Arts & Society

Gary Tischler • May 3, 2012

Who would have thought that fur—event thinking about it, let alone wearing it—would be so popular in town, especially in this weather?

But when it’s “Venus In Fur,” playwright David Ives’ witty, hot – yes, hot – and, if you’ll pardon the expression, whip-smart take on Sacher-Masoch’s shocking 19th century novel about a stage audition, sexual and creative power struggles between an actress and director, people just can’t stop talking and going.

The production—one of the best and beguiling of the year anywhere—has been extended yet again on final time to July 31 at the Studio Theatre where you can watch a breakout performance by Erica Sullivan, in assorted nasty getups and with a range that creates whiplash in the audience. If you haven’t seen this show, by all means go. If you’ve already seen it, go again. David Muse, the Studio’s new artistic director is in charge here, and he handles matters with a deft, intelligent manner.

There’s more reason than “Venus” to visit the Studio these days. There’s the appropriately entitled “Pop,” a new musical-mystery-pop-show by Maggie-Kate Coleman and Anna K. Jacobs focusing on the heady (and final) days of Andy Warhol’s New York Factory scene, where Andy reigned supreme in his pursuit of putting sizzle in all things mundane and plain. If you’re interested in all things Warhol and pop art, this is your cup of tea (no sugar please), and if not it’s an education on a number of American obsessions, not the least of which is Warhol, who turned greenbacks and tomato soup into high and low art, and once made a day-long movie which had nothing but the Empire State building as its focus.

Warhol will be talked about and written about forever, so why not a musical? Especially if it has Warhol staple members in it like Candy Darling, Ondine and assorted would-be and not artists, hangers-on, feminists and girlies and whatever lies in between. Keith Alan Baker, the Studio’s pop-meister, directs with Hunter Styles and Jennifer Harris. “Pop” runs through July 31.

And speaking of the Studio Theater, we would be remiss if we did note the recent departure of David Cale’s “The History of Kisses,” a sweet, lovely string of pearls and tales performed by the one-man-show and playwright that is Cale. Less fraught with tensions and puzzles and less flamboyant than some of his previous work, this saw Cale pondering the puzzles of how people meet, love – or not – bounce and stumble into and out of other people’s lives.

An ocean theme—one of the characters was a man attending a gathering of sea shanty aficionados in California—carried the tide, so to speak, saw one woman meet an inarticulate Portuguese sailor for ship-board encounter that produced a son, if not lasting love, two gay men meeting cute and ending up deliriously in awe in front of a fish tank, an Australian land-wrecked at a seaside motel and a man remembering a wistful encounter with Judy Garland during a beach walk.

These stories pop up in my mind occasionally during a land-locked, hot summer. So sing a shanty to Mr. Cale.

The Millennium Stage, the Kennedy Center’s nightly series of free performances of music and dance has added something new for the hot month of August—it will offer a Happy Hour Series every Monday night at 6 p.m. On August 1, 8, 22 and 29, the Kennedy Center’s Atrium on the Roof Terrace will become a summer lounge with couches, a dance floor and a full bar. The Lounge will continue on August 15 at the Kennedy Center’s Grand Foyer.

It’s a different way to catch entirely characteristic performances that have been the hallmark of the Millennium Series. The Happy Hour Series includes singer Badi Assad, who presents a world flavor with an exotic mixture of ethnic sounds on August 1. DeboBand presents Ethiopian flavored music August 8. New Orleans singer/songwriter Mia Borders blends funk, soul and contemporary styles August 15. August 22 brings Alma Tropicalia and a tribute to the classic BrazilianTropicalia movement of the 1960s. On August 29, Rahim AlHash and the Little Earth Orchestra are on hand with its group of world musicians from Iraq, Brazil, Africa, Palestine and America.

And now for something completely different. At Georgetown University’s Davis Performing Arts Center and its Devine Studio Theatre, there’s a chance to see “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” a world premiere production of an adaptation of Michael Pollan’s famed non-fiction book about how, why, where and what people eat in the modern world. It’s written, conceived and directed by Natsu Onada Power of Georgetown University, and can be seen July 27-29 and July 30 and 31. Check PerformingArts.Georgetown.edu for details.

Want to find something to laugh about—and God knows we all do? Check out the opening of D.C.’s new Riot Act Comedy Theater with a grand opening celebration of the city’s own star comedians, Big Al Goodwin, Tony Woods and Charles Fleischer, who perform at 801 E St. beginning August 11-13.
And we would also be remiss without mentioning, although we do it with some trepidation, the impending last performance of Cherry Red Productions, arguably the city’s filthiest—in a good way—theater company ever. We could produce some of the more memorable titles from the Cherry Red past as offered, but can’t. Suffice to say that Cherry Red offered—often in small and dark places—dark plays that had the whiff of a zeitgeist that combined the American 1980s with the worst and best times of Weimar Berlin. I think.

