The Women of Washington Theater
• July 26, 2011

We interviewed Holly Twyford, Nancy Robinette and Kimberly Schraf, the stars of Horton Foote’s “The Carpetbagger’s Daughters,” now completing its run at Ford’s Theater a few days before it opened.

The three women were going to go back to rehearsal again and they were a little frustrated.

“We are so eager for an audience,” Holly Twyford said, sitting with fellow actresses Nancy Robinette and Kimberly Schraf. “We don’t really know how we are doing in relation to an audience. There’s just us.”

“We invited some people to a dress rehearsal,” said Shraf, “just so we can get an idea.”

“In this play you can’t really work off of each other,” Robinette said. “The structure of the play, time is critical. It’s about what people remember and how those memories can be different.”

Sitting at a table at the Ford’s Theater with these three, you’re a little awe-struck. Together and apart, these three women are part of the life and lore of Washington’s theater history, key figures in the rise of theaters like the Studio Theater, the Shakespeare Company, Woolly Mammoth, Round House, Arena, and Signature. Name a theater, functioning or not, and chances are one of them at least has performed there.

When we talked to them, they were only a few days away from the opening of Horton Foote’s “The Carpetbaggers’ Children,” a three-character play in which they play sisters who remember their youth and their father, who had moved west to take over a plantation in Texas after the Civil War. That the characters are sisters talking about their father leaves dry-dust flavorings of “King Lear” and “The Three Sisters,” Texas style.

The three know each other very well and they know of each other. You can sense a tremendous respect and affection that they have for each other, something that seems to spring naturally out of the experience of preparing a play for which they are the key ingredients.

They’re a little shy about giving away what makes this play such a challenge and why a real audience is to be so desired. “It’s the memory thing,” Robinette said. “They don’t really talk to each other in the play. Rather, we all have longish monologues, talking about our father, about how he died, the funeral.”

“But Foote is such a wonderful writer, he had such a sense of place, those places in Texas that he wrote about all of his life,” Schraf said. “So the words are wonderful. They’re so evocative.”

“With Foote, and with the monologues, one of the most important things you can do, you HAVE to do, is listen,” Twyford said. “We barely interact. We listen to what the others say, and that’s a different kind of acting.”

When it comes to different kinds of acting, all three have had considerable experience. Among Washington theatergoers, Twyford and Robinette are vivid and fairly constant presences, working furiously from one play to the next. This is proof enough of the growing strength of Washington’s professional theater scene, in which a growing number of actors are booked a year, sometimes two years in advance.

Twyford and Robinette and Schraf are, regardless of whatever else they might have done, Washington theater people. Sitting across from Twyford and Robinette, I get an odd sense of familiarity, as if we’re long-time friends. If you write about the theater, of course, this is a natural feeling. With them, you feel as if you’ve spent a lot of time together.

Twyford’s voice and looks are distinctive. Her voice is a little raspy and husky, at turns funny, empathic and beguiling. Robinette emanates cautious warmth, but that impression may be because you tend to remember the characters she’s played—women who make an impression, who are like nobody else, especially when embodied by her.

Schraf is perhaps less familiar, but at Ford’s she has worked quite a bit, with major parts in “Member of the Wedding” and the recent, sharply successful “Sabrina Fair.” “Actually, when I was approached for this, I suggested them,” she said. “It’s just so great to work together.”

Surprisingly, what with all the history and exposure, Twyford and Robinette have never worked together before, and Twyford has never been seen on the Ford stage. Everybody, of course, goes to the Helen Hayes Awards, where Robinette and Twyford make frequent trips to the stage to receive acting awards on a regular basis. Schraf has had two recent nominations.

What they represent, though, is the cream of the crop among Washington actors, all very distinct and unique, but nonetheless, characterized by a strong pride in what they do and the community they work in. Schraf has the distinction of having worked in two productions of the play “The Women,” one at Arena and one at Studio. Twyford played Beatrice, Juliet and one of four Hamlets at the Folger…and yes, a tap-dancing pig at Adventure Theater. Robinette is known for eccentric, off-kilter women who leave a mark on the memory, particularly her performance as Florence Foster Jenkins, the society matron who wanted to sing in “Souvenirs”.

“You saw that?” she asked. “Well, you missed something. I fell off coming off the stage on one of my exits.” That would have been memorable, but her performance was more than sufficient to stay in my mind.

