Performance

Gary Tischler • September 12, 2013

It isn’t easy portraying an icon, especially when that icon is the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Just ask actor Bowman Wright.

Wright stars as King in playwright Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop,” now in the Kreeger Theater at Arena’s Stage’s Mead Center for American Theater through May 12. It is a play in which Hall imagines King’s last night on earth in a hotel room in Memphis, Tenn., just before his assassination in 1968.

“Let me say this first, I feel I’ve been blessed,” said Wright of playing King during a telephone interview while the play was still in rehearsal, heading toward previews. “I’ve been blessed to be able to do this play, which is an amazing work. And, of course, you feel a tremendous responsibility in some ways to do him honor and justice, because he’s such an important historical figure. I did a lot of reading, his writings, his biography. And we’re in Washington, where there’s the memorial and where he gave his ‘I have a Dream Speech.’ ”

“The Mountaintop” imagines the icon as a human being, alone, except for an attractive maid whom he encounters in his room. “Sometimes, people want icons to be icons and not to be quite so human,” Wright said. “But this play looks at the man, the leader, the human being aware of all of his roles and responsibilities, and his life as a man.”

Making its debut in London, “The Mountaintop” opened in New York with no less than Samuel Jackson in the role of King and Angela Bassett as the maid, now being performed by Joaquina Kalukango.

“Well, that’s something to consider, I suppose.” Wright said talking about Jackson. “You have to do the best you can and not worry about things like that.

“I think what Katori has done is to consider all of Dr. King—not just the rhetoric, the visionary, the leadership, the historic figure who is revered all over the world,” Wright said. “You know, sometimes I feel his heart. It’s what we have to consider, how big hearts do the right thing, and that you have to do right by him. We are not doing a documentary here.”

In “The Mountaintop,” King has just given his other famous speech—the wrenching, full-of-foreboding “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech and now, tired and alone, he smokes, he goes to the bathroom and relates and reacts to the maid.”

Variety Magazine called the play “soul-stirring,” and it appears to be a remarkable play by a young writer who is an inaugural resident playwright of Arena Stage’s American Voices New Play Institute and who hails from Memphis. Hall is the author of numerous plays including “Hurt Village,” “Remembrance” and “Saturday Night/Sunday Morning.” Director Robert O’Hara’s own play, “Antebellum,” won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play after being performed at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.

Wright has had difficult parts before, playing the older brother who has taken a job in an ongoing Lincoln show where the president is assassinated every night in “Topdog/Underdog” at the Marin Theatre Company and played Walter Lee Younger in “A Raisin in the Sun” at the Geva Thaetre Center and Cory in August Wilson’s “Fences” at the Actors Theatre in Louisville.

“By far, this has been the most challenging part I’ve ever done,” Wright said. “And the most rewarding.”

Gary Tischler •

Just when you thought you had gotten tired of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Mary Todd’s seamstress Elizabeth Keckley and Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” along comes Tazewell Thompson’s deeply affecting new play “Mary T. and Lizzy K.” And you are moved all over again.

Watching Naomi Jacobson as Mary Todd Lincoln, Sameerah Luqmaan Harris as Keckley, Thomas Adrian Simpson as Lincoln as well as Joy Jones as Ivy, Keckley’s youthful assistant at the Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage makes you at times think of the omni-present film, but it is, of course, hardly like watching the movie.

Thompson, a director at Arena Stage for many years, has done something almost unimaginable: he has re-imagined, re-shaped our views, pictures and feelings about these familiar and iconic people who loom so large in our memory’s imaginings without traumatizing long-held feelings. “Mary T. and Lizzy K.” is a labor of digging deeper, closer to the heart and bone about not only the history-held people but also our notions about them and the larger shadows of slavery, race, obligation and married love and marriage, intimacy and friendship. This production becomes for the audience something personal and intimate—we all have our feelings about these subjects and these people, certainly Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd, singular and together, and certainly race. All of us will see on stage some part of our joys and wounds and confusions of thought.

The relationship between Mary and Lizzie seems to front and center here. The two have, in a way, as much an intimate relationship as the Lincolns did. No one seems more intimate than the woman who pulls, pushes, contours and shapes a dress to the body, which is what Keckley did for all of the Lincoln’s White House years. She did so well enough that she herself gained some measure of fashion fame that was available in that day.

We see Mary Todd Lincoln in the drab, prison-like clothes of an asylum patient or inmate and Keckley, splendid in outbursting dress, has come to visit and to demand payment from Mary for all her years of work dressing the first lady, for which she was never recompensed.

