There may have been moments in your high school or college career where, beleaguered with other work, tired, or simply fed up, you resorted to a quick plot summary rather than reading the required text. In fact, wearied by circuitous prose or florid diction, maybe you even sought out summaries on purpose. Either way, you’ve got a book report due, and it won’t write itself. Or will it? By taking this challenge to the stage in A Game of Love and Chance, American University’s Department of the Performing Arts excels in staging the messy, the inane, and the irreverent.

In his live adaptation of Pierre Marivaux’s 1730 comedy — a romantic farce presaging the French Revolution with wit and a healthy dash of historical irony — director Karl Kippola makes this production’s mission very clear: to the joy or injury of Marivaux, this rendition will completely elide the original script, leave actors’ roles up to chance, and thoroughly demolish the fourth wall. What results is a performance that revels in its own foolishness and lampoons the old stock of Marivaux’s model.

Set in the same milieu as its original, A Game of Love and Chance follows the aristocratic Orgon family — father, son, and daughter — as it plans to marry the latter off to Monsieur Dorante, whose arrival is imminent. Silvia implores her father to save her from the trappings of an arranged marriage, proposing that she and her maid, Lisette, trade places to avoid a confrontation. Minutes before her betrothed arrives, Monsieur Orgon relents — if only because he’s learned that Monsieur Dorante plans to carry out the same exact ruse with his valet, Harlequin. So begins Marivaux’s commedia dell’arte, and so too does Kippola’s adaptation, to an extent.

More reliant on instinct than realism, this production foregrounds a practice of improvisation and crowd work. Flexible and confident, improv suits Marivaux well, loosening up any formal strictures that distance contemporary audiences from his harebrained plot and giving Kippola’s cast generous permission to work and play.

Of course, with a double cast and roles chosen nightly by the audience, one might assume a certain gamble is at play here. The production’s collective talent begs to differ. Endeavoring toward a shared notion of a plot but foregrounding all the humor that comes in its making — and breaking — the communal act of storytelling really shines through. Granted such free reign, Kippola’s cast assembles a new farce within the old one, each fortified by the other. Thus, while you may see only a certain cast play certain characters on a certain performance of AU’s production of A Game of Love and Chance, it will also certainly be a night to remember.

From Jared Kirschenbaum’s winsome yet stoic Monsieur Orgon to Madison Gough’s rakish Mario, it is evident that this cast is prepared to immerse themselves in their characters, from their buckled heels up to their collarless coats. Sarah Bennett and Max Burchell prove a riot as the help-turned-masters of the Orgon and Durante estates. Reveling in their momentary privilege, Bennett and Burchell mount a rollicking burlesque of the bourgeoisie while nursing an immediate and bawdy infatuation between the two impish servants. (A favorite ad lib shared by the two is Burchell entering Bennett’s scene with the words “I am entering this room.”)

Tired of being rebuked and dismissed, Alyssa Nolan’s Silvia breaks through her ingénue caricature and refuses to be trampled on. Though a gradual learning curve, Silvia’s earnest nature eventually proves itself as more cunning and fiery than assumed. This break in the traditional hero/heroine dichotomy also affects Sophie Indiana Fischer’s Dorante, who, despite tribulations somewhat of his own making, emerges as a hapless and empathetic darling.

Each of these performances is rooted in a deep understanding of the play’s dramatic composition, its reception, and its role as a historical artifact. Cognizant of its place in the history of European comedy, Madison Troost, the production’s dramaturg, indeed manages to maintain the “truth of Marivaux’s play.” This truth carries on through the intricate costuming of Jillian Skara, whose work makes early modern aristocratic dress spry and sexy.

Held together by quips, bits, and double entendre, Kippola’s adaptation of A Game of Love and Chance is certainly an adaptation for a new generation of theatergoers as much as it is for familiar patrons. Relaxed and self-assured, it cuts through any potential discomfort of audience engagement, improvisation, and self-reference and delivers an inventive approach to adaptation in the modern era.

Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

A Game of Love and Chance plays through March 1, 2025, presented by the American University Department of Performing Arts performing at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW. For tickets ($10–$15, free for AU students), call (202) 885-3634 or order online. (The run is sold out.)

A Game of Love and Chance
An Improvised Adaptation of Pierre Marivaux’s Play

CAST A (02/26, 02/28, and 03/01 at 2pm)
Robin Kane
Margaret Lyda
Lucille Rieke
Vish Shukla
Madison Troost
Shelly Wiese
Mira Gross-Keck (u/s)

CAST 1 (02/25, 02/27, and 03/01 at 8pm)
Sarah Bennett
Max Burchell
Sophie Indiana Fischer
Madison Gough
Jared Kirschenbaum
Alyssa Nolan
Ollie Hunter (u/s)

CREATIVE AND PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Karl Kippola
Intimacy Coordinator: Sierra Young
Scenic Designer: August Henney
Painting Lead: Brianne Anderson
Painting Lead: Liz Ashe
Costume Designer: Jillian Skara
Costume Shop Manager: Sydney Moore
Lighting Designer: Jason Zuckerman
Lighting Design Mentor: Jason Arnold
Lighting Electrician: Shannon Nichols
Lighting Electrician: Molly Jane Brennan
Sound Designer: Will Marley
Sound Designer Mentor: Niel McFadden
Assistant Director: Calvin Plante
Assistant Producer: Max Burchell
Dramaturg: Madison Troost
Stage Manager: Amelia Traylor
Assistant Stage Manager: Elizabeth Szymanski
Assistant Stage Manager: Isabel Manning
Stage Management Mentor: Martita Slaydon-Robinson
Wardrobe Run Crew: Ada Tasie
Theatre/Musical Theatre Program Director: Jason Arnold
Theatre/Musical Theatre Artistic Director: Aaron Posner
Theatre/Musical Theatre Grad Fellow: Josie Palmarini

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Draped in the bright pastels of a bygone era, Truvy’s Salon is a charming little corner of Chinquapin, Louisiana — and has been since the premiere of Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias in 1987. In Creative Cauldron’s brave new production of Harling’s hit play directed by Founding Artistic Director Laura Connors Hull, this small-town salon becomes a haven for the triumphs and gossip of six bold and brassy Southern women. However, as their own troubles rise to the surface, these ladies tease out more than just friendship from their hair appointments, forming bonds deeper than their early flippancies may suggest.

Designed by Creative Cauldron’s Resident Scenic, Costume, and Puppet Designer Margie Jervis, Truvy’s Salon is a proud and lively reflection of the intrepid characters found inside. Vivid and inviting, Miss Truvy’s affable nature brightens up her salon’s every corner, mirrored in everything from its turquoise styling chairs to its radiant lighting, designed by James Morrison. Each detail is intentional and inviting, from its vintage fashion magazines to its Baby Jesus Christmas tchotchkes. Collectively, the Creative Cauldron crew inaugurates its new space with tact, care, and personality to boot.

Such a set may only be bested by the larger-than-life characters brought to the stage by Creative Cauldron’s ambitious cast. As Truvy, Miss Kitty proves herself a weighty talent of both melodrama and nuance. She commands the stage with a quirky, slightly unwieldy physicality that can’t help but endear her to everyone around. A formidable duo, Molly Rumberger and Mindy Shaw bring to life the loving, occasionally fraught bond between mother and daughter with an earnest realism. Rumberger’s Shelby is willful and spirited despite her debilitating diabetes. She is generous and optimistic while at times impenetrable. Shaw’s M’Lynn is alert to all her daughter’s moods, meeting her headstrong at every crossroad. As M’Lynn is gradually forced to let her daughter live by her own decisions, Shaw delicately develops M’Lynn’s resignation alongside the sorrow and indignation that it buries — and ultimately can’t contain.