“I’m the baby,” Twyford says of her part in “The Carpetbaggers Children”

“That means she gets away with saying things,” Robinette says.

“Kimberly is the most empathic, the most articulate among us,” Twyford says. “She says things straight and on the mark.”

All of them, at one time or another, have done other things, tried out here and there, been in films or television or done audio book reading. Most folks in the Washington theater scene have. They are not movie stars, but they’re the stars of every play they’re in.

You think, remembering the play(s) you’ve seen them in, they can do pretty much anything. And that is probably true. They’re grounded now in family, in relationships, in parenthood.

On stage they can become Birdie of “The Little Foxes,” tough, strong women of “The Women,” Russian molls, femme fatales, dotty ladies or fierce mothers. Whatever they do, it will be in that singular manner that defines them and makes them memorable to us.

Robinette and Twyford will both move on after this to other plays, Twyford doing her first role at the Shakespeare Company. “Nothing so far,” says Schraf, shrugging. “I’m available, as they say.”

Not for long, I’m betting. [gallery ids="99604,105046,105043" nav="thumbs"]

Edward Albee & Tennessee Williams
•

In the annals of 20th-Century American theater history, there are few playwrights more influential, more continually fascinating to theatergoers and theater makers, than Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee.

If there is a hierarchy of American playwrights, then Williams and Albee belong in the highest tier, along with Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, for their strong, echoing and expansive bodies of work, an output that rarely dates in reading or performing, and continues to draw the attention of generations of theater artists.

Both playwrights are getting their full due in two ambitious, wide-reaching, far-flung local festivals. Arena stage will be hosting a two-month long Edward Albee festival. And “The Glass Menagerie Project” at Georgetown University, which runs through March 27 and picks up again in the summer, is part of a nationwide Tennessee Williams Centennial Festival.

There’s a vital, live-wire connection between the two festivals—“The Glass Menagerie Project” is part of an Arena Stage/Georgetown partnership and will be picked up again in June at the Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. And both festivals will be graced with the in-person presence of Albee.

The Arena Stage Edward Albee Festival kicks off with a visit from the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago and its electrifying production of Albee’s most produced and famous play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Starring Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts as George and Amy Morton as Martha, it will be running in the Kreeger Theater February 25 – April 10.

Meanwhile and simultaneously, Arena Stage itself is mounting “At Home at the Zoo,” which will be performed in the Arlene and Robert Komodo Cradle February 25 — April 24.

That double bill would normally count as a mini-festival and ambitious project in itself. But wait, there’s more. Beginning in March and running through the end of April, 16 theater companies will present staged readings of Albee’s works. The readings, by such companies as the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Theater J, Taffety Punk, Round House Theatre, American Century Theater and Forum Theatre, with directors like Irene Lewis, Howard Shalwitz, Wendy C Goldberg and Amy Freed, are free, but reservations are required.

The readings will include “Lolita,” “Fragments,” “The Lady from Dubuque,” “Marriage Play,” “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” “The American Dream,” “Tiny Alice,” “The Play About the Baby,” “Three Tall Women,” “A Delicate Balance,” “Seascape,” and Albee’s version of Carson McCuller’s “The Ballad of the Sad Café.”

In addition, Albee will be honored with the presentation of the American Artist Award on March 14, in “An Evening with Edward Albee.”

Albee will also be present at Georgetown, appearing at Gaston Hall in a conversation with Susan Stamberg, a special correspondent for National Public Radio, talking about his perspectives on the work and influence of Tennessee Williams. The conversation will include performances from leading actors, curated by Albee himself. (March 24)

“The Glass Menagerie Project,” presented by the Georgetown Theater and Performance Studies Program, is a re-envisioning of what is generally considered Williams’ most autobiographical work, a work often called a “memory play.” The project—really a Williams festival—will include performances, discussions and events intended to illuminate Williams’ most familiar and perhaps least controversial play.

The project, of course, will feature a production of “The Glass Menagerie,” starring Georgetown theater professor and one of Washington’s most luminous, gifted actresses, Sarah Marshall as Amanda Wingfield. The show will be directed by Professor Derek Goldman and runs February 24 – March 27 at GU’s Davis Performing Arts Center’s Gonda Theater.

Other special productions and events include appearances by playwright Christopher Durang (who wrote “For Whom the Southern Bell Tolls,” a takeoff on “Menagerie”), and a performance of “Camino Real,” Williams’ most gaudy and mysterious play March 26. There will be readings, discussion, and plays throughout the festivals.

