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A SUMMERTIME CHRISTMAS PRESENT, A DOWNPOUR OF JOY!

Comment and opinion by: Joel Markowitz

ON THE WAY TO MAME
As I am writing this, I’m on the run - -getting ready to meet 50 members of the Ushers Theatre-going Social Group at The Kennedy Center
to finally see Mame tonight at 7:30 PM. Before the show begins, I have to join members for dinner at the overpriced Kennedy Center Cafeteria, where I will lay down a lot of dough ($10.00 for a pizza the size of a half dollar), but I’ll be smiling because I need to catch up on the group and do the Jewish Mother thing — see how they are doing, if they are eating properly, if they have met the loves of their lives, and if they have invested well since I last saw them. So, bring on the pizza with mushrooms and shake on the grated parmesan!

I can’t wait to hear a 29 piece orchestra play that toe-tapping, fingers-snapping overture. I’ll have to control myself by not humming along too loudly.

WILL MR. MARKS RE-REVIEW TONIGHT?
Will Peter Marks be there to “re-review” Christine Baranski’s performance? Will this critic of doom admit that he “mamed’ her in his first review, but now realizes he made a mistake? Don’t count on it. Is Jesus coming back tonight? I bet he now reports, “Ms. Baranski has now grown into the role and has “opened new windows” since I saw the show on press night…” (I give you permission to steal this, Peter). Hey, I know some other shows that would love if he’d come and re-review them.

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By: Fiona Zublin

Picasso’s Closet — TheaterJ 

The lives of artists, truly great artists, are fascinating to us all. Apparently, so are the lives they never led. Ariel Dorfman’s new play, Picasso’s Closet, examines the 1944 murder of Picasso in Nazi-occupied Paris—despite the fact that Picasso died in Mougins, France, on April 8th, 1973. Dorfman offers a startling and brilliant portrait of this murder that never happened, while attempting to portray the real Picasso; perhaps to show the behaviors that allowed Picasso to survive a regime that killed so many of his colleagues.

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By: Ronnie Ruff

Bed Bound — Solas Nua

Edna Walsh has yet to achieve the popularity in America that Conor McPherson has but he is, none the less, one of the most important new playwrights in contemporary Irish theatre. Solas Nua, one of the most exciting local theatre companies around has mounted Bedbound, Walsh’s 2000 play at the DCAC in Adams Morgan. As the lights go down in the small DCAC space a large box that fills the stage collapses, three sides fall to the stage floor to reveal a single bed containing two adults. A physically imposing large man fully dressed in a rumpled business suit and a crippled young lady, her legs bent behind her, lay partially covered by a sheet. What follows is a play of incredibly strong emotional monologues that tell a complex story of the symbiotic relationship between these two crippled people. A young woman with polio (Linda Murray) and her psychotic father Maxie (Brian Hemmingsen) offer anger filled descriptions of their lives and explain how circumstances have brought them to this place of suffering.

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Tonight and Tuesday at Studio Theater (same programs both nights)

“EVERYDAY GUMBO” 17TH ANNUAL STAGED READING
Monday, Tuesday June 19 & June 20
Studio Theatre 7:30pm
1501 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
Price $20 in advance, $22 at door
TICKETS: 1-800-494-8497 or go to http://www.boxofficetickets.com 

Our own Debbie Minter Jackson has a play being read! Way to go Debbie!

By: Ronnie Ruff 

The New World Order and Other Plays — Scena Theatre 

Pinter’s The New World Order and Other Plays currently mounted at Warehouse Theatre by Scena Theatre is a cluster of angry one act plays that speak to the oppressive governments that abuse the citizenry of the third world.  Mainly aimed at the west, the three one acts depict the atrocities against the Kurds in Turkey, the people of Nicaragua and the citizens of Iraq. All three of the plays are generic in nature describing only the most vague situations of abuse. Details are minimal, we do not know anything really about the victims or the abusers, only that the victims are shaking with fear and the torturers are giddy with anticipation of bloodletting. It is the impending physical torture that provides the buildup to an anticipated ending that never happens. 

David Bryan Jackson is able to bring a serpent like quality to his character in “One For The Road“.  He slithers across the set with an almost evil quality that shakes you and has you feeling all the more sorry for the victims. Michael McDonnell shakes uncontrollably in terror, his fear though, may be a bit over the top. His role as the officer in ‘Mountain Language” is far better.  Artistic Director Robert McNamara’s skillful direction brings out the undercurrents of fear that Pinter soaks these one acts in.  (more…)

Bouncing Ball Productions got started with a bang Sunday evening at the Black Cat Club on 14th St. NW with scenes from three of writer Shawn Northrip and director Shirley Serotsky’s projects including  Titus The Musical, Cautionary Tales For Adults and Lunch (which is being performed at the CapFringe Festival). The wonderful Tracy Lynn Olivera (why don’t we see more of her?)along with Cassie Platt, Michael John Casy and Alex Zavistovich and a host of other fine folks were on hand to help Shawn and Shirley take on the stigma of the “showtune” with post punk energy and excitement that signals something new in musical theatre. This is some highly charged, funny stuff.

