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Shakespeare Turns 447 at The Folger Library
July 26, 2011
•“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.”
William Shakespeare said that. Well, he wrote it. Maybe.
I think he did, no maybe about it. Otherwise why were we celebrating William Shakespeare’s 447th birthday instead of, say, Oxford’s?
He put “To be or not to be. That is the question” into Hamlet’s mouth, and he spoke them and took three hours answering the question before expiring from a poisoned sword tip. Every young girl from his time forward imagines herself as Juliet, helping Romeo up the balcony, because Romeo described her thusly: “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
He wrote:
“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.”
And he was right.
The evidence was on display at the Folger Library’s annual Free Family Party in celebration of William Shakespeare’s Birthday on Capitol Hill. Spring was there. The spirit of youth was in everything. And there were children, lots of them, who I am sure knew his poems.
To many Washingtonians—those who loved the Bard and bards, peonies and poems, madrigals and sword fights, and faint and fair maidens—this great celebration is the first official sign and stamp of spring.
No question, it was spring on Capitol Hill after all that harrumphing about closing down the government and the tea party that has neither tea nor does it party. At this gathering, a rhyme trumps a riot. and children and dogs are princes, princesses and canine royalty.
Hundreds turned out and did things they rarely do every other Sunday. Little boys picked up wooden swords and watched a demonstration of sword-and-broad-sword and other weapons fighting, with two or three members of the gentler sex bashing each other with fury that hell hath not, under the supervision of Brad Weller, who trains and designs medieval combat scenes from Shakespeare’s more warlike plays.
Children –and gleeful adults—stood in a small room and yelled Shakespearean insults at each other.
There was maypole dancing and actors on the Elizabethan stage doing excerpts from “Richard III,” doing their best to explain that he wasn’t such a bad guy. Rosalind appeared on stage from “As You Like It,” the most formidable female character ever put on stage. There was courtly dancing to be sure and much lording it over and bowing and beautiful feathered hats from folks who appear at Renaissance Fairs and look splendidly fair and handsome.
In the Elizabethan garden, open for the first time, you saw a sight to prove Shakespeare right: nearly a baker’s dozen of five or six year old girls, ensconced as if bewitched, watching and listening to the Larksong Renaissance Singers singer Renaissance music, medieval music, madrigals, in Italian, German, French and English, blessed by the presence of mothers and children as much as the music itself.
Everywhere, everyone wore bright garlands and danced. This is the occasion when the Folger airs out its venerable reading room with its century-old books and the scent and dandruff of scholars and the lights and youths come sparkling in to pose with Shakespeare.
I met a dog—a Maltese, miniature poodle mix—named Rosa Luxembourg, the 1920s revolutionary in Germany. Someone played, with dancing delight, an accordion.
Queen Elizabeth (the first) showed up to wave, her hair blazing. They handed out cakes, but not cupcakes, those not having been invented in Georgetown yet.
Spring reigned on Capitol Hill, where in a courtyard at a used bookstore down the street, a woman sang boogie-woogie music, a guy played rickety piano, someone strummed a guitar, and purple blossoms embraced a branch like benign boas.
“Now, every field is clothed with grass, and every tree with leaves; now the woods put forth their blossoms, and the year assumes its gay attire.”
Say happy 447 thbirthday, Master Shakespeare. It was a day in April when “the spirit of youth was in everything.”
Follies Comes to the Kennedy Center
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Believe it. “Follies” is no folly. It’s a big deal.
It’s a big deal for the Kennedy Center, where a ground-up, full-blown revival of the groundbreaking Stephen Sondheim musical is now on stage at the Opera House through June 19. It is the culmination of four years of planning, effort and work.
It’s a big deal for director Eric Schaeffer, the artistic director of the Signature Theater, who is practically a Stephen Sondheim godson when it comes to all things music and staging of the reigning monarch and legend of the American musical.
It’s a big deal because “Follies” was a big deal for Sondheim; he took a giant step forward in his creative control for this show, not only writing the lyrics, but composing the music. The net result was a string of musicals that have made Sondheim a giant and innovator of the American musical theater.
It’s a big deal because the content-and-concept laden “Follies,” first staged by Harold Prince in 1971, was a uniquely Sondheim kind of musical, with its story of members of a former Zigfield-type follies reuniting on the eve of a theater demolition, past theater glory, and what happens to divas and stars when the spotlights shut down. It is a musical driven as much by the characters as the music. The original featured song and dance man Gene Nelson, movie star Alexis Smith and Dorothy Collins. The musical received seven Tony Awards, including Sondheim’s first for best original score.
Ron Raines stars as Benjamin Stone, and longtime Washington favorites Terrence Currier and Frederick Strother grace the stage in this production.
It’s also a big deal for Lora Lee Gayer who plays Young Sally and Christian Delcroix who plays Young Buddy.
Everybody’s heard and read about the ladies of “Follies,” mainly Bernadette Peters, Janis Paige and Jan Maxwell.
You may not have heard of Gayer and Delcroix, but they’re also critical elements of the show, a connection to the past for the main characters, alter egos that drift in and out of the show, sometimes sharing the stage with them.
For Delcroix, the process was probably filled with less angst than facing Gayer. “Danny and I had already worked together in ‘South Pacific’ at the Lincoln Center, so we knew each other, had been on the stage together before,” said Delcroix, who grew up in Pittsburgh and lives in New York. “So we could talk about the parts, who they were, what a young Buddy might be like. We had a pretty good rapport right off the bat. That’s an advantage.”
Delcroix acknowledged that playing the small part of the professor at Lincoln Center in the original cast of the smash hit revival (a touring company played the Kennedy Center’s Opera House this winter), was a big break. “That was a wonderful experience and chance for me. Now I’m in this terrific musical by Stephen Sondheim. You can’t get much luckier than that.”
For Gayer, who plays young Sally, the challenge was a little different. “Bernadette Peters is a legend. She’s one of the biggest stars in Broadway history. So yes, I didn’t know what to expect initially,” she said. “I was a little intimidated, sure. But she is really wonderful to work with. She’d make suggestions about the character, about what she might have been like. She is the expert when it comes to Sondheim”
Gayer graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with a BFA in Musical Theater. “I did Rapunzel in ‘Into the Woods,’ so that helped in dealing with Sondheim’s music, which is very difficult and challenging to sing,” she said. Gayer has played Roxie in “Chicago” and Mrs. Gottlieb in Sara Ruhl’s “Dead Man’s Cellphone.”
For the Kennedy Center, Michael Kaiser and Schaeffer, “Follies” marks a return to the works of Sondheim, by whom they’ve done very well. “Follies” was one of the few missing entries in the hugely successful Sondheim festival several summers ago, which included “Sweeney Todd,” “Company” and “A Little Night Music.”
Schaeffer put himself and the Virginia-based Signature Theater on the map with a smash production of “Sweeney Todd” years ago, and he and the theater never looked back, gaining a national and international reputation as interpreters of the Sondheim songbook and playbook, while forging a permanent presence with productions of edgy, sharp, contemporary musicals, including the works of Kander and Ebb as well as new shows like “Glory Days.”
