A Potomac Stages Pick for an all-too-short run of a unique pop/rock concert musical
Running time 1:30 - no intermission
Performed in Crystal City
Tickets $25 - $45
Click here to buy the CD
 

Storyline: A grumpy guy wants to hide from the world on New Year's Eve but his isolation is interrupted by a young woman selling lights to dispel the winter's gloom. She reminds him of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of The Little Match Girl. When he actually reads Anderson's story, however, he's astonished to learn that the heroine freezes to death in a Danish winter night. He determines not to let the same fate befall the modern light girl.

The show is very properly labeled a concert musical. Not just a concert - for there is a plot complete with dialogue as well as songs that advance the story. Not exactly musical theater either - for there is no set, no costumes, no fully staged scenes. The keyboardist, Brendan Milburn,  rarely steps out from behind his electronic keyboard and the violinist Valerie Vigoda wears her instrument strapped to her shoulder while drummer Gene Lewin remains seated behind his drum set the entire night. There are no other performers. But each of these spirited and engaging performers throw themselves into their characters with conviction and a glint in the eye.  There are fifteen songs and a reprise in the show as well as one additional piece at the end which is performed as something akin to a "bonus track" you might get on a cd. With that much singing to be done, the script puts a premium on moving from one to the next with a minimum of dialogue.

These music makers exude a sense of joy - joy in performance, pride in their music and an unmistakable affection for each other and respect for their colleague's work. They have been a team for a long time. The violinist/vocalist and the keyboard/vocalist are man and wife and they have been performing with the drummer/vocalist since 1994. The band began as the Vallerie Vigoda Band before taking the less specific name GrooveLily. Vigoda plays a six string electric violin called a Viper which is as distinctive in appearance as in sound. Its wooden body looks a bit like a Star Trek spaceship with straps. The group has become ever more active in theater, with this concert musical being nominated for a Lucille Lortel award off-Broadway, another concert musical called Wheelhouse, music for a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Paper Mill Playhouse and a piece titled Sleeping Beauty Wakes for Deaf West Theatre in California.

Since GrooveLily is, technically speaking, a rock band, it should come as no surprise that the volume level is kept quite high throughout the show. It isn't too loud for the audience, or for the hall, but it does seem to be a tad too loud for the sound equipment the group brings along as there is a touch of distortion from time to time. The performance is on a bare stage with a raised platform at upstage center for Lewin's drum set. Shifting colors in the lighting system signal changes in mood and highlight areas for solos. It works well when smoothly done but draws attention to itself when cues are missed or mistimed as a few were at the performance we attended. It didn't keep the audience from enjoying the show, however. The place rocked.

Music by GrooveLily which is Gene Lewin, Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda. Written by Brendan Milburn, Rachel Sheinkin and Valerie Vigoda. Design: Kris Umezawa (audio and lights) Joan Marcus (photography) Marissa LaRose (stage manager). Cast: Gene Lewin, Brendan Milburn, Valerie Vigoda.

A Potomac Stages Pick for superb staging of an intelligent examination of the value of life and personal choice
Running time 2:10 - one intermission
Tickets $47 - $66

Storyline: A couple facing the husband's terminal cancer while living in a yurt, the type of tent that Mongolian nomads use on the steppes of Asia, amidst the ruins of their home which was destroyed in one of California's canyon fires, maintain an incredibly positive attitude toward life, but decision time is approaching as they are visited by the wife's cousin and her husband who have tragedy to absorb in their lives as well.

Human resilience is on display here along with the central question of the value of life in its various stages of extremis. Anderson manages to capture and give honest voice to four very different sides of the debate over an individual's right to chose his or her own time and mode of death and/or the duty to continue to live as long as life can be sustained. There's the highly understandable "its my right to terminate my life when terminal illness and unbearable pain are all that is left to me" position. There's the more romantic concept of "I'll die along with my spouse to avoid the pain of life without him (or her)." On the other side there is the faith-based "it is against the law of God to take a life, even your own." Finally, there is the "I wouldn't do it myself, but I support the right of others to chose their own course of action." That Anderson makes each of the four characters here hold, express, explain and defend their position with natural eloquence and with an absence of obvious debate tactics is remarkable. That she also gives each a very human and easily appreciated personality to match the opinion is a pleasure.

Speaking of pleasure - consider the work of Johanna Day and Stephen Schnetzer in the roles of the host couple facing mortality in the yurt they have set up amidst the scorched remnants of their California mountainside home. What could have come across as a trite but sweet sketch of free spirited aging California hippies instead becomes a deepening portrait of love and grace under pressure. Day's ability to reveal depth in lines while making them sound like flippant small talk is as impressive as is her more moving moments of struggle and devotion, while the strength of Schnetzer's performance comes both from his character's honesty and his humor when inhaling through a high-tech bong that delivers the medicinal benefits of his stash with a minimum of lung-damaging smoke. Annette O'Toole handles the slightly flighty side of her character without crossing the difficult to find and maintain line between quirky and ditsy, which is important since she has some crucial points to add to the debate and they have to be given the attention they deserve. Kevin O'Rourke lands a few good punches in the fight as well, although it is sometimes difficult to tell if his character is written just a tad too stiff or if it is his performance that could use a dash of softener.

Neil Patel has taken the playwright's description of the locale and rendered it with a blend of distinction and restraint. Just as O'Toole finds the boundary in her performance to avoid going too far, so Patel finds the limit. As a result, the visual image of the production is just shy of realism with the burnt skeletal remains of trees forming a frame around a salvaged kitchen and that notable yurt. Ilona Somogyi's costumes boldly establish the personalities of each character.

Written by Jane Anderson. Directed by Lisa Peterson. Design: Neil Patel (set) Ilona Somogyi (costumes) David Leong (fight choreography) Alexander V. Nichols (lights) John Gromada (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Susan R. White (stage manager). Cast: Johanna Day, Kevin O'Rourke, Annette O'Toole, Stephen Schnetzer. 