Among a trio of readings on March 26 is “Mister Paradise” directed by Joy Zinoman and featuring Ted Van Griethuysen.

Albee’s presence at both festivals should be electric, illuminating and haunting. Williams died in 1983, seemingly played out, but his plays continued to be performed everywhere, including as part of a notable Tennessee Williams festival at the Kennedy Center.

Albee and Williams both concerned themselves with aspects of that big theater theme, love—sexual, romantic and any otherwise. As such, many of their plays were considered controversial at the time of their debuts. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with its plum, rich and profane language and sexual themes, had to be cleaned up a little for the movie version. Years later, “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” still had walkouts at its performance at Arena Stage because it was about…well, a man who loved a goat.

Williams’ later plays, like the classic “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Sweet Bird of Youth” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” with its overt references to gay themes and violent incidents, were also controversial, while featuring grand roles for women, a Williams trademark.

Both of them continue to be influential writers and playwrights with their body of work, much of which will be celebrated in the two festivals. Go to ArenaStage.org for details on the Albee festivals and PerformingArts.Georgetown.edu for more on Williams.
[gallery ids="99605,105044" nav="thumbs"]

Opera in the Outfield
•

Hundreds of bare feet grazed the Nationals’ field as families and couples picnicked for “Opera in the Outfield” last Sunday.

“We love doing this event because we believe opera is for everyone,” said Jane Lipton Cafritz, chairwoman for Washington National Opera.

Nationals Stadium opened the field and bleachers for the opera “A Masked Ball,” directed by James Robinson, which was broadcast live in high definition from the Kennedy Center Opera House on the Nationals Stadium scoreboard, one of the largest in the country.

Doors opened at noon to give people time to visit tables to sign up for raffles, enjoy chocolate from the Mars company – an event sponsor – and take children to the Family Fun Zone where they could experience opera firsthand by making masks to be used in the “Masked Ball.” The Family Fun Zone also allowed children to try on actual opera costumes and pose for pictures. It was a great introduction to opera for young children, a place to instill a passion and interest in opera with hands-on learning while having fun.

The opera itself was a little heavy for children, but this did not seem to keep families away. “A Masked Ball,” a three act opera, is a tragic tale about a Swedish king, Gustavus III, who is in love with his best friend’s wife, Amelia. He goes to have his fortune told and is told that the next person’s hand he shakes will murder him. Gustavus chooses to shake the hand of his best friend, Anckarstrom, thinking that the prophecy will be wrong because of it, but when Anckarstrom finds out about Gustavus’s love for his wife, he becomes enraged, and things get interesting.

The broadcast began at 2 p.m. starting with the National Anthem sung by Jose Ortega, a Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist. The Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program is run by Washington National Opera to train up and coming opera professionals.

This year is the third time the Nationals hosted Opera in the Outfield with Washington National Opera. It has become an important community event to foster a passion for opera in the DC area.

“Our free simulcasts are Washington National Opera’s gift to the city and to the public, in great thanks for all their support,” stated Plácido Domingo, now resigning General Director of Washington National Opera.

The event was a joint effort by both Washington National Opera and Nationals Stadium in a unique fuse between opera and baseball, two things that might seem as unrelated hamburgers and hairballs. However, Crafitz offered a parallel between the two, sgtating that, “Opera is kind of like baseball because it is a team effort.”

The sound of opera resounded throughout the surrounding blocks of the stadium drawing people in. Guests to the stadium drug pillows, blankets, and even bean bag chairs onto the field, laying out picnics and food from the concession stands. Children of all ages, and even at times their parents, danced around the field to the music and swung imaginary bats as two very different pastimes came together. Even the Nationals mascot Screech walked around the field in a mask for “The Masked Ball” before the broadcast, shaking hands with children.

This fusion became more apparent when during the curtain call, conductor Daniele Callegari and the opera singers sported Washington Nationals ball caps. The crowd at both the Kennedy Center, from where the opera was being broadcast, and the crowd at Nationals Stadium cheered loudly. It was not just a great day for opera, but a great day for a community to come together.

“Thank you for allowing us not only to be a business partner, but a community partner,” said Frank Casaine, manager for skyline Target in Falls Church, one of the event sponsors. “We hope to foster a greater appreciation for the arts and a stronger community.”