“Follies” not only features legends in the flesh as characters, but in some ways it’s a bittersweet tribute to the musical stage. The irony is—as is sometimes the case with Sondheim—the original production had a relatively modest run of 522 productions. But this show, with songs like “Broadway Baby,” “I’m Still Here,” and “Too Many Mornings,” acquired—as is often the case with Sondheim—a sure footed afterlife with concerts and successful revivals, including a 1985 Lincoln Center Concert version, a 1987 West End production, a 2001 Broadway revival, another West End revival and a New York City Center Concert in 2007. The Lincoln Center concert starred Barbara Cook as Sally, George Hearn, Mandy Patinkin, and Lee Remick, and also included Carol Burnett, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Liliane Montevecchi, Elaine Stritch and Phyllis Newman—one of those wish-you-could-have-been-there casts.
“Follies” runs at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House through June 19.
Elizabeth Taylor’s Washingtonian Legacy
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Ah Hollywood…Ah Washington. How the denizens of these two cities yearn for each other.
The recent death of Elizabeth Taylor, pre-pixel Hollywood’s last great star, and its coverage around Washington highlighted the nurture-torture nature of this relationship, like an electric wire was connecting the cities. People remember her here; just ask the senator, the gossip writers, theatergoers and the folks at the Whitman Walker Clinic.
She was, heart and soul, a child of Hollywood, since her violet eyes and pitch black hair made their first impact on screen as one of MGM’s child stars in “National Velvet,” when she was just twelve years old. She was a movie star long before she ever aspired to become an excellent actress.
People, of course, still have trouble taking a really beautiful woman seriously, and Elizabeth Taylor was astonishingly beautiful in her youth. As such, it’s much easier to give the wrong kind of credit than to credit the right things. People focus on her numerous marriages, the drama and the diamonds. They focus on her adulteries that broke up first the marriage of Debbie Reynolds, America’s sweetheart, and then her own and those of husband Richard Burton’s.
The local obituary seemed to me curiously snarky and petulant, going out of its way to offer quotes disparaging her acting abilities. The front-page photo showed her in her famous white swimsuit from a scene in Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer,” in which she shared top billing with Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift, two of the finest screen actors of the time. “Despite Oscar nods,” the caption read, “she was not always taken seriously an actress.”
They could have said it the other way around: “Despite not always being taken seriously as an actress, she won two Oscars—for “Butterfield 8” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” (Mike Nichols’ film adaptation of the Edward Albee play, now enjoying a satisfying production at Arena Stage), opposite then husband Richard Burton.”
It’s fair to say that she was often used for her looks—one of those cases of “don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” But those looks could be used to heartbreaking effect: Check out that scene when Montgomery Clift (again) first sees her in “A Place in the Sun.” You could see ambition rise in him like a sour soaring, and you could see him hold his breath. The film is one of George Stevens’ finest works, part of what he saw as an American trilogy that included “Shane” and “Giant,” the latter also starring Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean, who completed filming and promptly was killed in a high-speed sports car crash.
For someone not highly regarded, she apparently had the regard of directors like Stevens and Nichols, two very serious-minded men who made classic and serious films. I would expect that even Meryl Streep, our most serious and darling film actress, might have liked to have films like “A Place in the Sun,” “Giant,” “Suddenly, Last Summer,” “Reflections in a Golden Eye” and “Cat On a Hot Roof.” Even “Cleopatra,” in spite of its excess and on-set drama, which almost ruined 20th Century Fox and boss Daryl Zanukc, ended up making money.
She was legendary, larger than life, and lived in the public eye. No need to go into details too much. Like the Kennedys, a political institution, she experienced more than anybody’s share of triumph and tragedy, heaven on earth and hell on wheels all at the same time.
One thing everybody knew: she made friends, and kept them beyond death. She nurtured the troubled and gifted Clift through car wrecks, addictions and emotional troubles. She stood up for Hudson and still loves Burton. If she was at times over the top and with a certain carnal vulgarity, especially in the two bouts of marriage with Burton, well…she was entitled. That doesn’t make her the godmother of Charlie Sheen or Lindsay Lohan.
Her stays in Washington were memorable: she married Senator John Warner of Virginia, the kind of marriage that should probably never happen. Imagine the fights in front of the mirror. But Warner remembers her with affection.
She appeared twice on stage in Washington, both times at the Kennedy Center, to mixed success and reviews. The first was as Regina in Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes,” which underwhelmed local critics, as I recall.
Then there was the time when then Kennedy Center President Roger Stevens thought that movie stars might pack ‘em in for theater. This brought us Liz and Dick in “Private Lives,” something this writer won’t ever forget. This is Noel Coward’s sophisticated play about a divorced married couple on honeymoons with new partners who run into each other at the hotel where they’re staying. Sparks fly in familiar ways. But in the middle of the play, Taylor’s Amanda says off-handedly: “You know, I’ve always been afraid of marriage.” This line brought the house down with laughter in a way that had everything to do with Taylor, not the show. Old pro Burton rode out the laughter wisely, and then ignited it again with a drawn out “Yes.”
That’s show biz. That’s legend.
She became, in a very real and practical way, the patron saint in the fight against AIDS, in the public’s recognition of what a dangerous disease it was, and the people it affected. She spoke up for Rock Hudson and everyone else who suffered from it, and she lent her name to the Whitman Walker Clinic. By contrast, the silence in Washington AND Hollywood in the early, devastating years of the disease was deafening. The Reagan, whose roots were in the Hollywood community which was being hit hard by AIDS, offered grief and condolences over the death of Hudson, while not mentioning AIDS at all, as if he had died of some peculiar strain of the common cold?
She opened minds and changed them, and her presence rose above that of the fundamentalists who called the disease the punishment of God at Gay Pride parades. She never wavered in this, and she did it out of life, not boredom or publicity seeking.
God bless her for that, and have no doubt that he and she will.
Arena’s New Look
•
For the performing arts in Washington — as elsewhere — fall is a big deal; it’s the start of a new season, its festival time, its gala time, its opening night for theaters and performing venues, for dancers, actors, directors, musicians, and orchestras all over the city.
It’s also fair to say no event quite resonates with so much history and meaning for the future as Arena Stage’s return to its old home on the Southwest waterfront.
As Arena’s Artistic Director Molly Smith put it, “We are finally home again.”
Well, the old homestead isn’t exactly what it used to be. Smith made those remarks recently on the occasion of a 60th anniversary celebration for Arena Stage, which also served to unveil the new stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, its old Southwest location. The ceremony — presided over by Mayor Adrian Fenty, other elected officials, Smith and her Arena compatriots — seemed appropriate to the place and time, looking forward and backward all at once.
The new site, as you get off the Waterfront Metro station, appears almost immediately to the eye like a glass-curved visitor’s vehicle from some nifty galaxy far, far away.
Modern, expensive and two-and-a-half years in the making, the Mead Center manages to be warm and inviting, a multi-task kind of venue which serves as performing space (three theaters), keeper of the historic flame (not to mention education and research) and community center in its role as cultural jump-starter for revitalization and development in Southwest Washington.
