From out front – The Awards show
(filed by Debbie Jackson)

The theme that seemed to permeate the Helen Hayes Awards Ceremony this year was gentle kindness and appreciation for the arts and one’s fellow artists.  Acceptance speeches were more humble and gracious than usual, no rants, no tirades, or loud explosive bits.  “Just, wow—I didn’t expect to receive this award.  No—really.  Thank you.”  Of course, not that short, some awardees read off names from the obligatory list of people to acknowledge.  But even then, the names were read with consideration and care, not just crossed off a checklist. [Read more...]

-  It seems no production opens without longtime arts buff David Tannous sitting front row center. As the recipient of DC Theatre Scene’s 2011 Gary Lee Maker Award for Outstanding Audience Member, Tannous has brought boundless enthusiasm and a smart analytical eye to Washington shows for decades. On the eve of this year’s awards, DC Theatre Scene spoke with Tannous about his responses to 2011 musical theatre in the DC area. What follows is our distillation of his thoughts, culled from extensive conversation. Read his overview of the 2011 musicals here. - 

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This past year gave us a strong group of musicals. I was so pleased by so many of the shows I saw.

Follies was extraordinarily good. I would have loved to get to see the New York incarnation, since there were a few cast changes. But the Follies I saw here was superb. One of the best productions of a Sondheim play I’ve seen. I saw Signature do Follies in 2003 in their old space, which was constrained for some practical reasons. But this Follies at The Kennedy Center was exceptionally well thought out. It’s a difficult piece. It has a lot of nostalgia, in the troubled marriages of two couples contrasted with their hopeful, younger selves. It has cameos throughout. By nature, it’s not an easy play to put on. But it was done so well, and it was so engaging on an emotional level.

Some shows you watch just admiring the construct — the fact that the machine is running so well. But with Sondheim plays, there’s always something more. Sondheim wrote this one as he was turning forty, in 1971. That was the start to a decade that would give us some of his best works. And Follies is a show in which people realize they’ve already spent enough of their life to be able to look back. It was a stand-out show, with a great feeling of surprise and style. That’s why it’s on my short-list from this  past year. Follies asks a lot of the audience — it confronts us with issues like the pain of looking back, and soured expectations in life.

Side By Side By Sondheim at Signature taps into the same thing. We all love Sondheim. We’ve had practically nobody since who has composed not just at his level of technical ability, but with an ability to evoke such deep emotions in us. It’s amazing how he does it. It’s magic. This one is a sort of hybrid piece — it’s a revue, not really a straight musical in that it doesn’t have a singular story in which the characters make discoveries about themselves and others. And yet there’s a thread that runs through it. There is some real character development by the three performers in their songs. And all three actors had multiple moments to shine.

Actor Matthew Scott is the husband of Kristen Scott, who played Young Phyllis in Follies, so husband and wife were right across the river from each other during that time last year. He mentioned to me how happy they were to be able to see each other each night after having each just sung Sondheim. How lovely.

POP! at Studio Theatre I loved. Everything the play was about — and everything about how the production worked, the rules it made for itself — grew out of this notion that when Warhol created the Factory art space in New York he was essentially establishing a small town. What the show did beautifully was explore what happens when you have a sort of “dear leader,” or a guru — a person around whom everyone else orbits — who builds a sort of hothouse environment that requires warm bodies in order to operate. The superstars in the Factory are like a huge litter of puppies all tumbled together. Or, maybe, like a hyperactive kindergarten class. How do they relate to each other? How does the Factory space determine what happens to all of them?

Warhol was kind of like the old woman who lived in a shoe — he had too many children! But he deliberately fostered this notion that he was at the center, so that everyone revolving around him was constantly competing for his attention. The show did a wonderful job of exploring that world.

Hairspray at Signature was incredible. The score is a marvel, and the energy of the actors was so high that the audience really picked up on the energy every time I saw it. It was buzzing in the air. There were times when I went to that show and saw people literally dancing in their seats. It was great that they decided to build that stage as a thrust. Partly because the action gets right out in front, right up to you. But also because the audience becomes aware of itself during the performance. You can see your fellow audience members across the way. For this show, and this story, that became hugely important.