In any case, founders Ian Allen and Chris Griffin are closing out with a production of “The Aristocrats,” a stage version of what’s described as the dirtiest joke of all time. Cherry Red’s promised to do bad things to the joke, which also came in movie form with an all-star cast of potty-mouths like Sarah Silverman.

Look for it at the Warehouse Theater August 27 at 8:30 and 11 p.m.
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Mary Bird •

Oklahoma is not the only play enjoying a return visit this season. Constellation Theatre Company is bringing back Ramayana based on Indian mythology, which played to sold out houses at Source last year. The production, which will open a three-week run on Aug. 4, will reassemble half the cast and have the welcome addition of Matthew McGloin, who charmed in On the Razzle, playing the monkey Hanuman. On July 11, Constellation’s Artistic Director Allison Stockman presided over a design presentation introducing new and old members of the ensemble and showcasing Kendra Rai’s stunning costumes and two-time Helen Hayes Award winner Tom Teasley’s onstage music. Guests then mingled at a wine and cheese reception. [gallery ids="100243,106660,106656,106639,106652,106648,106644" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

Amy and Brian Thomas held a cocktail reception on July 12 to introduce their new Georgetown beauty emporium. Guests toured the two-floor “beauty and body retreat” and enjoyed canapés and cocktails by DC Taste in the landscaped garden. The first floor features rarely found product lines such as Becca Cosmetics, Butter London and GlamGlow. The second-floor offers top European and Asian spa treatments including Intraceuticals Oxygen Infusion facials, exclusive LashDip mascara treatments and Softsense gentle waxing from Italy. Interior designer William McGovern terms his design concept “nostalgic modern glamour,” in other words, stunning. The Thomases intend to expand in the Washington area in the next two years and then bring their luxury treatments to cities in Texas. [gallery ids="102537,120090,120100,120096,120081" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

On July 17, supporters of the Washington Animal Rescue League (WARL) raised their glasses as Board Chair Roger Marmet hosted a wine tasting at his Ripple Restaurant & Wine Bar in Cleveland Park. Proceeds from the event featuring delicious vegetarian and vegan hors d’oeuvres with wines from dog friendly vineyards will support the League’s Disaster Rescue Fund. WARL President and CEO Gary Weitzman expressed his appreciation and urged everyone to visit the League. The recently acquired 42,000-square-foot property adjacent to the current shelter will more than double the existing facility. The League’s goal through a capital campaign is to open the National Center for Rehabilitation for Animals to coincide with its centennial in 2014 in pursuit of its commitment for the “rescue, rehabilitation and rehoming of animals who have nowhere else to go.” [gallery ids="100245,106669,106678,106664,106682,106659,106686,106690,106654,106674" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney •

When the rain came in the middle of dinner, as predicted, few fled the covered patio, getting splashed nonetheless, for the exquisite interiors of Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm Restaurant. It was that good — and full of flavor and camaraderie. On Aug. 6, Clyde’s Ninth Annual Farm Dinner led 85 guests on a local food sampling exercise. From local honey, veggies, clams and lamb to fine wines, the five-course dinner was an advocate for local farms and local buying. After all, it is a main event for the non-profit Slow Food D.C.

Willow Creek Farm Restaurant, managed by Paul Fox, lives up to the slow food creed. It has its own farm to start — along with four reassembled heavy-timber buildings, thanks to the collecting obsession of Clyde’s main man John Laytham. Spread out like a classic American inn, parts of the restaurant are a sight to behold inside and outside, reminding the D.C. visitor of images of 1789 Restaurant, Old Ebbitt and other Clyde’s places we know and love. The farm is a few minutes’ walk from the parking lot. As for the drive, Willow Creek Farm is in Ashburn (Broadlands), Va., and a straight shot due west on the Dulles Toll Road; be mindful of the street names once off the toll road.

After a tour of the farm and a beekeeper’s presention by Patrick and Diane Standiford, Clyde’s corporate chef John Guattery, a slow food enthusiast, welcomed the diners and let the servings begin. The menu included Chesapeake Bay soft-shell clams with ravioli (herbs from the farm next to us) in Blue Ridge Dairy butter; Roast Border Springs lamb (leg, rack and sausage); roasted peach semifreddo with the farm’s honey popcorn. Virginia wines — Rapidan River, Chrysalis Vineyards, Fabbioli Cellars, Hillsborough Vineyards — accompanied the dishes.

Later, shepherd Craig Rogers gave an impassioned defense of the world’s “oldest profession,” which has been looked down on throughout history. Rogers, a shepherd with a doctorate, had the guests laughing at his contemporary and Biblical insights. Renee Catacalos, former publisher of Edible Chesapeake magazine which folded, spoke of the need to extend the taste and nutritional benefits of the slow food and local farming movement to many people, especially those in schools and hospitals.