Forming the comedic backbone of the show, Krista Grimmett-Adams and Karen Lange play two wealthy, boastful residents of Chinquapin. In her role of Clairee, Grimmett-Adams combines the assuredness of Chinquapin’s former first lady with the nimble humor of a town gossip. A quidnunc with a heart of gold, Grimmett-Adams’s Clairee shines with empathy and optimism. Lange’s Ouiser brings a necessary dose of schadenfreude to the group, moaning and grumbling whenever she has the chance. Lange plays Ouiser in the fashion of Shirley MacLaine’s acclaimed 1989 performance, leaving Ouiser’s heart on her sleeve, then quickly covering it back up in a coy game of endearment. Grimmett-Adams and Lange play together masterfully, teasing and baiting each other yet always in alliance like real sisters.

As an anxious newcomer in Chinquapin, Annelle initiates our introduction to this sisterhood. Hapless and pert, Margaret Anne Murphy’s Annelle initially brings with her an earnest sense of humor not entirely in line with that of her friends, and thus often cause for teasing. However, as Annelle grows into the community that welcomes her, she finds a place for her sincerity among the good-natured sarcasm of her friends. Murphy’s portrayal of this character so in her own world is heartwarming, especially as Annelle learns to come down to earth on occasion. Ultimately, despite its haze of hairspray and heat protectant, Truvy’s Beauty Salon is a clear reminder of the bonds that sustain us through troubling times. As spaces of sisterly solidarity across intersections of identity come further under fire, Creative Cauldron’s vision of found sisterhood deserves our attention more than ever.

Running Time: Two hours, plus one 15-minute intermission.

Steel Magnolias plays through March 9, 2025, at Creative Cauldron’s new home, 127 E Broad St, Falls Church, VA. Showtimes are Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm. Tickets are $45 for Tier One, $35 for Tier Two, and $20 for students. To purchase tickets, call the box office at 703-436-9948 or go online.

The program for Steel Magnolias is online here.

COVID Safety: Creative Cauldron is a mask-optional environment.​ Creative Cauldron’s COVID-19 Theater Protocol is available here.

SEE ALSO:
Creative Cauldron to celebrate theater grand opening with ‘Steel Magnolias’ (news story, January 29, 2025)

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Thorny with anxiety and resentment, Alex Levy’s production of The Lake Effect at 1st Stage bristles with the indecision to blame or to forgive. Three years after his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, Rajiv Joseph’s The Lake Effect premiered to proud local acclaim, receiving the 2013 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work. Trending away from the more surreal and existential themes of his breakout work, The Lake Effect is a one-room drama of naturalist styling that centers on the struggles of an Indian immigrant family and those imbricated by their strife.

Summoned back to Cleveland’s bitter snowscape just before their father’s sudden death, estranged siblings Priya (Surasree Das) and Vijay (Shaan Sharma) reunite in the failing Indian restaurant in which they grew up. Priya has come up from Florida and becomes determined to give her father a proper send-off, while Vijay, embittered by a cold relationship with his late father, looks for new outlets for his resentment. When met by Bernard (Jonathan Del Palmer), a new and unfamiliar friend of their father’s who knows far more about their family than they do, Priya and Vijay must contend with both the secrets they’ve kept from one another, as well as those their father has kept from them.

1st Stage takes up Joseph’s play with a nuanced and empathetic view toward this family’s changing fortunes. Instantly immersed in Kathryn Kawecki’s detailed set, the audience is well-primed for a show of revealing and confrontational honesty. The restaurant is open yet intimate, inviting a comfort at times congruent with and at others in conflict with Priya, Vijay, and Bernard’s changing attachments.

Surasree Das’ Priya commands the stage with a coy and impetuous presence, taking big strides through the lives of others yet effacing her footsteps. Das carries Priya with special care and resilience through the show, empathetic even to her faults. Shaan Sharma brings a defensive yet loving combativeness to his portrayal of Vijay, forging a strained yet inextricable link with Priya and Bernard. When Das and Sharma play together, the years peel away. They quarrel, one-up one another, reminisce — and Bernard joins in relentlessly. Del Palmer is the heart of Alex Levy’s production, infusing the show with its most direct and earnest appeal for human connection.

With the help of Lorraine Ressegger-Slone’s tactful movement and intimacy choreography, Das, Sharma, and Del Palmer engage in a dance of anxious reconciliations and fraught first impressions. Punctuated by engaging blocking and effective stage pictures, the fates of this ragtag group of strangers are externalized and offered up to its audience for judgment. What remains is a show and an audience united under one ethical conundrum, each left wondering if forgiveness is still possible.

Running Time: 80 minutes with no intermission.

The Lake Effect plays through February 23, 2025 (Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays at 7:30 pm, Saturdays at 2 pm and 7:30 pm, and Sundays at 2 pm), at 1st Stage, located at 1524 Spring Hill Road, Tysons, VA. Purchase tickets ($55 for general admission, with limited tickets for $25 and $40 at each performance) by calling the box office at 703-854-1856, going online, or in person before each performance. Select performances are open-captioned and/or audio-described. Open seating.

The playbill for The Lake Effect is online here.

COVID Safety: 1st Stage is now a mask-optional space with select mask-required performances offered for each show. See 1st Stage’s complete COVID Safety Information here.

The Lake Effect
Written by Rajiv Joseph
Directed by Alex Levy

Lighting Design by William K. D’Eugenio; Sound Design by Navi; Costume Design by Lynly A. Saunders

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Framing the program for the Sterling Playmakers’ production of The Last Five Years is a tidy collage of 16 photos — photos you might find on an Instagram feed, in a photo album, or propped on a mantle. In The Last Five Years, Jason Robert Brown shuffles these memories into an alternate chronology, telling the story of Jamie Wellerstein, a burgeoning young author, Cathy Hiatt, a struggling actress, and the trajectory of their five-year relationship from the end to the beginning.

Earning Brown a Drama Desk Award for his composition in 2002, The Last Five Years makes sure to fill its lyric quota, relaying its bittersweet story exclusively through songs by turns humorously chatty and vocally rigorous but always catchy. Originated by Norbert Leo Butz and Lauren Kennedy, Jamie and Cathy have quickly become characters embedded in the Broadway stock through productions centering successful young actors of various stripes, including Adam Kantor, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeremy Jordan, and, in its upcoming Broadway revival, Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren. Names like these all speak to the challenge of casting a production as ambitious as this: a two-person show with minimal staging, complex emotional topography, and Brown’s characteristically demanding compositions. Thankfully, this is a challenge the Sterling Playmakers have met face on.

Both in their Playmakers debut, Chelsea Williamson and Noah Mutterperl prove stars of a caliber rivaling Jamie and Cathy’s predecessors. For a show with myriad separations between its characters — Jamie and Cathy share only three duets, and even then, they sing across time — Williamson brings a cogent immediacy to Cathy’s emotional arc. Her earnestness from the celebration to the mourning of her relationship underscores Cathy’s vulnerability and reluctant dependence on Jamie. Her insecurities feel all the more palpable through Williamson’s masterful navigation of Cathy’s dark humor, and the audience can’t help but sympathize. Moreover, never is Williamson caught off guard by Brown’s intricate harmonies and mutable rhythms. With the self-assurance we all wish Cathy had more of, Williamson delivers a masterclass in vocal control, smoothly transitioning between a well-supported belt, a subtle mix, and a clear head voice.

