which gives the lie to bel canto’s reputation as a venue and stage for pure technique and beautiful singing. We do hear beautiful singing, often of the kind that, as it should in this case, has the power to break hearts and make you hold your breath. Bel canto singing of the kind evidenced in “Anna Bolena” is a little like white water rafting, it’s treacherous, dangerous, full of runs that rush like waves on top of each other, where major and even mistakes can strip a performer naked.

On the evidence of “Anna Bolena” (and I don’t have any other for her), Radvanovsky is one fine white water rafter and heartbreaker as well. She’s said that Maria Callas—who brought bell canto opera back to popularity almost singlehandedly and you can just imagine how—is her inspiration, and she does her proud. The trick with opera is not just to lay back and pinprick the notes and technique. That won’t satisfy the less-than-aficianados. It’s the temperament of opera, the willingness to go all in—reality and plausibility be damned—that makes it so appealing, such an experience, and in “Anna Bolena” the experience is dramatically achieved by inspired singing. That’s what happens in the famous duet of dueling rivals between Anna and Jane Seymour, a duel of riveting, warring emotions that span jealousy, guilt, forgiveness, resentment, great passions, emotionally clarity achieved through singing. In this duel , Sonia Gonassy as Jane holds her own with Radvanovsky, it’s a kind of emotional and vocal duel which both of them win.

Director Stephen Lawless has chosen to stage this intensely focused story and production in a setting (by Benoit Dugardyn) that resembles Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, a kind of surrounding area of rich brown wood that can reform itself to bring a scene into excruciating focus to become a bedroom, a chamber a prison cell, while above the doors is something resembling a circular balcony where crowds of courtiers, men and women in red and black, various factions, appear to peer down on the scene, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere for the characters, a place where no one is ever truly alone. This accurately reflects a political atmosphere that existed among Renaissance royalty and rulers in Tudor England, the beginnings of the police state.

In the staging, Lawless focuses the heart, no more than in an early scene, when Anne, sensing she may be in serious trouble of the fatal kind, imagines herself on the block, and goes through the graceful motions—arms outstretched, head on the block—of supplication and surrender. It makes your hair stand on end every bit as any of Radvanovsky’s vocal achievements.

Not only is Radvanosky’s voice a powerful dramatic tool—in the duel with Seymour, in her final scenes, in her glowing maternal powers when a child-princess Elizabeth is on stage but also in taking on the very fine bass Oren Gradus as Henry VIII. More traditional was the tenor Shelva Mukeria as Percy, a performer who has an appealing and grand voice but doesn’t quite achieve the charisma such a compelling swain should have.

This seems to me, at the very least, also a telling story about women and how deal with love and power and the desire for both. Throw into the mix the wonderful Claudia Huckle as Smeton—a so-called “pants” part in that she plays a young boy, a court singer smitten with Anna who ends up betraying her—and you have a grand powerful production of an opera that is bound up by one of opera’s first themes: power and its uses and misuses.
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Gary Tischler •

Washington theater fans think they know Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Floyd King. This makes sense. After all, hundreds, maybe thousands, of Washington area theatergoers have spent plenty of time with him going back to the 1980s. It’s true that he’s had different faces in different roles, but we feel like we know him well enough. We’ve seen his Parolles, his Feste, his fool, all the people in “A Tale of Two Cities”, and the ale-loving delegate from Rhode Island in “1776”.

King greets his fans with a handshake in the lobby of the Lansburgh Theatre, where he and the rest of the Shakespeare Theatre Company is in rehearsal for a production of an adaptation of Gogol’s “The Government Inspector”, which runs through Oct. 28. King’s manner is casual, his face is recognizable and his voice is more so, modulated down to conversation.

King is pumped about the production, which is a true ensemble piece. It brings together a horde of actors with whom he’s worked with before. “That’s what I love about this, it’s like some sort of party, almost, or reunion, Nancy [Robinette], Ted [Sabin], Rich [Foucheoux], and all the others, including Hugh Nees, Derek Smith, Sarah [Marshall],” he says. “We’ve all been around a while and we all know each other.”

Michael Kahn is directing. About the only AWOL actor is Ted van Griethuysen, with whom King has worked many times. “We’re old friends,” King said of him. He was the fool to van Griethuysen’s Lear, and together they played the bumbling duo of Dogberry and Verges in “Much Ado About Nothing” like the two stumbling bums in “Waiting for Godot”, the absurdist play by Samuel Beckett.