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A drama/comedy that stretches beyond mere impersonation
Running time 2:00 - one intermission
Performances at Lincoln Theatre on U Street NW
Tickets $25 - $74
v Includes some strongly sexual material

Storyline: This celebrity portrayal play is set in a recording studio in Hollywood in 1965 when Tallulah Bankhead was to record a single line of dialogue for what turned out to be her last motion picture. The process was called "looping a line" because the film to which she was to synchronize her delivery was spliced into a loop to repeat over and over again as she attempted to match audio to the video. However, what with liquor and cocaine, Bankhead gives a new meaning to the term "looped."

Playwright Matthew Lombardo wrote the script for Kate Mulgrew's re-creation of the persona of Katharine Hepburn Tea at Five. That was a solo show which allowed the subject to explain herself in her own words. Here he tries to make this more than an evening recreation, with an additional character who has his own psychological conundrum of note to balance Miss Bankhead's. Here he falters when the script turns from the eminently quotable Miss Bankhead to the other person in the room, a film editor who can't hold a spotlight in her presence even given a fine performance by Jay Goede. 

Bankhead is remembered today more for her deep voice and quips about sex and drugs than for her work as an actress. She is, after all, the woman who is reported to have said "I'm as pure as the driven slush," “I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic and the others give me a stiff neck or lockjaw,” and "Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know - I've been using it for years." Not all of her bon motes were about sex or drugs. She's the one credited with "There is less to this than meets the eye" One of her lesser known but more revealing quotes was “Nobody can be exactly me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.” Harper may not be "exactly" her but she comes awfully close.

Lombardo's script calls for a detour into Bankhead's memory banks with a flashback in her mind to a certain performance in Streetcar Named Desire. This presents a challenge to set designer Adrian W. Jones which he handles with a sense of style. His main set, a recreation of a Hollywood recording studio that is as solid-seeming as is Harper's recreation of Bankhead, melts away as Tennessee Williams' New Orleans takes over. The sense of reality in the main studio set is, however, hurt by a few gaffes in the script. The idea that a phone in a recording studio would ring rather than be rigged with a light, or that the sound engineer (nicely played with a droll sense of humor by Michael Karl Orenstein) would either "forget to push the record button" or run out of tape and have to go next door looking for more stretch the imagination a bit too far. 

Written by Matthew Lombardo. Directed by Rob Ruggiero. Design: Adrian W. Jones (set) William Ivey Long (costumes) Chuck LaPointe (wigs)  (Michael Gilliam (lights) Michael Hooker (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Amber Dickerson (stage manager). Cast: Jay Goede, Valerie Harper, Michael Karl Orenstein.

t A Potomac Stages Pick for a thought provoking drama that turns into a beguiling flight of fancy
Running time 2:15 - one intermission
Tickets $25 - $66

Storyline: The story of two women's maternal instincts over two different centuries is juxtaposed in a time-shifting tale. One is the fascinating historical figure, a scientist in the age of Voltaire - an age not noted for expecting or permitting intellectual pursuits by women despite its being called "The Age of Enlightenment." She is Voltaire's mistress, Émile du Chátelet, who at age 42 finds herself pregnant at a time when childbirth could well be a fatal condition at her age. As a result, she's desperate to complete her studies on the nature of light. The other is a twenty-first century "Modern Woman," an astronomer who just may well have discovered something never seen before - a planet in embryo - but who can't conceive a child in her own body due to a previous bout with cancer. She and her husband decide to employ the services of a surrogate to carry a child to term after artificial insemination.  

There's no reason that a man couldn't have written anything quite as understanding and perceptive as this on topics of the joys and frustrations, hopes and fears, fulfillments and sacrifices, dangers and opportunities of childbearing - is there? But the fact is that this was written by Karen Zacarías and she most definitely has credentials on the distaff side. Three years ago she was named the recipient of the Francesca Primus Prize for "outstanding contributions to the American theater by a female artist who has not yet achieved national prominence." She couldn't pick up the prize at the time, however, because her parenting duties kept her here in her home town of Washington where she's the Artistic Director of the Young Playwright's Theatre. The use of a stroller allowed her to come pick it up the following year. Potomac Region theatergoers know her well not only for her YPT activities but as the author of The Book Club Play, How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Mariela in the Desert, Sins of Sor Juana, and her musicals for young audiences with composer Deborah Wicks La Puma, Einstein Is a Dummy, Ferdinand the Bull and Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans: A Salsa Fairytale.

Most of the cast play more than one character but the doubling is often an aid in getting the connections between the centuries right. Lindsey Kyler is both the surrogate who carries the twenty-first century child to term and the daughter of du Chátelet who carries some (but not all) of her eighteenth-century hopes and dreams. Kyler's performances in both roles are noteworthy. Her giddy glee over a last minute salvation in the Age of Enlightenment is matched by her reactions to contemporary good fortune. So, too, David Covington makes the most of roles in both centuries and, while Michael Russotto takes a bit of time to warm to his tasks as husbands in both ages, he brings each off with panache in the end.

Molly Smith has both her cast and her designers concentrate on the feeling of the respective centuries and countries. Linda Cho's costumes capture both the informality of the present with its jeans and corduroys and the flamboyant finery of Voltaire's velvet age while the cast matches each in gesture and manner. Marjorie Bradley Kellogg's set starts off with apple trees calling to mind the legend of Newton and a telescope that connects the centuries and adds chaise lounges as needed. As Zacarías' script flies higher and higher, the set gets a work out first with Voltaire and our astronomer literally up in a tree and then with a lovely star field.

Written by Karen Zacarías. Directed by Molly Smith. Design: Marjorie Bradley Kellogg (set) Linda Cho (costumes) Chuck LaPointe (hair) Michael Gilliam (lights) André J. Pluess (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Susan R. White (stage manager). Cast: Lise Bruneau, David Covington, Carla Harting, Lindsey Kyler, Michael Russotto, Stephen Schnetzer.