Mutterperl complements Williamson with his own earnest naturalism. Mutterperl’s Jamie is playful, proud, and knavish. His successes often blind him, if unwittingly, to Cathy’s struggles. In trying to support her, Jamie can be not only tender but humorous and cruel, maintaining a righteousness you can’t entirely fault him for having. Mutterperl’s navigation of these subtle changes in Jamie’s behavior, his worldview, and his self-worth is remarkable, bested only by his musical talent. With an enviable vocal range and a commendably clear lower register, Mutterperl’s tenor is a double to Jeremy Jordan’s 2014 rendition. His physicalization is all his own, however, invitingly uninhibited and comic. Mutterperl even had the power to entirely reinvent for me “The Schmuel Song,” a frequent victim of the skip button on my Spotify. Energized and engaged from the start, the house was fully immersed.

Ultimately, Ashley McGee’s production of The Last Five Years with the Sterling Playmakers comes at an ideal time for reflection, community, and a good cry. Playing at Seneca Ridge Middle School through February 16, The Last Five Years deserves your time.

Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

The Last Five Years plays through February 16, 2025, presented by Sterling Playmakers performing at Seneca Ridge Middle School, 98 Seneca Ridge Drive, Sterling, VA. Tickets ($20–$50) are available online or at the door.

The Last Five Years
Book, Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown

Directed by Ashley McGee
Music Directed by Garrett Jones
Produced by Allison Ball and Jim Bowen-Collinson

Technical Direction and Scenic Design by Mylo Avalon Neptune
Costumes by Hannah and Jon Conradt
Lighting by Stacey King and Leecy Silk.

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In a period of fervent artistic production he later dubbed his “galley years,” Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi took up the challenge of adapting Shakespeare’s masterpiece Macbeth into an opera of illustrious magnetism. With a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and Andrea Maffei, Verdi’s take on the tragedy foregrounds the uncertain fate not only of its eponymous antihero but of the Kingdom of Alba at stake in Macbeth’s deadly stratagems. In a new production directed by the visionary Brenna Corner and helmed by the Washington National Opera’s formidable directorial duo General Director Timothy O’Leary and Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, Verdi’s imposing compositions gleefully set this pyre ablaze.

Summoned to the woods by the skirl of “The Skye Boat Song,” so our spell begins. Under a gathering storm, Macbeth (Étienne Depuis) and Banquo (Soloman Howard) happen upon a coven celebrating their devilish dealings. Greeting Macbeth as the future King of Scotland, they plant an ugly seed in the heart of our hero, which, over the course of two hours, will metastasize from hand to heart and mouth to mind, splaying out Macbeth’s most imperious desires and frailest vulnerabilities. Baritone Étienne Depuis embodies this fragile bravado with equal attention to Macbeth’s ambition and cowardice. As Macbeth’s sanity buckles under his ambition, Depuis expertly wields his arias to mine the emerging gulf between Macbeth’s rationalism and his megalomania. From the rationality of his early duets with Banquo (“Due vaticini compiuti or sono”), to his increasingly insular musings on the ethics of his ambitions (“Mi si affaccia un pugnal?”), Macbeth’s interiority is ironically laid bare. Though gilt with all the stately vocal athleticism deserving of Verdi’s original, Depuis’ mastery has a humble and actorly quality that humanizes the man beneath, even as he devolves into abhorrence.

Soprano Ewa Płonka imbues her Lady Macbeth with a complementary attention to the humanity beneath unbridled ambition. Płonka masterfully embodies the vanity and morosity fueling Lady Macbeth’s schemes in her arias. Both the mastermind behind and the handmaiden to her husband’s deadly ambitions, the role of Lady Macbeth is a delicate one. To her husband she is austere and authoritative, to everyone else she must appear placid and placatory. Płonka strikes this balance with impressive fluidity, tracing her character’s complex provocations from the frivolity of “Si colmi il calice” to the duplicitous scheming of “La luce langue” to her final, tragic recitative “Una macchia e qui tuttora.” Płonka even weaves a surprising comedic thread through each aria, achieving the campy affects that a character of such depth needs to ground them.

Kang Wang likewise delivers a standout performance in the role of Macduff. Wang’s dulcet tenor is as commanding as it is fierce, with the power to rally together not just Macbeth’s enemies but the audience as well. “Ah! la paterna mano,” Macduff’s mournful aria asking his murdered children to forgive him, deserves a performance of its own. This emotional resonance is only matched by Soloman Howard’s Banquo. A bass of rich and round vocal quality, Howard’s voice projects a depth and fullness that resounds in even the densest forests. His haunting yet understated arias “Studia il passo” and “Come dal ciel precipita” are particularly woeful and atmospheric warnings of Macbeth’s ambitions.

The Washington National Opera Chorus, Corps Dancers, and Orchestra bring Macbeth to life. In a spectacle of epic proportions and even more impressive musical prowess, the WNO is an ensemble of all abilities. From a perilous coven of witches to an anguished group of refugees, the chorus textures Macbeth with all the vibrant and bustling energy of a small city.

Mirroring Verdi’s musical inquiry into the interior topographies of obsession, power, and unbridled ambition, the Washington National Opera’s creative team plumbs the unsavory depths of the human psyche by its own means. Conductor Evan Rogister leads the production with an entrancing force, with equal attention to every distinct element of its aural landscape. Scenic Designer Erhard Rom pours this landscape into a mold as imposing yet mutable as Verdi’s score itself. In collaboration with Lighting Designer A.J. Guban and Projection Designer S. Katy Tucker, Macbeth is a beartrap of the mind. It beguiles, envelops, then pinches shut just before you know you’re trapped. As entrancing as it is impressive, the Washington National Opera’s production of Macbeth levies all its creative forces in service of Verdi’s monumental interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, and to sensational effect.

Running Time: Two hours and 45 minutes, including one 25-minute intermission.

Macbeth plays through November 23, 2024, presented by the Washington National Opera performing in the Opera House at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC. Tickets $45–$269) be purchased at the box office, online, or by calling (202) 467-4600 or toll-free at (800) 444-1324. Box office hours are Monday-Saturday, 10 am-9 pm, and Sunday 12 pm-9 pm.

In Italian with projected English titles.

The program for Macbeth is online here.

COVID Safety: Masks are optional in all Kennedy Center spaces for visitors and staff. If you prefer to wear a mask, you are welcome to do so. See Kennedy Center’s complete COVID Safety Plan here.

Macbeth
Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and Andrea Maffei after William Shakespeare’s play

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Before ending this interminable week with a night at the theater, I would have scoffed at the notion of repeating any of it. Though once more rid of Daylight Savings, for many of us the past few days have felt longer than ever. Indeed, few things could make me agree to wake up tomorrow to another Election Week. And yet, if time travel was the only way to catch Signature Theatre’s riotous new production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum again, I would have to reconsider. After all, a tragedy tomorrow is worth a comedy tonight.

In a collaboration that has proven equally successful and auspicious to the future of theater in the DMV since its inception, Artistic Director Matthew Gardiner and Managing Director Maggie Boland return to champion a fresh revival of Sondheim’s zaniest musical farce. With a powerhouse cast, a playful engagement with Shevelove and Gelbart’s book, and production design to dazzle, Signature’s Forum is nothing short of a spectacle.