This is in some ways a time machine play, a memory play. Soon enough, we are back on the night—victory won, war is over—that the Lincolns are preparing to go Ford’s Theatre. In the scene, they are unaware of Lincoln’s last night alive. There are fittings, there is Keckley’s assistant Ivy affectingly telling the story of her rape and there is Mary’s boiling jealousy over one, any and all.

The narrative—really in some ways a series of soliloquies, long stories and arguments and exchanges—returns infrequently to the asylum, to the making of accounts, to the ties that bind between Keckley and Mary Todd where even arguments over fashion and style can bring out wounding words.

When Lincoln—performed with a burst of gusto initially by Thomas Avery Simpson (he was Colonel Pickering in the recent Arena production of “My Fair Lady”)—makes his first appearance the play threatens for a moment to become “Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd and Lizzie K and Ivy.” He appears to be not only trying to win over all three women but the audience as well.

When Lincoln and Naomi Jacobson in a bravura performance as Mary launch into a knock-down, drag-out brawl—very much like that between Daniel Day Lewis and Sally Field in the film—it is just as shocking, only more so, because they threaten to involve us, spill off the stage like fighters in a ring.

But the steady rock throughout these proceedings—it’s more than an hour-and-a-half without intermission—is Sameerah Luqmaan Harris as Keckley. She has horror stories and points of view and losses, but she brings them to the forefront obliquely with grace and tart, dark humor. Even when she is in a scene merely watching and listening, you always sense her presence. Check it to see what is happening in that intense but serene and beautiful face. This woman is shy and very judicious with her emotions. She is watchful and observing at all times. When she breaks out with her view of heaven, it’s like a burst of sunlight bathing us all. It’s an accomplished performance—accomplished with few obvious tools.

If you’ve seen the movie “Lincoln,” this play will once again show up the obvious—that being here is different than being at the multiplex or watching a DVD. However brilliant, for instance, the performance of Daniel Day Lewis, it is locked up forever. At Arena, this Lincoln seems to be emerging before our eyes. You become in the theater a witness, not a consumer.

Thompson writes beautifully, with no fear of poetry, and with great compassion for human suffering—even the thoroughly combative and paranoid Mary Todd gets her glorious due here. The play is aided and abetted by Donald Eastman’s set which is at once functional and contains hidden wonders. Tt’s a place of starkness with left-over physical discarded memories—a trunk, curtains and boxes and briefcases, containing the stuff for dressmaking and discovery.

Wherever you sit during the course of this play, it seemed to me and felt to me, that you were only an emotion away from wanting to be a little closer, to help them, as they try to stop the story from moving forward to its appointment and to its opening scene. [gallery ids="101222,145137,145134" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

There was some head scratching in the seats when the Kennedy Center made Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar’s “The Guardsman” its 2013 centerpiece theater production.

The play—written in 1910 by Molnar, who is also known for plays such as “Liliom” which became the basis for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel,” had a reputation as something of a warhorse, date and rarely produced, famous mostly as a popular vehicle in the 1920s for the star couple of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

Well, thank God for this war horse, and thank the Kennedy Center for letting us enjoy it in unexpected ways. Thank translator Richard Nelson, who saw the depth and theater magic in the original, and director Gregory Mosher, who staged the newly reconstructed play with flair, panache, and an ear and eye for the world of the theater and those who inhabit it. Especially, thank the actors who may not be all that familiar to theatergoers but who manage the difficult multi-tasking the parts require, by making us see and appreciate not only the nuances in the play, but its heart-breaking dangers.

Of course, “The Guardsman” could have been a door-slamming, laughter-inducing comedic blast—and it remains, still, very funny, but it’s the kind of laughter that’s always loaded with the potential for disaster for the characters and brings an acute tension to the proceedings.

The plot sounds labored—a couple, identified only as the actor and the actress, have reached an impasse in their marriage which the actor fears has gone stale. Now, as we see the two of them bicker and bite at each other in a turn-of-the-century drawing room, a nuanced air of something-about-to-happen has entered their lives. The actor—handsome, excitable, fretful—has imagined that his wife, cool, beautiful, famously restless—may be growing tired of him or falling out of love with him. He confides in their friend, the critic, who has also always been in love with the actress, that he thinks she’s looking for something, perhaps a military type, a “guardsman.” “I’ve seen him,” he tells his friend. “How do you know that?” he’s asked. “Because it’s me,” he replies.

So begins the plot and ploy—the actor will impersonate the guardsman and try to seduce his wife. If he fails, he will “be the happiest of men.” But if not, well: disaster, tragedy, heartbreak, the end of love. But it’s also “the role of my life.” And so he proceeds, popping by in full popinjay regalia at the house (the actor is supposed to be away on a tour), and then pushing forward by visiting the actress at an opera performance (of “Madame Butterfly”) where she’s gone, with her long-time assistant she calls “mother,” who’s always disapproved of the actor.