In the case of Liberty Smith, there are a lot of great things to be said about the work everyone put into the show. There were a lot of talented actors involved, and in some cases they absolutely shone through.

I have to be honest, though… Recently I’ve seen a number of productions at some of the best theatres in town that made me wish someone involved had been able to take a step back and say no. Or, “not ready.” Molly Smith over at Arena Stage hasn’t been afraid to do that when necessary. In fact I can remember her doing it more than once in the recent past, even last year. She doesn’t hesitate to declare that a show’s not ready for primetime, as they say. She’ll say that if a show’s not working, or it’s just not there yet, they’re gonna yank it.

This past season at Arena it was the new musical version of Like Water For Chocolate they’ve been working on. So, it happens. But at some other theatres around town — in this case Ford’s with Liberty Smith – I’ve got to wonder: What were they thinking? I guess you get caught up in the momentum, putting so much in that you can’t pull away. But someone needs to be able to pull the plug if a show really isn’t turning into all it should be.

The Sound of Music at Olney worked well for the most part. I don’t think it’s the best of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, but there’s much in it to love. However, it felt constrained to me. Set design can have so much impact on the effectiveness of a production. I don’t know whether I’d have any better suggestions, necessarily, but I thought in this case everything felt pushed way up to the front, with a lot of narrow back-and-forth. It was almost like the actors were walking on runways from left to right. Sort of like a pop-up book.

But the feeling of depth, of space, is so crucial to The Sound of Music. I mean, come on, the hills are alive! But even though things felt cramped, the cast did beautifully with it. I was impressed by a lot of the performances. I just didn’t get the sense of wonder that I felt coming out of Follies or Hairspray, or the feeling that I’d been taken on an imagination-enlarging fantasy tour like I felt after POP! Maybe The Sound of Music is just one of those curious musicals that exist primarily to be done as a really well-done movie.

Read more tributes in our 2012 series, Curtain Call. 

- It seems no production opens without longtime arts buff David Tannous sitting front row center. As the recipient of DC Theatre Scene’s 2011 Gary Lee Maker Award for Outstanding Audience Member, Tannous has brought boundless enthusiasm and a smart analytical eye to Washington shows for decades. On the eve of this year’s awards, DC Theatre Scene spoke with Tannous about his responses to 2011 musical theatre in the DC area. What follows is our distillation of his thoughts, culled from extensive conversation. Read his overview of the 2011 musicals here. - 
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I didn’t get to see A Year With Frog and Toad, so, I can’t speak to Kirstin Riegler’s performance in this category.

Tracy Lynn Olivera was wonderful in The Sound of Music. She was stepping in and out of roles for that one! Channez McQuay took over as Mother Superior, which bumped Tracy up to Channez’s role, and then for some performances Tracy moved up to play Mother Superior. So I’m not exactly sure whether she’s nominated for playing a particularly character or not. At any rate, she did very well. I wish the play allowed her the scope to go deeper, to show the kind of passion and complexity in a role like the Baroness, which Jenna Sokolowski played in this production. Tracy did beautifully, but her roles were somewhat circumscribed. That being said, I have never seen her give a bad performance, or one that lacked real thought. She did beautifully in this one.

Also in this category: two people nominated are from Hairspray. Nova Y. Payton and Lauren Williams. Both were dynamite.  As sidekick character Penny Lou Pingleton, Lauren serves as the sort of beta to Tracy Turnblad’s alpha. But even though her character suffered at moments, she discovered her inner moxie.

This is how, in a sense, Hairspray is a fairy tale. Penny falls in love with a young black guy, and he falls in love with her. And her mother finally accepts it. It’s a cotton-candy take on American life in that period. What Lauren did was embody that sense of unexpected self-discovery and astonishment, which then edges over into delight and joy. Especially in the last scene, where her newfound self-confidence manifests. That role allowed her a lot of room to maneuver, and she took charge of it.

