Performance

Gary Tischler • January 16, 2015

George Stevens, Jr., has ended his long reign as producer of the Kennedy Center Honors, the annual star-studded, president-in-residence bash, honoring the nation’s cultural and performance art elites, and the television show that goes with it.

By now, this isn’t news, but many Washington cultural and media remain startled by the way the news was delivered.

Stevens, introduced by Kennedy Center board chairman David Rubenstein and flanked by his son Michael, came out on stage at the beginning of the second act of the Kennedy Center Honors production and said that he would not be returning as producer next year, nor would his son. He said that the chairman had told him he wanted a new producer.

Stevens was entering the last year of a contract and was in negotiation with the board. From the podium, Stevens said, “We accept that this will be our last honors. This is our good night.”

This was the 37th Annual Kennedy Center Honors, at which singers Al Green and Sting, actress and comedienne Lily Tomlin, actor Tom Hanks and ballerina Patricia McBride were honored Dec. 7. Stevens’s announcement came as a shock to the audience, and later this week, to much of Washington.

A longtime Georgetown resident, Stevens is the son of legendary Hollywood director George Stevens, who helmed such classics as “Shane,” “A Place in the Sun,” “Giant” and “The Diary of Anne Frank” as well as “Gunga Din.”

Stevens is a much honored producer, director, playwright (“Thurgood”), and former head of the American Film Institute. Stevens won numerous Emmys for the televised production of the Honors.

Kennedy Center spokesman and communications director John Dow issued a statement from the Kennedy Center which said that “This was the last year on George Stevens, Jr.’s contract and George announced from the stage of the Honors performance on Sunday night that he would be stepping down as producer. the Kennedy Center is enormously grateful for the contributions George and his son Michael have made to the Honors over the years. The Kennedy Center Honors have grown in stature over the past 37 years to become the preeminent recognition of the performing arts in America. With Sunday night’s news, the Kennedy Center will begin a search for an Honors producer that will build upon this strong foundation in the years to come.”

Gary Tischler •

From a distance, you could mistake them for tourists checking out the sights at the Kennedy Center—mom, older brother, young sister.

That wasn’t the case, though. They’d been here before.

The boy, with a slightly brighter shade of blonde hair, was 12-year-old Henry Wager, with his mom, Nancy Tarr, and his young sister Naomi, 10.

Wager had just gotten his hair dyed so that he could look a little more like The Prince, or the title role in the Washington National Opera Company’s family holiday production of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s “The Little Prince,” composed by Rachel Portman, and originally staged by WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater Friday through Sunday, Dec. 19 to 21.

Wager—and his sister Naomi, who will be in the WNO’s Children Chorus in the production—is a familiar presence by now at the Kennedy Center and the WNO. Last year, Wager portrayed the part of the Angel in Jeanine Tesori’s world-premiere (and very popular) “The Lion, the Unicorn and Me.”

“Francesca asked me earlier this year if I wanted to play the prince, and I said sure, I was very honored,” Wager said. “It’s a lot different from anything I’ve done. It’s complicated, you know. He’s a prince, and he lives on this little planet by himself, and his prized possession, a rose. He’s kind of obsessive about it. And he meets this downed pilot in the desert.”

The family lived in Bethesda, but now live in Cooperstown, N.Y., home to the annual summer Glimmerglass Opera Festival, where Zambello is artistic director. For Glimmerglass, Wager performed the role of Winthrop in “The Music Man” and with the children’s chorus sang in Tobias Picker’s “American Tragedy.” So, Wager is already a fairly experienced performer in the opera world.

He’s thoughtful about “The Little Prince.” “The music isn’t like traditional opera, it doesn’t exactly sound like that, it’s modern, you now, like some American operas.”

Watching him and listening to him and his sister, you see something interesting. The young Wagers — Henry and Naomi — are very articulate about music and performing, and yet, there is no sense of self-importance, of being different from other kids. They compete, they talk each other up, they’re proud of each other.

“I want to be in a lead role someday, like Henry,” Naomi offered. “I want to travel to a foreign country.” The production of “The Music Man” traveled to Oman. “You know, the prince is really a kid, he doesn’t understand anything about adults, and he has that thing for the rose.”

“I don’t have any object like that,” Henry said. “We have the cats,” Naomi said. “They’re twins. Maple and Hennepin.”