What ensues, is remarkable, a portrait of two people who have engaged in a passionate high-stakes game where everything matters painfully so on several levels. It’s a kind of war which opens with a big battle and works its way to a kind of irresolute resolution that is perfect for our times. These two are capable of great passions and loves—they’re, after all, gifted and famous actors on the stage when that really meant something. They love themselves, they love each other—maybe—and they love, perhaps more than anything, what they do, which is acting.

Here is Finn Wittrock as the actor—grandly afraid, unsure of what will happen, blustering with big feelings and big gestures. Here is Sarah Wayne Callies, so cool, if not cold, a hot iceberg floating in uncertain waters. Here are the actor and the actress, keenly observed by Shuler as the critic who has a stake in this uncertain game.

This is, of course, what actors do every night—they lie to us by making us believe what they’re doing is real and important every time out, that it’s as fresh as an honest kiss, which is what the actor wants from his wife.

If you’re interested in theater, you should go see “The Guardsman,” and watch what happens. The audience, I noticed, after a quiet beginning, steadily got into the grand deception as if they were at the racetrack with something to win or lose. When the couple kissed at one point, you could hear a voice in the back yell, “Yes!”

I second that emotion.

“The Guardsman” runs at the Eisenhower Theater in the Kennedy Center through June 25. [gallery ids="119161,119167" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Back in 1985, Peter Sellars, who was director of the long defunct National Theater at the Kennedy Center, created something of a stir with his production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” which included an all-star cast headed by Colleen Dewhurst, Kevin Spacey, Kelly McGillis and Paul Winfield, among others.

The problem was not in the stars, but with other things: a shrill score by Scriabin, a set that included a Mark Rothko-like backdrop and a prop—a droopy stuffed animal-like seagull, containing the play’s major metaphor—were among the controversies of the production, not a first for this sort of thing for Sellars. People even argued about what the meaning of changing the title from “The Seagull” to “A Seagull” might be.

Twenty-eight years later, there’s a new take and mash on Chekhov’s masterpiece by playwright Aaron Posner at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre. How’s this for a title change? “Stupid F—–g Bird.” You know what we mean to write.

Posner, best known here as a director, has taken Chekhov’s play as a kind of starting point, muse and model, to play with, to send up, and blow up at times, taking care to let you know that this is a play-specific play, if you will. He uses the specific play and its author to say a few things about how we live, create and play and love today, very much today. Along the way, his characters have a lot to say about performance and theater and art, but appear as in the original, befuddled, wounded and totally befuddled about love, the who and why and why not that are as destructive to an artist or playwright, as writer’s block.

“SFB”—this acronym will have to do—is a minefield of a play. It makes you metaphorically speaking afraid to put your foot and your feet down because your expectations—reasonable ones, one and all—are continually blowing up in your face. Posner is mindful of Chekhov’s soul and his creation—a series of the glasses-and-beard large images of him fill the walls on stage—but he’s hardly kissing butt in homage here. He’s created the same characters—some are omitted—as in the original, and they behave in the same ways and have to cope with the same triangulations of love. But they are also in the here-and-now, most of the time—the original is not exactly being copied, it acts as an echo.

So, here again is the frustrated, rebellious young son of the supremely regal but nervous famous actress. Here is the innocent but provokingly beautiful Nina. Here’s the why-am-I-old uncle and brother. Here is the famous, somewhat cynical and attractive writer. Here is the mismatched but settling couple. Here are Cam, Emma, Doyle, Nina, Sorn, Mash, and Dev. Here, briefly, fulfilling his role as metaphor is the SFB.

“SFB” both operate on two levels: it’s a play about art and the artist in society and the search for new forms, and it’s a play about the crying-out-loud-painful difficulties of love. In addition, “SFB” is about theater and plays today and turns almost into a bullfight with the audience. The characters step right through the third wall and make the audience play with the play or participate. At one point, Com, the young son of the famous actor stops and turns to the audience and asks for advice on what to do with his desperate love for Nina, who’s fallen for Doyle, the famous writer who is also the lover of Com’s mom. After some hesitation, they give him such advice as “ignore her,” “forget about her” and so on.

These sorts of things keep happening. Masha, (the miraculous Kimberly Gilbert), sings a song while playing the ukulele about modern life (it apparently sucks) in a sweet, knowing voice, or the characters sit facing the audience, explaining what each wants, or we’re offered an aftermath roundup characteristic of television melodramas. This is heady, affirming stuff—not exactly new—and it makes co-conspirators out of the audience. Yet it sometimes co-authors, always an unpredictable thing.