The new Mead Center marks yet another turning point for Arena, which in 60 years has seen many such key moments. Most of them, in one way or another, are part not only of the history of Arena Stage, but are literally embedded in the $135 million center, whose core remains the Fichandler Stage’s theater-in-the-round auditorium, a 683-seat space perfect for big-scale theater such as, for instance, “Oklahoma,” which starts off Arena’s fall season on Oct. 23.
The new theater also sports the Kreeger Theater, a 514-seat space with a thrust stage, the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle, an oval-shaped 200-seat theater with flexible seating, a space where new plays are workshopped and talent, new ideas and ways of creating are nurtured.
“The Arena Stage as we have it now will be a major center not only for the production and performance of theater, but for the study of theater. It will be a research center, a truly all-purpose theater center,” Smith said.
It was designed by famous Chinese-Canadian architect Bing Thom, who sees the space as “accessible, warm, modern and historic at the same time, intimate, vast, a part of the community.” The center reflects Arena’s past, but its transparency and structural impressiveness speaks to the future. “We hope for everlasting life for our hometown theater,” a local said.
Hometown is exactly what Arena is and has always been, even as it’s grown to a theater of national stature. “In 1950, the only way you could see theater here was at colleges, or through touring companies of Broadway plays,” Smith said. “Zelda Fichandler and her partners were pioneers; they created the first regional theater in America and the only professional theater here.”
From its first theater, which was called the Hippodrome on New York Avenue, Arena has moved and gone through various stages and incarnations. Five years after Hippodrome’s founding in 1950, it moved to a 500-seat theater called “The Old Vat” in Foggy Bottom.
In 1961, the 800-plus-seat theater-in-the-round Arena Stage opened at the current location with a production of Brecht’s “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” an ambitious, difficult play that spoke to founder and artistic director Zelda Fichandler’s ’s theatrical vision.
It was evident that Arena was bound to enlarge or move. “There was serious consideration about moving to Seventh Street, where there was already a bustling theater scene,” Smith said. “But we decided to build here.”
Spurred by a $35 million donation from trustees-for-life Dr. Jaylee M. Mead and her late husband Gilbert Mead (the largest gift of this sort by individuals for a not-for-profit regional theater), the project to revamp Arena took hold two and a half years ago. This necessitated that the company and the institution scatter its offices and performing spaces all over the city. “We were a nomadic enterprise,” Smith said. “It was difficult, but it also increased the profile of Arena, acquiring new audiences, both in Crystal City and at the Lincoln Theatre in the historic U Street District.”
For Smith the new center is also a personal homecoming (again). An American University grad, she was picked to succeed Douglas Wager (who took over as artistic director after Fichandler retired) 12 years ago after leading the Perseverance Theater in Alaska for 19 years.
She dedicated herself to building on a standing — and pioneering — tradition at Arena. While she focused on American plays and the American theatrical canon, she continued to reach out to the community at large and build an African American audience, a hope that became a larger reality after the stint at the Lincoln.
“I think we have always encouraged new plays, new playwrights, new ideas that reflect the great creative energy in this community, as well as its diversity,” Smith said. She continued a process where two Arena productions, the spectacularly successful “Next to Normal” and “33 Variations” went to Broadway, a tradition that began with “The Great White Hope” in the 1960s.
She also started directing musicals. “I kind of surprised myself,” she said. “I never did them before. You know, I’m part of that generation that thought musicals, especially Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, were kind of square.” She began with “South Pacific,” a big hit, which looked and felt not old-fashioned, but fresh and big of heart.
The inaugural season at the Mead Center can be expected to embody what Arena, Smith and the building itself stand for. So it begins with “Oklahoma,” a rarely revived musical that revolutionized musicals when it was first staged in the 1940s, building book and music into a seamless whole.
“We recognize the diversity that existed and the show, with all of its great music, will also embody that spirit. It’s not just an exercise in nostalgia,” said Smith In short, it will be a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic cast that will sing and perform the show. “It is THE great American musical. All of Arena’s optimism, hopes and dreams will be embodied in this moment of fierce individualism.”
A Trio of One-of-a-kinds
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In Washington, you can find lots of choirs and lots of orchestras, big and small. You can find choral societies, string quartets, dance and dance companies. But we also have institutions, organizations and individuals that are beyond category. Here’s three that are Washington treasures:
The Embassy Series
Sixteen years ago, Jerome Barry, a noted baritone, concert singer, teacher, scholar and man of many languages, had the idea to organize a series of concerts at various embassies throughout the city. It was a pretty good idea, small to begin with, but it grew like mad.
“We had six concerts, two or three embassies, and it’s fair to say it was pretty Euro-centric,” Barry said as he prepares to begin the 17th season of what was then called and still is “The Embassy Series in October.” “I thought it was a way for the embassies and people who loved music to meet one another. In the back of my head was always the idea that if it worked, this could turn out to be a vehicle for cultural diplomacy, for bridge building. This is a unique city, after all, we have a whole international community here, close to 200 embassies.”
Initially, European embassies, specifically Austria, Germany, and Poland, were the primary participants — these were the countries of Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss and Chopin, after all. The events would feature a concert, usually veteran or up-and-coming musicians from Europe, but also locals (and sometimes featuring Barry himself) to be followed by a reception with food, which provided opportunities for embassy officials and audience members to mingle and meet. It worked.
“We’ve had 58 embassies participate at one time or another so far,” Barry said. “And it has been a great opportunity for homegrown diplomacy, especially in these tense times were cultural gaps are so wide in the world.”
Barry’s Series have not only broadened, increased and widened the audience, they’ve broadened the horizons of the participants. While European embassies remain strong presences and supporters, the scope of the series has reached out Latin America, Africa, Israel, Asia and, perhaps most importantly, the Middle East. “Music is the great door opener,” Barry has said in the past. Last year’s season included a major concert at the very large and new Chinese Embassy, which proved to be a major cultural and social event. There were also concerts at the Embassy of Bahrain and the residence of the Ambassador of Syria, an inveterate blogger and culture consumer, which featured Kinan Azmeh, performing both traditional and contemporary Middle Eastern music with strong and appealing pop strains.
This year’s series begins with two concerts that all but characterize what the Embassy Series and Barry are all about.
The series opens Oct. 1 at the Iraqi Cultural Center with an evening of Iraqi music performed by ensemble of three Iraqi musicians called Safaafir, performing the country’s urban classical music, called Iraqi Maqam, as well as more traditional music.
This will be followed Oct. 17 by a concert at the Embassy of Austria, in which Till Fellner, who performed there last year, completes his major tour of the United States, during which he performed all of Beethoven’s sonatas. The internationally acclaimed pianist was born in Vienna, Austria and has played all over the world.
Taken together, the two concerts represent what the Embassy Series have been all about, a marriage of classical European music with an expansion to the music of the great world out there and here as performed in embassies and ambassadorial residences. It’s probably fair to say that Barry’s lone invention has influenced other recent efforts at cultural diplomacy such as Passport DC and the upcoming EuroKid festival.