Nova Y. Payton’s performance was spectacular, both vocally and dramatically. Motormouth had been there and done that and had had her own education. When Tracy was losing heart and losing confidence, it was Motormouth who showed her it was possible to continue on and find another way to what she wanted. So that with someone else’s very different experience Tracy discovered a different way to walk the walk and discover unknown strengths within herself. When Carolyn and Nova were in  scenes together, musically and dramatically egging each other on, it was a ratcheting up of the dramatic between the two of them, finding a sisterhood and connection between racial divide and their difference of age and experience.

What Nova brought to the role was utter conviction and determination.When Nova led the company in her great ballad “I Know Where I’ve Been”, it created one of the grand moments of the musical, and I, along with the rest of the audience, were ready to join the cast in marching behind Motormouth, picking up those signs and banners, sweeping all before us.

Then there’s Rachel Zampelli. Oh my god! The performance she turned in as Valerie Solanis in POP!, as the founder of the Society for Cutting Up Men… She just fit in so beautifully. She really showed us that sense of rage Valerie felt at her growing certainty that she was not being taken seriously. And Andy Warhol — the man who seemed to be welcoming everybody in — turned out to not be letting anyone in. But Valerie had such certainty of her own worth, as an artist, that she would accept being put off. She was a force of nature.

Rachel played a sort of similar character in Brother Russia at Signature this spring, actually. But in POP! she had a much more nuanced role. I really admired what she did. It was like watching a covered pot of stewed tomatoes on the stove suddenly boil over. Her mounting frustration turned to anger, which then turned into a consoling self-justification for the crime she’s going to do. Then — Pop! The pot boils over.

Read more tributes in our 2012 series, Curtain Call. 

- It seems no production opens without longtime arts buff David Tannous sitting front row center. As the recipient of DC Theatre Scene’s 2011 Gary Lee Maker Award for Outstanding Audience Member, Tannous has brought boundless enthusiasm and a smart analytical eye to Washington shows for decades. On the eve of this year’s awards, DC Theatre Scene spoke with Tannous about his responses to 2011 musical theatre in the DC area. What follows is our distillation of his thoughts, culled from extensive conversation.  Read his overview of the 2011 musicals here. - 

In terms of jaw-dropping great work by an ensemble, the two shows that really stood out for me were Hairspray and POP! I was really taken in by those two in particular. I’ll explain why.

I am sorry to say that I didn’t get to see A Year With Frog and Toad. So keep that in mind. I don’t leave them out for any other reason than the fact that I didn’t get up to Adventure Theatre for that one. Foolishly, it turns out!

With regard to ensemble, a very particular point was made with POP! and with Hairspray. In both cases, the ensemble was used as more than just a crowd — they were all very clear characters. In these two shows especially, the play would not be a play without this pattern of multiple supporting characters coming into focus for moments that affect the plot, then receding again.

That’s exactly how Andy Warhol ran the Factory in real life, with himself as a sort of dark star at the center of the universe. A great deal of thoughts clearly went into how to provide for a rich population of actors. And in fact, POP! had two layers of ensemble. The characters with lines and character names were drawing energy from a second, outer group of non-speaking ensemble actors that appeared in various ways. It was crucial for Studio to have this secondary ensemble — they put pressure on the spoken-line characters, who in turn played off Tom Story as Andy Warhol. That impressed me tremendously. I also found it smart how they used the ensemble specifically for that space. The audience came in through the back way — an unused stairwell, on a route that Studio patrons never see.

It felt off-balance. But that was always Warhol’s way with people. We were, in a way, uptown visitors to his nitty-gritty art space. The audience was part of it and not part of it. There was a strong feeling that this big group of people would continue in its rhythm even after we left.

What Tom did in the role of Andy — and did brilliantly — was to hold up a mirror to use. Or, you might call it a face of blankness. Back then, everyone wanted to be his favorite. But Warhol thrived on the feeling of people petitioning for his attention, and the only way to keep that feeling going is to never give anyone what they’re asking for. So, the bustling two-tiered ensemble  in POP! served the main point of the play. That was very impressive.