The Woolly crowd—and director Howard Shalwitz—thrive in this sort of thing. It’s like their very own private theatrical swimming pool and sauna. You can’t get hurt when you have the likes of Gilbert—who always manages to wring her own sort of poetry out of a matter-of-fact delivery that is secretly and deeply weird. Consider Masha, Cody Mitchell, who makes self-satisfaction seem warmly attractive as Doyle, the always savy Kate Eastwood-Norris as Emma, the diva mother/actress, Katie DeBuys, who adds an extra-step depth to Nina, and Darius Pierce (as Dev who married Mash, who loves Com) and Rick Foucheux as the wondering Sorn. If you get irritated with Brad Koed as Con, it’s because the part is written that way. Con is the wounded art revolutionary as whiner, both in the romantic and artistic sense.

It’s tempting—because, for instance, that Sellars production of “A Seagull” was a deeply affecting one to me—to feel offended with Posner’s rough handling but also sometimes awe filled respect of Chekhov. Instead, I think “SFB” is a kind of fantastic, giddy sea voyage, always half a second away from shipwreck. It’s smart. It’s funny and wise, knowing and fearless, most of the time. But you have to wonder, too, if it’s a little too smart. All this inventive, interactive staging, this reliance on the colloquial—as in “Start the f—–g play” or “This sucks”—seems a little too easy. It’s both deft and anarchic at once. We’re seeing both Chekhov’s and Posner’s “Seagull,” one never far from the other. In a way, “The Seagull” is a kind of safe harbor for “SFB.” You can always return home and be moved.

Jordan Hellmuth •

It all started at a poker game. Leroy Justice front man, Jason Gallagher, went to a poker game in Manhattan’s Lower East Side with his brother-in-law. From then on, Gallagher “kind of became the Neil Young to their Crazy Horse.” Despite the evolution of Leroy Justice’s sound, with each change up it “always sounded like us … like Leroy Justice,” Gallagher said.

Returning to D.C., Gallagher and the band hope to reunite with former band member, Michael Kelly, who stars in “House of Cards.”

“I think we’re just figuring out how to get our music to people,” Gallagher said. “I think we can win people over if we can get our music to new people. That’s why we play shows.”

What’s next for Leroy Justice? The five-member, New York-based band will be making its way down to D.C. club, DC9 on June 20 for the Monk Czech Release Party (Dominion Brewing & Dawson’s Liquor Beer Collaboration).

“If you haven’t seen us live, you haven’t seen us,” explained Gallagher. “If you haven’t seen us live, you don’t know Leroy.”

For ticket information for Leroy Justice’s show at DC9, visit www.dcnine.com

Gary Tischler •

When it comes to composing music, the 61-year-old British composer George Fenton has done just about everything—composing music for films, plays, television, even in his youth slinging a guitar in a rock band.

But when he talks about his work on “Frozen Planet,” for which he composed the score, you get the idea that the whole experience—it’s part of three BBC Naturalist Film Documentaries which include “Blue Planet” and “Planet Earth—has utterly moved him.

Fenton will be conducting the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center Friday, June 28, while “Frozen Planet,” a two-hour distillation of the multi-part BBC Series will be viewed giant-screen style by the audience.

“It’s quite an experience, I must say,” said Fenton, who is a veteran of more than 70 films, including Richard Attenborough’s “Gandhi” and “Cry Freedom,” as well as “The Fisher King” and “Groundhog Day.” “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done.” He has worked on a number of wildlife television programs for BBC, which marked his entry into big budget wildlife documentaries.

“It’s something new, certainly, but I feel, as I’ve gone along, that it’s very important work,” he said. “I went with the film-makers to the Arctic Circle for a time on location, and it was a revelation. It’s overwhelming, profound, the life forms, the rhythm of life there, the grand sculptures of ice and landscape, the creatures there. And, while I’m no expert, you get a real sense of something passing, too. You know the icecaps are melting. You’re keenly aware of what’s happening.”

Fenton’s work—looking at some clips gives you a fair sense of it—it’s at turns epic, sweeping, playful (when the penguins make their appearance as the crowd pleasers they are), moving, and sometimes, you get a sense of the delicate and dangerous balance in the arctic worlds that exists today.

“Yes, there is a sense of loss, because of the awareness of the disappearance of species,” he said. “But the feeling you truly get is one of awe and power.”