Friends, foodies and those who simply like to eat well all learned something about the care of farming, cooking and eating locally. For us city folk, it is no longer a far-away feast, thanks to the master designers of the complete food experience at Clyde’s. Let’s give them an old-fashioned Georgetown “huzzah!”
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Mary Bird •

Beating Washington’s killer heat was made easier on Aug. 4 as enthusiastic guests flocked to Morton’s in Georgetown where they enjoyed “Spa-Tinis” that included “Lean and Green” and “Skynny Blood Orange Cosmos,” each with less than 200 calories accompanied by signature hors d’oeuvres. Nectar Skin Bar and Aveda offered pampering. Lucky raffle winners received gift certificates to Georgetown spas and dinner for two at Morton’s. [gallery ids="102538,120059,120044,120050,120080,120093,120086,120074,120066" nav="thumbs"]

Mary Bird •

Children Uniting Nations (CUN) is a proactive organization created to bring attention to the plight of at-risk and foster youth. Children in foster care receive role-model support, guidance, a sense of community and awareness of the importance of education. In conjunction with CUN’s Fifth Annual Conference in support of foster youth mentorship gains in Washington on July 20, Lani Hay, Christine Warnke and Greg Houston hosted a private dinner at Neyla. CUN founder Daphna Ziman said, “our children are our future. We are simply the gatekeepers.” Jermaine and Randy Jackson have lent their support to the program in honor of Michael. At the following evening’s gala in the J. W. Marriott ballroom, Randy said, “we had parents who told us our dreams could come true.” Jermaine charmed the room with his rendition of “Smile,” Michael’s favorite song. Daphna thanked him, remarking, “there were moments that I heard Michael. You are continuing the dream.” — Mary Bird [gallery ids="99321,99322,99323,99324,99325" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

History surrounds us in Washington, politics is the humidity of our daily lives as much as suffocating temperatures and the news—intimate, immediate, profoundly affecting—sit beside us at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

History, politics and the news are a part of the culture of the city as an atmosphere, and in actuality. All three are still on hand even as the tumult and shouting dies down only in degrees after the narrow avoidance of a U.S. debt default.

The divisions—deeply felt and deeply expressed, stringent and strident—which helped propel the crisis right to edge of a chasm, the politics that dictated the news and the horrific historic moment at hand could be seen quite literally in three different exhibitions which explore the historic, political and news-driven immediacy which is as much a part of our cultural existence as the neighborhoods where we sleep and live.

No one kept track, but it’s fair to think that Ronald Reagan’s name was invoked at least hundreds of times during the noisy debates, the constant press conferences, the news stories and blogs, more often than not by the Tea Party members who had taken his “small government” message to heart. Reagan, perhaps in ways not intended, was a source of inspiration during the debate that drove the debt ceiling crisis.

At the National Portrait Gallery, Ronald Reagan’s remarkable life and continuing legacy is being celebrated in the NPG’s marvelous one-room examination and exhibition “One Life: Ronald Reagan,” offering small clues about a larger-than-life persona.

On the flip side, the faces of the other contending political forces in the great national chasm can be seen up close and artistically, glowing with a certain kind of humanity, in the exhibition “Democratic Principles” at the Women’s National Democratic Club in Dupont Circle, a selection of 22 paintings of progressive political leaders.

The debt ceiling crisis was recorded with stark immediacy not only by the television and news writers but by press photographers, and some of their efforts (maybe the round of golf between POTUS and Boehner) will surely make their way into the next White House News Photographers Association annual “Eyes of History” show. You can see last year’s best of the best—a powerful mesh and mash of national, political and world news photography—at Pepco’s downtown Edison Place Gallery through Aug. 12.

During the debt ceiling battle, you might have thought that Reagan was the founder of the Tea Party, so often was his guiding principle of small government invoked. If you take a look around at the “One Life” exhibition, you’ll find he was much more than that, and not quite that, either. He had qualities, not just conservative principles, to commend him to the American public, a persona that projected strength and optimism that was part movie imagery, part down-to-earth-reality.

The exhibition shows his roots in small-town America in Illinois, his days as a radio sports caster in Des Moines, his years as a Hollywood actor of considerable renown, if not top-drawer star wattage, his days working for General Electric as a speaker and television host and his improbable second life as a master politician who won two terms as governor of California and President of the United States.

The imagery in this exhibition defines the man’s popularity, the way others saw him and to a great degree admired him once he entered the political arena. Look at some of the photographs here—Aaron Shikler’s Time Magazine painting of Reagan in an unbuttoned shirt and a big belt buckle, his hands in back pockets. Or a photo of Reagan doing some budget jawboning with then House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a classic portrait of two Irish-American polls—you see his self-evident charm and strength. Nowhere do you see, in the numerous photographs, paintings and portraits, an ounce of self-doubt.