The second intermission was dedicated to the mix of opera and baseball and was titled, “Seventh Aria Stretch.” During that time the award was given to Gale Martin for the “Take Me Out the Opera” songwriting contest, a contest wherein participants wrote new lyrics for the tune “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

The Washington National Opera hopes that this event will inspire the next generation to appreciate opera beyond a spectacular afternoon in Nationals Stadium. In order to foster a generational appreciation, they have begun offering a service, Generation O, which provides discounted tickets to student and young professionals ages 18 to 35.

“Oklahoma!” a Historical Perspective
•

 

-The 60 year old Arena Stage and its Artistic Director Molly Smith have recently opened the doors to its architecturally majestic new Mead Center for American Theater to rave reviews with a revival of the great American classic, Rodger‘s and Hammersteins‘s “Oklahoma!” This has prompted my look back to the inception of an important milestone in the history and development of the American theater.

Opening night was March 31, 1943 at the St. James Theater on 44th St. It had been only 16 months since the attack on Pearl Harbor. The curtain opened to a simple scene of the American western frontier. The theater was not sold out. Success was not assured.

“Oklahoma!” was Richard Rodgers’ first collaboration without his long time partner, lyricist Lorenz (Larry) Hart. The prolific team of Rodgers and Hart had lasted a quarter of a century, giving birth to some of America’s greatest songs. But Hart was a chronic alcoholic and lately had become more difficult to work with. He would mysteriously disappear for long stretches. Hart’s lyrics for their last collaboration, “By Jupiter,” were written while he was drying out in a hospital room. His health was deteriorating. In less than a year, Larry Hart would be dead from pneumonia at the age of 48.

The initial concept for the show “Oklahoma!” came from Theresa Helburn, a co-director and founder of the Theater Guild, which was suffering financially at the time. She had known and admired Richard Rodgers since 1925, when the Guild produced the first Rodgers and Hart hit show, “The Garrick Gaieties.” The premise for “Oklahoma!” spawned from a 1931 play by Lynn Riggs, “Green Grow the Lilacs,” which had not done very well, running only 62 performances.

The play was set in the area where Riggs was born and raised, the Indian Territory of Oklahoma at the turn of the century. In July of 1940, there was a revival of the play at Westport, Connecticut. After that revival, Helburn began to promote the idea of the play as a musical. Both Rodgers and Hammerstein became interested in the idea separately.

During tryouts, there had been an air of pessimism surrounding the show. Oscar Hammerstein II at the time was at a low point in his career. He had not scored a hit in years. The new team of Rodgers and Hammerstein as a pair was untested and had trouble raising funds to get the production to Broadway. Money was scarce during the war, and few had faith in a musical based on “cowboys and farmhands.” Conventional wisdom held that a show could not be a hit if it had a murder in it. The new team had to economize, and the young cast, though talented, was made up of then relative unknowns that included Alfred Drake and Celeste Holm. Prior to that time, roles in musicals were filled with actors who could sing. Rodgers and Hammerstein operated in reverse, choosing to cast the show with singers who could act. Helburn wanted Groucho Marx for the peddler and Shirley Temple for Laurey, but RH insisted on legitimate Broadway performers.

Agnes De Mille’s choreography was one of the show’s major innovations. But she had a quarrelsome temperament and insisted on hiring dancers for their abilities, not their looks. Powerful gossip columnist Walter Winchell had written that noted producer Michael Todd was overheard in the lobby during the New Haven tryout saying, “No legs. No jokes. No Chance.” (What Todd actually said used a different word for “legs” but both Winchell and I have cleaned it up for print.

When the show was trying out in New Haven it was titled “Away We Go.” Hammerstein had originally
wanted to call it “Oklahoma,” but the name was rejected because it was felt that the audience might confuse it with “Oakies” in the Grapes of Wrath. When the show arrived on Broadway, the title was changed back to “Oklahoma!” this time with an exclamation point for emphasis.

Oklahoma’s record run of five years and nine months on Broadway was unbroken until My Fair Lady, opening in 1956, finally broke it in 1961. The original production of Oklahoma ran 2,248 performances,
including over 40 special matinees for people in the armed forces. It played to nearly 5 million people during the original run, and to over 10 million in its first national road tour, which lasted from 1943 to 1954. The London show set another record. ‘Oklahoma!’ brought great financial reward and fame to the new team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. In its first 10 years, it made a profit of $5 million on an initial investment of $83,000. A special Pulitzer Prize was awarded to the new team in 1944. The new partnership would last until Hammerstein’s death in 1960.