Being there, conducting in the pit, also lets Fenton appreciate just what these concerts are, which is a new kind of performance and film experience for audience. “I would say it’s a new form, in a way, because it mixes music and film together, but in a way that’s unique,” he said. “In a concert hall, people tend to still and listen with rapt attention, focused. In a movie theater, the music is full of cues for audiences, emotional cues even as the audience’s attention is trained on the film. In a setting like this, the audience feels more free to become involved, and I think the music is a key to that. For example, the audience is vocally thrilled and responsive to the animals. They laugh at the penguins. They’re impressed by the whales and polar bears. It makes for a unique experience, for myself and the orchestra.”

Writing music for films, Fenton feels, has changed over the decades. But he’s a deep admirer of the old Hollywood composers—like Max Steiner, famous for “Casablanca” and Korngold for “The Adventures of Robin” and later the hugely prolific John Williams, Steven Spielberg’s composer of choice.

“The early composers worked in the old Hollywood studio system and, of course, worked on all sorts of films,” Fenton said. “But the best of them—if you listen to their work—they wrote music that could stand on its own. I was inspired by them, and I’m a huge admirer of Williams and Henry Mancini.” Fenton also worked with director David Frears on television and in films like “Dangerous Liaisons,” “Hero” and “Mary Reilly.”

For “Blue Planet,” Fenton won the Ivor Novello, BAFTA and Emmy awards for Best Television scores, which was then followed by “Blue Planet in Concert.”

“We’ve taken the concept in venues all over the world,” Fenton said. “It’s been an exhilarating experience.

+++++

“Frozen Planet” is part of the National Symphony Orchestra season at Wolf Trap. Other season offerings include:

“Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration”—a celebration of the work and compositions of legendary and late leader of the Grateful Dead, with vocalist and guitarist Warren Haynes, June 26, 8:15 p.m.

“Carmina Burana”—the NSO and soloists from the Wolf Trap Opera Company present Carl Orff’s choral masterpiece along with Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” July 12, 8:15 p.m.

Also:

“Video Games Live: Bonus Round!”—fusion of big screen game visuals and live music, July 13.

“La Traviata”—the Wolf Trap Opera Company, the NSO and the Washington Chorus join forces for this grand opera, July 19.

“1812 Overture”—Tchaikovsky’s great work, along with Rachmaninoff’s “Second Piano Concerto” by piano prodigy Benjamin Grosvenor, July 26.

“America the Beautiful”—featured in “Ansel Adams: America,” composed by Chris and Dave Brubeck with Adams’ photographs on big screens, along with works by Copland, Gershwin and John Williams, July 27.

“Wicked Divas”—diva show-stoppers from “Titanic,” “Wicked” “Phantom of the Opera” and other works, performed by veteran Broadway soloists and the NSO; directed by NSO Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke, July 28.

“Singing in the Rain”—HD version of the classic Hollywood musical shown on big screen, with Gene Kelly, Debby Reynolds, Donald O’Connor and the incomparable Cyd Charisse with the NSO playing the orchestral score, August 3.

Georgetowner •

On the phone, you can still hear a little bit of a few accents in Mackenzie Warren’s voice—a little touch of South Carolina, where she’s from, some Oklahoma where she graduated from the University of Oklahoma and a touch of high-energy show biz, which may be due from touring, tapping and performing over the United States and Canada in the national touring company of Cole Porter’s audience-pleasing-and-wowing musical “Anything Goes.”

Not only is Warren on her first national tour, she’s understudying the lead role of Reno Sweeney, the brash, glamorous headliner for this dizzying musical comedy with music and lyrics by the inimitable Porter, a part played with pitch-perfect razzle dazzle by star Rachel York.

The company has settled in for one of its lengthier stays—from June 11 through July 7—at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House which gives Warren and the rest of the company a chance—here and there—to take in the sights and sounds of the nation’s capital.

“I guess you could say this is my big break,” Warren said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity, an amazing opportunity. I’ve never had a chance to travel much, but with this tour we’re going zig-zagging across the country to places I’ve never seen before—from California to Minnesota. We’re flying all over the place, sometimes just for a few days, sometimes longer like here which is almost a month. It’s a great experience—settling in, doing the laundry, always getting ready. It’s really exciting.”

Plus, she’s been on stage doing Reno Sweeney already—“In Tuscon, Ariz., for a two or three times,” she said. “Honestly, that first night, I don’t remember what I did, it’s like a blur. But you get over the nerves, you stop being scared, and you settle in and in get comfortable in what you’re doing. And it’s just the biggest thing in the world. Those two numbers we’re you’re going from “Anything Goes” and all that tapping, it’s just an electric thing. There’s the break and then you swing into “Blow, Gabriel Blow.”

