The Nutcracker
December 14, 2010 By 4 Comments
It’s hard to avoid running into The Nutcracker during America’s year-end holiday festivities. From amateur productions featuring tiny, budding ballerinas and piped-in music to the kind of lavish, professional productions — all based on a fairy tale by the legendary German storyteller E. T. A. Hoffmann. [Read more...]
An enchanted chat with South Pacific star David Pittsinger
December 14, 2010 By 1 Comment
I have interviewed dozens of performers for DC Theatre Scene, but my chat with David Pittsinger is one of my all-time favorites.
DC audiences will be hearing one of the greatest baritones in the world when David sings the role of Emile de Becque in South Pacific at The Kennedy Center’s Opera House. As I learned during an 80 minute phone interview – David is a friendly, articulate, talented, intelligent, funny, down to earth, and caring man. What impressed me most is his passion and respect and love for music, his family, his fellow cast members, his co-star Carmen Cusack, and this role. [Read more...]
A Girl’s Guide to Washington Politics
December 13, 2010 By 1 Comment
Well. I wouldn’t exactly use these guys as Washington political consultants, since they apparently believe that Adrian Fenty is Italian – more on that later – but the latest Second City visit to Woolly Mammoth is pleasant and agreeable and full of chuckles, and thus is a nicer time than, say, a Bernie Sanders filibuster. [Read more...]
Candide
December 13, 2010 By 2 Comments
The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s new production of Leonard Bernstein’s time-traveling satirical operetta Candide is a thumping-good evening of intellectual musical theater. Generally fast-paced and loaded with political and social satire, it comes to DC at just the right time in this over-hyped, whirlwind political year. Yet ironically, Mary Zimmerman’s new performing version of the show—based more closely on Voltaire’s eponymous 18th century satirical novella—differs considerably from what the composer probably had in mind. [Read more...]
Dreamgirls keeps dreams alive for students and teachers at Duke Ellington
December 13, 2010 By 1 Comment
Threatened with teacher layoffs due to funding cutbacks, Duke Ellington School of the Arts decides to risk it all on a Broadway-style production of Dreamgirls.
On a chilly Friday night an hour before showtime, O’Thame Teeter strolls into the theatre at The Duke Ellington School of the Arts carrying with him a calm, confident energy. He has a starring role, playing Curtis Taylor, Jr., the somewhat oily yet charismatic Svengali to the girl singers who end up fighting over him in the school’s production of Dreamgirls. When asked about that night’s performance, the 19-year-old says “I have to kill tonight.” He smiles, his handsome face lights up, and he explains that doing well tonight will give him the momentum to “really kill” on Saturday night. [Read more...]
Welcome back, Cherry Red
December 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Now that Cherry Red Productions is back on the boards in Washington with a production of Justin Tanner’s Wife Swappers, (at the DC Arts Center in Adams Morgan), everyone seems to be having sweaty flashbacks to the CR good old days. [Read more...]
Senators take a break with Girl’s Guide to Washington Politics
December 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment
On opening night, Thurs, Dec 11th, 12 senators – all of them women – found something to laugh about when they took a bipartisan night out to attend Woolly Mammoth’s latest import from Second City, A Girls’ Guide to Washington Politics.
(l-r) Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz, Senator Claire McCaskill (D, Missouri) Senator Olympia Snowe (R, Maine) Senator Blanche Lincoln (D, Arkansas) Senator Maria E. Cantwell (D, Washington) Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, California) Senator Barbara Mikulski (D, Maryland) Senator Debbie Stabenow (D, Michigan) Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D, New Hampshire) Senator Susan Collins (R, Maine) Senator Kay Hagan (D, North Carolina) Senator Amy Klobuchar (D, Minnesota) Senator Lisa Murkowski (R, Alaska) and Managing Director Jeffrey Herrman
Despite revealing only the scantest of details about the show itself, Woolly Mammoth reports that ticket buyers for Girl’s Guide, riding on the possibility of seeing their favorite pols harpooned by the popular Chicago improv troupe, have broken the record for the highest advance sales in the company’s 31 year history.
Wildwood Park
December 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Although it is not immediately apparent from a survey of his accomplishments, Doug Wright is a sort of poet of artistic privation. He tells his most famous story, I Am My Own Wife, with thirty-five characters but he dispenses with thirty-four of the actors, leaving the entire tale in the hands of one protean (or perhaps Maysian) artist. In Wildwood Park, a nasty little hornet’s nest of a play, he sets his story in an 8,000 square foot mansion, where a very bad thing has happened, tucked away in an exclusive suburban village. [Read more...]
Cirque Dreams Holidaze
December 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment
There are many traditional ways to enjoy the 2010 holiday season here in Washington, D.C. You could attend any of three versions of The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol. But if you are looking for something new to do with your family this holiday season, a trip to the historic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to experience Cirque Dreams Holidaze, created and directed by Neil Goldberg, will be sure to dazzle and impress. [Read more...]
Wishful Drinking debuts on HBO Sunday night
December 10, 2010 By 1 Comment
HBO has filmed a documentary of Carrie Fisher’s one woman comedy Wishful Drinking which debuts this Sunday, Dec 12th at 9pm on HBO.
As those who saw the show when Arena Stage brought it to DC in 2008, this is Ms. Fisher’s tell-all bio of what it has been like to be the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, the former wife of Paul Simon ( “things were getting worse faster than we could lower our standards,”), and living with the fact that she will be known as Princess Leia. Forever.
Here’s how Gary McMillan described the DC production: Carrie Fisher has a subtly smoky, whiskey voice (more on the Brenda Vaccaro or Lauren Bacall end of the Whiskey Voice Scale spectrum than Elaine Stritch or Patricia Neal) and an infectious laugh. Her living room is open; have a seat in a comfy chair or on the sofa, lean back, and enjoy 1,001 tales as told by a truly great storyteller.”
Remember this?