“You know how he’s different,” Henry said of the prince, “he sees the world in numbers, that’s how he processes information.”

“They were both in the chorus,” Nancy Tarr said. “They work hard.”

“Music is a lot of lessons. I mean lots.And lots of practice.” Henry said.

“They have a normal childhood,” Tarr said. “That’s what I wanted for them. They play sports, they listen to music, they do what kids do. And they do this.”

Henry plays baseball, second base, and he lives in a town, which houses the Baseball Hall of Fame. “It’s cool to live there,” he said. His favorite baseball player Denard Span of the Washington Nationals.

“I listen to all kinds of music,” Henry said. “But I really like listening to movie scores. I love John Williams.”

Naomi currently likes singer Meghan Traynor. “That’s this week she likes her,” Henry said, skeptical. She, of course, likes Taylor Swift. “I liked “Shake It Off” and “Blank Spaces.”

They sound and look just like—still—kids. And they’re wise to it.

Naomi summed it up: “Henry’s got one year left. I’ve got three.”

What’s that? we ask. “Childhood. Henry has one year. I’ve got three.”

Gary Tischler • January 5, 2015

Ari Roth may no longer be the artistic director of Theater J, but the reactions to his firing by the D.C. Jewish Community Center in mid-December continued all through Hanukkah and Christmastime.

Roth was, according to reports in the Washington Post, fired by Carole Zawatsky, CEO of the JCC, on Dec. 18, with the stated cause being “insubordination.”

Roth had been the artistic director of Theater J for 18 years, years in which he grew the theater—which is a part of the D.C. Jewish Community Center—into a formidable force among Washington theaters, but also nationally as a prominent company presenting Jewish theater.

Theater J and Roth received accolades for the many Jewish-themed and Jewish-authored plays—the Arthur Miller canon, including a dramatic production of “The Price,” starring the late Robert Prosky and two of his sons. The theater found a wide audience throughout the region. Roth encouraged new plays and playwrights, including an original, ground-up musical based on the life of King David, and foraged for plays that centered often on plays with political and issue-oriented themes.

No one questioned Roth’s artistic prowess and his abilities as an artistic leader—even Sawatsky, in the initial burst of information about Roth leaving, said that “Ari Roth has had an incredible 18-year tenure leading Theater J, and we know there will be great opportunities ahead for him. Ari leaves us with a vibrant theater that will continue to thrive.”

Roth, in a statement reported by Post drama critic Peter Marks, made it clear that he was “terminated abruptly.”

In building Theater J’s reputation as an outstanding theater, Roth was often the flashpoint for controversy, especially when dealing with plays that focused on Israel’s political history. One such play was “Return to Haifa,” a play by Israeli playwright Boaz Gaon focusing on the plight a Palestinian family which returned to their old home in Haifa abandoned in the wake of the 1948 War for Independence. The play was performed by the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv, a company composed of Israeli and Palestinian actors. At an opening night production in 2011, some older members of the audience complained vocally about the play and its sympathetic treatment of the Palestinian characters.

Another Roth innovation, the Voices from a Changing Middle East festival was sometimes criticized for its political content and was not on the schedule this year. Another controversial play by another Israeli playwright Motti Lerner, “The Admission,” which was about an alleged massacre which occurred in a Palestinian village in 1948, was pared down to a staged reading.

When news came of Roth’s firing, the national artistic community responded quickly.

Playwright Tony Kushner of “Angels in America” fame, whose play “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures” was Theater J’s second production this season, wrote that Roth “was fired because he refused to surrender to censorship.” In all, artistic directors of 60 national theater companies protested the firing in an open letter — including Robert Falls of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Joe Dowling of the Guthrie Theater in Minnesota, and Howard Shalwitz of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre and Michael Kahn of the Washington Shakespeare Company in Washington.

Roth is reportedly organizing planning for a new theater company, which he will lead called the Mosaic, which may begin performing at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street in the fall.

In a letter to the arts community, Zawatsky, in part, wrote, “I want to assure you that DCJCC will continue to support Theater J as a vibrant, creative and provocative outlet for great theater. Our commitment to Theater J is as strong as ever and we will resist efforts to politicize our output.