“Two of us are understudies, as well as being part of the ensemble,” Warren told us. “When you’re traveling so much and spending this much time together, you become like a family. We’re all professionals now, but you’re sharing a big experience, too, helping, competing, being together. Rachel York is just amazing to be around. She’s so terrific in this, and she has her daughter along on the road. Her name is Olivia. She’s two years old, and all of us girls spoil her rotten.”

Told the tap dancing in the production is just deliriously fun, she replied, “Isn’t it great? I have been tapping, I think, since I was 12. It’s just something that I love doing. It makes people happy. It looks easy, but it isn’t—all that practice. It’s tricky. Your upper body is swinging, in rhythm, while your feet and legs are moving really fast. It’s not easy, but it’s great.”

Warren, while she’s from South Carolina, is an Oklahoma Sooner through and through. “Truthfully—what I liked about OU was that it had a top-notch performing and theatrical arts program,” she said. “And it had a great football team. You can’t get better than that.” At Oklahoma, she was in a university production of “Anything Goes” along with Aaron Umsted, an OU graduate and friend, who—lucky them—is with the company understudying the part of Billy Crocker, the leading man in the show. “It’s great to be doing this with him,” she said. “It’s having a friend right at the start.” Warren and Umsted both had to take over the lead roles during for a performance during the Los Angeles part of the run in December.

If you look at the road schedule for the show, it’s like one gigantic road trip to everywhere USA, a genuine American spot of show biz and Broadway sparkle and glam traveling across the land. It brings with it the resonant glow of American musical theatre, done by the kind of folks who probably dreamt about being in a show like this for years.

“All these names, Ethel Merman or Patti LuPone, you read about people like that,” Warren said. “So, we’re all going behind some big footsteps.”

“Anything Goes” stops in November in at the Peace Center in Greenville, S.C. “It’s close to my home,” Warren said. “My mom’s coming. I guess it will be Mackenzie fan club night,” she said laughing.
The national tour company began back in October 2012 and will eventually wind down in November. For Warren, and the rest of the company from stars to ensemble, it will have been a real American journey, accompanied by the sound of tapping and many hands clapping.

Nico Dodd •

For a band that has been performing together for 36 years, it might be easy for every concert to become a trip down memory lane. Not so the case for New Orleans’s Dirty Dozen Brass Band, which put on the most engaging and energetic show I’ve seen at the Hamilton Live.

The stage was set with fog machines and club-style lights, and the front row of tables closest to the stage was removed to create a dance floor that was densely populated through the band’s two sets.

Dirty Dozen used a a huge range of sound to create some great polyrhythmic jamming, a New Orleans brass band with modern and creative vibe. The band is actually comprised of only seven musicians, each of whom is deft at his instruments. It’s not just progressive ideas; these guys can play. Sousaphone player Kirk Joseph uses a wah pedal to distort his sound and switched to beat-boxing later in the show. Baritone saxophonist Roger Lewis opened the second set with a reverb and echo effects to create a huge, rocking sound. At one point, Efrems Towns played trumpet and flugelhorn at the same time.

The night’s performance was co-presented by D.C. Jazz Fest and whetted my appetite for the upcoming festival in June. Dirty Dozen played at the first D.C. Jazz Fest in 2004. Festival founder and executive producer Charlie Fishman was there, taking in the first set from different vantage points around the venue. He simply said the show was “excellent.”

Covers included performances of James Brown’s “Get On Up” and the classic, “When The Saints Go Marching In,” with plenty of “Who dats?” thrown in for good measure.

Local musician Clarice Karter lent her pipes to one song and danced onstage with the group and other female fans for the band’s final number.

Dirty Dozen Brass Band will be playing its next concert on March 8 at the Manship Theatre in Baton Rouge, La. [gallery ids="101186,143183,143177,143166,143171" nav="thumbs"]

Nico Dodd •

The line was almost around the corner at the Hamilton Sunday night. At least one man was clamoring for a ticket to get into the Feb. 17 sold-out event, “The Bayou: Last Call.” For a night, the 14th Street venue was transformed into the Bayou, a beloved spot under the Whitehurst Freeway that hosted jazz and rock greats from Count Basie to U2 from 1953 to 1999.

The event was a benefit for the non-profit production of the documentary, “The Bayou: DC’s Killer Joint” [which premiered on Jan. 31 at AMC Loews Georgetown] (https://georgetowner.com/articles/2013/feb/04/bayou-documentary-premieres-georgetowns-amc-loews/). DJ Cerphe Colwell served as master of ceremonies for the evening.