This is the Reagan people will remember—you won’t find much of the contentiousness, the Iran Gate, the lack of empathy for America’s unfortunates here. This is the star wars, anti-Communist, “tear down the wall” warrior, the mourner in chief after the Challenger crash, the morning-in-America celebrator.

“One Life,” when it comes to most of its subjects, is celebratory in nature, and with Reagan, there’s no exception. It’s the public man on display, his sunny appeal that comes through; including his view that big government was the bane of American political life.

But perhaps the biggest thing—a certain kind of class that transcended politics and ideology—on display here is the handwritten letter to the American public in 1994 announcing that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 83. It was full of hope and buoyancy, without an ounce of self-pity, the kind of language and attitude that helped propel him to so much political success and the status of icon. (“One Life: Ronald Reagan” continues through May 28, 2012.)

There are also some icons on display in the “Democratic Principles” exhibition of paintings by Elizabeth McClancy, which focus on progressive leaders known for their support and defense of causes, groups and people in need of political defenders and supporters. Many of them are elected members of the U.S. Senate, one or two are legends, some are no longer with us, and one of them is the President of the United States.

The politics in this case are less interesting than the portraits which seem to define, in one painting, the essence of the subject. It’s a telling exhibition of faces of not only of Barack Obama, but the Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, whom it is difficult not to imagine as a ghost on the Senate floor during the contentious debt debate. It includes former Secretary of State Madelaine Albright and the current Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and her husband, former President of the United States Bill Clinton, as well as current partisan battlers like Kerry, Leahy, Mikulski, Pelosi, Schumer and Boxer.

Given the astonishing amount of natural disasters, big news stories and political conflict and controversy that have taken place more than halfway into 2011, it’s difficult to look at the photographs in the “Eyes of History” exhibition without thinking of them as a piece of history, far removed from last week’s or next week’s turmoil, the next story, the next flood, the next Wall Street free fall.

Except, of course, that they’re not. Look at the series on American soldiers recovering from traumatic wounds and you can hear the mortars, the rapid fire in the mountains of Afghanistan. Look at the triumphant, then wan face of the president and it feels as if you’ve seen it just a moment ago, with more grey hair. Look at the angry and worried faces of people out of work, trying to get by and feed their families and you see not months ago, but now. The dramatic scenes of the Haitian earthquake still leaves footprints and is repeated in other disasters—the faces of the starving children of Somalia will surely be a part of the next “Eyes of History” gathering of photographs. [gallery ids="100266,107025,107022,107019" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

The visual arts are the quiet arts, the arts of contemplation, the finished art.

When we see a painting in a gallery or a museum, a sculpture in a garden or a vast lawn, an installation wherever it’s installed, the artist is gone, finished and done, dead or alive. The visual arts are about viewing and taking it in, seeing, believing and feeling. We derive meaning from not just the work but from our own lives. In visual arts, the unfinished part of the painting is what we bring to it.
And what we bring to art varies from setting to setting, viewing to viewing, person to person; it’s as if a painting wiggled under the glare of a thousand stares and eyes. This is possibly why people buy art—ownership keeps out the democratic eyes of public spaces, making the work rare.

A Rembrandt on a wall by a staircase in a home is a little like a love song sung to no one in a forest. It is almost invisible, except for the owner and his visitors. A museum opens up the process, finishes it or keeps it going. Contemplation ensues, to be sure, but so does conversation and argument, the murmur of more than one presence.

Nothing proves the case more than a visit to the Louvre in Paris and the room housing the Mona Lisa. Hordes of tourists, sometimes the size of an entire residential block of Beijing, surround the rope that avoids close contact. Something happens to the Mona Lisa in this setting, it becomes both less and more mysterious—it sways with a certain imperiousness, but it also gets cut down to size among these multitudes.

Exhibitions at museums—and individual works at museums—alter the equations of visual arts. Museums in America exist at the pleasure of boards, regents, overseers, budget minders, and the trailing ends of the artistic process, the critics, scholars, historians and cultural observers. But most obviously, they exist for and at the mercy of people who come to museums to see paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations.

Visitors change museums as well as art and how we look at it. You can make yourself feel small at a museum, but you are never alone – unless they’ve locked you in. Your friends and neighbors and fellow citizens from all over the country and the world are here in these galleries, standing right next to the Rembrandt self portrait, sometimes posing, at other times puzzling over Pollock just like you did before you got smart and knowing and saw the Ed Harris movie.