The In Series
The In Series — a hard-to-describe series of performing arts events that combine just about everything performance has to offer — is celebrating its 10th anniversary at its 14th Street home at the newly renovated Source Theatre.
It will kick off its season with a double bill of American mini-operas, Leonard Bernstein’s strikingly contemporary and haunting “Trouble in Tahiti” and William Bolcom and Arnold Weinstein’s “Casino Paradise,” beginning Sept. 18 and running through Oct. 2.
It will be a season of so-called “pocket” operas for the In Series, with a pairing of Zarzuela, a Spanish musical in the form of the Cuban “Maria La O,” and the iconic “Pagliacci” by Ruggiero Leoncavallo.
Carla Hubner, the series’ producing artistic director, is also its founder and heart and soul. Nick Olcott, a veteran Washington theater director, is the series director and Francis Conlon is the music director. Look for a 10th Anniversary Big Birthday Bash Oct. 23 and 24 at the Gala/Tivoli theater, and a music performance by Soprano Fleta Hylton, pianist Tom Reilly and actor Jenifer Deal exploring the music and life of Robert Schuman on the bicentennial of his birth, Sept. 26 and Oct. 2.
The Folger Consort
The Folger Consort, a unique group of chamber musicians performing classical music from distant centuries are a unique group, offering yearly consorts focusing that evoke not only gorgeous music but history and historical culture itself.
This year’s season opens with “Pastime with Good Company,” music from the court of Henry VIII, featuring the vocal ensemble “Lionheart,” Oct. 1-3. It’s presented in conjunction with an exhibition on Henry VIII, which commemorates the 500th anniversary of the larger-than-life king’s accession to the English throne. Not coincidentally, there’s also an upcoming production of Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII” at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Elizabethan Theater.
At Christmas Time, the Folger Consort will present “A Renaissance Christmas” at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall with the Augsburg Cathedral Boys Choir of Germany, Dec. 10-12.
At Kennedy Center, ‘Poppins’ Cleans Up House
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Call me sentimental, call me plebian, call me irresponsible, call me a sucker for flying nannies, if not nuns.
I am not in the least embarrassed to admit that I really, really enjoyed myself at a recent performance of “Mary Poppins,” the Cameron Mackintosh Disney musical now ensconced at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House through August 22. And at my age — why, any self-respecting 40-year-old theater critic would drum me out of the ranks. Luckily, I’m older than that, like 10 going on … well, you know.
For many critics, it’s easy to flaunt the smug gene when merely confronted with the name Disney, let alone by a musical that insists that “just a spoonful of sugar will make the medicine go down,” when considerably less than a spoonful makes them gag.
For myself, I admit to a weakness for big and small musicals if they’re affecting, if you’re not walking out humming the scenery, and if they include some variations of a big tap dance number. These are usually enough to overcome soft-pedaled life-affirming messages, the presence of cute children and unnecessary special stage effects designed to wow the eyes, if not the heart.
In short, I loved Gavin Lee as the good-hearted high-energy chimney sweep and man of many parts Bert, as nimble and more appealing than Dick Van Dyke. Bert leads the sweeps, Mary and assorted others in a rousing “A Step in Time,” which is a tap dance by any other name, and made me very happy indeed. Always does.
In short, Mary Poppins, while ably and sternly performed with prim, brisk energy and lovely voice by Carolyn Sheen, is not really the star of the show. Instead, they are Bert, the Banks children, the Bird lady, the whole big show. Mary, in red suit, tiny hat and open umbrella, is a familiar figure standing still, singing, dancing or flying, but it’s the show itself, with all of its components, that engages the audience, especially children. This is a family-friendly show if there ever was one, and it delivers in more ways than one.
With all spectacle of rooftop dancing, flying acts, gypsies, statues that come to life and a truly terrifying anti-Mary nanny, the intimacy of the show is bound to appeal to the whole family, because it’s about a family and families, about what happens when fathers spend little or no time with their children, all wrapped up in work, when wives have their dreams thwarted, when children are spoiled rotten.
You need a little and a lot of magic.
“Mary Poppins” has plenty of magic, but its Victorian shoes are also firmly planted on the ground so that the characters are recognizable to even small children. For adults, one of the terrific rewards of this show is to watch children reacting to it. I saw a grandfather and his three grandchildren sort of submerge into the proceedings, all four at one point trying to grab projected stars.
Corny? Sure enough. But a good kind of corny. This being a Mackintosh-Disney enterprise, “Mary Poppins” delivers the entertainment goods in a big and lavish way, and it delivers its not-so-subtle messages about parents and children without leaving you with a hit-with-a-frying-pan headache. Take the kids, the wife, the husband, the grandparents, the nanny (legal and registered, of course), and the dog, if they let you. It’s super-califra— sorry, not in spell check. Finish it yourself.
“Mary Poppins” runs through Aug. 22.
The British Invade (Sort Of) at Strathmore
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Cool and hip may not be the first things you think about when you think of the Music Center at Strathmore.
After all, the gorgeous, nearly 2,000-seat acoustic paradise is a haven for classical music fans and performers, from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to the likes of Joshua Bell and Yitzhak Perlman. Rockers come — there’s been nights where you can catch the still-there Beach Boys or Jerry Lee Lewis — but full-scale rock-a-mania isn’t usually on the menu.
Except in the summer, except in August. That’s when Strathmore hosts its annual tribute concert, produced by Bandhouse Gigs, the major local musician group that often showcases (and assists) local artists, of which there is an abundance.
The tribute concert, held every year now for seven years, is an occasion for gifted local musicians, young and new, veteran and seasoned, famous or not, to pay tribute to the rock and roll and pop giants of old. This year — specifically, tonight and tomorrow — the causes for tribute and celebration is the British Invasion, that sudden outburst of British musicians whose work and personas hit our shores in the middle and late 1960s, from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, to posters and hit-tine stars like Tom Jones, Petula Clark and the incomparable Dusty Springfield.
This year marks the first time — due to popular demand — that the tribute concert has expanded to two days, and there are plenty of reasons to celebrate that turn of events.
“We sold out last year’s concert so that a lot of people actually couldn’t come,” Ronnie Newmyer, a veteran local musician and spokesperson for Bandhouse Gigs, said. “Although, just so you know, we have a CD that from last year’s concert that will be sold at [this year’s] concert. I think things have just gotten bigger and bigger every year, so this represents an opportunity to honor some really terrific performers, bands and singers. This is what the tribute concert is always all about — you can see the influence these performers have had on present-day musicians.”
Past tributes have included — as performed specifically in the concert hall where proceedings moved from free outdoor concerts — Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and the spectacularly triumphant Woodstock concert of last year.