For the uninitiated, a good pitch — not straight from Sondheim, but surely in his spirit — isn’t far from “The Flintstones Take Rome.” In a travertine corner in the capital of the Roman Empire, three households have spent their days, both on purpose and by chance, largely avoiding one another. When the henpecked senator Senex (Christopher Bloch) accompanies his quarrelsome wife Domina (Tracy Lynn Olivera) to visit her mother in the country, their lovestruck son Hero (Zachary Keller) promises to free his slave Pseudolus (Erin Weaver) in return for Philia (Kuhoo Verma), the girl of his dreams. The trouble? Well, that’s where the farce comes in. A winsome courtesan in the neighboring house of Marcus Lycus (Lawrence Redmond), Philia has already been promised to the swaggering braggart Captain Miles Gloriosus (Cameron Loyal). In a madcap succession of plots hatched, foiled, mistaken, and transformed, order quickly devolves into pandemonium as Pseudolus leads this hapless ensemble into chaos.

Staging a farce — let alone adapting one to our current moment — is no simple endeavor, but Signature’s cast does so with ease. Forget laughs per minute; this cast gets a laugh in for every breath they take — and the pauses in between. Balancing humor on equal parts ardent commitment and blithe self-awareness, Forum is a cyclone in the making, even as it’s a breeze to watch. Indeed, this is not a show for the weak of craft, but it is clear: these are masters of theirs. With the trusting comradery of a sketch show and the breezy banter of a stand-up set, this cast shines with confidence.

The joy with which the Signature players embody their roles would be enviable if it wasn’t so infectious. Signature veteran Erin Weaver is a powerhouse as Prologus and Pseudolus, in many ways the peppy coxswain steering the show. She is joined by other staple players at Signature including the hilarious duo of Christopher Bloch and Tracy Lynn Olivera. Bloch plays Senex as a hapless kind of coward rather than a sympathetic lemon, while Olivera embraces Domina’s playful cattiness. Together, they keep all the fun and elide the tired misogyny of the script. Zachary Keller and Kuhoo Verma likewise reinvent Hero and Philia’s dynamic, leaning heavily into the bemusements and melodramas of puppy love with uninhibited excess. Keller’s ditzy Hero flops around the stage, transported by longing, while Verma plays up the irony of Philia’s virginal courtesanship to slapstick proportions. Together or apart, these characters shine in their physicality, verbal embodiments, and histrionics.

Cameron Loyal’s blustering Miles Gloriosus knows a thing or two about histrionics, too! An idol to his soldiers (and to himself), Miles struts and flexes and peacocks around the stage. Loyal plays this to riotous effect, indulging Miles in any attention he can attract. Similarly self-involved, Lawrence Redmond’s Marcus Lycus is the perfect coward. Jumpy and covetous, Lycus dumps his problems on any passerby, then runs off to blackmail a senator. A purveyor of Rome’s finest courtesans and a fair amount of miscommunication, Redmond’s Lycus entertains even as he flees the stage.

Such lovely courtesans mustn’t go unmentioned either. As an ensemble of Rome’s finest beauties, Lycus’ retinue also has formidable talent. From Tintinabula’s noisy seductions (Kaylee Olson) to Panacea’s neurotic fugues (Emily Steinhardt) and from Vibrata’s feral ramblings (Sherri L. Edelen) to Gymnasia’s punishing power play (Nolan Montgomery), the house of Marcus Lycus has something for everyone.

As ensembles go, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum boasts multiple, but much of its ancillary support comes from a retinue of only three actors: the Proteans. Embodying all walks of Roman life from slaves to legionaries to eunuchs to sailors, Ryan Sellers, Harrison Smith, and Hank von Kolnitz enter the stage with a new schtick every time. With the commitment and richness of their characters, each deserves their own one-man show, or at least a confessional scene.

An ensemble all of his own, Mike Millan’s Hysterium rounds out this fabulous cast with the anxious, apprehensive humor of a Shakespearean fool. Irreverent and performative, Millan plays Hysterium through the fourth wall and straight into our hearts. If there ever was cause for Sondheim to return, it is to write Millan a Hysterium sequel.

Of course, such a cast can only earn such respect through the work of an expertly executed technical vision. Rome is brought to life by Erik Teague’s visionary costume design, which evokes a more refined take on the archetypal Roman featured in Monty Python and Blackadder. (More from Teague about his process crafting such meticulous work can be found through an Inside Signature interview available here.) Jimmy Stubbs’ set is strategic in design, compact yet expansive through its versatility. Characters find ways to occupy every nook and cranny, fleeing down alleyways, climbing onto balconies, and peeking through windows. Cast in deep shadows by Jason Lyons’ expert lighting design, Stubbs’ set also has remarkable dimension for its size.

Transportive in performance and design, Signature Theater’s production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum carries on the theater’s tradition of staging Sondheim’s work to great success, and even greater enjoyment. In the words of Pseudolus, “The theatre is a temple, and we are here to worship the gods of comedy and tragedy.” Let us rejoice that we may escape into the former when the latter is all too true to life.

Running Time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum plays through January 12, 2025, in the MAX Theatre at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA. For tickets ($40–$126) call (703) 820-9771 or purchase online. Information about ticket discounts is available here.

The program for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is online here.

Closed captions are available via the GalaPro app.

COVID Safety: Masks are optional in the lobby and other public areas of the building except that face masks are required inside the performance spaces on November 19 at 7:30 PM, December 1 at 2 PM, and January 3 at 8 PM. Signature’s COVID Safety Measures can be found here.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Book by Burt Shevelove & Larry Gelbart
Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Music Direction by Jon Kalbfleisch
Directed & Choreographed by Matthew Gardiner

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In the obligatory lull between summer travels and holiday planning, Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC continues to transport its audiences to distant states, and states of mind. With Postcards, the Chorus’ annual fall cabaret and the first event of their 44th season, performances traverse not only the globe but the rich spectrum of experience, tradition, and identity that comprise it. Composed of 18 solos, each with brief introductory monologues, Postcards is a tactfully paced and thoroughly engaging cabaret. Living up to Tommie Adams’ sultry opening rendition of Pippin’s “Magic to Do,” Postcards delivers equal parts fantasy and sincerity.

From San Francisco to Dublin, Italy to Argentina, GMCW distills its company’s vast travels to their most resonant and allegorical. In Zac Barger’s elegiac rendition of “It All Fades Away” from The Bridges of Madison County, the Grand Canyon is but a backdrop for the even more formidable landscape of grief. In Adam Greczkowski’s original song “Catch Me If You Can,” he fluently expresses the journey of desire through place — and reveals how it may find you right back where you started. In fact, sometimes travel awakens us to the closure we must seek at home, as illustrated by Romm Gatongay’s haunting tribute “Home” and Kev Watts’ pensive “You and I Both.” These realizations are also often owed to the people we meet in our travels: the colorful characters of Michael Aylward’s “Streets of Dublin,” the wistful hero of Rob Hall’s “Moon River,” and the daring Jo March of Gabriel Lopez’s “Astonishing.”

Indeed, to travel is to have one foot in the past and another in the future. As we journey toward the unknown and engage with the unfamiliar, we both remember and dream. For to reflect on that which we cannot change changes us. To accept the past changes our future. Postcards understands this tether between time and memory and brings it to the stage through earnest reflection. Alex Domini’s heady “New York Lights” channels the willful resolve of his Italian ancestors; Michael Smith’s “Journey to the Past” envisions a hopeful future through reflection; and Marcos Sastre’s poignant “Por Una Cabeza” pays endearing homage to the artists who paved his way.

