Chicago’s Charlotte d’Amboise

He’s seen her twist and slither across the stage as Roxie Hart five times in NYC, and now Joel Markowitz interviews his favorite Roxie – Charlotte d’Amboise, who is playing the publicity-seeking murderess in Chicago, now on The National Theatre stage. Read more

Maureen McGovern

She is in her 37th year onstage as a folk singer, a cabaret star and musical theatre actress, and now Maureen McGovern is bringing her solo show A Long And Winding Road to Arena Stage in Crystal City, after workshops in Florida and Boston.  Maureen sat down with Joel Markowitz to talk about the songs she chose for the show.  Read more

From Crowns – E. Faye Butler and Zurin Villanueva

They’ve Got Hatitude!

They’ve come from different times and places – E. Faye Butler, the Chicago born musicals star whose favorite roles include Caroline, or Change, The Gospel According to Fishman, Saving Amy, and Polk County, and Zurin Villanueva, Brooklynite, Howard University student, and winner of Arena Stage’s Finding Yolanda talent search.  In Crowns, E. Faye’s character Mother Shaw and Zurin’s Yolanda develop a deep bond which has spilled over into their personal lives, as you will hear here. Read more

Edward Albee Interview

At a little before 2 pm on February 24th, I called the phone number which Arena Stage had provided. A thin, cultured, cheery voice said, “Hello?” I explained who I was and asked to speak with Edward Albee. “This is he,” the voice said, and just like that I was on the phone – with all respect to Tom Stoppard – with the world’s greatest living playwright.

Albee, who writes fierce dialogue, has a reputation as a fierce, and fiercely guarded, man. I found him to be completely otherwise – open, gracious, optimistic and full of laughter. His answers to my questions were enormously polished and succinct, but they were also thoughtful and substantive. He spoke extensively on his writing process, which many writers are unwilling to do, and he gave an understanding of characters and events in A Delicate Balance which help us unlock the human heart of that play. Read more

Kathleen Chalfant Interview

Actress Kathleen Chalfant, perhaps best known for her role as Vivian Bearing in Margaret Edson’s Wit (winning her numerous awards including an OBIE), began her career in New York in 1972. She has  played an astonishing range of roles written by playwrights such as Jules Feiffer, Christopher Durang, Eve Ensler, Samuel Beckett, Alan Bennett and Tony Kushner (Angels in America earned her a Tony nomination). She is in town to portray Agnes in Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, now in production at Arena Stage.

In an Arena Stage interview, Ms. Chalfant described the playwright: “I admire Albee’s writing deeply. There is never a false word. Albee’s language carries an actor rather than the other way around. His language is the roadmap which leads me, the actor, into the world of the play.”  Here, we investigate the world of A Delicate Balance, and the life of this celebrated actress. Our interview with Edward Albee will appear shortly. Read more

Dante’s Ben Cunis and Paata Tsikurishvili

by Joel Markowitz

A conversation with Synetic Theater Artistic Director Paata Tsikurishvili, director of Dante and  Ben Cunis, co-adaptor,  who appears in the title role.

Three hours before their call at Rosslyn Spectrum,  Paata Tsikurishvili and Ben Cunis sat down with Joel Markowitz to talk about the daunting task of creating a play out of one of the most extraordinary works in world literature - Dante Alighieri’s classic poem The Divine Comedy. Read more

Cool Papa’s Maurice Hines and Tom Jones

Cool Papa’s Party
A conversation with choreographer Maurice Hines and writer/director Thomas W. Jones II
by Joel Markowitz

It was late, the end of a long evening rehearsal, and the cast of Cool Papa’s Party had one more song in them – “Sho’ Can Dance” which they recorded for us before quitting the stage, leaving just me, 12-time Helen Hayes Award-Winning writer and director Thomas W. Jones II, and the legendary dancer, director and choreographer Maurice Hines. Read more

Shrek’s Brian d’Arcy James

Brian d’Arcy James Talks with Richard Seff
Recorded by Joel Markowitz

Sixteen years ago Richard Seff met Brian d’Arcy James when the two performed in Lend Me AaTenor at the Players Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. A bond was formed, and Richard has watched Brian grow from the Bellboy in Tenor to Shrek The Ogre in Shrek The Musical, now in its Broadway run. Read more

Cody Green from West Side Story

CODY GREEN ON PLAYING RIFF IN WEST SIDE STORY
By Joel Markowitz

Canadian-born dancer/actor/singer Cody Green is used to taking big risks.  He left The Juilliard School to join the ensemble of  the Mama Mia! national tour. Playing Eddie in the tour of Movin’ Out led to joining the Broadway cast in its last few months, and then the London cast. He took a leave of absence from the revival of Grease to compete in BRAVO’s “Step It Up and Dance” competition and came away the winner.  Then he turned down a show for the chance he might get to work with Arthur Laurents in West Side Story. Read more

Karen Olivo

An Interview with actress Karen Olivo, who plays Anita in West Side Story
by Joel Markowitz

When I saw Karen Olivo playing Faith in the musical Brooklyn, I knew, by the power and beauty of her voice,  that a star had been born. When I saw Karen as Vanessa in the 37 Arts Off-Broadway production of In The Heights, I told everyone I knew to run to NYC and catch her performance. After the show transferred to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, Broadway audiences were treated to Karen’s feisty Vanessa in last year’s Tony Award Winning Best Musical.

More than 50 years after it opened at the National Theatre, the new production West Side Story , under the direction of the legendary Arthur Laurents, returned to the National in preparation for its Broadway opening. DC audiences and critics alike cheered Karen Olivo’s scorching portrayal of Anita. Before she left Washington, Karen did this interview for us. Read more

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