In exhibitions, juxtapositions, like the wall descriptions, are important. It’s when you begin to realize the varieties of great art and how sometimes, some art is not so great when looked at from here and there, from far and close and next to other art. The National Gallery once had a show of two great German artists. One was Kate Kollwitz, the great, powerful maker of art, often in bold strokes and hammerings of chalk and black pencil, which cried out for justice in depictions of starving children, dying soldiers, striking miners and rageful peasants. Her work demanded, screamed for humanity. She lived to a ripe old age and died at the end of the Third Reich, and posters made from her work have often been seen at riots and demonstrations for social justice. She was juxtaposed with a small exhibition of Ludwig Kirchner – big, bold paintings of prostitutes, dancers and cabaret singers, the night life of Berlin. The works were musical, almost, full of gusto and energy and life. But Kirchner was also a German Jew who ended up committing suicide as Hitler’s Reich was picking up speed. Who’s the more life affirming in such a context?

I mention this because of the richness of museums in Washington and the regularities of exhibitions at the museums which freshen up the holdings and permanent collections like sparkling water in an exquisite garden. Exhibitions are the creations not only of the artists but the curators who set them in settings and create new ways of looking at old work. The works of old and new masters and reputations, whether belonging to Degas or Warhol, sometimes are restored, not by restorers, but by fresh eyes and different context so they can come to live again under the gaze of their admirers.

For the first installment of our fall visual arts prevue, we give you a quick look at exhibitions and events coming to a Washington museum.

ANDY (WARHOL) IS STILL DANDY

Nobody, certainly not Warhol himself, ever claimed that Andy Warhol had the gifts of a Picasso, a Da Vinci, a Renoir, or even a Rothko.

But there’s also no question that Warhol was one of the most influential artists of the latter part of the last century and into this one. He may not have been the best draughtsman ever or the most gifted painter, but he had his pale, white finger on the zeitgeist. If Warhol didn’t invent pop culture, he sold and marketed it like no artist before, during and since. Warhol made silk screens of money and Monroe and Jackie and Elvis and soup cans, making Lichtenstein’s pop art comic blowups and “pows” palatable and hot. Warhol hooked up low/high art to commerce, ignited America’s still-flaming worship of celebrity by turning it into an aspiration; Kim Kardsashian and Snookie are his illegitimate cultural children. I recall a fairly comprehensive Warhol exhibition at the Corcoran a number of years ago sponsored by PNC Bank with the CEO speaking in front of blowups of Warhol’s Ben Franklins, saying “I always wanted to stand in front of one of those marking the marriage of marketing, money and Warhol.”

He’s still with us, pale and glowing even in death. The National Gallery of Art is hosting the first exhibition examining Warhol’s works centered around news headlines appropriately entitled “Warhol: Headlines” (Sept. 25 though Jan. 2). The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is also touching base with Warhol with an exhibition of 102 silkscreened and hand-painted canvases of distorted images of shadows created in his studio (Sept. 25 through Jan. 15).

“Shadows” will be unique and big—the works are edge-to-edge and will extend 450 feet around the curved Hirschhorn galleries. The “Headlines” show is no small thing either—some 80 paintings and drawings, photographs, prints, film and video works all based on Enquirer-like headlines. The pieces are dovetailed with Warhol’s obsession with the sensational or trivial-made-sensational side of news running from news of Princess Margaret’s baby, to Eddie Fisher’s breakdown to plane crashes, all grist for Warhol’s star-grinding mill. It was Warhol who said that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes during their lives—which means the Kardashians are way overdue to crash into obscurity.

The two exhibitions follow a successful run of the musical “Pop” at the Studio Theater located brashly in Warhol’s factory where outrageous things happened, including the near-assassination of Warhol.

DEGAS AND MARIONI AT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION

You may not be able to make a direct connection between the legendary French impressionist painter Edgar Degas and modernist Joseph Marioni except that Duncan Phillips, the founder of the Philips Collection, liked them both, and in its 90th anniversary year, the gallery is doing both proud.
The Phillips has Degas’ famed “Dancers at the Barre,” highlighting the painters obsession with ballet to the gratitude of the art world, and has built an exhibition around that obsession with “Dancers at the Barre: Point and Counterpoint” (Oct. 1 through Jan. 8).

The exhibition features drawings, studies and related work and was sparked by a careful attempt at correcting time-caused aging in the “Barre” painting. The result is an exhibition that renews interest in the Degas-Phillips connection and Degas’ great and shining works—paintings sculptures and drawings—on the theme of ballet the first major exhibition in 25 years on the subject.

Acclaimed modernist Joseph Marioni will have 15 recent, glowing, monochrome paintings on display at the Phillips (Oct. 20 through Jan. 29), alongside the artist’s existing 30 works from the museum collection.

30 AMERICANS AT THE CORCORAN

In a kind of artistic echo of the completion and opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, the Corcoran Gallery of Art is featuring several exhibitions on the theme of race and ethnicity. Chief among them is “30 Americans” (Oct. 1 through Feb. 12), a major survey of works by a number of the most important, established and young African-American contemporary artists of the last three decades.