“Ari’s creative vision—which included significant works of a political nature—were always defended and supported by Theater J and DCJCC. Our commitment to that never wavered. But Ari’s failure to maintain basic professional conduct and standards made it impossible to continue his employee relationship of the DCJCC.”

Gary Tischler • December 29, 2014

“Pippin,” the revival of the 1972 Bob Fosse-shaped musical, which roared into town at the National Theatre, is part big, splashy Broadway musical, part Cirque de Soleil on steroids. It runs through Jan. 4.

Tony Award winner Diane Paulus (she revived “Hair” on Broadway) has injected the original, which featured some of Bob Fosse’s best signature work, and the music and lyrics of Roger O. Hirson and Stephen Schwartz, with the atmospherics and spectacle of a 21st-century circus full of buff acrobats flying through the air, doing impossible things, and a cast that follows them gleefully. Nobody is shot out of a cannon, but they sure have a buzz and energy that looks as if they have.

Yet the show has Fosse’s fingerprints all over it, because the production, which is a non-stop, galloping entertainment for the most part, is, beginning-to-end a show about show biz where Fosse, not Charlemagne, was king.

Ostensibly, “Pippin” is still the same old story, in which the young prince Pippin (an appealing Kyle Dean Massey), the son of Charlemagne (the uneducated, powerful king who brought France out of the Dark Ages) tries to figure out what to do with his life. A studious kid with no flair for hacking and hewing, he feels destined to do something great, something meaningful, something important. Will he be a warrior? A man of the cloth? A regular guy? An artist? A philosopher king?

His father is played by a big-white-haired, irascible, kinetic and energetic John Rubinstein, who was the original Pippin in the 1972 Broadway version, thus getting to play his own father, and he makes the most of it.

Pippin’s guide through the process is a show biz type, in leather and black and straw hat, a person called the Leading Player (Ben Vereen was the original), this time performed by Sasha Allen in a knife-edgy, sexy way, who is all slick leg work, finger-spread in the classic show biz manner. She is a director, promoter, organizer and very cool dancer. In short, she’s a Fosse stand-in and stand out.

During the course of the show, through song, dance and acrobatics of the highest (way up high) order, Pippin, goes through home, glory, the flesh, revolution, politics, encouragement, and ordinary life, framed by the opening and the finale, just like the rest of us.

Here’s the twist, and it is pretty spectacular. Pippin doesn’t seem to realize that he’s joined the circus. If “The Lion King” is about the “Circle of Life,” well, Pippin is about the circus of life.

Stephen Schwartz, who gave us the sweet gospel of “Godspell,” gives us here some of the same musical stew—anthem: “Glory,” an up-with-life: “Spread a Little Sunshine” and assorted songs that give us hints about what life’s all about. Those include an inevitable love song, entitled “Love Song.”

Paulus’s “Pippin” isn’t so much about the music, which resonates in the moment, as it is about show time. It’s the circus and the circus guys and girls who flavor this show doing impossible acts of balance and imbalance, tumbling, curling, acts of magic and strength and twists and bends that are awe-inspiring. It’s all the work of Gypsy Snider of the Montreal circus company “Les 7 doigs de la main” or, simply put, “7 Fingers.”

They rob you blind—you can’t believe your eyes, and yet, there you are. All of the company, at some point or another, get involved in this including the glorious undefeatable Lucie Arnaz as Pippin’s hot grandmother Berthe, doing some truly death-defying things way up high. At this pace, it’s a wonder if the cast will survive its stay in Washington.

Circus and all, this is still Fosse’s show—it’s come straight out of the carny midway, the ragged burlesque show, the vaudeville bill, the song-and-dance and chorus line of the American musical, where Fosse made his bones, changing the genre in his image. Think “Cabaret.” Think “Chicago” and “Sweet Charity” and “All That Jazz” with a Miller Lite fizz to it. Every move by Allen, the girls, the leaps and jumps, the sexy “flesh” scenes, the hands, the moves, low to the ground or high in the air are like a love song to Fosse.

All of it is tremendously entertaining, involving at a level where sensation lies, but the heart can hardly keep up. In the end, Pippin meets his soulmate, a widow with an estate, a son with a duck and serfs. She’s lovely as played by Kristine Reese, insistent, golden-voiced, pushy and sweet.

If that’s not enough, there’s even—briefly—a dog, very cute, perfect for our pet-obsessed age.

