After the Garden: Edith Beale Live at Reno Sweeney

If you’ve seen the documentary (The Beales of Grey Gardens) and/or the musical (Grey Gardens) you already know “Little Edie” Beale.  If you are a hard core fan of this absurdly pathetic character and cannot wait for the upcoming Jessica Lange/Drew Barrymore movie, you can feed your appetite further with Ganymede Arts’ world premiere production, After the Garden: Edith Beale Live at Reno Sweeney.  If you lack any special affection for her, however, you’ll find this show only sporadically funny and increasingly tiresome. Read more

Community Mourns the Passing of Noi Chudnoff

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A New Name and Vision for ATW

As reported last night in DCist:  DCist has had the opportunity to enjoy a number of Actors’ Theater of Washington productions over the years. But we’ve learned that the theater company, which targets Washington’s gay and lesbian community, will be expanding its focus and rebranding its identity.

ATW will soon begin to operate as Ganymede Arts, a name taken from the first Greek myth to reference same sex love, and a character and concept that has found its influence in everything from Renaissance art to church history to astronomy (Jupiter’s largest moon, for instance). Read more here.

Tramps and Vamps

Reviewed by Tim Treanor

Tramps and Vamps (Ruffian on the Stair/Vampire Lesbians of Sodom), Actors Theater of Washington

The great immortal succubus, stage name La Condesa (Nanna Ingvarsson) requires the blood of virgin women to continue living - or rather continue undying. A woman (Rick Hammerly) of indeterminate age (she says fourteen), having experienced the world’s worst lottery luck, is selected to appease the monster’s appetite. But as the succubus bites into the poor little victim (Hammerly looks to be about six feet tall), the victim bites back - thus assuring that not one but two vampires will catapult after each other throughout history. Two of their battlegrounds take place in those two Meccas of virginity, 1920s Hollywood and 1980s Las Vegas.

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A Boston Marriage At Source

By: Ronnie Ruff         Boston Marriage - The Actor’s Theatre Of Washington

Anyone who has loved someone and thought they might be losing them can appreciate what Boston Marriage is really about. Not so much about the witty and terribly funny barbs that fly to and fro — the play is about is love and the fear that you may be in danger of losing it. This fear takes one’s thoughts and feelings hostage, you become oblivious to the words that escape your lips. This is exactly what has happened to Anna and Claire in David Mamet’s Boston Wedding.

Kate Eastwood Norris (Anna) is advised by Jenifer Belle Deal (Claire) that she is smitten by a young woman she has met and has invited her to Anna’s home for the purpose of exploring her newly found love interest. Anna is, of course, devastated because of her feelings for Claire and resists her attempts to have her accept the tryst with cutting, sarcastic jabs that are returned by Claire with similar velocity. The only thing that gets in their way is the constant interruption by Anna’s maid (Elizabeth Simmons) whose presence is an easy target for Anna and her sharp tongue. She (Ms. Simmons) delivers one of the show’s funniest lines that I cannot utter here without butchering it — you will just have to see the show!

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