More concert than theater by songstress McGovern
Running time 1:30 - no intermission
Performances at Crystal City
Tickets $25 - $55
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: A "theatrical concert" expanding on the collection of songs of Bob Dylan, William Finn, Carole King, Tom Lehrer, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, Laura Nyro, Stephen Schwartz, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Jimmy Webb and others which were the basis for Maureen McGovern's album of the same name.

Maureen McGovern's 37 year career in show business included recordings of pop and show music and appearances in such shows as Little Women; The Musical, The Pirates of Penzance, Nine, and 3 Penny Opera  as well as work in films such as The Towering Inferno and Airplane! The scope of the career is sketched quite sufficiently in the bio in the program and little more is revealed on stage.

McGovern's on stage persona is quite appealing and she certainly expends the energy and devotes the intensity that make her vocals notable. She can belt with energy and softly deliver an emotional moment in a ballad with exquisite taste. Her delivery of the intervening patter is clear and invitingly honest, even if the material doesn't go much deeper than an occasional admission of a dalliance or failed relationship. In order to leave time for much of this patter, the songs themselves are often truncated snippets. As it is, she covers twenty songs in ninety minutes. Jeffrey D. Harris occupies the stage with her, sitting at the piano and doing more than just following her lead. He is credited as music director, but it is clear that he also deserves great credit for the arrangements, especially his phrasing of the support for McGovern's more emotionally tender moments.

The production design of Clifton Taylor features a selection of snap shots and home movies from McGovern's life and from a few major events (such as a march by Martin Luther King, Jr.) or images from her memory (Sky King's Cessna 310 banking away in the opening of the television program) that are related to the songs she sings.

Co-conceived and written by Philip Himberg and Maureen McGovern. Directed by Philip Himberg. Music direction and accompaniment by Jeffrey D. Harris. Design: Clifton Taylor (production design) Gayle Susan Baizer (costume) Eric Antoniou (photography) Kathryn Most (stage manager). Cast: Maureen McGovern.

Running time 2:50 - two intermissions
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a superb production of a troubling Pulitzer-winning drama
Price range: $25 - $66
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A couple whose marriage is so tenuous that they haven’t shared a bed for over a decade find their home life turned upside down when their neighbors, whom they consider friends, take up residence in the room that used to be their daughter’s just as she comes home after the breakup of her fourth marriage. The house is just too full of people who seek refuge from the terrors of the outside world, whatever those terrors may be.

Albee has become a fixture in American theatre with no fewer than three Pulitzers and nominations for two more. Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? have each had multiple productions here of late and The Play About the Baby was given a fine production at Studio a few years back. A Delicate Balance may not provide the extreme catharsis of the final explosion in The Goat, or the emotional exhaustion of Virginia Woolf, but it offers a plethora of tiny touches that add up to a consistently satisfying whole. At the helm here is Pam MacKinnon, whose biography is filled with Albee. She's directed at least half a dozen of his plays, sometimes directing their premieres. It is difficult to say whether it is her skill at casting or her ability to get great performances from her cast, once assembled, that is the secret of success. But here she has a cast of six who seem fine matches to the demands of the characters and who then deliver intelligently constructed performances that are a pleasure to watch unfold.

Kathleen Chalfant and Terry Beaver, Broadway veterans both, are the couple in whose living room all the action takes place. Chalfant is elegant in that steel-backed manner of a grande dame on her own territory, while Beaver is all comfortable hospitality until things begin to get out of hand. The other family members are Ellen McLaughlin, as the wife's sharp tongued alcoholic sister, and Carla Harting who ads the touch of histrionics Albee wrote for the part of the couple's thirty-seven year old marital failure of a daughter. A smooth pairing of local regulars James Slaughter and Helen Hedman completes the package.

Ilona Somogyi has designed costumes for each character that are so expressive of each person's personality and place in the world of the play that they seem that the characters picked them out of their own closets themselves. They don't look like costumes. They look like clothes. Similarly, Todd Rosenthal's lovely living room set doesn't seem to have theatrical flourishes, it just looks like the well appointed home of a wealthy couple with good taste. 

Written by Edward Albee. Directed by Pam MacKinnon. Design: Todd Rosenthal (set) Ilona Somogyi (costumes) Chuck Lapointe (wigs) Allen Lee Hughes (lights) Timothy Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Martha Knight (stage manager). Cast: Terry Beaver, Kathleen Chalfant, Carla Harting, Helen Hedman, Ellen McLaughlin, James Slaughter.

Running time 2:15 - one intermission
Performed at the Lincoln Theatre
Price $25 - $74
Over 60 songs in 100 minutes
Click here to buy a related CD

Storyline: A roughly chronological presentation of a sampling of the output of the man who wrote both words and music to over a thousand songs including "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Blue Skies," "All By Myself," "Always," "Easter Parade," "There's No Business Like Show Business" and, of course, "White Christmas" and "God Bless America."

Ray Roderick, who adapted and directed the national touring version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which played Baltimore's Hippodrome last month has been working on this chronological sampling of Berlin's output for quite a while now. Berlin, born in 1888 in Russia, captured many of the popular feelings of his adopted United States from 1911 through the 1940s and 50s. The first tour of this show was billed as a "Pre Broadway Tour," but never got closer to the Great White Way than the White Plains Performing Arts Center or slightly closer in the Brooklyn Performing Arts Center. It had a different cast and a different scenic designer although the current version lists the same costume designer. That is slightly surprising since the costumes aren't particularly noteworthy. With this cast, the current show is clearly not headed toward Broadway, but they do provide a number of highlights over the course of a not terribly consistent evening.