And the grand finale. Oh, don’t you worry about that. It may even surprise you, and amaze you and leave you satisfied.

(By the way, it’s always hard to top Fosse—for his own grand finale, on the occasion of the revival of “Sweet Charity” right here in Washington at the National Theater, Fosse, accompanied by his first wife, Gwen Verdon, managed to have a fatal heart attack on the sidewalk on his way to the premiere in 1987 . . . That’s show biz.)

Peter Murray • December 19, 2014

Pop music’s biggest rising star Sam Smith just released a soothing, soulful version of the Christmas classic, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” backed only by a piano. This is Smith’s first endeavor into the Christmas canon, but he is no stranger to covers. Last year, Smith released renditions of songs by Whitney Houston, the Arctic Monkeys, Tracy Chapman and Bruno Mars. There’s no word on whether Smith plans on releasing any other Christmas tunes this season, but with pop rivals like Ariana Grande deep in the game, it wouldn’t be surprising if the British singer-songwriter released a full Christmas album sometime in the future. For now, we can enjoy this rendition as we get closer and closer to Christmas.

Gary Tischler •

As with many things in theater, but surely for sure with Shakespeare, you realize that most plays are never really finished. A production may end, but the play never does. At best, it sleeps,waiting for another gentleman caller, another audience, another hardy company to make it come to life again, as if by magic.

These thoughts seem pertinent, when confronting another production of “The Tempest,” the Bard’s presumed last play (discounting whatever he had to do with “Henry VIII”), a play many consider a valediction, a summing up, a goodbye to the stage.

It may indeed be just such a thing, but it is quite a bit more, a play every bit as layered and intertwined like a spool of rich thread with themes as “Lear” or “Hamlet”, although not nearly as tragic as all that. It’s more like a well full of wishes, incantations and complications—every time you thrown down the bucket, something different comes up with the water.

Director Ethan McSweeny manages to pull quite a bit of the play’s rich diversity together in his bewitchingly engaging production now at the Shakespeare Theatre Company at the Sidney Harman Hall. He seems at one with the central character of Prospero, a much wronged duke and self-taught, powerful wizard holding sway over a barren island, in the sense that there’s a feeling of enchantment and spells over this production.

This “Tempest” is a potent brew that is both hypnotic and fragile. You feel sometimes, against all rational will, that if you turned around or closed your eyes for a few seconds, that the world created on stage could all disappear in a flash—the duke, the lords, Ariel and Caliban, the lovers, the fools, the sweet old man, the island, this rough magic. Of course, like all plays, it does exactly that in the end, but it lingers, too, more than most.

This “Tempest” in the end is why we go to the theatre—and particularly why we return to Shakespeare—time and again, and he to us. The work, this play, the canon, are the gifts the Bard’s final present to us, and his own farewell that keeps on giving, and McSweeny and the cast and designers have wrapped it up on ribbons that seem musical and timeless.

Prospero is the ousted Duke of Milan, betrayed by his brother, left after a storm on an island with his daughter Miranda, an island inhabited by the sprite Ariel and the self-described monster Caliban, whom he subdues to his will. Years have passed, and now a ship bearing his brother, his accomplice the King of Naples and his son Ferdinand and Prospero’s old retainer Gonzalo is driven to shipwreck by a mighty tempest conjured by Prospero, bringing his old enemies to him for: revenge, you might think. You might think again that Shakespeare stopped of being so literal, excluding the gaudy grand guignol of “Titus Andronicus” early on.

Prospero wants a conclusion to the things that changed his life. He wants an ending for himself and his foes and his magic, a future for his daughter—and a few other things. He wants solace and meaning and if that sounds too philosophical for today’s audiences, not to worry. McSweeny knows how to tell a story on stage that is crystal-clear in its language, powerful in its focus, and beautiful to look at, paced like scenes from a particularly swift movie.

The entire production—at just a little over two hours—move swiftly, like a loud poem, colorful, from scene to scene, which is something that rarely happens with this play. It’s a play full of distractions and traps, as well as the potential for glory and disaster, both.

Here’s what happens to it and in it: you laugh, you are amazed and awed, you’re dazzled, you come close to tears, as you should, you wiggle a little like a worm because not all of what Prospero does easy to digest. But here we are with no easy answers, but lots of delight.