Though we may feel as interconnected as ever nowadays, our past often remains sequestered and not by plane, train, nor automobile may we come any closer. But perhaps we may through song? With tender tributes to Tony Bennett, Jacques Brel, Bruce Springsteen, and Gladys Knight & the Pips, Postcards weaves a broad tapestry of travel, threading together a wide spectrum of musical history, genre, and culture.

Amid all this earnestness, Postcards retains the tonal playfulness of any cabaret worth its salt. Just at the right time: a moment of irony for the cynic and a moment of respite for the empath. From Shawn Morris’ winsome reverie of “firsts,” to Guy Bosworth’s linguistic adventures in Paris, Postcards revels in the flippant and the joyous. Kevin Thomason’s bantering discourse on medical tourism even serves as a rallying call for all those with an aversion to plastic — and a flight alert set for Turkey.

From surgical tourism to international deployments to legacies of migration, Postcards delves deep into the array of modern and historic travel, championing a sumptuous collaboration of the capital’s finest performers. Even after nearly 44 years of activism and performance — and even in its small-stage productions — Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC proves itself a haven for self-reflection and a beacon in uncertain times.

Running Time: Two hours, including one 15-minute intermission.

Postcards played October 19, 2024 (at 2 pm, 5 pm, and 8 pm), presented by Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC performing at The Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church St NW, Washington, DC.

POSTCARDS SONG LIST

ACT I
Tommie Adams – “Magic to Do” (from Pippin)
Shawn Morris – “Travelin’ Song” (from Shucked)
Michael Aylward – “Streets of Dublin” (from A Man of No Importance)
Jonathan Chaffin – “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” (Tony Bennett)
Marcos Sastre – “Por Una Cabeza” (tango love song)
Alex Domini – “New York Lights” (from A View From the Bridge)
Kev Watts – “You and I Both” (by Jason Mraz)
Guy Bosworth – “French Song” (from A…My Name Is Alice)
Zac Barger – “It All Fades Away” (from The Bridges of Madison County)

INTERMISSION

ACT II
Adam Greczkowski – “Catch Me if You Can” (original song)
Michael B. Smith – “Journey to the Past” (from Anastasia)
Romm Gatongay – “Home” (by Michael Boublé)
Kevin Thomason – “What Did You Do to Your Face” (by Jim Caruso and Billy Stritch)
Chris Gillespie – “Amsterdam” (by Jacques Brel)
Rob Hall – “Moon River” (from Breakfast at Tiffany’s)
Andrew Harmon – “Thunder Road” (by Bruce Springsteen)
Jarrod Bennett – “Midnight Train to Georgia” (by Gladys Knight & the Pips)
Gabriel Lopez – “Astonishing” (from Little Women)

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It was on the Orange Line into DC — a favorite of all suburbanites who allege DC residency — and already running late thanks to a stalled train at Ballston, that I cracked open a book to distract from my tardiness. My selection, a blind grab as I rushed out the door, was a volume of short stories by the master of horror H. P. Lovecraft. Between reading and checking the time, I further distracted myself by frenetically swiping for updates on Hurricane Milton.

Despite arriving just in the nick of time, I couldn’t have better prepared myself for the evening’s events, for Rorschach Theatre’s production of Sleeping Giant contemplates anxieties equal in terror both real and imagined. Staged in the hollowed-out basement of a former clothing shop, a sense of the uncanny pervades the space. While Sarah Beth Hall’s homespun set endears, the eldritch landscape squirming just beyond, and designed via hypnotic projection by Kylos Brannon, betrays the horrors to come.

As a veteran of the small screen supernatural — if hit shows on HBO and Netflix can still be considered small, that is — Emmy-nominated writer Steve Yockey’s newest play mines familiar themes to reach more urgent and profound ends. On a weekend away at his mother’s lake house, Ryan (Jacob Yeh) surprises his girlfriend Alex (Sydney Dionne) with a massive, firework-laden proposal, but when his display awakens something primeval and tentacled in the lake, they must contend with more than just Alex’s marital indecision. Told in a series of seven interrelated vignettes, Sleeping Giant details the many different human responses to the inexplicable.

From buckling under trauma and hawking contaminated fish guts, to giving up on humanity and baking up a suicide cake, Yockey’s characters are as unmoored from reason as they are determined to contrive their own. Whether fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, Sleeping Giant, by turns riotously irreverent and frightfully earnest, lays bare how we contend with a world constantly and indelibly changing before our eyes. Rorschach Theatre seems the perfect home for a show as bizarre and grimly comic as this, especially as we face the challenge of coping with increasingly fraught times.

Indeed, Rorschach director Jenny McConnell Frederick’s entire production is attuned to Yockey’s intricate and elusive tonality. The show traffics in the dualism between perplexing nuance and campy B-movie tropes. Draping the scenery in glistening moss and an ethereal luster, set designer Sarah Beth Hall and lighting designer Dean Leong texture it with the looming threat of the monster just beyond its walls. Sound designer Thom J. Woodward joins in this effort by capturing the foreboding din rolling in from the lake, only to replace it with the far more sinister sounds of celebration in the play’s final scenes. All this is complemented by Aoife Creighton’s detailed attention to the show’s prop design and Ashlynne Ludwig’s astute costume design, on which not an insignificant amount of Yockey’s vignettes depend. Generally, Frederick’s production conjures up a frightful dreamscape that paints its characters’ deteriorating minds in bold strokes and cements Sleeping Giant’s abstract musings in the tangible. Thus transported, the viewer can easily grasp Yockey’s more existential inquiries — though the play’s standout cast is to thank in equal part for this.

Of the seven vignettes and many zany characters presented in Sleeping Giant, the show’s four-person cast has many opportunities to show their range and leaves no vein untapped. In the classic style of a double act, they each take turns being each other’s straight man, only to prove themselves a funny (or tragic) man at the end of the scene too. Robert Bowen Smith accommodates Rorschach’s take on the show’s skit structure with remarkable skill, taking his eccentric, often endearingly flamboyant characters to the furthest stretches of wit, while grounding them in the face of the anxious forces that surround them. Erin Denman and Sydney Dione likewise bring a palpable and empathetic realism to the show’s absurd circumstances, using the humor of their characters to reveal the deeper truths they aim to hide. Jacob Yeh rounds out Rorschach’s cast with the best of both worlds: delving deep into the affable Ryan who bookends the show and tuning into the emotional resonance of each character.

Generally, Rorschach Theatre’s production of Steve Yockey’s Sleeping Giant reveals itself in layers. As its peculiarities bloom, so do its insights. As the monster rises from the deep, so do the monsters among us — and the lost, the forgotten, the lonely, the hopeless, and the hopeful.

Running Time: One hour and 25 minutes, with no intermission.

Sleeping Giant plays through November 3, 2024, presented by Rorschach Theatre performing aat 1020 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($20–$50) online.

The playbill for Sleeping Giant is online here.

SEE ALSO:
‘Dark comedy is pretty much what I do’: Playwright Steve Yockey on his embrace of Rorschach Theatre’s mission (interview by Jeffrey Walker, January 4, 2024)
Recapping Rorschach Theatre’s fun and creative ‘Eldritch Investigations’ (review of the Psychogeographies Project by Kendall Mostafavi, September 30, 2024)

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Humor is a fickle thing. It can entertain and distract, shock and criticize. It can flood you with witticisms, or use no words at all. To meet nearly all its purposes head-on is no small feat, yet one that playwright Ken Ludwig achieved quite regularly. In his 2015 piece Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, Ludwig takes on the titular character with verve. Adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Hound of Baskervilles — the first to feature Holmes since his presumed death in Doyle’s short story “The Final Problem” — the play revolves around the Baskerville family and the curse of a demonic hound that has afflicted them and their ancestral estate in Devon’s Dartmoor region since the English Civil War.