There are three men and three women who combine in a mix-and-match approach for different numbers or different sequences. All are making their Arena Stage debut. The best singer of the bunch is Ryan Lammer, who will probably be best remembered for his delivery of "Oh How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning," the song Berlin performed himself in the World War I soldier show he produced for the US Army while in uniform, Yip! Yip! Yaphank. He's often paired with Ashley Peacock whose "What'll I Do?" is a lovely moment toward the end of the first act. They dance, too, which can't be too surprising since they are chronicling the catalogue of the man who wrote "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails," "Lets Face The Music and Dance" and "Cheek to Cheek" for Fred Astaire. Be aware that this is not the cast pictured above nor is it the cast in the video that Arena Stage currently has on its website. These must be from the earlier staging but they are uncredited.

While the scenic, costume and lighting designs are serviceable, the sound design as it operates in this hall leaves a great deal to be desired. The volume level of every song seems nearly the same whether it is a rousing march or a touching ballad. What is worse, that level almost always seems to be just a bit above the distortion level of the system, giving a slight fuzziness to the vocals and a harshness to even the lightest of Rita Eggert's woodwind work let alone Jay Miles' umpah tuba or the trill of the piano whose player goes uncredited.

Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Conceived by Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley. Directed and choreographed by Ray Roderick. Musical arrangements by Michael Berkeley. Musical supervision by Stephen Purdy. Design: J. Branson (set) Sam Fleming (costumes) Stacey Boggs (lights) Demetrius Grandel (sound). Cast: Ryan Lammer, Emily Matheson, Alix Paige, Ashley Peacock, Michael Turay, Jason Weitkamp.

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Running time 2:20 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a melodic rock musical
 that catches the heart

Storyline: A family that has been stressed for years by the impact of the mother's bi-polar condition approaches the limits of its cohesiveness as the condition deepens and a new doctor recommends electro-shock therapy.

Tom Kitt, the composer of the quick-closing Broadway show High Fidelity and the on-stage musical director/conductor of the current quick-to-close Broadway musical 13, teamed with Brian Yorkey who writes for the theater and for movies and television and also directs. They were joined in the development of this piece by director Michael Greif who helmed Rent and Grey Gardens to Broadway success, both through the route of highly regarded off-Broadway productions. This heart-felt, heart-touching story premiered at New York's off-Broadway Second Stage earning the Outer Critics Circle Award for its score and multiple nominations for its production and for Alice Ripley and Aaron Tveit for their performances. However, in the opinion of many including that of its creators, the piece still needed work to reach its potential, which everyone seemed to agree was enormous. Arena gave them a chance to revisit and revise the material and they have taken full advantage of the opportunity. What they present here is a superb piece even though it continues to loose a bit of its focus in the second act when so many plot lines which were established with a sure touch in the first must move toward resolution simultaneously. It captures your emotions and your affection at the same time.  

Much of the same cast came to Arena from Second Stage, including both Ripley and Tveit, and it is clear here just why they were praised so highly in New York. Ripley is tremendous in showing the depth of frustration and the genuine humanity which must have been why the character of her husband fell in love with her in the first place. Tveit is a fabulously strong presence as their son, and whenever he's on stage the play seems just a bit more compelling than when he is not. This may account for some of the difficulty of the early part of the second act when he's off stage for a considerable stretch. Jennifer Damiano and Adam Chanler-Berat reprise their work as the couple's teen-age daughter and the boy who would like to be more than just her boyfriend. Together they make a great pair while each is also very good individually. Chanler-Berat has the most challenging role in that the "would-be-supportive-boy-friend" could be simply a stereotype, but in his hands it becomes something real. Changes from the New York cast include Louis Hobson as the mother's doctors and J. Robert Spencer who takes over the role of the husband and carries off his scenes nicely, but somehow is the least compelling member of the family of four.

The entire physical production is superb, but special note should be made of the set design of Mark Wendland. The three-level scaffold set with panels that slide, glide, swivel and fly into place provides multiple locations for individual scenes, multiple staircases that allow cast members to scamper up or down and slide into new spaces with speed and grace and segments for the six on-stage musicians to perform. It was transported here from New York and (after a few tweaks) fits the space in Crystal City very well. Wendland was named this year's recipient of the prestigious Henry Hewes Award for scenic design on the basis of this and two other sets last season. The opportunity to see not just what the set looks like but how it serves the production is unusual as often the designs triggering awards are for shows that have closed.

Music by Tom Kitt. Book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey. Directed by Michael Greif. Musical staging by Sergio A. Trujillo. Musical direction by Charlie Alterman. Orchestrations by Michael Starobin and Tom Kitt. Drums and additional percussion arrangements by Damien Bassman. Vocal arrangements by AnnMarie Milazzo. Design: Mark Wendland (set) Jeff Mahshie (costumes) Kevin Adams (lights) Brian Ronan (sound) Joan Marcus (photography) Judith Schoenfeld (stage manager). Cast: Adam Chanler-Berat, Jennifer Damiano, Louis Hobson, Alice Ripley, J. Robert Spencer, Aaron Tveit.

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Running Time 1:30 - no intermission
A monologist' mushy political message about American democracy 

Story Line: A monologist focuses on the role of the Average Joe in the health of American democracy. Combines autobiographical material with social purpose, underpinned by Kornbluth's long-overdue Princeton senior thesis on participatory democracy.

Director David Dower has actor Kornbluth use an extraordinary amount of arm flailing, shoulder shrugs, and wistful smiles along with fingers playing with fingers to entertain the audience. This sleight of hand gives some vigor to the production content. Dower, the associate artistic director at Arena, has worked with Kornbluth in the past. He also works in the overall area of new play development and was a 2006 Gerbode Fellow for Excellence in Non-Profit Leadership. Playwright Kornbluth indicated that his real life activism came from previous Presidential elections; but he does not even dare to mention names; rather he says “my guy” lost to “their guy” as photos are projected on a screen. His script uses self-deprecating language when he deals with his ineffective activism at Princeton during the 1970’s. New playground equipment in a Berkeley, California neighborhood becomes the centerpiece of a struggle over how to keep kids quiet as they play. In each of these central events in his life, there seems a fear to be anything but even-handed when presenting his point of view against someone else’s. Finally, Kornbluth’s overall premise seems a rather chilling stretch for democracy; that one horrible image from Little Rock and the truly despicable content behind it should be taken as universal in nature for all political passions and that such passion is terrifying and must be cooled.