The Welsh actor Geraynt Wyn Davies, who swashbuckled as Cyrano de Bergerac here several seasons ago, takes command of the production, but he is not just stern and powerful but a wiser and wizened wizard. There’s a storehouse of warmth in him that splashes over the potential bitterness. He is not blameless—here is Ariel, the sprite that makes his magic happen, but is also a slave in his service, as is Caliban a slave. Ariel reminds him that he promised her freedom—this spirit, played with great appeal by Sofia Jean Gomez, flies, but she’s also visibly tethered not just to earth but to Prospero. Caliban, the violent offspring of a dreaded witch who once ruled the island, sees himself a monster and acts accordingly, hitching himself to the show’s clowns, Trincolo and Stephano in a plot to murder Prospero, a plot that’s thwarted by many bottles of wine.

The wayward dukes are also plotting against each other, without knowing of Prospero’s presence. Ferdinand, the son of the King of Naples, is lost to them, but meets Miranda, the awe-struck, love-struck daughter of Prospero, played with verve and the kind of frisky, smart sexiness that is all the more appealing for being totally spontaneous. Through it all, actor Ted van Griethuysen, as the stalwart, kind and steady retainer, is a wonder. We have seen him it seems through his whole life, marching through it with his roles.

What Prospero is after is righting things, then forgiving the crimes, including his own. As a kind of pre-wedding gift, he stages a gift of a party for the lovers which comes in the form of spirits played by puppets, becoming larger and more massive with each appearance. It is stagecraft and Prospero’s bit of magic.

“The Tempest” is also about the stage—about stagecraft and theater life—for what is a playwright but a magician who creates whole worlds out of nothing but words, beautiful words. His last act is to give it all up to us, and let us give him his last reward: “For we are such stuff as dreams, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

Like a dream, “The Tempest” drifts away from us, as all plays do. And it lingers, as the best plays do, as if we not only experienced it in the here and now gone, but as a dream we dreamed before and will hoard for the future.

“The Tempest” runs at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall through Jan. 11.

Gary Tischler •

John Rubinstein is back in Washington, D.C., where everything started.

“It feels very Freudian, certainly,” he said in a phone interview. “I mean, here I am, playing the father of a character whom I originated back in 1972.”

Rubinstein has returned to Washington in the Tony Award-winning revival of “Pippin,” an all-new production of Roger O. Hirson and Stephen Schwartz’s 1972 musical, directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus with choreography by Chet Walker in the style of Bob Fosse. The show opened here this week at the National Theatre and will run through Jan. 4.

Kyle Dean Massey stars in the title role, with Lucie Arnaz as Berthe and Rubinstein as Charles (as in Charlemagne), Pippin’s father.

In 1972, a young Rubinstein had garnered his first major Broadway role at the tender age of 25.

“It was a little frightening, sure it was,” Rubinstein said. “I mean, here I was, my first show, I was 25 and a lot was riding on me. And there were all these big names involved. Stephen Schwartz [of “Godspell” fame] and Bob Fosse, who was already a legend. Early on, I was sent to see him. I had some qualms about the show, to be honest. I didn’t know if it would work. But he was very generous, very kind and a tremendously gifted, brilliant man, an imaginative man, with a very tough, pragmatic side.”

“Pippin” had its out-of-town, pre-Broadway tryout at the Kennedy Center before becoming a long-running hit. It won five Tony Awards and five Drama Desk Awards and ran for nearly 2,000 performances.

The current revival, which opened at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., in 2012, went to Broadway and won four 2013 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Director of a Musical.

Rubinstein remembers being here in the halcyon days of 1972. “You couldn’t help but be aware of what was going on – Watergate and everything surrounding it, the political atmosphere. It was exciting to be here.”

The show tells the tale of a young prince trying to become a man in the shadow of a powerful father. Although it features real people from the Middle Ages – Charlemagne and his son Pippin – it tells the tale by way of a carnival-circus atmosphere, with such songs as “Magic to Do,” “Glory,” “No Time at All” and “Morning Glow.”

Online you can find a picture of Rubinstein and a very young co-star, the late Jill Clayburgh. Rubinstein sports a boyish face and a big mop of curly hair.

“A lot has happened since then,” he said. He may never have quite made such a splash as he did with the original “Pippin,” but he got busy and forged a true career. He has been a professional actor for 50 years, though you may as well call him a Renaissance man: actor, writer, composer, singer, director, teacher.