Pianist John Eaton opened the night with two songs, followed by performances by a rotating group of musicians from a long list of bands which played on the Bayou’s stage, including the Cherry People, Cherry Smash, the Nighthawks, Tahoka, Orphan, the Nowhere Men, the Langley High Jazz Lab, Face Dancer, the Boyz, Diamond Alley, Wizzard, Razz, Downtown, Grande Hotel, Sinbad, King Dazzle, Bucyrus Erie, the Texas Chainsaw Horns, Witness, Jetz, the Hubcaps, the Michael Fath Group, Smashbox Symphony, Odyssey, Switched At Birth, the Nathez Trace Band, Trapezoid, the Paul Reed Smith Band and the Grimes Bros.

The set list included covers of Santana’s “Smooth” and, of course, the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic, “Born On The Bayou.”

With 600 persons attending, the place was standing room only. The concert was live streamed online for those not lucky enough to get a ticket—Henry Greene, who was looking for a ticket outside before the show, found his way in. The atmosphere was jovial, filled with long hair, leather jackets and folks puffing on e-cigarettes. There were many Washington music veterans like Pete Papageorge, who’s had a residency at Kelly’s Irish Times for more than 25 years. The space was donated by the Hamilton in support of the event.

“The Bayou: DC’s Killer Joint” will be shown on Maryland Public Television on Feb. 25, 9 p.m. Visit the Bayou documentary’s [website](http://www.mtitv.com/BayouBlog/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/BayouDocumentry) pages for more information.

Performance photos above are courtesy of photographer [David Blackwell](http://www.nationscapitol.com/). [gallery ids="101170,142482,142476,142469,142462,142456,142495,142449,142500,142443,142505,142435,142511,142488" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

For Michael Kaiser, this is a time of change.

He is in the home stretch of his long—and very successful—tenure as president of the Kennedy Center, a job he’s held since January 2001. His tenure has seen major changes and growth for what is, basically, the nation’s cultural center.

In an interview with the Georgetowner in his office, Kaiser, while in the midst of a per-usual hectic schedule of meetings and travel, waxed a little reflective about his work and about the future—along with his and the center’s and cultural institutions in general. It is a subject about which he has written often, spoken constantly in all 50 states and all over the world. There’s a legacy feeling to the conversation, sitting at a long table with Kaiser. (His latest book on the subject of arts management has just been released, “The Cycle,” written with Brett E. Egan.)

“It’s an odd feeling, sure,” Kaiser said. “I know that this will, in effect, be my last full season as president here, and I know that’s final. But I’ve been thinking about this for a long time in any case. I actually meant to do it sooner, but when we worked out this affiliation with the Washington National Opera in 2011, I felt I had to stay on to see the process through, and it’s been a gratifying thing to do. Once that was done, I knew I would not continue. This is, by far, the longest I’ve ever held a single job. So, In my mind, I think it was the right time. There is always room and a need for fresh thought, fresh vision, even different tastes.”

“I do feel at times a certain sadness,” he added. “I’ve been very lucky to work with tremendously hard-working, gifted colleagues and board members.” Kaiser has also been blessed with the presence of Kennedy Center Chairman of the Board David Rubenstein, a very active, philanthropic-minded, hands-on and generous chair.

It’s not like Kaiser is leaving next week—his contract is not up until December 2014—and it’s not like he’s doing a disappearing act. He remains at the center as head of his own creation, the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute, now called the DeVos Institute of Arts Management. It’s named after Dick and Betsy DeVos, who made a $22.5-million commitment to the institute, which provides advanced training for arts administrators and has advised individuals, organizations, foundations and governments.

Kaiser has been more than keen on the subject of how to run cultural organizations of all sizes, from the big (the Kennedy Center) to the small theater, still looking for a home. He has travelled, written books and held classes and symposiums on the subject. “There is a climate for the past few years now, ever since the [economic] crash that the arts are in a state of financial crisis,” he said. “To a real extent, that’s been true, but the answer from many groups has been to cut spending, to institute layoffs, to produce unadventurous, safe works. I think that approach is suicidal. I think you need to take care of your audiences, to put butts in the seats, as you always hear, and that’s certainly true, but you can’t abandon innovation, you haves to pursue it, to embrace it. You have to be smart in your choices. You don’t weaken your institution with short-term solutions.”
You wonder, of course, where he finds the time, not just to think, but to be a kind of John the Baptist for smart arts management and to be able to practice it at the same time.

“I don’t have very many days off,” Kaiser said. “I love the work, it’s who I am.” The suspicion exists that he doesn’t like to take days off.

Kaiser came to the Kennedy Center with a reputation as a turn-around artist, a game changer, having done just that when working with the Alvin Ailey Dance American Dance Theatre, the American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Opera House in London. He served as executive director for all three institutions.