Kornbluth deserves credit for his educational efforts. He has developed a smorgasbord of thoughts into a conversation and then into a dramatic monologue. He used the legacy of Don Quixote and his valiant work tilting at windmills as his touchstone. In performance, however, he comes off as a fearful, hesitant, apprehensive, New York City born, Berkeley living, Jewish nebbish. (Yes, another Woody Allen in our midst in the Potomac area … see Olney’s The Underpants). There is no muscle to him and he funs around in figurative circles at the first sign of differences with others. His description of a Berkeley playground equipment tussle among neighbors is a gentle toot of an affair. In this entire production he curses only once, which in and of itself is meaningless except that while he sounded loud, it seems out of the blue: noise without landing anything. At the end Kornbluth wraps himself in the American flag and uses the flag staff as a spear ala Don Quixote. But Quixote was willing to take on a position and die for it … he didn’t just talk, did he?

The set is a pleasantly devised small school room: an American flag, an old wooden chair, a table for a glass of water and a book case along with a projector and screen. Pre-show music includes songs about the civil rights movement of an earlier day and spirituals in which the names of fallen civil rights leaders are called forth. The singer speaks of finally being rested when the role is called. Those he called are a litany of the strong who died taking on forces of evil with their bodies on the line. This production is part of a new program, "Arena Presents," which explores the diversity of the American theater. Thus, Citizen Josh as an offering outside of the Arena subscription series.

Written by Josh Kornbluth in collaboration with director David Dower. Design: Alexander V. Nichols (production) Sara L. Sato (costumes) Marco D’Ambrosio (composer) Terry Cunniff (graphic design) Pat Johnson (photography) Darl Andrew Packard (stage manager). Cast: Josh Kornbluth.

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Running Time 1: 35 no intermission
A sobering look at African-American men struggling
 and ultimately succeeding
Performances at Arena's Crystal City facility

Story Line: The exploration of the interwoven lives of six African-American men struggling to make a living and to make their lives worth living. The lives of these provocative six represent the challenging and difficult story of black men in America.

Obie award winner and Helen Hayes nominee Daniel Beaty is clear in his purpose for crafting Resurrection: to look at the crises of black men in America “with thoughtfulness, heart and humor.” He has written an unadorned text, one where characters are straight ahead in all aspects of their lives as they journey to personal and community rebirth. Each character presents a different issue that needs to be confronted with the overall theme of taking personal responsibility even while acknowledging that the larger white society has encircled the black community. Beaty has no women characters on stage, yet their potent presences are felt throughout the production as each of the characters must make peace with a woman in his life. Director Scott has director’s credits for such shows as for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf and the recent The Ballad of Emmett Till. He has worked to give the script dramatic impact and lift with an unfussy, clear-cut manner. But too often the production feels weighted down by words without dramatic action attached. More dramatic theatricality comes on occasion when voices are overlayed almost into a fugue of words, or when gospel songs are sung by the chorus of men. Resurrection was first read as part of A Continuing Conversation on Race at Washington’s Busboys and Poets in conjunction with Arena Stage. The play was workshopped at Hartford Stage and at Arena prior to this full production, which is a collaboration with Hartford Stage.

The cast of six delivers in an earnest and sincere manner as they take their individual redemptive journeys to become worthy in their own eyes and praiseworthy to others. Each cast member has the opportunity to present his sins and dreams and ultimate resurrection singly in the spot light where some are more nuanced than others. The characters depict each decade of life from 10 to 60. Thulson Dingwall is 10; the repository of hope for the adult males and an eager, likeable actor on stage. Turron Kofi Alleyne is 20. His defining moment involves abstaining from unprotected sex so that he can travel on to college. The 30 is Che Ayende; the most expressive and clearly emotive of the cast. He acts with bottomless anguish as he confronts his own demon, giving HIV to his pregnant girl friend. Alvin Keith is 40; the deeply closeted gay son of his un-approving Bishop father. His delivery is the most convincingly multi-layered of this cast. How he hides his truth from himself and from his father is richly developed. Michael Genet is 50 with a character named Mr. Rogers. Rifting off the PBS educational television character, it seems, Genet while a small healthy food shop proprietor and father to Dingwall, is really the educator for others. He tries to show them what they need to know to survive and prosper in the new America, no longer a place of slavery but a place with the aftermath of slavery everywhere. He plays the role as the realistically solid male; depended on to be there for others. As 60 is Jeffery V. Thompson, the Bishop and father to Keith. He has amusing humor in his veins as he presents weakness for bad food such as Ho-Hos, and it overtakes his large frame. His sin is the inability to reach out to and accept his gay son until it is almost too late.

The set is straightforward.  The audience takes in a rear wall of copper colored triangles set against a blue and white open sky … but looking through countless half filled bottles of herbs. At each of the stage wings is a table providing for another playing area beyond the central location.  The costumes are evocative of each character’s sense of himself and age; from a buttoned-down executive, to impeccably dressed young school boy, to the minister in his bright robes, to an adolescent from the ‘hood to a more nobly dressed shop owner. Pre-show music is jazzy, moving from the quieter tones of a single instruments such as a violin or flute to the more pulsating and percussive if not almost discordant mélange of drums, violins, flutes and clarinets.