Talking to him in Los Angeles, you see he did something else too: he forged a rich life. You can hear the sound of children.
“I’ve got five,” he said. “Four sons and a daughter. The youngest is eight. That’s Max you’re hearing in the background.”
“The thing is you work, all of the time, and you learn all of the time,” he said. Eight years after “Pippin” opened, he won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and a Drama-Logue Award for “Children of a Lesser God.”

He was on the long-running television series “Family,” and he’s done numerous roles on television, as well as in films including “Mercy,” “Red Dragon” and “21 Grams,” among others. He’s composed, orchestrated and conducted the musical scores for five films, including “Jeremiah Johnson” and “The Candidate.”

The list is kind of exhausting, when you look at it. “I’m 67,” he said. “Teaching and learning, acting, doing what I love.”
Now he’s playing the father to the son he once portrayed. In real life, he’s a father, but always a son. His father was the renowned classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who died in 1982. (This may help account for his gift for composing music.)
“I think about him a lot,” he said. “Every day, every day.”

Gary Tischler • December 13, 2014

Through their long single-duet-family show business career, Donny and Marie Osmond have always pointed out that “she’s a little bit country, he’s a little bit rock and roll.”

And they’re absolutely a lot Las Vegas, but then their touring Christmas show (“Donny and Marie Christmas” at the National Theatre through Dec. 7) is based on a similar razzle dazzle pump-up-the-volume show from their hugely popular Sin City residency.

It isn’t even about that. You get it right away, walking in and when the show begins—this is a full-service, slam bang, high velocity, “this is your life, Donny and Marie” show, and by inference, for a good chunk of the audience, this is their life show, too. These two, the former teen idol Donny looking very cool even when he sweats up a storm in “Soldier of Love,” a contemporary offering from his new album, and Marie, who was 12 when she had a big hit with “Paper Roses,” looking glamorous in a whole wardrobe of all sorts of dresses, gowns, high heels, boots, and lots of still alluring black hair, are American icons, no question about it.

They’re both in their early fifties now, but they still have the big voices—Marie’s now sports a sexy, growly tone along with a belt-em high register and Donny is one cool dude with a rangy, pleasant voice that’s clear and audience friendly. Together and singly they rolled out old hits—brace yourself, when he does “Puppy Love” and the aforementioned “Paper Roses,” newer songs like the upbeat “It’s a Beautiful Life,” and “Soldier of Love,” plus a pack of Christmas songs, most of them so full of pep you want run down the aisle and hop on to the stage.

Actually, that’s what at least a couple of men got to do, including a guy named Steve who appeared to be part of a particularly fanatical group of old-time fans, who made the most of his moment with Marie and she got him to dance and sing.

The audience is the key to this show, which is more of an event than a concert, more of a kind of party where all kinds of things go on. The audience as you might expect is full of Donny and Marie fans from days of yore. They do the wave, they sing, they squeal, they scream. I was reminded of my former life in San Francisco, reading a review by a middle-aged San Francisco Chronicle entertainment reporter about his experience at a concert by Donny in his teen idol days—“Here I was in the middle of thousands of screaming adolescent girls straining against their training bras.” Well, the ladies are still screaming, as evidenced at the National Theatre show.

We know them quite a lot from all kinds of moments—their Broadway musical appearance, their appearances on “Dancing with the Stars” (he won a trophy, she didn’t as Donny gleefully points out in a mock sibling spat), her marriages and tragedies, their rise as teens from a very big family (the Mormon version of the Jacksons), their variety show on which almost every major star of our times appeared as they pass on a big screen backdrop.

Both of them, as they belt out songs with enthusiasm, high spirits, good humor and high energy, work hard here—maybe a little too hard. It’s a show that’s at once 21st century and old fashioned. There are tickets to be won along with a seat in the front row by way of Twitter. There are forays into the audience by Donny and Marie, hugs and kisses abound (one woman has a hard time letting go), Marie scrawls lipstick autographs, and showers of candy fall on the audience.

The dancers in this show are terrific—they’re like Energizer bunnies that never stop. You get exhausted just watching them.

If you’re a Donny and Marie fan, you won’t be disappointed by “Donny and Marie Christmas.” It’s obvious they like being up there. More obvious, they like having you there. In this show, the audience is the third headliner.