Most theater folks will tell you that King is one of the area’s finest comic actors, especially in Shakespeare plays. Being a great comic actor is only an inch away from being a great tragedian, or as an actor once said, “Tragedy is easy, comedy is hard.”

King thinks recognizes that fine, wavering, trembling line. This is what King brings to the acting game. His voice alone can elicit laughter. He can also become becalmed, introspective, preen like a peacock on a dime.

After seeing King in so many plays, we often we feel as if we know him. Here are some things we don’t know.

Much of King’s career has been spent in Washington, but, surprisingly, he isn’t a Washingtonian. “I have a place in New York, and a house in the Poconos,” he said. “I go there for peace and quiet, and it’s easy to get to from New York.”

There’s one more thing we didn’t know about King.

“This is the last play I’ll be doing in Washington this season,” he said. “Yes, that’s it at least for this season. I haven’t contracted for any other roles. I haven’t taken any other offers.”

Shakespeare is King’s bread and butter, but he believes its time for a change of pace.

“I’ve done most of the parts I can suited for in Shakespeare,” said King. “I want to take stock. I want to relax a little. I want to go back to Minnesota, and San Francisco and other places. It’s not permanent. It’s just time for a change a little bit.”

This makes King’s appearance as a postmaster in “The Government Inspector” all the more special.
“I’m enjoying it,” he said.

You should too. In the meantime, we’ll all be “Waiting for Gogol,” for the return of the King. [gallery ids="100983,131801" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

On Sept. 13, the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of Women in the Arts hosted a reception celebrating Women Who Rock Vision, Passion, Power. Chair of the Board Wilhelmina Holladay welcomed guests to the groundbreaking exhibition organized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland that illustrates the importance of women in the world of popular music. The gowns and artifacts run the gamut from Ma Rainey to Lady Gaga. The museum’s 25th anniversary fall benefit on Nov. 4 will honor Melissa Etheridge, coincidentally celebrating her 25th anniversary in the music business. [gallery ids="100988,131859,131851,131874,131843,131880,131834,131886,131892,131866" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler • September 17, 2012

If you want to know something about American performing arts culture, look at the annual Kennedy Center Awards and who is honored. This year, it appears especially eclectic.

This is a trend for the Kennedy Center Honors that’s been moving apace ever since it embraced the arenas of pop music, including not only a Sinatra but giants of blues, rock and roll and country music.

This year, it is legendary bluesman George “Buddy” Guy and one of the loudest and best of the super rock groups (think the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Who), Led Zeppelin, and its surviving members, getting honored.

Also selected for a Kennedy Center Honors salute is late-night talk show host and comedian David Letterman (Johnny Carson being the forerunner in this sub-category), one of the finest classical ballerinas and dancers to grace the world of ballet and dance, Russian Natalia Makarova, and Dustin Hoffman, arguably one of the finest modern film actors in the last 50 years, to stand alongside the likes of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino.

Makarova, who is 71, came to America in 1970 and assayed a memorable turn in “Giselle” for the American Ballet Theatre and built a memorable career.

Letterman is an icon, not perhaps in an artistic sense, but in the sense of his role as late night host, a more cerebral, ironic and even cool version than, say, the more put-upon Jay Leno.

Guy won six Grammy awards playing and making Blues music, a guitar player who oddly influenced a generation of British players (including members of Led Zeppelin) as well as Eric Clapton.

The Led Zeppelin rockers—Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and keyboardist John Paul Jones—have with this honor made it all the way up the “Stairway to Heaven.” Their rock and roll, often full of anthems, lengthy riffs and pure, powerful playing has lasted and so have they—still plying their trade as musicians and super-stars.

Hoffman we remember well in “The Graduate,” “Tootsie,” “Lenny,” “Rain Man,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “Kramer Vs. Kramer,” “All The Presidents Men” and so on and so on, still trucking, still working hard at 76, becoming a very funny man in the “Focker” movie, playing Ben Stiller’s father. He was also a memorable Willy Loman on stage in “Death of a Salesman.”

Georgetowner George Stevens, Jr., is once again producing the Kennedy Center Honors which will be held Dec. 2. Stevens himself is getting an honor this year. It’s been announced that the film director and founder of the American Film Institute will receive an honorary Oscar at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors’ Dinner in Los Angeles Dec. 1—one day before the big show here in D.C.