Written by Daniel Beaty. Directed by Oz Scott. Music composed by Daniel Bernard Roumain. Musical stylist: Elan Vytal, a.k.a DJ Scientific. Design: G. W. Mercier, (set)  Karen Perry (costumes) Victor En Yu Tan, (lights) Tim Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Kurt Hall (stage manager). Cast: Che Ayende, Turron Kofi Alleyne, Thulson Dingwall, Michael Genet, Alvin Keith, Jeffrey V. Thompson.

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Running time 2:10 - one intermission
t  A Potomac Stages Pick for a delightful trip down memory lane
Performances at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street NW
Click here to buy the book

Storyline: Carrie Fisher performs her tell-all on-stage memoir with a refreshingly open sense of humor and confidence, aided by projections of images from her past.

This well written, well paced and certainly well performed memoir begins with Fisher's observations that "If my life weren't funny it would only be true - and that would be unacceptable." That's a viewpoint that few would express so early in a tell-all session, and it is the key to the magic she spins. She knows that her life isn't typical and that its very uniqueness isn't entirely either her fault or to her credit. She was dealt a unique hand in life and she's played her cards her own way. To tell that story, she's worked with playwright Josh Ravetch and director Tony Taccone to refine and polish, but in essence, this is pure Fisher. (It is also about to become a book which will be issued just in time for the holidays.)

The show had its premiere in Los Angeles, which should come as no surprise. Where else would a Hollywood tell-all take root? Bringing it here to Arena, she performs before Alexander V. Nichols' set which is a mixture of living room, class room, photo shop and special effects lab. One moment she's curled up in an easy chair with an afghan on her lap and a cigarette in her hand chatting with the audience as house guests, the next she's up in front of a black board with pointer in her hand walking a class through the complications of the marriages in her incredibly extended family in a segment titled "Hollywood Inbreeding 101." She even steps down into the audience to draft a volunteer or sprinkle a bit of tinsel. Clearly, since nearly every story is delivered with appropriate projections or props (the Princess Leia Sex Doll drops down from the flies) this is a carefully scripted presentation but Fisher makes it feel as if she's just rambling through her stories.

It should be noted that this is the first of Arena Stage's shows to play the beautiful Lincoln Theater on U Street NW. (Its right next door to Ben's Chili Bowl for those needing a burger or a dog before or after the show.) During the construction of Arena's expanded campus in Southwest, they will present most of their shows in Crystal City but a few here at the Lincoln. They originally said that they needed the Lincoln to accommodate the bigger shows and, indeed, they have slated the musical review Irving Berlin's I Love A Piano for this space in January, but they are opening with this one-set, one-person show, and they fill the house. It is to Fisher's credit that she manages to make the audience in this larger space feel an intimate sense of connection.

Created and performed by Carrie Fisher. Directed by Tony Taccone. Design: Alexander V. Nichols (set, lights and projections) Kevin Berne (photography) Daniel Kells (stage manager).

 
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Running Time: 1:50 – one intermission
A lively nostalgic trip down Boomer memory lane …and oh, btw,
 the men wear dresses
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A comedic (or is that melodramatic?) drawing room piece that finds time for a little travel to Egypt is a send-up of classic monster movies from the 1930s including the English moors, the lure of the tombs of ancient Egypt, Gothic literature, Shakespeare and British “chic-lit” of  a certain time and who knows what else in this 2-actor, multi-character, multi-gender circus. The plot, about a possibly murdered mistress of the house, has something to do with pushing limits, really.

Charles Ludlam (1943-1987) founded the Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York City in 1967. Ludlam was a theater Luddite and tried to smash through theatrical conventions with his epicene style and sensibility. With Irma Vep, Ludlam succeeded in reaching the up-town world and the show won an Obie in 1984 for its ensemble work. Ludlum was the playwright, the director and star. For this Arena production, Director Rebecca Bayla Taichman,  known best for her recent work with Woolly Mammoth directing Dead Man’s Cell Phone and The Velvet Sky, sets her sights on a well detailed presentation of artifact and fun. In Oscar and Shiffman she has accomplished actors that she sets in motion. Her production team clearly took glee in delivering a set that was finely tuned with props and set pieces that fill the eye. But this is a show in which the frocks, gowns and wigs and snippets of music provide the recurring audience laughter. And a reviewer’s note: a hardy clap of the hands to Taichman and the actors as the rarely seen folk from behind the curtain had the opportunity to take a bow at the final curtain call.

Oscar (the more physically robust one) and Shiffman (the tall lanky one) are enjoyable as they sweat for the audience, playing at least a half dozen distinct male and female roles. The roles require them to sashay, prance, strut, shimmy, dance and god knows what else as they move about the stage. They just feed off  each other, egging each other on throughout the evening. What is more incredible are the quick changes required as they spin about in their entrances and exits. Some costume changes take at most 20 seconds as they move from male to female to male to female roles without seemingly taking a breath. The move from one persona to another must be dizzying for the actors, but neither show it as they make their grand entrances on cue with the lights and sounds and without missing a line. Oscar gets to play the more flamboyant Lady Enid Hillcrest and the crafty, horny caretaker Nicodemus, while Shiffman gets to play the more intellectually twisted woman, Jane Twisden, and the arch Englishman, Lord Edgar Hillcrest. Both are enjoyable to watch.

There is not an ounce of seriousness in this quick and very playful two-act evening. Act I is a vividly recreated drawing room from all those 1930’s - 1940’s English themed movies we all have seen. Act II opens in an Egyptian tomb. The sinister music from mid-20^th century movies is used for scene changes to set a mood, though there is a drop in of the Law and Order theme notes in one scene and Deliverance dueling dulcimers -- yes dulcimers not banjoes -- in another. The lighting cues are right on time, bringing back memories of all the horror movies that we all remember and still long to see every late October. As for the bravura gowns and frocks; they are beyond description - as candy colored sheets of taffeta and full petticoats last seen when Carol Burnett spoofed Gone With the Wind.