Georgetowner • December 11, 2014

The Christmas Spirit

Black Nativity, Theater Alliance—The great African American poet Langston Hughes’ Christmas classic “Black Nativity” comes to life, directed by Eric Ruffin, with music director e’Marcus Harper-Short and Choreographer Princess Moon at Bowie State University. Runs from Nov. 29 to Dec. 7 at the Theater Alliance and Dec. 11 to Jan. 4 at the Anacostia Playhouse.

Megan Hilty’s “A Kennedy Center Christmas”—The sassy, classy and classic Broadway star brings in the season with holiday music and songs from the American Songbook on Dec. 13 at the Terrace Theater.

NPR’s “A Jazz Piano Christmas”—Top jazz pianists (Harold Mabern, Kris Davis, Lynne Arnale and Cyrus Chestnut) perform holiday favorites Dec. 12 in the Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center.

The Temptations and the Four Tops at the Music Center at Strathmore—Motown favorites mingle with holiday classics in a soulful celebration with the Temptations and the Four Tops on Dec. 12. And on Dec. 13, “It’s a Mannheim Streamroller Christmas” at the Strathmore, with shows at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Musicals, Musicals, Musicals

“Fiddler on the Roof”—It has been 50 years since this American Musical Classic first became a smash hit on Broadway, with the late, great, iconic and original Zero Mostel starring as Tevye, the much-put-upon Jewish Shetl milkman with his five daughters, his daily conversations with the man above, living and surviving in Tsarist Russia, where the threat of eviction and pogroms loomed daily. This new in-the-round production in the Fichandler space remains remarkably faithful to the core, heart and soul of the musical. Jonathan Hadary heads an exceptional cast, which, in this setting, becomes an intimate and musically rousing experience. Playing through January 4.

“Five Guys Named Moe”—It’s the music and lyrics of Louis Jordan, one of the great feel-good composers of song, that make you jump. Known as the King of the Jukebox, Jordan brings an original and soul-and-blues flavored musical to Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theater through Dec. 28. Who are the Five Guys Named Moe? Big Moe, Four-Eyed Moe, Eat Moe, No Moe and Little Moe.

“Diner”—This world premiere musical, based on a book by Barry Levinson and music by Sheryl Crow runs at the Signature Theatre Dec. 9 through Jan. 25. Pop-rock chanteuse Crow and famed Baltimore film director Levinson provide the sound and feel of a new musical at Signature Theater, based on Levinson’s classic cult film about growing up in Baltimore.

“Pippin”—an all-new production of Roger O. Hirsin and Stephen Schwartz’s classic directed by Diane Paulus, with choreography by Chet Walker in the style of Bob Fosse. It stars Kyle Dean Massey in the title role and John Rubinstein (the original “Pippin” in 1972) as his father. Lucie Arnaz also stars. “Pippin” got its start with a pre-Broadway tryout at the Kennedy Center in 1972. It returns to the National Theater from Dec.16 to Jan. 4.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat—Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s classic groundbreaking rock musical with American Idol husband-and-wife team of Diana DeGarmo and Ace Young in the starring roles comes to the Kennedy Center Opera House from Dec. 16 through Jan. 4.

For the Family

Tiny Tim’s Christmas Carol—Playing through Jan. 1 at Adventure Theater. Prolific Washington playwright Ken Ludwig has adapted Dicken’s classic tale with Jack Ludwig focusing the story through the eyes of Tiny Tim. Directed by Jerry Whiddon.

The Gift of Nothing—This world premiere comes to the Kennedy Center Family Theater on Dec. 28. Showcasing the tale of Mooch, a curious cat who wants something special for his friend, Earl, a puppy. The story is based on the comic strip, “Mutts,” conceived, and written by Patrick McDonnell, Aaron Posner and Erin Weaver. The show features music and lyrics by Andy Mitton and is directed by Posner.

The Little Prince—Washington National Opera Holiday Family Opera, Dec. 19, 20 and 21 in the Terrace Theater. Based on the sometimes mystical, magical book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, in English, with a remarkable score by Oscar-winning composer Rachel Portman, originally staged by WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello.