The band Lemonface (Richard Wynne, Brendan McCusker, Dana Wilentz) finished up the show with a high energy set of original music that is part of Northrip’s inspiration for Lunch.  The band members who have yet to reach their sixteenth birthdays wowed the audience with blistering guitar work and a rock solid rhythm section.

Bouncing Ball Productions, a collaboration of Shawn Northrip and Shirley Serotsky are a team to watch in DC’s theatre future.

http://bouncingballtheatre.com/

Ronnie Ruff

By: Debbie Minter Jackson

_{Note: D.M.Jackson has acted at WSC in the past, but has never worked directly with or for any of the artists involved with this production.}

Two Headed — WSC

This gem of a two-character play, Two-Headed by Julie Jensen, is an ideal performance piece for Lee Mikeska Gardner and Melissa Flaim. Wrapped in tight layers like an onion, the story slowly relinquishes its secrets in precious, savory moments. Set in 1857 Utah, the life experiences of two dear friends cover forty years as they lurch towards discovery, awareness, and self-acceptance in 90 compact minutes.

The strange name, two headed, works as an allegory on several levels-Flaim who plays Lavinia with playful command, entices Lee Mikeska Gardner, the more shy, reticent and subservient Hettie, with the prospects of seeing a two-headed calf hidden in the cellar. The image can also generally apply to the duality of life, being “two-headed” about things spoken and unspoken. For example, there is a cruel dual reality about Lavinia’s father as a pious, religious leader and military officer, who may have had an active role in the slaughter of over 127 migrants, including women and children, on the journey West, a true historical event.

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Hear Our Interview with Shawn Northrip and Shirley Serotsky

Meet the theatre company that is trying to break the stigma associated with show tunes.

Writer Shawn Northrip and director Shirley Serotsky, the minds behind Source’s Titus, the musical and McBeth’s McTragic McMusical, and the Madcap Players’ Cautionary Tales for Adults, along with business manager Caehlin Bell, present an evening of rock musical theatre as a fundraiser for their newly formed Bouncing Ball Theatrical Productions.

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 Shawn and Shirley Bouncing Ball Productions [3:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (261)

By: Joel Markowitz 

“THAT’LL BE THE DAY” WHEN “3 DIVAS” (times two) “TAKE THE A TRAIN” TO “AMSTERDAM”

It may be humid, but we have some extremely hot musicals during June, July and August at our local theatres.

I hear you kvetchin, “That’ll Be The Day” when I schlep with my kids to Columbia, Maryland to see anybody or any “Buddy.” Where is Columbia?  Too far for you? That’s a shandah (disgrace) and your loss. If Jews could wander for 40 years in the desert, so you can drive an hour for some unparalleled entertainment. Some of the best theatre in the area is at Toby’s Dinner Theatre . Don’t believe me? It can’t be so? Are you sure? At a dinner theatre? Just look at all the Helen Hayes Awards  and nominations Toby’s has received the last ten years. I’ve seen better productions there than some of the lemons I’ve seen on Broadway. (Do Lestat, Dance of The Vampires, and In My Life ring a bell)? Ask the hundreds of Ushers members (along with my family and other friends) who have driven an hour or more to see the incredible

productions of Ragtime (13 Helen Hayes Nominations in 2004), Follies, Miss Saigon, Beauty and the Beast, and this year’s mesmerizing, Helen Hayes-nominated performance by Felicia Curry in a spectacular and intimate production of Elton John’s Aida. Toby Orenstein is a genius and what she accomplishes in a small space is nothing less than miraculous. She won the Helen Hayes’ Best Director of a Musical Award for Jekyll and Hyde, sharing the award with Christopher Ashley for Kennedy Center’s production of Sweeney Todd, which starred Tony Award Winner Brian Stokes Mitchell and Christine Baranski, who is now playing Mame at The Eisenhower Theatre.

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By: Fiona Zublin 

Faculty Room –  Woolly Mammoth 

Teachers doing drugs (and other things) with students, students discussing physical mutilation with teachers, religious riots in the auditorium—did any of this happen at your high school? If you are less than five years out of high school, expect middle-aged patrons of The Faculty Room to look at you as if your generation is responsible for the degenerate behavior portrayed and discussed onstage at Woolly Mammoth’s latest show.

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