In the case of Hairspray, again the ensemble was integral. The whole theme of that story is the struggle of how to ride, or control, changing crowd attitudes. The play is all about a society that showcases a single perception of what is accepted, inside of which exist a few people with enough energy and desire for change to beat the odds and come out on top. But it’s only possible when characters like Tracy and Edna can convince themselves that they have something worth offering. They don’t have to accept what the community has decided about their level of worth. So, the feeling of ensemble is crucial because it illustrates how crowd dynamics can be shifted.

And in this production, the ensemble really transformed from beginning to end. Each ensemble member had real individuality — specific body language, attitude, range of expression, even details in costuming. I never felt that I was looking at a mob scene full of interchangeable people.

Liberty Smith and The Sound of Music had, in a sense, more conventional ensembles, but in each case they were very effective. Liberty Smith, in particular, had an enormous ensemble. But it’s also an enormous stage at Ford’s — I think more enormous than people realize — so it was great to see so many people appearing, receding, and reappearing later on. Liberty Smith is the most episodic and cinematic production of the group. I saw it several times, and at moments it felt like a biography movie from the 1930s. Where, for example, you’d see a superimposed image of pages falling from a calendar to show that time is passing. So stylistically it was a complicated dance, and I admired that the ensemble did everything they needed to do to keep the show going.

The Sound of Music had a smaller ensemble, and a more traditional presentation, but in this case too I got the sense that every single supporting role had its own life. The ensemble gave a sense of richness to the piece. They figured out how to make a limited number of actors and actresses feel like a whole community.

Read more tributes in our 2012 series, Curtain Call. 

- It seems no production opens without longtime arts buff David Tannous sitting front row center. As the recipient of DC Theatre Scene’s 2011 Gary Lee Maker Award for Outstanding Audience Member, Tannous has brought boundless enthusiasm and a smart analytical eye to Washington shows for decades. On the eve of this year’s awards, DC Theatre Scene spoke with Tannous about his responses to 2011 musical theatre in the DC area. What follows is our distillation of his thoughts, culled from extensive conversation.  Read his overview of the 2011 musicals here. - 
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We have excellent actors and actresses nominated this year. So much so that something struck me, looking over the nominations… Some of them got the great good luck to be featured in a wonderful play in a wonderful role, and some of them were working like all get-out to make the most of a lesser play and a less inherently rich role. It was good that in both people of both kinds were recognized in both the Lead Actor and Lead Actress categories. [Read more...]

- It seems no production opens without longtime arts buff David Tannous sitting front row center. As the recipient of DC Theatre Scene’s 2011 Gary Lee Maker Award for Outstanding Audience Member, Tannous has brought boundless enthusiasm and a smart analytical eye to Washington shows for decades. On the eve of this year’s awards, DC Theatre Scene spoke with Tannous about his responses to 2011 musical theatre in the DC area. What follows is our distillation of his thoughts, culled from extensive conversation.  Read his overview of the 2011 musicals here. - 

Nancy Anderson did superbly in Side By Side By Sondheim. I’m very impressed by her.

[Read more...]

It seems no production opens without longtime arts buff David Tannous sitting front row center. As the recipient of DC Theatre Scene’s 2011 Gary Lee Maker Award for Outstanding Audience Member, Tannous has brought boundless enthusiasm and a smart analytical eye to Washington shows for decades. On the eve of this year’s awards, DC Theatre Scene spoke with Tannous about his responses to 2011 musical theatre in the DC area. What follows is our distillation of his thoughts, culled from extensive conversation. [Read more...]

- James Kronzer is a multiple Helen Hayes Award recipient, with, by our count, 20 nominations since 1990, and taking home 7. - 

I am in theatre because of the importance of storytelling. That is the timeless part of theatre, and the reason we keep coming back to Shakespeare and the Greeks. We see common experiences in the characters in front of us, and we want to root for their rise or demise. [Read more...]