The Little Mermaid—The Disney Broadway hit comes to life at the Olney Theatre Center, based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and the Disney Film. The show was produced by Howard Ashman and John Musker, and written and directed by John Musker and Ron Clements. Runs through Dec. 28.

Nutcrackers and Scrooges

Outside of the story of the Nativity itself, there are probably few works of invention that see more performances during the Christmas than “The Nutcracker,” and plays based on Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” At the Washington Ballet, it’s the tenth anniversary of artistic director Septime Webre’s production of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.” Special surprises are in the offing for long-time fans of the ballet. It’s set in 1882 Georgetown, no less, and features George Washington as the heroic Nutcracker. This Nutracker can be seen at the Warner Theater through December 28.

“The Nutcracker,” a new version and area premiere created by Tommy Rapley, Jake Minton, Phillip Klapperich and Kevin O’Donnell, weaves together spellbinding spectacle, riveting dialogue, astonishing puppetry and an original score. “The Nutcracker” plays at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda through Dec. 28.

The Olney Theater will present Mary Day’s “The Nutcracker,” directed by Patricia Berrend, with choregraphy by Mary Day (the founder of the Washington Ballet), performed by students and dancers from Washington area ballet schools. This “Nutcracker” runs Dec. 12 through Dec. 24.

At Ford’s Theater, “A Christmas Carol,” the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, the three ghosts, Marley, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchitt and humbug has been a traditional mainstay. And for the last five years, Edward Gero, one of the Washington Area’s most brilliant actors, has taken on the role of the misbegotten miser who must learn the spirit of Christmas. Gero, it should be noted, will take on the role of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia this spring at Arena Stage. The Ford’s “A Christmas Carol” is adapted by Michael Wilson, and directed by Michael Baron and will run through Jan. 1.

At the Olney Theater, actor Paul Morella is also establishing something of a tradition with his one-man version of “A Christmas Carol, A Ghost Story of Christmas,” (through Dec. 28) done very much in the tradition of Dickens himself, who often hit the stage with this story and other renderings of his work.

Music, Music, Music

The Cathedral Choral Society—The Cathedral Choral Society will bring “Joy of Christmas” to the Washington National Cathedral, joined by the Washington Symphonic Brass and the C.D. Hylton High School Troubadours, in a program that includes the procession of the Advent wreath and carol sing-a-longs on Dec. 13.

The Folger Consort—“A Renaissance Christmas,” complete with music of Flanders and Italy circa 1500, will include expressive seasonal works by composers Obrecht, Compere and Josqin (“Ave Maria”) will be performed by the Folger Consort with winds, violins, lutes and a quintet of voices. The show runs from Dec. 16 to Dec. 23 at the Folger Theater.

The Embassy Series—A holiday special at the Embassy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg commemorates the heroic spirit of the Battle of the Bulge during the cold winter of 1944, during which American and allied forces fought to fend off a German breakthrough in the Ardennes in Belgium and near Luxembourg. The evening will include festive, seasonal music, the sounds of cabaret star Karen Kohler, with songs from the times, tenor Joshua Glassman and pianist George Peachey, emceed by Robin Phillips, followed by a world class buffet. Plays on Dec. 12, with the Thomas Circle Singers, who will also appear on Dec. 13.

The King Singers—It’s “Christmas with the King’s Singers” at the National Cathedral on Dec. 21, as the renowned sextet bringing traditional and modern Christmas carols from Renaissance masters composers Orlandus Lassus and William Byrd, a cantata from Francis Poulenc among other offerings.

A Celtic Christmas—The Barnes and Hampton Celtic Consort present an annual Georgetown tradition, “A Celtic Christmas,” at the Historic Dumbarton Church on Saturday, Dec. 13 at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 14 at 4 p.m.

A Klingon Christmas Carol—Avant Bard’s Theater celebrates 25 years on the edge with this one night only theatrical event, a staged concert reading of Charles Dickens’ classic, retold in Klingon, the language of Captain Kirk’s nemesis and Captain Picard’s shipmate. Linguist Marc Okrand stars as SQuja’!, which we presume is Klingon for Scrooge. By all means, beam up to Theater J at the D.C. Jewish Community Center at 1529 16th St. NW, December 15 at 8 p.m. Make it so!

National Symphony Orchestra—In a Kennedy Center tradition, the NSO will perform Handel’s “Messiah” from Dec. 18 to 21.