Written by Charles Ludlum. Directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman. Design: James Noone (set) David Zinn (costumes)  T. Tyler Sumpf (wigs) Parker Esse (choreography) David S. Leong (fight Choreography) Daniel MacLean Wagner (lights) Bray Poor (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Amber Dickerson (stage manager). Cast: Brad Oscar, J. Fred Shiffman.

 
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Running time 3:00 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a wrenching performance
 by Rick Foucheux
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: At the end of a career as a traveling salesman, each of Willy Loman’s dreams turns sour. He looses his job. His children turn out not to be the successes he dreamed about. He has a loving wife but he hasn’t been faithful to her. He comes to believe that he is worth more dead than alive, at least until the next premium on his life insurance policy is due.

Death of a Salesman is one of those plays that many theatergoers see many times. Partially this is due to the attraction it has for some of the finest actors. The role of Willy Loman is a classic challenge that has drawn career-marking performances from the likes of Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehey and Herschel Bernardi. Arena has staged it before with Robert Prosky as Willy. Rick Foucheux holds his own in such exalted company although his performance won't make anyone forget the others. Who could? Instead, he adds a rumpled, dowdy and exhausted Willy to the tradition.

Nancy Robinette takes on the role of his wife, Linda. Her performance is at its best in the less histrionic scenes where she can apply some subtle sweetness to the part, but when her Linda looses it - either in her panic over Willy's suicidal actions, her condemnation of her son's mistreatment of their father or, finally, her grief at the graveside - she puts more volume than visible thought into the blast. Jeremy S. Holm is sharp in the outbursts of the older son who knows deep down in his soul that he's not going to be the success his father wants him to be, while Tim Getman does fine job on the always difficult role of the oh-so-shallow youngest son who can abandon his father in the midst of an emotional breakdown to chase a skirt. As the boy next door, Louis Cancelmi matures nicely from the young object of ridicule in Willy's memory to the adult who has built a successful legal practice not through charm and personality but by intelligence and hard work, and J. Fred Shiffman is a vision as Willy's uncle, which is just right since he really is a figment of Willy's disturbed mind.

As one of a two play repertory, not only will this production share most of its cast with A View from the Bridge (which will be reviewed separately), it shares the basics of the scenic design of Loy Arcenas. Salesman is a challenge for a designer who must cope with the limitations of the stage in Arena's temporary space in Crystal City. The ceiling over the stage is too low to allow the usual arrangement of bedrooms upstairs from the kitchen in the Loman home, there's no space above to accommodate flying in set pieces for flashbacks or hallucinations and restricted wing space does not allow for slide on pieces either. Strangely, for a play with the theme of the claustrophobia Willy feels as his world closes in around him, Arcenas spreads the action horizontally in a fairly spacious way. Laurie Churba Kohn provides Foucheux with the frumpiest suit any worn out salesman ever wore - and it seems to get frumpier and frumpier as scene follows scene until this disheveled hulk of a man reaches his final failure.

Written by Arthur Miller. Directed by Timothy Bond. Fight choreography by David S. Leong. Incidental music composed by Michael G. Keck. Design: Loy Arcenas (set) Laurie Churba Kohn (costumes) Bettie O. Rogers (wigs and hair) Nancy Chertler (lights) Scott Suchman (photography) Susan R. White (stage Manager). Cast: Jamieson Baker, Louis Cancelmi, Rick Foucheux, Tim Getman, Tara Giordano, Jeremy S. Holm, Naomi Jacobson, Virginia Kull, Nancy Robinette, Stephen F. Schmidt, J. Fred Shiffman, Noble Shropshire, Cliff Williams III.

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Running time 2:30 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a powerful performance
 by Delaney Williams
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Two Italian cousins of the wife of a Brooklyn dockworker enter the country illegally in order to escape the poverty that has gripped the family's post-World War II homeland. The dockworker welcomes them into his home, an apartment he and his wife share with the niece he has raised from childhood. One of them is attracted to her, however, and the dockworker's generosity won't stretch that far. He claims to oppose their budding romance because he assumes the young man just wants a marriage that would allow him to remain in the country legally. In truth, jealousies and passions far beyond that are at issue.

Miller may be best known for Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, but his output includes half a dozen other plays deserving frequent remounting. All My Sons was given a thoughtful presentation by Quotidian Theatre a few years ago and The Price is getting a fabulous staging right now at Theater J with Robert Prosky and two of his sons. In each of his major works, with the exception of The Crucible which was triggered by Miller's response to the excesses of the McCarthy era, the focus has been on the family in then-contemporary America, and the difficulty families have in recognizing reality and coping with limitations that belie "The American Dream." With this drama, he explores the impact of immigration policy on families as well, making it particularly relevant in this day when that issue is so prominently a factor in local as well as national politics.

The dockworker/husband/uncle is an appealing fellow in the hands of Delaney Williams who delivers a well modulated performance, taking him from happier times through to the final revelations in measured steps. At the start, he's a bit of a loveable lunk, even if it is the 1950s and the family is assumed to be headed by the man whose decisions are final. In this home, however, mother knows better as shown in the sharp and finally emotionally affecting performance of Naomi Jacobson. In addition to the youngsters, Agranov and Kull, Louis Cancelmi as the other cousin from Italy, contributes a bit of youthful passion to the proceedings.

With the requirement to switch back and forth between the two shows playing in rapidly revolving repertory (there are days when one show plays at the matinee and the other in the evening) set designer Loy Arcena again uses the structure of Arena's temporary home in Crystal City, fitting out the wide but not deep or high playing space with an area constituting the family's home and another area where all the outside activity is staged. It concentrates the family scenes in a tighter cocoon than was apparent in Salesman, perhaps as much a reflection of the blocking by the directors as of the design of the space. At least at the start, the Brooklyn apartment feels like a refuge from the cold outside world while the Loman family home in Salesman never felt so comforting - even in the normally warm first scene of the second act. Here it seems to work with, rather than against the play, although it was strange to see the cast gathering up furniture and clearing a space which soon becomes an area for the final fight scene.