The exhibition includes works by Nina Chanel Abney, Leonardo Drew, Renee Green, Nick Cave, Kalup Linzy, Jeff Sonhouse and Purvis Young among a large group of artists. Sarah Newman, the curator of Contemporary Art at the Corcoran said that the exhibition explores “how each artist reckons with the notion of identity in America, navigating such concerns as the struggle for civil rights , sexuality, popular culture and media imagery.”

Also on tap are “Strange Fruit,” an exhibition of some 15 new photographs and video works by Hank Willis Thomas, exploring how spectacle and display relate to African American identity (Oct. 1 through Jan. 16); and “Gordon Parks: Photographs from the Collection,” an exhibition of photo essays on civil rights from the Corcoran Collection (Oct. 1 through Jan. 16).

MORE AT THE NGA

Some of the finest Gothic-era tapestries in the world will be on display at the National Gallery of Art.
“The Invention of Glory: Afonso V and the Pastrana Tapestries” will feature four recently restored monumental tapestries which commemorate the conquest of four cities in Morocco by Afonso V of Portugal. (Sept. 18 through Jan. 8).

On a very different note separated by a number of centuries will be “Harry Callahan at 100,” an exhibition of some 100 photographs on the noted photographer’s centenary of his birth. (Oct. 2 through March 4).

The show will reach across Callahan’s innovative, elegant photographic career from his days in Detroit, Chicago and Atlanta.

WPA’S OPTIONS 2011

The Washington Project for the Arts will present “Options 2011,” the 14th installment of its biennial exhibition of works by emerging and unrepresented artists from Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia (Sept. 15 through Oct. 19 at 629 New York Ave., 2nd floor).
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Gary Tischler •

When Arena Stage brought back its hugely successful season and theater opening production of the very-much-a-staple Rodger Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma” for a late summer run, the theater community stood up and took notice.

Theater folks noticed too that Woolly Mammoth had also done a similar thing bringing back its production of Bruce Norris’s Pulitzer-Prize winning “Clybourne Park” to record-breaking (for Woolly) box office success. Both productions brought back original casts and energized productions. People saw a trend.

In truth, while innovative and smart marketing and scheduling strategies may have been at work, what happened wasn’t really new. Arena Stage, in fact, had been doing a similar thing with productions of “Crowns,” the popular musical about the importance of hats in the lives of African American women.

In theater, in fact, the adage that “everything old is new again” is the life blood, the bread and butter, the staple of theater world. What Arena and Woolly did was to bring back almost identical versions of the plays they had already done, thinking correctly that a larger audience as well as a repeat audience remained for the two plays. They were right. But theater exists on reviving, re-doing, and returning to a repertoire of plays and musicals that make up the core of what theater does on Broadway, in regional companies, in dinner theaters, amateur companies, high school and college. Road companies of big hit Broadway musicals are hugely profitable, same-version, different casts of eagerly awaited shows.

The staple of classic and therefore “old” theater literature are revisited time and time again over the centuries and decades—that’s why we have theater companies whose repertoire is rooted in Shakespeare, Shaw, the Greeks and American classics by O’Neill, Miller and others.

The reliance on the old and familiar—along with revisits that cast fresh light on the old plays—make new plays all the more thrilling because we don’t know how the story ends, what the characters will say or do, and we haven’t heard the songs by new composers and lyricists sung and played. This mix and mash of old and new is the heart of theater—we find surprises in the way an actor might play Hamlet—in fact hope for it—and are surprised how familiar and close to our lives the work of a new playwright is.

Every theater season begins with those anticipations of the familiar, the hope for surprise and connection and, of course, all of it accompanied by the possibility of awe and wonder, of moments in the dark that will lie in our memories like special dreams, the come-and-go moments for which, as I’ve noted elsewhere, there is no app.

The season kicks off with a hefty mix of old and new. Here, with some things to look forward and backward to.

SILENT SHAKESPEARE AT SYNETIC

Synetic Theatre, headed by the dynamic husband-wife team of Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili from the Republic of Georgia, has become and always was just about the most innovative, beyond-category theater company in the Washington area.

Whether performing at its original Church Street locale, at the Kennedy Center, in Shirlington or its new digs in Crystal City, the company has propelled a mix of mime, choreographed movement and spectacle to create its own kind of (classical, but silent) theater, borrowing its subjects from sources that include classic Russian literature, Dante, Cervantes and Shakespeare.

Its productions have reaped dozens of Helen Hayes Awards and almost instantaneous and consistent critical acclaim. Synetic’s form of theater is new, but its base subject is classical theater, minus the words. This brings new meaning to Hamlet’s “The Rest is Silence,” a play Synetic did ALL in silence.
The company is kicking of its 2011-2012 season with three best-of productions under the banner of “Speak No More,” three of its most popular versions of Silent Shakespeare, its 2008 production of “Macbeth” (Sept. 14 through Oct. 2); its 2010 production of “Othello” (Oct. 19 through Nov. 6) and its 2008 production of “Romeo and Juliet” (Nov. 25 through Dec. 23).