Actually, the concerts, which in and of themselves are always a parade of great music and songs — just run the Dylan canon through your head sometime— do something else, which may transcend the individual tributes. All of the songs — with some exceptions —are performed by local musicians. Some of them are nationally well known — Jon Carroll and Bill Danoff who came up with half a reunion of their Starland Vocal Band (“Afternoon Delight”) last year, for instance — but others are legends in specific arenas of, say, acoustic folk music circles. All of them perform regularly in the region, and many have recorded with major labels. After witnessing the last three tributes I can say all of them are gifted, professional musicians, many of them revealing themselves to be up-and-comers, including The Craving Dogs, newcomer Margot MacDonald or the gravelly voiced Patty Reese, who practically channeled Janis Joplin in last year’s Woodstock Concert.
“It’s a great showcase, it sure is,” Newmyer said. “I think it really shows off the local music scene, the people in it, how talented they are.”
Some of the performers, like MacDonald, have been Artists in Residence at Strathmore, a yearly program there for new and talented musicians and artists. Others have performed both locally and around the country, sometimes top billed, sometimes opening for other acts. They’ve been at the Birchmere and often at Jammin’ Java in Virginia.
The British Invasion Concert is a good way to have your eyes and ears opened to just what’s been going on around here musically. The music features, besides The Beatles and Stones and Jones and Clark and Springfield, the work of Peter and Gordon, The Who, The Hollies, The Kings, The Animals, the Zombies and many others. “These were people who wrote and recorded great individual songs, they practically perfected the genre,” Newmyer said. “The big bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin, with the long guitar work and numbers came right after when we got into Woodstock and everything that happened.”
Reese will be handling (perhaps uncharacteristically) the stylings of Petula “Downtown” Clark. Other artists include Carroll, Julia Nixon, The Hall Monitors, Tone Rangers, MacDonald, Last Train Home, 5 Doctors, The Lofgren Brothers, Billy Coulter, Marti Brom, David Kitchens, Tom Lepson, Jeff Watson and Brian Simms, to name a few among a total of over 60 performers.
They’ll be doing such hits as “You Really Got Me,” “She Loves You,” “Needles and Pins,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “Satisfaction,” “Doo Wah Diddy,” “She’s Not There,” “To Sir With Love,” “Don’t Bring Me Down,” “We Gotta Get Outta This Place,” “Go Now” and a personal favorite, “Ferry Across the Mercy,” as well as a Herman’s Hermits Medley.
Showtimes are 7:30 p.m., with tickets ranging from $19 to $22. For information go to [www.strathmore.org](http://www.strathmore.org).
Fall 2010 Performing Arts Preview
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At the Playhouse
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Move over, New York. Here’s a look at some promising theater productions to send off Washington’s fall theater scene, rapidly securing status as one of the best in the nation.
The Return of Sarah Ruhl
The Woolly Mammoth Theatre on Sixth Street kicks off its season early and with one of the most intriguing productions of the season, “In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play,” which starts Aug. 23 and runs through Sept. 19.The play is about the unintended or unanticipated consequences of new technology.
Sounds dry, but it’s anything but, not when the new tech is a little electrical device that landed in the medical community around the same time that electricity started to be used everywhere. The device is supposed to calm female hysteria, but it creates havoc in the households of patients and doctors instead because …well, you can guess from the title.
But that’s about all you’re going to be able to guess, because the play is the work of Sarah Ruhl, one of this generation’s most gifted and unusual playwrights. Now in her 30s and a mother of young twins, Ruhl has been very, very good to Woolly Mammoth, the theater du jour for new and cutting-edge works, with productions of her celebrated “The Clean House” and “Dead Man’s Cellphone” enjoying popular and critical success there. “In The Next Room” was the talk of New York during its run.
Expect nothing: one of the hallmarks of Ruhl’s work is that her characters don’t say or do what the play’s situation might indicate they would do and say. The Woolly Production is directed by the very busy Aaron Posner and features Woolly regulars Kimberly Gilbert and Sarah Marshall.
A ‘Sanctified Show’ at the Lincoln Theatre
The new award-winning gospel comedy “Sanctified,” by Javon Johnson, hits the Lincoln Theatre in October, with original (and presumably with gospel flair) music by Derrick Sanders, running Oct. 21 through Nov. 14.
“Sanctified” won six 2009 Black Theater Alliance Awards. The play follows the fortunes of the East Piney Grove Baptist Church when it tries to stave off financial woes by entering a gospel revival.
I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am
No, this isn’t the Herman’s Hermit song, but it IS a rarely done production of “Henry VIII” by William Shakespeare, presumably the last of the Bard’s works, which comes complete with some authorship issues and the fact that the Globe Theatre burned down during its run. The Folger Theatre will be doing the royal honors beginning Oct. 12. Ian Merrill Peakes plays the king, who’s a big hit on Showtime’s “The Tudors.”
‘Something You Did’ is Something to See at Theater J
Theater J also gets an early jump on the season with its production of “Something You Did,” a new play by Willy Holtzman about a group of people trying to reconcile their youthful radicalism with who they are now. Rick Foucheux stars as a former radi-lib turned neo-con media star and Deborah Hazlett plays a woman serving a 30-year prison sentence for an anti-war bombing in which a police officer was killed. (Aug. 28 through Oct. 3).
‘The Scarlet Letter’ and ‘Dinner With Friends’
Something old and something new at Olney Theatre, where Artistic Director Jim Petosa presents the area premiere of Donald Margulies’s Pulitzer Prize-winner “Dinner With Friends,” about two couples enduring a divorce (Aug. 25 to Sept. 26). The National Players, at 60 America’s longest-running touring company, will bring their production of an enduring American classic, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” (Sept. 17-18).
Checkmate at ‘Chess’
Signature Theatre in Shirlington got way ahead of everybody by resurrecting the popular rock musical of yore, “Chess,” for a run through Sept. 26. Directed by Signature’s guiding light Eric Shaeffer, with lyrics by Tim Rice (“Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Lion King”) and music by the folks who brought you “Mamma Mia,” “Chess” is about an American and a Russian competing not only for chess supremacy but the love of a woman. What else could it be?
A New Era for Studio Theatre
The venerable 35-year-old Studio Theatre will not have Joy Zinoman as its artistic director this season after her retirement. Instead, there’s young (35) star David Muse, who’s directed “Blackbird” and Neil LaBute’s “Reasons to be Pretty” at the Studio and scored successes at the Shakespeare Theatre.
Two on-the-edge and talked-about playwrights will kick off the season at Studio: Annie Baker’s “Circle Mirror Transformation” begins Sept. 8. In this play, all the world’s a stage, especially at an amateur theater class in Vermont. “Circle” is followed by “Superior Donuts,” a new comedy by the talented and ambitious Tracy Letts, who hypnotized audiences with her three-hour-plus family saga “August: Osage County.” (Begins Nov.10.)
‘Sabrina’ Is Back…
And she’s not a witch. Rather, it’s the charming, twice-made-into-a-movie play about a chauffeur’s daughter who manages to charm two brothers who are members of the rich super-business class. The play, 50 years old or so, is about things that still matter: class, race, economic divides and, of course, romance. (Audrey Hepburn dazzled William Holden and Humphrey Bogart in the first film.) “Sabrina” starts off the Ford’s Theatre season Oct. 1.