What made “Oklahoma!” a success?

The “Broadway musical” was the first major theatrical form developed in the US, but in 1943 it was caught in a stylistic rut. Prior to Oklahoma, most hit shows were essentially vehicles to showcase the talents of its stars. They had little serious to say and there was no need to integrate the songs, dances, comedy routines and the spectacular chorus girl numbers.

Shows were expensive to mount and money was scarce during the Depression, so producers became increasingly conservative and stuck largely to formulas that had driven past successes.

In “Oklahoma!” the musical found a new form. This “integrated musical” marked a revolution in American theater. “Oklahoma!” was the complete synthesis of music, libretto, lyrics, dancing and staging. The show had structure and a sense of dramatic build that until then had been present only in a straight non-musical play. Even the dance numbers became integral to moving the story and developing the characters.
Certainly the great words and music had a lot to do with the success. The score was so popular that it became the first musical to have a complete original cast album by a major label, beginning the trend of recording original cast albums. Decca’s heavy 6 record set sold over 1 million copies in its first year. Later it was one of the first recordings of a musical to be released on CD.

Oscar Hammerstein II has been called the premier poet of the American musical theater. From the beginning, Hammerstein proposed writing the lyrics before the music, allowing him to shape the overall concept of the musical. For Rodgers, this was in the reverse order from the way he had worked with Larry Hart. But Rodgers’ mastery of the genre is illustrated by this short anecdote: It had taken Oscar Hammerstein three weeks to write the lyric to “Oh What a Beautiful Morning.” As the story goes, he took it to Rodgers, who was then at his home in Connecticut. To his amazement, it took Rodgers only ten minutes to write the music. Rodgers said it was almost a reflex. His musical thoughts were so conditioned by the words that it took about “as long to compose it as to play it.” It became one of the most famous of Rodgers’ songs. Julie Styne, one of the great American Songwriters, wrote, “No one ever wrote a piece of music to already written words better than Rodgers. He always made it sound as though the music was composed first.”

The time and the mood of the country were also contributing factors to the success of “Oklahoma!” The show hit a nostalgic chord with audiences just out of the Depression and into World War II. The show was a favorite date for servicemen on leave. In 1943, when the show opened, Oklahoma the state was only 36 years old. It reminded many of their pioneer past, of immigrants struggling to put down roots in a new world. America suddenly found itself at war with three fascist powers and its people longed to believe in a brighter future. “Oklahoma!” was about home, family, love, and the triumph of good over evil—precisely what Americans were fighting for.

You can enjoy “Oklahoma!” directed by Molly Smith, now thru December 26, 2010 at the Arena Stage www.arenastage.com

Tamara Laird’s “Paisley Monuments”
•

The Cross Mackenzie Gallery, in Canal Square in Georgetown, has kicked off their artistic season with a small but resounding triumph. “Paisley Monuments,” the gallery’s latest exhibition of DC artist Tamara Laird, brings together a playful, natural whimsy with serene elegance, offering a fittingly contemporary aesthetic in a subtle sea of history.

Laird is an accomplished professional artist and a ceramics professor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, whose travel has had a tremendous impact on her work. When still a student, she traveled to England and met many renowned British ceramists, including Bernard Leach. She spent time in Zaire, and in 1984 moved to Nairobi, Kenya, where she worked at the National Museum of Kenya on a project funded by the United Nations and taught art at the Kenyatta University. From there, she went to Bangkok Thailand, where she conducted extensive research in local ceramics, from traditional village production to full-scale industrial ceramic factories.

She participated in a tour of ceramic factories in Mexico that integrated traditional and contemporary industrial majolica production. She currently teaches majolica techniques for an annual summer study abroad program in Amalfi, Italy. Her studies and travels all work toward Laird’s is interested in finding the connection between local cultural and artistic development.

Her current works, exhibited in “Paisley Monuments,” are ceramic sculptures based on the paisley motif, a universally recognizable pattern that has been used for thousands of years. It originated in Persian culture, as a fertility symbol among other things, inspired by the shape of the cashew nut. The shape, mainly seen patterned in fabric throughout the world, is given vibrancy and tremendous fullness in the way that Laird has transformed these symbols into sculpture. It is reminiscent of the delicate beauty of a pregnant belly, the crane of a swan’s neck, the budding of a flower in springtime, and countless other allegorical allusions throughout so many cultures of the world.