“The Kennedy Center, when I came here, wasn’t in trouble.” he said. “But, in some quarters, it was considered to be somewhat staid and predictable in its programming. That it was not very exciting.”

That’s one thing that changed with Kaiser over the years, almost right at the start. “In terms of theater, it seemed mostly centered around road shows,” he said. “Creating productions from the ground up at the Kennedy Center—that’s what I wanted to do.”

And he did, right off the bat, with “The Sondheim Celebration,” a series of top-drawer productions of Stephen Sondheim musicals from “Company” and “Passion” to “A Little Night Music” and “Sweeney Todd,” orchestral programs, discussions and a marketing campaign that gained national attention, making the festival both a huge success and a harbinger of things to come.

“I had wanted to do something like that for a very long time, and I was prepared to go,” he said. The festival was the first of many festivals: ten plays by August Wilson, fully produced or with readings in chronological order, the Tennessee Williams Festival, which included a critically acclaimed “The Glass Menagerie” and a Michael Kahn-directed program of short plays.
There was also the phenomenal nearly half a year Shakespeare Festival, in numerous venues throughout the city co-directed with Kahn, the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, a festival that was kicked off with an electric-staged and free reading of “Twelfth Night,” which filled the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall.

That was a vivid illustration of the Kaiser belief that the Kennedy Center must be not only the nation’s cultural center but a vital, participating member of the Washington cultural and arts community. “We must be a part of the community and bring the community here, make it accessible, engage the community and become engaged with it,” he said.
Under Kaiser, the Kennedy Center has expanded its education programs and outreach. It has mounted the annual Page-to-Stage Festival, which includes many of the area’s theater companies, while the Woolly Mammoth Theater, Synetic Theater and the Washington Ballet have performed at various times on the center’s stages.

Kaiser has also expanded the center’s ground-up theatrical productions, offering ground-up, expensive re-imaginings and re-stagings of “Ragtime” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies,” both of them going to Broadway.

“Follies” was another illustration of using local artists—some of the actors cast were local, and Eric Schaeffer, the artistic director and founder of Signature Theatre in Arlington, directed the production and also was a artist participant in the Sondheim Festival. It was a singular act of original work and collaboration.

Kaiser sounded particularly proud of the two productions as well as the initially puzzling decision to stage “The Guardsman,” a somewhat obscure vehicle from the past, which turned out to be a dazzling production and play about theater and theater people this past season.

“Not everything works, but I’m sure that was a head-scratcher for some people,” he said. “But I had a feeling about that, and sometimes you take risks.”

Kaiser, it’s safe to say, with his books, his demeanor of competence and enthusiasm and confidence, isn’t always thought of as a risk-taker, but sometimes, you suspect there lurks a little bit of a cultural rebel behind the façade. “I believe in innovation,” he said. “I believe in supporting new plays, new choreographers, new music. “

He also knows how to be a magical, highly effective fundraiser: “You have to see your institution—this institution—as a family, which means board members, funding, givers, donors, the audience, and artists, and everyone must be encouraged to be an active member of that family—not just on the sidelines, or consumer, or in the seats, but in all the different ways families function.”

To Kaiser, that family is a big one. His biggest innovation at the Kennedy Center in terms of programming may be the grand festivals of international cultures he’s initiated and put together, often on a scale that might have been difficult to imagine. “I’m proud of that certainly because it exposes us, engages us with other cultures, and other institutions struggling to produce and create outstanding work. For me, it was especially exciting to go to Africa, or the Middle East, see dance companies and artists and managers and share with them.”

The result has been festivals which brought with them companies, individuals, artists, dancers, actors, singers, operas, and art forms rarely, if ever, seen here before from China, India, the recent “Nordic Cool,” Africa, Japan and perhaps, most significantly, the 22 countries of the Arab World. It’s hard to measure, of course, how the individual components of each festival were received or attended. Overall, each brought something new to this most international of cities in America.
If there is a theme to be garnered from Kaiser when it comes to cultural institutions, it may be three words: local, national and global—and the connections those three words imply.

In person, Kaiser almost always seems affable, but it’s the kind of affability that is also dead serious about the arts, about his work and legacy. He hasn’t escaped criticism or controversy, but he’s also been a risk-taker and a futurist, looking ahead—because life is change and Kaiser wants to be ahead of the curve while leaving behind a legacy that is sturdy, solid and memorable.

Change comes to us all, and so Kaiser embarks on his last full season. In the meantime, he’s taking another major, life-changing step Aug. 31 when he marries John Roberts, an economist with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the upstairs atrium at the Kennedy Center. [gallery ids="118822,118820" nav="thumbs"]