…So Is Sam Shepard’s ‘Fool For Love’
The Keegan Theatre — home of both classic Irish and American theater — is bringing back playwright (and sometime actor) Sam Shepard’s most popular play, “Fool for Love,” at the Church Street Theater Oct. 16. It’s a brawling, sexy play about the outer edges of love and hate, sex and violence when Eddie and May go at it in a hotel outside the Mojave desert.
Let Your ‘Hair’ Down at the Kennedy Center
The first true musical heralding the Age of Aquarius and rock ’n’ roll is coming to the Kennedy Center Opera House Oct. 16 for a run through Nov. 21. “Aquarius,” “Hair,” “Let the Sun Shine In” and a host of songs your parents (or grandparents) might still be humming are back along with really long hair, hippie girls, afros and the Vietnam War.
Paddy Chayefsky Was the Man
Paddy Chayefsky didn’t just author the screenplay of “Network.” He was a pioneering playwright for television (“Marty”), won Emmys and Oscars and was something of a prophet with some of his socially conscious plays. “The Tenth Man” is relatively mellow and optimistic, a fable about love and faith, of all things, even though it’s about a Jewish exorcism. It plays at the American Century Theater in Arlington’s Gunston Arts Center beginning Sept. 17.
A Lope De Vega Classic at Gala Hispanic
In “El Caballero de Olmedo” (“The Knight of Olmedo”), a play from Spain’s golden age by a playwright often compared to Shakespeare, two lovers get caught up in a tragic rivalry between two Spanish towns. Lope De Vega’s classic kicks of Gala Hispanic’s season at the Tivoli Theater in Columbia Heights beginning Sept. 17, a collaboration with the Spanish company Accion Sur.
‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ at Round House
Patricia Highsmith wrote nasty, quirky crime novels, of which “The Talented Mr. Ripley” — with its murderous anti-hero — is the most famous (Matt Damon played Ripley in the film version). Now it’s a play by Phyllis Nagy, adapted from the novel and gracing the stage at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda beginning Sept. 8. A regional theater premiere directed by Blake Robinson.
Two Openings for The Shakespeare Theatre Company
Shakespeare Theatre will keep both of its stages busy this fall, starting with “All’s Well That Ends Well,” directed by Michael Kahn and featuring Marsha Mason at the Lansburgh Theatre beginning Sept. 7.
For something entirely different, and for anyone seeking some clue about what’s going on in Afghanistan, there is the visit of the Tricycle Theatre company from the United Kingdom, which is bringing the three part play (actually 12 short plays) “The Great Game: Afghanistan,” which traces Western involvement in Afghanistan from its English, Russian and American ventures. It’s at the Sidney Harman Hall Sept. 15-25.
And, A Shakespeare Special for Free
The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s annual Shakespeare Free For All is alive and well August 19-September 5 with a production of “Twelfth Night” at Sidney Harman Hall. Visit www.shakespearetheatre.org/about/ffa to enter the ticket lottery.
Scorched In Silver Spring
Along somewhat similar lines, “Scorched,” Lebanese-born playwright Jajdi Mouawad’s haunting play about twins going to the Middle East to search for their heritages, will premiere in D.C. at the Forum Theatre beginning Sept. 30 at the Round House Theatre’s Silver Spring venue. Forum received major critical praise and two Helen Hayes Awards for its awesome production of “Angels in America” last year.
From Page to Stage at The Kennedy Center
For anyone wanting to get an idea of the scope, range and volume of theater in the Washington area, the Ninth Annual Page to Stage New Play Festival at the Kennedy Center is worth a visit. It features the works of more than 40 metropolitan D.C. theaters in free readings and open rehearsals of plays and musicals under development. Take your pick with works by Adventure Theatre, the Doorway Arts Ensemble, the Folger Theatre, the Georgetown Theatre Company, the Hub Theatre, the Washington Improv Theater, Synetic Theater and a host of others. (Go to www.kennedy-center.org for a complete listing.)
Kid Stuff
Adventure Theatre at Glen Echo Park, Washington’s longest-running children’s theater, presents the American premiere of “Spot’s Birthday Party,” based on children’s book author Eric Hill’s hugely popular “Find Spot” books. The play is directed by Joe Banno, who has directed Shakespeare at the Folger and opera, and who finds himself returning to his roots. Spot is, of course, a very, very famous dog, with friends like Tom the crocodile, Helena the Hippo and Steve the monkey. What a party! Begins Sept. 17 running through Nov. 2.
At Bethesda’s Imagination Stage, dogs and cats figure prominently in “Bunnicula,” about the visit of a strange and menacing new member of the Monroe household , a creature with long ears and big teeth, with a taste for … what? A musical adaptation of Deborah and James Howe’s book. Begins Sept. 25.
Synetic Comes to Crystal City
Arena Stage, celebrating its 60th anniversary, will end its residency in Crystal City this year, but Synetic Theater, the handiwork of the dynamic, multi-award-winning Georgian husband and wife duo Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili, will celebrate its 10th anniversary by filling in the now-vacant play house. The company, which began life in Dupont Circle and moved to Shirlington, has garnered high critical praise from the start with its “silent” approach to classic and epic theater and plays. The season begins with “King Arthur,” which would appear to lend itself to the unique talents of this company, starting Sept. 30.
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Music
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The reason Washington arts patrons have the opportunity to see so many famous is that the area has two major world class performing arts centers. Here are some of the highlights:
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The Kennedy Center, with its varied music, symphony, dance, theater and special programming, marks another major year with the first season of Christoph Eschenbach’s as music director and conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, which has its home at the center’s Concert Hall. This season also happens to be the orchestra’s 80th.
Expect a big season opening at the annual NSO Opening Ball Concerts on Sept. 25, where Eschenbach will make his debut accompanied by the country’s most noted soprano, the legendary Renee Fleming (performing Richard Strauss “Four Last Songs”) and renowned pianist Lang Lang, playing Liszt’s “Piano Concert No. 1.” Eschenbach’s official debut of the regular season comes when he conducts the Orchestra Sept. 30-Oct. 2 in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
But there’s more early on at the Kennedy Center. There’s the big Celebrate Mexico festival throughout the center Sept. 11-Oct. 3, commemorating Mexico’s 200 years of independence. The celebration will be part of the annual Kennedy Center Open House Arts Festival (Sept. 11), the Multicultural Children’s Book Festival (same date) and a host of other events.
The National Symphony Orchestra Pops Series, beginning its 11th year under Marvin Hamlisch, will debut Oct. 28 with an evening with singer, Broadway star, actress and all-around dynamo Patti Lupone on Oct. 28. Another highlight is the Thanksgiving salute to legendary Broadway lyricist Frank Loesser on Nov. 26 with music from “Guys and Dolls,” “The Most Happy Fella” and other great Loesser shows.
Major things to look forward to next year are the big India Festival in the spring and the all-performance art tribute to “The Presidency of John F. Kennedy: A 50th Anniversary Celebration Jan. 20-Feb. 11.