When news arrives that the baronet Sir Charles Baskerville has died of fright just outside his Dartmoor home, and surrounded by some rather outsized paw prints, Dr. James Mortimer, the executor of Charles’ colossal estate, appears on the doorstep of the only men he can think to help him crack the case: Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his confidant Dr. John Watson. Nervous about the safety of Charles’ sole beneficiary, his pistol-wielding, spur-sporting Texan brother Sir Henry Baskerville, Mortimer recruits Dr. Watson to assist in the investigation. It soon becomes clear that Dartmoor hides much more than meets the eye, and what ensues is a high-wire act of zany characters, treacherous threats, and clever subterfuge.

In their boisterously glib take on the classic, Kim Leone and Bob Thompson’s production of Baskerville with Prince William Little Theatre taps every vein in Ken Ludwig’s farcical adaptation. With a cast of only five and 40 characters to fill, the show leans heavily into Ludwig’s characteristic playfulness. There are quick changes and wall breaks and accents galore — complete with a healthy amount of frizzy wigs and peeling facial hair.

Blurring the lines between performativity and self-awareness, Prince William Little Theatre revels in the messiness of theater and storytelling. Whether waiting on his actors to assemble as he draws out a convoluted theory, or cloaking himself in a flurry of tweed before leaving 221B Baker Street, John Mathews’ Sherlock strikes just the right balance of dutiful nostalgia and off-kilter caricature. Together with Will Macleod’s affably uptight and hapless Dr. Watson, the show rests on the solid foundation of one of literature’s most familiar and engaging duos.

Complementing Mathew and Macleod’s charming dynamic is the show’s most impressive feat: its sweeping troupe of madcap supporting characters, all brought to life by an ensemble of only three. From Adam Weidner’s ebullient Sir Henry to Kristoffer Saylor’s nutty Mr. Stapleton and Kate Bierly’s austere Eliza Barrymore, every role is a riot. The show’s ensemble moves fluidly between characters, stumbling only ever on purpose to collect a laugh and then moving swiftly along. In the traditions of John Bishop and Michael Frayn, Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville is a high-octane romp that only succeeds with the unwavering commitment and intention of its cast. With her small but mighty cast, director Kim Leone has struck the ideal balance.

The inherent chaos of Prince William Little Theatre’s production is only buttressed by its use of the (fabulously named) periaktoi, which spin to transport its cast from Baker Street to downtown London to Dartmoor. While at times a bit confusingly executed, the show’s set embraces the clumsy and constructed nature of all storytelling. Kim Leone even makes a point of centering the show’s stagehand and swing Paul Jago and encourages her cast to play with the tropes of the detective genre. Ultimately, Prince William Little Theatre’s production of Baskerville embraces both the quirky mystery Doyle originally wrote and the farcical caper Ken Ludwig mined from it.

Running Time: Two hours, including one 15-minute intermission.

Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery plays through October 13, 2024, presented by Prince William Little Theatre performing at the Gregory Family Theater in the Hylton Performing Arts Center, 10960 George Mason Circle, Manassas, VA. Tickets ($25 adult; $20 senior, student, and military; $15 youth 12 and under) are available online or through the Hylton Center box office at 703-993-7759, Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm.

Technical Direction and Set Construction by Andrew Harasty; Lighting Design by Franklin Coleman; Costume Design by Jill Jago and Riley Leonhardt; Sound Design by Liz Shaher.

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A feat four years in the making, Portraits at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall sees the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC at its most collaborative and inventive. Combining the work of nine visual artists, nine composers, nine choreographers, the 17th Street Dance ensemble, and the GMCW company, Portraits cleverly transcends medium in favor of message, distilling the poignant, the defiant, and the hopeful in equal measure.

Each piece in this nine-movement oratorio springs from the work of a visual artist. Introduced by a dramatic reading of the composer’s lyrics, each painting materializes above the choir, then wakens at their song. As dancers flit and fly across the stage, song and text and brushstroke all gain physicality and the catharsis of movement. Just as the borders of artistic practice collapse into one another, so do the narratives of these pieces assemble and combine to form an expansive gallery of queerness across social boundaries.

Through artistic abstraction, what could border on a didactic homily on the issues most pressing to the queer community now becomes an understated and lyrical ode to a future worth imagining. Indeed, in the words of Cuban American academic José Esteban Muñoz that ripple across each composition: “the present is not enough.”

The oratorio’s movements each work toward alternative futures in which queerness may allow us to heal ourselves, to find communion, to fulfill our desires, to be seen, and to live loudly and unfettered by expectation. From the yearnful imaginings of Nicole Wandera’s “Strange Fruit,” accompanied by a composition by Paul Leavitt and a dance choreographed by Catherine Oh, to the reflective solitude of Judith Peck’s “Steeled,” accompanied by a composition by Matthew Felbein and a dance choreographed by Krystal Butler, the movements in Portraits sweep the spectrum of queer experience and artistry.

The movements inspired by Joan Cox’s “Night Hunger,” a lucent piece exploring the force of the male gaze on lesbian relationships, and by Gregory Wilkins’ “Keep Your Eye on the Prize,” an empathetic study of queer solidarity and perseverance, stand out as crowd favorites. Other themes addressed just as tactfully include the disembodying effects of gender dysphoria (“Sleep with One Eye Open and Do Not Speak of It” by Terrance Gregoraschuk, music by Raymond Mueller, choreography by Jessi Brown-White), the isolation of racialized sociality (“See Me” by Linda Lowery, music by Royden Tse, choreography by Michael Bobbit), and the dichotomies between entrapment and escape (“Man with Tattoo, Havana” by James Kimak, music by Ismael Huerta, choreography by Solomon HaileSelassie; “Virginia” by Jacqueline Hoysted, music by Ethan Soledad, choreography by Andrea Miller).

GMCW’s Portraits delivers a cohesive yet varied series of original compositions with a conviction both refreshing and urgent. Helmed by Artistic Director Thea Kano, Portraits maintains a formal integrity despite its synthesized approach. Each piece feels distinct in its message while contributing to an exhibition united by queer love, kinship, and comradery. In addressing all these themes, Portraits tips the crucible of identity into new and expansive molds, casting queerness alongside myriad racial, ethnic, and cultural identities, as essential ways of being more intertwined and in need of protection than ever before.

Running Time: 90 minutes, with no intermission.

Portraits played June 16, 2024, presented by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC performing at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC.

The complete playbill for Portraits is online here.

