On Monday, December 13th, three of the leads in Arena Stage’s production of Oklahoma! will make a special appearance at Artspeak!. DC actress Eleasha Gamble and Nicholas Rodriguez, who play Laurey and Curly and Cody Williams who plays the love smitten Will, will perform and interact with the ArtSpeak! audience, many of them students.
The program, which begins at 5:30 pm in the Sitar Arts Center Auditorium, 1700 Kalorama Road NW, Washington, DC, is underwritten by Shugoll Research and is free and open to everyone.
The brainchild of philanthropist Mark Shugoll, ArtSpeak! brings actors, designers and musicians together with young audiences in a lively program of performance and interviews.
The idea, he admits in a 2008 DCTS interview “… I kind of stole from the ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ format.” “We bring artists into this Middle School, and they talk about their career, they perform, they sing, which is so exciting. They answer questions, we play ArtSpeak! trivia, we give away CDs, we try to make it as fun as possible, … it’s an amazing thing.”
Since 1997, ArtSpeak! has presented artists such as Heidi Blickenstaff, Laura Benanti, Michael Cerveris, Hugh Panaro, Alice Ripley, Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, choreographer Maurice Hines, and composers Stephen Schwartz and Marvin Hamlisch.
DCTS review of Oklahoma!
Joel Markowitz interview with June Schreiner and Will Cody
Joel Markowitz podcast with Mark Shugoll