And this is precisely why the work has such power. The work prompts your imagination to engage with it.

Which is not to take away from the raw aesthetic power of the works. The texture and luster Larid is able to achieve through her glazing process is remarkable. The works are all high fire ceramics, but she uses metallic glazes, called lusters, on many of the works, giving the feeling of soft, smooth metal. While some pieces resemble the clay from which they are molded, others look equally as if they were cast in bronze.

It would be impossible to review any individual piece in the show, as they all work socialistically (Tea Partyists be warned) toward the collective strength of the show. Walking into the Cross Mackenzie Gallery amidst these sculptures, reminiscent of Brancusi and Tim Burton in the same breath, is like stepping into a garden of suspended creation.

The garden-like quality is not lost on Laird, who has designed them to be outdoor friendly, to be fit among gardens and as outdoor sculptures. She was even in a recent show at the National Botanical Gardens involving plant-inspired artwork. But don’t mistake my intentions—the works would be beautiful anywhere.

The Cross Mackenzie Gallery, at 1054 31st St NW, in Canal Square, is run by Rebecca Cross. For more information about this exhibition and others, visit CrossMackenzie.com or email Becca@CrossMackenzie.com. [gallery ids="99602,105037" nav="thumbs"]

Jewish Literary Festival Approaching
•

The 12th Annual Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival will run from October 17 to the 27 throughout DC, and as always it promises to highlight the year’s finest Jewish literature and authors. Many of these emerging and established writers earned accolades from The Washington Post and The New York Times. Their selected works span an assortment of genres, including history, humor, politics, and children’s fiction.

The festival opens at the Washington DCJCC, on October 17 at 7:30pm, with a staging of “Strangers in a Strange Land,” directed by Derek Goldman. The performance highlights this year’s overarching theme: the Jewish Diaspora.

Another event sure to attract a diverse audience will be the film screening of “Sayed Kashua: Forever Scared,” on October 18 at 7:30pm. In it Kashua, an award-winning author and screenwriter, reflects upon the everyday challenge of being both Arab and Jewish.

Closing night, October 27 at 7:30pm, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein will discuss the problems of living rationally when religious impulses fill the world around us with Ron Charles, Senior Editor of The Washington Post’s “Book World”. Critics agree, Goldstein’s recent novel “36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction” is quite a read.

Plenty of other authors will be featured daily, over the course of the festival. For information on obtaining a festival pass, ticket prices, locations, and times visit www.washingtondcjcc.org/litfest or call (202)777-3251. Join the Washington DCJCC in perpetuating Jewish identity while bolstering DC’s bond with its Jewish community.

Talkin’ “Hair” in the 21st Century
•

 

-Up close, the guys who play the lead roles of Berger and Claude in the dynamic revival of “Hair,” now at the Kennedy Center through November 21, look very much like a couple of contemporary young men: relaxed, casually attractive, youthful males of the 21st Century. Mind you, their phone doesn’t go off and they’re not carrying a laptop, but they could pass.

But they’re a couple of something else’s too. Their names, look, and reason for being here identify them beyond doubt as members of the theater and performance tribe. Still, they’re also in another tribe: the large group of young actors, singers, dancers, performers who bring the emblematic musical of the hippie generation alive with such authenticity that you can’t miss getting a contact high.

Both have names that sound perfect for the theater, B movies, opera or a biker gang. And we’re talking about their real names: Steel Burkhardt, he of the thick, longish, deep black hair who plays the rowdy, can’t-tie-me-down leader of the “Hair” tribe, and Paris Remillard, who plays the sweet, doomed Claude.

21st century guys they are—guys who weren’t even born when “Hair” splashed onto Broadway and stages around the country, revolutionizing yet again the musical theater form and signaling the mainstream arrival of hippies, Aquarians, and the antiestablishment, disaffected, rock-and-rolling, dope-smoking, free-loving, biracial and multi-ethnic generation of young people.

Burkhardt and Remillard are members in good standing of the generation to whom the Internet, Facebook and texting are second nature.

“Sure, it’s very different, but I think most of us have gotten into the show and the characters,” Burkhardt, who was a serious music student at Baldwin Wallace in Ohio, said. “I think sometimes you get more affinity for how they lived than how we live. They had to connect to each other. They didn’t send e-mails, they didn’t hide, and they were out there.”