Washington Ballet at the Kennedy Center
You’re also going to run into the Washington Ballet at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater Nov. 3-7 when Artistic Director Septime Webre brings his adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” (with music by Sergei Prokofiev) here.
The Music Center at Strathmore
The Music Center at Strathmore, on the outskirts of Bethesda, MD, has proven to be a major and welcome venue addition to the Washington area.
Its partners include the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Marin Alsop, splitting a portion of its season with Strathmore in addition to its season at its home base at the Meyerhoff in Baltimore. The Season for the BSO at Strathmore begins with a Prevue Concert Sept. 10 with Alsop and Ilyich Rivas sharing conducting of a program of Prokofiev, Mahler, Bach, Schumann, John Williams, Mozart, Barber and Shostakovich.
There’s also the National Philharmonic Orchestra, which kicks off its season at Strathmore with Mahler’s “Resurrection” on Oct. 9, under the direction of Piotr Gajewski.
Strathmore also partners with the Washington Performing Arts Society. Its own programming will feature the celebration of the guitar in a season-long guitar festival which will include performances by world-class guitarists in all fields: classical, jazz, country, acoustic.
A highlight early on will be an appearance by the legendary songwriter, actor, country/folk musician and guitarist, the gritty Kris Kristofferson (Nov. 13).
Also on tap in the fall: The Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Callaway sisters (Ann Hampton and Liz) in “Boom,” a look at the 70-year jazz career of Brubeck, on his way to being an American icon.
On Nov. 14, the Washington Post will hold an intimate conversation with today’s most enduring creator of musicals, Stephen Sondheim. On Oct. 7, classical guitars Paul Galbraith will appear. “Asperia,” the soprano and lute duo will appear Sept. 23.
The renowned Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Jonathan Bliss on piano will present an all-Mozart program at the Music Center Nov. 3.
It’s as big day for family entertainment on Oct. 30, when Grammy Award winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marx will present their 25th Annual Family Music party.
The Washington Performing Arts Society
The WPAS has been around for 40 years, providing education opportunities for young people and performance showcases for renowned world artists at theaters all over the Washington area.
The WPAS Men, Women and Children of Gospel choir will perform at the Arts on Foot Festival at Seventh and F Streets on Sept. 11 at 4 p.m. The festival, by the bye, offers a great opportunity for a sampling of many of the area’s performance arts groups. For more information, go to www.artsonfoot.org.
Renowned and glamorous violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall Nov. 13.
Sweet Honey in the Rock, the locally nurtured gospel-folk-blues group of long standing, will perform at the Warner Theatre Oct. 23.
Ravi Shankar, now famous not only as an iconic sitar player, but also the father of two famous performing offspring (Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones), will be at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall Nov. 7.
Yo-Yo Ma will appear at the Kennedy Center Oct. 21.
Pianist Andras Schiff will perform at the Music Center at Strathmore Oct. 20.
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Through the Opera Glass
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Washington Concert Opera
The Washington Concert Opera opens its 2010-2011 season on Oct. 24 with Francesco Celia’s “Adriana Lecouvreur.” WCO Artistic Director Anthony Walker will conduct the performance at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium.
Featured performers are James Valenti as Maurizio, Mary Elizabeth Williams as Adriana, Elizabeth Bishop as Princess de Bouillon and Donnie Ray Albert as Michonnet.
Walker has headed the Washington Concert Opera since 2002, makes his New York Metropolitan Opera Debut in 2011, conducting Gluck’s “Orleo.”
Washington National Opera
Five productions, all new to Washington, mix with a grand old tradition in the Washington National Opera’s 2010-2011 season, its 55th.
Under the leadership of General Director Placido Domingo, the season begins Sept. 11 with Verdi’s dramatic “Un Ballo in Maschera” (“The Masked Ball”), a soaring, powerful story of forbidden love and revenge which takes place during the 18th-century reign of Sweden’s King Gustavus III.
In this opera, King falls for Best Friend’s wife, a not unfamiliar theme in opera and theater. Best Friend plots his murder and things move forward. But it’s a Verdi opera, which means the kind of musical embellishment that heightens every emotion in the story, with soaring orchestration and straight-to-the-heart melodies.
In Europe, this opera startled many patrons at a time when most of the countries and empires of Europe were ruled by kings and emperors and a plot about a king’s murder did not sit well with the ruling class. This prompted the setting to be moved to America, where there are no kings. Some productions still do the American version.
Tenor Salvatore Licitra returns to Washington in the role of King Gustavus, sharing the part with American Frank Porretta. Also in the double-cast production are sopranos Tamara Wilson and Irene Theorin, and baritones Luca Salsi and Timothy Mix. James Robinson directs, and Daniele Callegari conducts the WNO orchestra. The production runs through Sept. 25.
October will feature Richard Strauss’ still astonishing operatic telling of the tale of “Salome,” with the gifted Francesca Zambello returning to direct Deborah Voigt in her WNO debut. Voigt is considered by many critics to be “one of the great Strauss interpreters of all time” and the definitive Salome of her generation. Strauss shocked the world with his opera, which includes a score that’s highlighted by “Dance of the Seven Veils”, as is, of course, any version of the Salome tale British tenor Richard Berkeley-Steele is Herod. In this story, Salome is a temptress who not only turns heads but causes at least one to fall. (October 7-23.)
That’s not all. The WNO will again offer a free simulcast, this year at the Washington Nationals Park, called “Opera in the Outfield” on Sept. 19, of “Un Ballo in Maschera.”
This season also inaugurates the Placido Domingo Celebrity Series, a concert series featuring opera’s most exciting popular stars. They’ll be performing their best-known works alongside the WNO orchestra. The concerts will start in the spring with Peruvian Tenor Juan Diego Florez on Feb. 11 and Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel on March 12.
“Series O,” a specially discounted subscription series for audiences 35 and under, is also being initiated this year as a way to bring younger audiences to the opera.
The National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors will be held Oct. 22 at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, with the WNO as the producing partner for the awards ceremony and concert.
The spring portion of the season includes “Madame Butterfly,” Gluck’s “Iphigenie en Touride” and Donizett’s “Don Pasquale.” [gallery ids="99189,103299,103310,103306,103303" nav="thumbs"]
Musical Magnate Anthony Lyn tackles ‘Mary Poppins’
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It’s fair to say that “Mary Poppins” (the Sir Cameron Mackintosh/Disney-produced hit musical now ensconced at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House) has pretty much engulfed Anthony Lyn’s life.
Lyn is the tour director of the popular musical version of the old Disney movie musical which won Julie Andrews an Oscar as the super-cali— well, you know — nanny, and is the current director of the long-running (four years) Broadway production. For Lyn, it’s Mary here and Mary there pretty much all the time.
So what else is there?
“Well, I did just get married recently,” Lyn offered in a telephone interview. “There’s that.”
After congratulating Lyn, we wanted to know just what a tour director does. In the past, we knew that a stage director has a big part in the casting, runs rehearsals and then sits in the back of the theater biting his or her nails on opening night.