PROGRAM

Portrait: Strange Fruit
Artist: Nicole Wandera
Music: “Strange Fruit”
Composer & Lyricist: Paul Leavitt
Choreographer: Catherine Oh

Portrait: Shard
Artist: Céline Gauchey
Music: “I am (only mine)”
Composer & Lyricist: Cole Reyes
Text: Cole Reyes
Choreographer: Matthew Cumbie

Portrait: See Me
Artist: Linda Lowery
Music: “Do You See Me?”
Composer & Lyricist: Royden Tse
Choreographer: Michael Bobbitt

–Five-Minute Pause–

Portrait: Sleep with One Eye Open and Do Not Speak of It
Artist: Terrance Gregoraschuk
Music: “Sleep With One Eye Open”
Composer & Lyricist: Raymond Mueller
Choreographer: Jessi Brown-White

Portrait: Steeled
Artist: Judith Peck
Music: “Steeled”
Composer & Lyricist: Matthew Felbein
Choreographer and Soloist: Krystal Butler

Portrait: Night Hunger
Artist: Joan Cox
Music: “For Us”
Composer: Richard Clawson
Lyricist: Caroline Peacock
Choreographer: James Ellzy

–Five-Minute Pause–

Portrait: Man with Tattoo, Havana
Artist: James Kimak
Music: “Paz”
Composer: Ismael Huerta
Text: Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938)
Choreographer: Solomon HaileSelassie

Portrait: Black Lives Matter: Keep Your Eye on the Prize
Artist: Gregory Wilkins
Music: “It Was Not Fate”
Composer: Joshua Fishbein
Text: William H. A. Moore
Choreographer: Craig Cipollini

Portrait: Virginia
Artist: Jacqueline Hoysted
Music: “When I Rise Up”
Composer: Ethan Soledad
Text: Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) Choreographer: Andrea Miller
Soloist: Chloe Crenshaw

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Unknown Soldier’s study of the past begins in a sea of greige. Gray cartons tower high on gray tables. Gray pens click mutely onto gray desks. Clerks file papers into folders into binders into boxes into obsolescence. Of these thousands of entries, a small hope escapes: a newspaper clipping of a couple having a picnic with the lede “Has Unknown Soldier Found True Love?”

This question, or rather the uncertainty it suggests, haunts Arena Stage’s production of Unknown Soldier. Originally developed in association with the Playwrights Horizons writers program, Unknown Soldier sees obstetrician Ellen Rabinowitz delve deep into her family’s past after rediscovering a photograph of her grandmother and an unfamiliar man in uniform. She recruits the help of librarian Andrew in her search and increasingly plumbs the depths of the unknown, the concealed, and the power that both have held over her family for generations. As Ellen’s search broadens, it implicates the past not only in the present but in the future as well. What she must navigate to make sense of it all is not only a sea of gray boxes and a barrage of dead ends but a dreamscape suspended between temporalities.

To shed further light on Unknown Soldier’s playful approach to such grand and urgent inquiries, I chatted with Arena veteran Nehal Joshi on a Zoom call (edited for length and clarity) that only a person of Nehal’s charm and wit could make so amusing.

Nehal plays Dr. Joel Levinson, a doctor at a New York mental institution whose mission is to rehabilitate a shell-shocked, amnesiac soldier placed in his care. Dr. Levinson is a unique role, at times somber and stoic, yet also the force behind Unknown Soldier’s most classically “Broadway” number, “The Memory Song.” A jazzy song-and-dance routine briefing the audience on the types of amnesia most commonly experienced, “The Memory Song” is a hilarious and vaudevillian romp. It is also a stylistic departure from the rest of the show, which, while retaining a thread of comedy throughout, deals with very cerebral subjects in quite a naturalistic way.

Ian: What do you think such a jazzy performance number adds to the show — other than a good time?

Nehal: I’m probably one of the first actors who was like, Do we really need this number in the show? Have you ever thought about cutting it? It just seemed weird and out of left field. Then I started watching runs and I was like, Oh, now I understand dramaturgically why this song is here. You have “Andrew’s Story,” which is a song that Adam [Chanler-Berat] sings. And then you have “I Give Away Children,” a song that is gut-wrenching in the same way “Andrew’s Story” is and very personal and vulnerable. If there was nothing in between these songs, it would take away from “I Give Away Children” — Lora Lee [Gayer]’s song. So I started to realize that “The Memory Song” is kind of an amuse-bouche, a palette cleanser that is so jarring and so weird it knocks the audience out of the moment of “Andrew’s Story.”

I recognized a kind of humor in Dr. Levinson that is facetious and dark in the way he approaches these disorders and handles the unknown soldier’s story. It reminded me of Chicago’s Billy Flynn and the Emcee in Cabaret. What inspiration did you pull from in your interpretation of the Doctor?

I love that you said the Emcee in Cabaret. Alan Cumming as the Emcee was a lot of inspiration for me. I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with Alan in The Threepenny Opera. I liked his puckishness, his impishness, and the way he lures an audience in with subtlety. I also watched a lot of Groucho Marx because with the glasses on and the mustache, I look like Groucho Marx. So I was trying to figure out ways to mine that.

And then in my mind, I put a line between the character who does the song and Dr. Joel Levinson who does the hospital scenes. I was pre-med for a while in college, so I drew on my experience around doctors and this drive to help people. That was an inspiration to me. Also, the Doctor has a lot of secrets like the Emcee does  — only in our play I don’t tell my secrets.

Just like Ellen and Andrew in the present, the Doctor makes it his mission to uncover the unknown soldier’s lost memories. What do you think the play makes of these parallel searches for meaning?

I think it says something like “Trying to put together a puzzle without all the pieces is a very Sisyphean task that is probably going to fill you with lots of rage and frustration.” It’s hard to put together puzzles when you don’t have all the pieces. And the interesting question in the end is, Why do we do these things? Why do we have this inherent need to feel like we need to figure out what the past is? Why is that so important? We live in a world with 23andMe now, all the genealogy stuff, Ancestry.com. People have really gone into trying to figure out what their family lineage is.

Yeah, that need to know everything is quite pervasive, and Unknown Soldier makes use of the unknown in clever ways. What do you think Unknown Soldier can tell us about coming to terms with our history — especially when we can’t truly “know what happened” in it?

That’s a hard question. It’s so personal. When we’re trying to come to terms with who we are or where we’ve come, from the salient question often is “What is the thing that we are trying to fill with that information?” That’s the hardest thing. We all become obsessed with so many things. I am obsessed. I have my obsessions. We all do, whether it’s Beyoncé or Mahjong or whatever it is. The question in the end is, Why are you obsessed with those things? What is it about the thing that you’re obsessed with?

Jumping off of that, we often speak about the present in a way that tethers it to the past or the future. In our particular moment of global upheaval and anxiety, why do you think Unknown Soldier is particularly resonant?

The past is always prologue, right? That’s what they say. Currently, we’re dealing with ancient strifes. Strifes that go back, on some levels, to the beginning of civilization; strifes that have been there for a long time. Especially with what’s happening in Israel and the Middle East. And these are things that haven’t been dealt with or haven’t been dealt with in a satisfactory way. There is an old Buddhist quote: “Whatever you resist, persists.” And if you have something about your past or something about yourself that is nagging you, if you don’t deal with it, it’s going to cause ripples and waves in your life. I think that’s what’s happening in the play and what’s happening globally in a huge way.

Arena’s dramaturg Otis Ramsey-Zoë writes that Unknown Soldier is a play “concerned with returns,” of truth, of doubt, of secrets long-buried. You yourself have returned to Arena Stage for seven mainstage productions. If you could return to and revive a previous Arena show for a 2024 audience, what would it be and why?

Oh my God, seven times. That’s crazy. Every time I hear that number, I think: I was a kid who came to the student matinees at Arena.  I want to say Mother Courage [and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht] would be great because it’s all about war and the coming of war, then the horrors of war and the banality of war. But it’s probably Disgraced [by Ayad Akhtar], which is a play that won the Pulitzer. It was really prescient. It was way before its time. It was written maybe 15 years ago, and it’s about the trappings and dangers of partisanship, what team you’re a part of, whether that’s the team of your race, the team of your religion, the team of your political parties. It talked about the dangers of that mentality way before it became part of the national dialectic.