Synetic covers the criteria—everything really old is really new again and again—and again.

FRIENDS, WASHINGTONIANS AND COUNTRYMEN : IT’S FREE!

Michael Kahn’s Washington Shakespeare Company is presenting its 21st Annual Free for All. This time “Julius Caesar” is doing the honors and also kicking off the company’s 25th anniversary season.
This Julius is a revival of the critically acclaimed 2007-2008 production and will be performed at Sidney Harman Hall through Sept. 4. The Bard’s best play about politics and ambition echoes mightily, featuring as it does among its main characters honorable Republican senators whose fears of centralized government leads them astray. But that’s just one man’s opinion David Paul directs with a cast led by Aubrey Deeker, Tom Hammond and Tyrone Henderson.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN WITH LES MISERABLES AND THE JERSEY BOYS OR UP THE BARRICADES AND WALK LIKE A MAN

It’s a 25th anniversary for the Cameron McIntosh juggernaut “Les Miserables” and for the occasion there’s a brand new fully-staged production of the legendary Boubil & Schonberg operatic musical which set records in London, on Broadway and in dozens of road companies. The tale of the escaped convict (serving time for stealing a loaf of bread) Jean Valjean and his nemesis the relentless Inspector Javert is epic in scale with soaring songs a plot to fill several books by Victor Hugo and spectacle that stirs the heart and mind, and songs and music that make you want to run to the barricades (or from them, depending). Set in 19th Century France during yet another revolutionary time, the songs include “On My Own,” the stirring “Bring Him Home” and last but not least, “Can You Hear the People Sing.” If you can’t, you need a hearing aid.

It all happens at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House (Sept. 28 through Oct. 30).

If Victor Hugo isn’t your cup of tea, how about them boys from Jersey, as in “The Jersey Boys,” the earthy, hit-rich musical that traces the success, pitfalls, rags-and-juvie-to-riches story of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, arguably one of America’s biggest rock-pop bands ever, not excluding their peers The Beach Boys.

The hugely popular show returns to the National Theater for quite a long stint and why not. (Nov. 10 through Jan. 7). Walk like a man, my friend.

HOLLY TWYFORD DIRECTS

Holly Twyford is one of the most gifted, eclectic actresses on the Washington theater scene who’s done just about everything except have her own reality show; from Shakespeare to an outrageous Woolly play to a gig as a dancing pig at Adventure Theater, she has plenty to round out her resume. What she hasn’t done is direct, and she’s taking care of that with her directorial debut at No Rules Theater Company, named Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company.

That would appear to be a nice fit for Twyford, who’s always been a little edgy and is now directing Diana Son’s “Stop Kiss,” a play about two women, a scattered New York City traffic reporter and a St. Louis school teacher, who meet and fall in love. “The play chose me,” Twyford said. She had appeared in the play ten years ago. “The play had been special to me when I was in it and to be able to help shape the entire telling of this beautiful story as much as a director can was a chance I couldn’t pass up,” (Sept. 7 through Oct. 2).

HISTORY IN THE MAKING AT SIGNATURE (AGAIN)

Signature, no slouch in the ambition department, will be by all accounts the first theater to present two original world premiere musicals in repertory by presenting “The Hollow,” and “The Boy Detective Fails,” now in prevues.

“The Hollow,” with a book by Hunter Foster and music and lyrics by Matt Conner, is based on the Washington Irving Sleepy Hollow story and features a headless horseman but not Johnny Depp (through Oct. 16, directed by Eric Schaeffer).

“The Boy Detective Fails,” with a book by Joe Meno and Music and Lyrics by Adam Gwon, is about self-styled boy detective Billy Argo, who must face the shocking death of his partner-in-crime-solving and sister. Ten years later, he’s on the case (through Oct. 16, directed by Joe Calarco).

BERNIE MADOFF AT THEATER J

One of the more anticipated plays of the season is coming to Theater J where Bernie Madoff in his new home, a jail cell, will make an appearance in Deb Margolin’s “Imagining Madoff,” a play which posits Madoff setting the record straight and telling the story of an interview with Holocaust survivor, poet and investment client Solomon Galkin.

Bernie Madoff defrauded clients for hundreds of millions of dollars in a vast Ponzi scheme and he didn’t’ quibble, destroying friends, family, charities and celebrities with quiet gusto. Rick Foucheux stars as Madoff, artist-in-residence and Washington favorite Jennifer Mendenhall plays Madoff’s secretary, and Alexandra Aron directs. (Aug. 31 through Sept. 25)

BOOKS BURN AT ROUND HOUSE

Ray Bradbury, now in his 90s and still writing, has often been pigeonholed as a writer of science fiction novels and short stories through his long career (“The Martian Chronicles” “Something Wicked This Way Comes”). But in truth, he’s been much more than that; celebrator of literary favorites, teller of Irish tall tales, and prophet might be good, for starters.