“You have to have a lot of sympathy for Claude,” Remillard said. “I don’t have any problem understanding him or the rest of the tribe. They lived in a different time, but they’re pretty real to me. And the music is pretty cool.”

Both of them auditioned to be a part of the show, started in the background, and moved on up, eventually garnering the main roles for the tour. “This is about family,” Burkhardt said. “We all share in it. On the road, that’s what we are: family. A big family.”

Both of them understand the dilemma and the urges of their characters. “This was Viet Nam,” Remillard said. “Guys were having to deal with getting drafted, going to Viet Nam, getting killed. They didn’t have a choice. We don’t have a draft today, so I don’t think a lot of guys our age or younger understand what’s involved in something like that.”

“My dad was a marine,” Remillard said. “He understands. And my parents really support me in this. My dad doesn’t necessarily have knee-jerk reactions to things. He said that if there were a draft and I had gotten drafted, he would have helped me get to Canada.”

The two are obvious friends and have an easy banter between each other. Listen to them talk about music, about the special feeling that exists with each and every performance. “I don’t think my folks were part of all that,” Burkhardt said. “But I think they’re sort of hippie wannabees.”

“Do I ever get bored?” Burkhardt says. “Are you kidding me? There’s no way. Every night is like a fresh start, new audience, and new atmosphere. And we get out there a lot, you know, we interact, and it’s pretty spontaneous. You never know what kind of reaction you’re going to get. And then there’s the stuff at the end of the show when people can go on the stage and join in. I’m always surprised how many people do, and how exciting that is. I don’t know, it’s a celebration. And when I get face-to-face with people in the audience, it’s always different.”

Burkhardt is easily the charisma guy of the bunch with his energy, his looks, that bad boy rep of the character. You’d think he gets a lot of attention from fans. “Naw,” he says. “Not at the moment.”

Remillard laughs. “He gets a lot of attention,” he says

There is also the tradition of the show that cast members—some, most, sometimes all—get naked near the conclusion of the first act. “Nobody has to do it,” Remillard said.

“Yeah,” Burkhardt said, “but when we first joined the cast, it was at Lincoln Center and it was supposed to be a limited run, and finally I thought, what the hell, I may never get the chance to do it, so I did it and you know, it was kinda fun. It’s liberating.”

They’ve toured England, and new and local cast members joined the cast, and everybody’s betting when they get naked. And they proceeded to talk about Irish and Scottish male and female performers in a sweetly crass way.

Remillard doesn’t have long hair—he looks a distance from being a hippie—but he has an affinity for Claude and the tribe. “You know, it’s not that far removed. We live differently. We don’t have that kind of personal contact that the people in the show do.”

There’s a bit on YouTube if you Google their names—it’s an informal rendition with audience by the two of them in street clothes, singing “Hair.” They jump, they dance, they run, they shake their HAIR! Like crazy people full of glee, goofin’ but stirring nonetheless.

Glee. There’s a thought. The music of Hair, starring two 21st century guys named Paris and Stone doing Claude and Berger.

Ravi Coltrane On Jazz, Legend and Progression
•

 

-One thing you can say about jazz, even if you don’t know a heck of a lot about jazz: it’s not static.

“You have to move on and keep on becoming who you are as a person, as a musician, and in terms of the kind of music you’re playing,” says Ravi Coltrane, the highly regarded saxophonist who comes with his quartet to the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in downtown Washington, November 20 at 8 p.m.

Coltrane knows a little something about that, which is why he’s been steadily carving out his own sound, his own music. Most recently, he’s signed on with Blue Note Records, with an album coming out next year, a legendary label that celebrated its 70th anniversary last year. To further the connection, in 2008 he became a part of The Blue Not 7, a septet formed specifically for the anniversary celebration.

Lots of lines—personal, musical, and legend, crisscross the life of tenor and soprano sax player Ravi Coltrane.

He has a pretty clear idea of who he is, and isn’t. “I’m not my dad,” he said. “I appreciate and revere my father’s work, but you have to carve your own image, your own style. And sure, there are influences. But I don’t think I came to this because I’m my father’s son.”

He’ll tell you that he didn’t start out being interested in jazz. “I played the flute in school, I was in the band,” he said. “And initially, I was interested in composing film scores, that kind of thing. So I did not come to jazz out of the chute, so to speak.”