That doesn’t apply to Lyn or any tour director of major Broadway musical bonanzas, where you’re more like a visiting CEO visiting the plant regularly, changing this, overseeing that, making sure things are running properly and that the product is fresh and appealing.
“I’m here in Washington right now because as these kinds of shows go, with kids in them and all, we’re doing a bit of recasting, adding new performers,” he said. “The thing about kids is that they grow, they change.”
Lyn has a certain kind of show business in his veins, to put in British terms. He’s Welsh (the Lyn without the extra “n” says so), and that puts him in good theater company: think Catharine Zeta-Jones, Richard Burton and so on. He cut his theater teeth at Swansea Grand Theater in Wales, where they remember him fondly on the company’s Web site, charting his career from doing pantomimes to hosting musical shows to appearing with Zeta-Jones in a Swansea production of “The Sound of Music.”
From there, he went on to performing on cruise ships, getting a part in a production of “Anything Goes” with Elaine Paige, and landing a role in “Les Miserables.” That’s about the time he got interested in directing and talked his way into a job with Cameron Mackintosh. Next up: an assistant to Julie Taymor, who was directing the spectacularly successful “The Lion King” for Disney.
“She is just an amazing talent,” he says. “You have never seen such an eye, such creativity, it was an absolutely wonderful experience for me to work with the likes of her.”
It wasn’t that far removed from “Mary Poppins,” which now occupies a big part of his life.
“I know what critics think of Disney, that it’s this big business, giant corporation, heartless bottom-line and hokey stuff,” he says. “It’s nothing like that. You go to the Disney offices in New York, and it’s all theater folk like me.”
Still, the logistics of doing a national tour of “Mary Poppins” can be problematic.
“Everywhere you go is different,” he says. “Some of that has to do with the size of the venue. The theater in St. Louis, for instance, has 4,000-plus seats, and that requires a different level of projection. There are casting changes all of the time — actors sign a contract for a certain length of time and leave — the children, the sets, the physical opportunities and constraints. I think being a performer myself before has helped me in what I do. I know what it’s like, the whole touring thing, the changes, the pace, all of that.
“You know what it is about ‘Mary Poppins’?” he asks. “In all honesty, the show is full of heart, it’s about change and the parents, and the children, about that bond and imagination. I don’t mind saying so: it moves me still. You stay with a show long enough, all that coming and going, you form attachments. Every time there’s a cast change, there are goodbyes. You get to know people.
“It’s a funny thing that happens sometimes when there’s changes. An actor, even a child actor, will have their own views of things and they’ll make suggestions, and often it fits. You learn to listen. That way, you make sure things don’t get stale or change radically. I remember a long absence once, and an actor was playing his part in a way that changed everything. I didn’t recognize the show.”
Most of the time, “Mary Poppins” is a way of life for Lyn. A life a long way off from the Swansea Grand.
“Mary Poppins” runs at the Kennedy Center Opera House through Aug. 22.
“The Merchant of Venice”–Ethan McSweeny
June 29, 2011
•Even at 40, Ethan McSweeny looks too young to have done everything he’s done, to be, well, Ethan McSweeny.
He’s casually dressed, has a thin beard which still can’t prevent him from looking boyish, looks nonchalantly handsome, and is finishing up some salad after winding down a rehearsal for his production of “The Merchant of Venice” at the Washington Shakespeare Company in the Harman Center, which will open officially three days later.
He’s just said good bye to his parents, Dorothy McSweeny – the emeritus chair of the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities – and Bill McSweeny – a retired oil man, Kennedy Center trustee and journalist – along with his 7-year-old nephew, who sat in on the rehearsal. Both are prominent figures in the Washington cultural scene.
McSweeny is no longer quite a boy wonder, or wunderkind, as he was referred to back in his 20’s when he not only took a new play called “Never the Sinner” at Signature Theater to a successful Off Broadway run, but directed an all-star cast of theater pros in “The Best Man” on Broadway, making him the first director under 30 to direct a play on Broadway.
“I’m sure that rankled some people,” McSweeny admits. He doesn’t lack for confidence, and his background, which he has described as privileged, did not hurt, but there’s also no question that he’s earned his considerable accomplishments by way of a major talent, a restless imagination, a tireless gift and love for the work.
This year, he’s been especially busy with back-to-back directions of “A Time to Kill,” a world premiere stage play which just ended its run at Arena Stage, and “The Merchant of Venice.”
“You didn’t have to travel much,” he quips. “There was actually an overlap where we were doing final rehearsals for “Kill” and first preparation for “Merchant.”
He’s right at home here, of course, because although he lives in Brooklyn now, he’s a D.C. hometown boy.
“We lived across the street from the Kennedy Center,” McSweeny says. “When I was little, they [my parents] took me to see the opera ‘Boris Gudonov.’ I didn’t understand what was going on, but I was impressed, enchanted, and I think in a way that was it for me.”
He went to school at St. Albans or as he says, “survived it,” but found his true vocation early, becoming the first alumnus of Columbia’s undergraduate theatre department. He came home in 1993 to train under the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Michael Kahn, becoming his unofficial right-hand-man. He was all of 22. “Michael was a mentor, and I could not think of someone who affected me more,” McSweeny says.
Everywhere he goes – the celebrated Guthrie Theater, Broadway, the Chautauqua Theatre in New York State where he served as co-director (with Vivienne Benesch) – his style, his interests and his ideas are eclectic. You never quite know what you’re likely to get. He can go from “Romeo and Juliet” to Shaw to new, boundary-breaking plays.
While he’s built a huge reputation and accumulated over 60 directing credits, he’s obviously happy to be here where it all began and continues unabated. He did a clean, abundantly joyous and passionate production of “Ion” at the Shakespeare Theatre, a raw version of “The Persians” which echoed like a bell in the midst of the Iraq war, and production of Shaw’s “Major Barbara” that was a hallmark of clarity and singular acting achievements.
And now, “The Merchant of Venice,” a play that draws directors (and actors) like trembling moths to a flame. Many get burned and few do it perfectly. Because there’s no standard, the play is not only confounding, but changes for each audience and generation.
“It’s about money,” I suggest. “Of course it’s about money,” he says. “It’s ALL about money. It’s about what’s valuable to people, everything has a value tag here.”
So naturally, McSweeny set the play in 20th century America – specifically the Lower East Side of New York during the 1920s – teeming with immigrants who are trying to get a slice of the American dream. “To me the period and the setting resonate, the crash lies right ahead in time, but nobody sees it coming,” McSweeny says.
“It’s funny, it’s the first Shakespeare play I’ve done here, after all this time,” he says. And the most difficult.
McSweeney’s wide intellectual range is reflected in his family—his sister Terrell McSweeny is Vice President Joe Biden’s domestic policy adviser, for instance—where politics, culture, business and even sports are never mutually exclusive or trivial matters.
There might even be a critic lurking in the family – his 7-year-old nephew was asked how he liked what he saw in the theater. He gave it some thought.
“It’s not ‘Frog and Toad,’” he finally said.
It’s not. But think what Ethan McSweeny might do with “Frog and Toad.”