Long ago, he wrote a slim novel imagining a world in which firemen occupied themselves with burning books by state directive because, well, you know, books are dangerous things. (Bradbury did not, however, envision Kindle as far as we know). The book became a haunting, if imperfect, film directed by Francois Trufautt and starring Oscar Werner and Julie Christie. The writing in the book and the images from the film are haunting.

Now Round House Theater in Bethesda is staging Bradbury’s own theatrical adaptation of the novel, a multi-media production incorporating cutting edge video, projection and a sound design created by the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Sharon Ott directs with a cast that includes Katie Atkinson and John Lescault, among others (Sept. 7 through Oct. 9)

A “PARADE” OF A DIFFERENT SORT AT FORD’S THEATRE

The trial and lynching of Leo Frank in early 20th-century Atlanta seems an unlikely subject for a Broadway musical, but the show, with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and with Harold Prince as co-conceiver, won a Tony award for musical drama and is now getting a Washington premiere as a co-production with Theater J.

Frank was a Jewish factory manager who was accused of murdering a teenage girl on the day of the Confederate Memorial Day Parade.

The musical kicks off Ford’s 2011-2012 season and is also the first selection for Ford’s five-year “The Lincoln Legacy Project,” which aims to create a dialogue around the issues of tolerance, equality and acceptance (Sept. 23 through Oct. 30).

MICHAEL KAHN DIRECTS WORLD PREMIERE OF “THE HEIR APPARENT”

It’s not Shakespeare, it’s not even British, but it is old and funny. That would be “The Heir Apparent,” a variation of Jean-Francois Regnard’s 1708 comedy adapted by David Ives. It’s a play with a familiar plot—young swain wants to marry young girl, but needs an inheritance from his uncle who wants to, guess what, marry the young lady herself. Moliere made do with less and more, as did Shakespeare.
Michael Kahn, Washington Shakespeare Company’s Artistic Director for the past 25 years, will direct a cast that will include long-time D.C. favorites Floyd King and Nancy Robinette (Sept. 6 through Oct. 23 at the Lansburgh).

TED, DAVID AND ALLAN AT THE STUDIO THEATER

That would be actor Ted van Griethuysen, just hitting his stride, Studio Theater Artist Director David Muse, hitting his stride in his second year at Studio, and Playwright Alan Bennett, always in stride, whose “The History Boys” received a standout production here several years ago.

Muse is coming off a hugely successful production of “Venus in Fur” for Studio, and seems perfectly suited for Bennett’s brainiac, culture-buff comedy “The Habit of Art,” which includes as characters the British composer Benjamin Britten and poet-as-legend W.H. Auden (opens Sept. 7).

HOWARD SHALWITZ INVITES YOU TO THE WOOLLY APOCOLYPSE

That’s Howard Shalwitz talking about the 2011-2012 season, Woolly’s 32rd on planet Washington. “Join us as we mine our collective visions of apocalypse—and all the drama, jokes, and dreams they inspire.” First episode is “A Bright New Boise” by Samuel D. Hunter, directed by John Vreeke, where someone is summoning the rapture, right in the middle of a parking lot of a mega craft store in Boise, Idaho.

Gotta be there for that (Oct. 10 through Nov. 6).

HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE

Caryl Churchill of “Top Girls” fame kicks off the new season for Forum Theatre, now company in residence at the Round House Theatre’s Silver Spring location. Michael Dove directs Churchill’s “Mad Forest” while Rose McConnell, Alexander Strain, Heather Haney and Dana Levanovsky star (Sept. 22 through Oct. 15).

More at the Shakespeare Theatre Company: the musical “Fela!” returns to the United States, telling its tale of the legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. It’s directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, kicking off a national tour at Sidney Harman Hall (Sept. 13 through Oct. 9).

“Ay Carmela!,” a U.S. premiere of a play by Spanish playwright Jose Sanchis Sinisterra, will kick off the Gala Hispanic Theatre’s season. It’s a play about the adventures—comic and romantic and dark all at once—about a pair of vaudevillians who find themselves in the midst of the bloody Spanish Civil War (Sept. 15 through Oct. 9).

The National Theater of China will present a production of “Two Dogs’ Opinions on Life,” an improvisational comedy that will be part of the Kennedy Center’s celebration of “China, the Art of a Nation” in September and October. “Two Dogs” will be performed at the Terrace Theater (Sept. 20 and 21 at 7:30 p.m. ). A second theater company, the Beijing People’s Art Theatre will perform “Top Restaurant” about the history of a Peking Roast Duck restaurant over half a century (Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m., October 2 at 1:30 p.m.).
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