And yet, lineage, legend, and the naming of names, working out a kind of apprenticeship in an age where jazz has changed tremendously, play out in a man’s life.

Coltrane, now in his 40s, is, after all, the son of the jazz giant John Coltrane, who also played tenor and soprano saxophone. And the saxophone itself is the instrument of choice of the some of the most dramatic tortured genius-types in jazz history, most prominently Charlie Parker, the late and lamented king of improvisational jazz—the often lyrical free-flying “Bird”.

“I was two when my father died,” Coltrane said. “It’s not like he figures so strongly in personal memory. The difficulty becomes in being your own man while loving my dad’s music. No doubt it’s had some effect.”

The saxophone first appeared in his life as a Christmas gift. It wasn’t exactly a hint, but there it was, and eventually he took it up. “I don’t think it was something that was meant to push me into a certain direction,” he said. For him, it was like finding money in the road. You can pick it up, but you choose how you use it and spend it.

If you look at his bio, the story begins in 1991. His active jazz career begins at age 26, a late start by some standards. But when you’re the son of a legend whose memory is still strong, and whose music is still around, and when you have a mother equally gifted and legendary—the great jazz pianist Alice Coltrane—and when you’re named after Ravi Shankar, the influential Indian Sitar player, there are no doubt some pressures to find your own way.

He did it by paying his dues, playing as a sideman with the likes of McCoy Tyner, Pharaoh Sanders, Kenny Barron, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clarke, Branford Marsalis, Geri Allen and others. By 1997, he was ready to go on his own, recording his first album, “Moving Pictures.” He built several groups, but since 2005 he has worked with is quartet, with bassist Drew Gress, pianist Luis Perdomo and drummer E.J. Strickland.

A 2005 concert trip to India to raise HIV awareness seemed almost a homecoming. He eventually met his namesake.

“Jazz has changed,” he says. “The audience is bigger, but also more diverse. There are all kinds of new influences, from Latin to Asian, and jazz has really spread. But the result has been that there are not quite the dominating, influential figures like Monk, Miles, Satchmo, Parker and so on. It’s a whole new world in some ways.”

He’s part of the vanguard of that new world, not the old guard, in spite of all the history that trails behind him, always evolving, moving on ahead, playing his music, expanding its horizons, improvising and energizing.

Arena Opens Up
•

 

-That mother-ship construction project people have been noting at the site of the old Arena Stage near the Southwest waterfront is finally set to open its pearly gates to the public. After two and a half years of construction, Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater will have a ribbon cutting ceremony and Homecoming Grand Opening Celebration on Saturday, October 23, lasting almost all day long from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Arena will showcase the celebration at the Mead Center with performances and activities staged in multiple venues. Live theatrical performances, children’s activities and other events will occur in the Fichandler Stage, the Kreeger Theater and the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle as well as an outdoor stage, a rehearsal hall, the lobby and a classroom.

The celebration will also showcase the Mead’s café, operated by Jose Andres Catering along with Ridgewell’s.

Be on the look for these offerings: slam poetry, the “Glee” Battle of the choirs, jazz bands and a performance by the cast of “Oklahoma,” the musical slated to kick off the new season. Tickets are free but are require for the events. Tickets will be available exclusively online beginning October 8. They may be reserved at www.arenastage.org.

There will also be a Gala Celebration held on October 25th to commemorate the inaugural season. As indicated, the season kicks off with Molly Smith’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma” on October 22nd.

‘VelocityDC Dance’ Returns
•

After a sold out run of performances last fall, the VelocityDC Dance Festival is coming back for a second season. This vibrant performance experience presented by the Washington dance community will hopefully continue to be a seasonal offering in the DC Area.

Representing an exciting direction in dance presentation and audience development for the DC area, VelocityDC began as the first large-scale collaboration between DC dance leaders. The event was designed to showcase and promote the exceptional artistic quality of the area’s dance community, modeled very similarly to New York City’s supremely successful Fall for Dance Festival. The festival features site-specific performances throughout the Washington community as well as instructional public dance classes at THEARC.

VelocityDC is organized by a consortium of local movement and dance-centric arts entities, among them the Washington Performing Arts Society and the Shakespeare Theatre Company.

Featured among the performances this season will be Jane Franklin Dance Company, Liz Lerman
Dance Exchange, CityDance Ensemble, Furia Flamenco, and the Washington Ballet. Performances run October 7-9. [gallery ids="99205,103441,103439" nav="thumbs"]