I was really proud of that performance. It was a 90-minute mental breakdown and it was really hard to do, but at the end of it, I felt amazing, even though everybody was like “How do you do that every night?” because I would just be a complete bawling mess by the end of the show, like a shell-shattered man. The great thing was I got to give away everything I had inside me every night and leave it out there and go away free and empty by the end of every performance.

Speaking of giving a production your all and feeling freed after, I feel like the opposite can often be said of the viewer, that they come away with more questions than answers when the curtain drops. What do you hope people take away from Unknown Soldier?

It’s really personal, but I would say, touching on something I said earlier: we’re all obsessed. We all have our obsessions about things. The real question is: Why are we obsessed with the things we’re obsessed with? And what does that say about who we are as a person and how we interact with the world?

Unknown Soldier plays through May 5, 2024, in the Kreeger Theater at Arena Stage, 1101 6th St SW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($41–$95) may be obtained online, by phone at 202-488-3300, or in person at the Sales Office (Tuesday-Sunday, 12-8 p.m.). Arena Stage offers savings programs including “pay your age” tickets for those aged 30 and under, student discounts, and “Southwest Nights” for those living and working in the District’s Southwest neighborhood. To learn more, visit arenastage.org/savings-programs.

Running Time: One hour and 45 minutes, without an intermission

The program for Unknown Soldier is online here.

Closed captions are available via the GalaPro app.

COVID Safety: Arena Stage recommends but does not require that patrons wear facial masks in theaters except in designated mask-required performances (Sunday, April 21, at 2 p.m.; Tuesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m.; Wednesday, May 1, at 12 p.m.; Saturday, May 4, at 8 p.m.). For up-to-date information, visit arenastage.org/safety.

SEE ALSO:
A moving and thought-provoking ‘Unknown Soldier’ is recalled at Arena (review by D.R. Lewis, April 13, 2024)

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My introduction to the world of STOMP transpired in the muggy basement classroom of a Montessori school in northern Virginia. The previous morning’s forecast had promised snow, and by the time lunch was over we had still not forgiven the rain that had taken its place and guaranteed another tedious school day. We were restless yet tired, and so was our kind, if slightly frazzled, music teacher Mrs. Lowry, so out came the projector. Reluctantly, we rallied around the image and waited for boredom to strike. What awaited us was anything but.

Well-deserving of its all-caps styling, STOMP is an assertive, exuberant, and high-octane experiment. Formed in the early 1990s by dance-percussion duo Steve McNicholas and Luke Cresswell, STOMP finds its roots in the street bands and theater troupes of the Edinburgh Fringe. As adaptable as it is prolific, STOMP’s innovation in the use of everyday objects as instruments and dance accessories has swiftly become an international phenomenon. At this point, not to have heard of STOMP — with its catalog of albums, TV specials, documentaries, global ad campaigns, residencies, and awards reaped across industries — is to have lived under a rock. Fortunately for the few yet to be initiated, who didn’t catch the sensation before it closed on Broadway with an astonishing 11,000 performances under its belt, that rock is lifting.

True to the show’s dynamic and pioneering spirit, STOMP has packed up and hit the road. This spring, STOMP is touring the Northeast replete with an army of brooms, bins, Zippo lighters, and all manner of corrugated pipes — I can only imagine how the tour bus rattles! Directing an all-star cast and combining everything from street music to circus acrobatics, Steve McNicholas and Luke Cresswell bring humor, heart, and whimsy to their enduring spectacle, which plays through April 7 at Capital One Hall in Tysons.

The beauty of STOMP lies not only in its pageantry or athleticism but in the cast that embodies it. The show demands a synergy both choreographed to the second and adaptable upon a moment’s notice. From rhythm to dance to comedic delivery, the synchrony and coordination I witnessed in STOMP are among the most precise I have seen on stage. STOMP’s cast has mastered a rare kind of unity and integrity the likes of which I haven’t seen since studying Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were breathing in sync.

That said, STOMP is performed in vignettes or sequences of percussive dance complete with every combination of players imaginable. There are bombastic group numbers, soulful solos, playful slapstick routines, and clever comedic intervals. Ivan Salazar holds the show in the palm of his hand, simultaneously delivering some of STOMP’s most astounding and vigorous feats of body percussion while entreating its audience to join in on the clapping, the snapping, the eponymous stomping. His energy is boundless and so is the audience’s attention when he takes the spotlight.

Fellow rhythm heavyweights Jude Caminos, Micah Cowher, John Gavin, and Declan Hayden are inexhaustible in their drumming, providing the show with a steady backbone while also unafraid of breaking out into bewitching solos. Madeline Jafari, Zahna Johnson, and Jasmine Joyner cast their own spells with a remarkable fusion of studio dance and percussion, leading the charge in STOMP’s unique and effortless movement work. Cary Lamb Jr., Sean Perham, and Cade Slattery are the perfect complements to the ensemble, bringing together everyone’s strengths and evening them out into a tactful and uniform project.

Moreover, STOMP has a certain knack for comedy that uses its distinct visual and musical language to its benefit, transcending boundaries of age, culture, and gender. The show’s fool, as Shakespeare would have it, is its driving force. Jose Filgueira adorns this role with glee, playing him up in equal parts buffoonery, sympathy, and coquetry. As often the butt of the joke as he is in on it, Jose brings a vital and compulsively watchable magnetism to STOMP, forever in a battle of wits with both his cast members and audience (regardless of their raunch or inanity).

As STOMP progresses, its cast moves between instruments like bees through a flower bed, each new item simply a conduit for their infinite energy. From matchboxes to kitchen sinks, Prop Manager Austin Huehn made sure to cause a stir in the audience with every new instrument. A moment particularly effective was the cast’s use of Zippo lighters in a black-out sequence toward the close of the show. In a rare moment of collective silence, we watched the flames flicker between hands, rising, falling, swaying, dying out, and in that silence, we understood each other better, if only for a moment.

Just shy of a trance, we couldn’t help but join in, eager for a piece of the magic on stage. Salazar obliged us, intermittently leading us in a spontaneous call and response, allowing us to weave our own percussive motifs into the fabric of the show, then returning to his irreplicable acrobatics. As instruments flew and rolled and swept across the stage, even gravity was called into question — then further challenged when the cast began scaling the set.

Rigged to chain-link screen at the top of the set were more than a new set of instruments, but an opportunity to highlight the versatile scenic design and playful dressing by Mark Miller and Stacey-Jo Marine, both redolent of HBO’s 1997 Stomp Out Loud film (watched with such awe in that damp music room a lifetime ago). Ultimately, in a feat both vigorous and uplifting, Cresswell and McNicholas’ STOMP proves its cultural resilience and invites fans new and old to experience its legacy live. As this show clanks and bangs its way around the Northeast this spring, I can’t help but urge everyone to follow.

Running Time: One hour and 50 minutes, with no intermission.

STOMP plays through April 7, 2024, presented by BANG Theatricals! (in co-production with Harriet Newman Leve, James D. Stern, Morton Wolkowitz, Schuster/Maxwell, Gallin/Sandler, and Markley/Manocherian) at Capital One Hall, 7750 Capital One Tower Road, Tysons, VA. Purchase tickets ($29–$108) online. For tickets to future Capital One Hall events go here. Check out STOMP‘s North American tour dates here.

Lighting Design by Brain Clagglett; Sound Design by Steve J. Reynolds

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