Written by Arthur Miller. Directed by Daniel Aukin. Fight choreography by David S. Leong. Incidental music composed by Michael G. Keck. Design: Loy Arcena (set) Laurie Churba Kohn (costumes) Bettie O. Rogers (wigs and hair) Nancy Chertler (lights) Scott Suchman (photography) Susan R. White (stage Manager). Cast: David Agranov, Louis Cancelmi, Rick Foucheux, Tim Getman, Tara Giordano, Jeremy S. Holm, Naomi Jacobson, Virginia Kull, Nancy Robinette, Stephen F. Schmidt, J. Fred Shiffman, Noble Shropshire, Cliff Williams III, Delaney Williams.

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December 28, 2007 - February 24, 2008
Ella
Reviewed by Brad Hathaway

Running time 2:10 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for an extraordinary recreation
 of an extraordinary talent

Storyline: In 1966, at the height of her fame as "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald struggles to find the will to go on stage for her sold-out concert in Nice, France, after the death of her sister. Her long-time producer Norman Granz asks her to spend a little less time singing and a little more time talking with the audience, which prompts her own flood of memories of her life and career to date.

Fabrique is not just the key to the success of this production, she has been the key to the success of the show since its inception at TheaterWorks in Connecticut where she created the role under director Rob Ruggiero. She went on to star in the revised version which premiered at Florida Stage and has toured with it when not performing in the production of The Women of Brewster Place which just closed at Arena. The structure of the show as it now exists is an interesting blend of concert and bio-play. The first act is a back-stage stroll down memory lane. Of course, when the life being remembered is one spent in the music business, there's lots of music in the memories - "How High The Moon," "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," "You'll Have To Swing It (Mr. Paganini)," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "Night and Day" and "That Old Black Magic" are but some of the items from Ella's astonishing career that carry the memories of her struggles.

Act Two is more of a recreation of a concert, with such highlights as "Lullaby of Birdland," "'S Wonderful," "The Man I Love," "Cheek to Cheek" and "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" in a recreation of a duet with Louis Armstrong with trumpet player Elmer Brown as Satchmo, and the essential "Oh, Lady Be Good" - not to mention a sterling recreation of Ella's own creation, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket." But the concert segment takes on depth and texture because of what the audience has learned of Ella's life during the first act. Thus, it becomes a concert with a subtext. It doesn't quite add up to great drama, but it puts dramatic interest into what might otherwise have been a mere impersonation. Fabrique, being an actress and not just a singer, uses the subtext to create something more than a concert.

Michael Miceli's sound design takes full advantage of the bright, sharp acoustics of this new venue and also contributes a number of subtle but highly effective settings that reinforce the feeling of the hall in which "Ella" is supposedly singing. The addition of an echoey reverberation for memories of performances at the legendary Apollo Theatre or the Savoy Ballroom which were so important in Ella's early years gives definition to the scenes and the immediacy of the close-miked sound for club date numbers adds excitement to already exciting material. Brown's trumpet poses something of a challenge to Timothy M. Thompson in mixing the show because the hard sound of the room tends to drive up the volume needed to maintain balance, but Thompson does a fine job. Brown's muted Roy-Eldridge riffs come across as cleanly as his Satchmo-inspired blasts or his Dizzy-like ramblings while the vocal remains clearly out front.

Written by Jeffrey Hatcher. Conceived by Rob Ruggiero and Dyke Garrison. Directed by Rob Ruggiero. Musical direction and arrangements by Danny Holgate. Design: Michael Schweikardt (set) Alejo Vietti (costumes) Charles Lapointe (wigs) John Lasiter (lights) Michael Miceli (sound) Carol Pratt (photography) Martha Knight (stage manager). Cast: Elmer Brown, George Caldwell, Harold Dixon, Tina Fabrique, Rodney Harper, Clifton Kellem.

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Running time 2:05 - one intermission
A new version of Dickens' classic set in WW II Washington DC

Storyline: The setting is Washington, DC when, on Christmas eve of 1941, mean and miserly Elijah Strube learns the true meaning of Christmas as the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, sends him the Ghost of Christmas Past to show him the error of his ways, the Ghost of Christmas Present to show him the opportunity to change and the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come to show him the consequences of failing to change.

The adaptation is by James Magruder, whose adaptations of classic works have been great fun. He translated Marivaux's The Triumph of Love and then turned it into the book for a musical which was delightful. His translation of Alain-René Lesage's Turcaret was a bright, high-energy romp when staged at Catalyst on Capitol Hill a few years back. Here he retains the basic structure of Dickens' three-ghost dream story, but converts money lender Scrooge and his "bah humbug" into would-be war profiteer Elijah Strube with his exclamations of "bull crap!" Just what Magruder does with the alphabet agency approach of FDR's administration and the OPA defies explanation. Converting the ghosts to prominent statuary from the city ("Winged Victory" from the 1st Division Memorial, "Freedom" from atop the Capitol Dome, "Grief" from Rock Creek Cemetery) certainly ties nicely to the idea of a dream and gives costume designer Vicki R. Davis an entertaining challenge, but it seems to drag on and on. Davis also gets to deck out Hugh Nees in a bureaucrat's version of chains:  reams and reams of paper.

Nees is but one of the familiar faces that Arena fans will enjoy seeing again. The chief pleasure is watching Larry Redmond make something very human out of the clerk who has labored lo these many years in the service of the miser. Nancy Robinette does what she can with the over-written role of his wife, whose pacifist beliefs are suddenly out of fashion following the attack on Peal Harbor. Molly Clement is a cheerful presence as their daughter. Christopher Block is particularly impressive as a veteran who, as a marcher in the "Bonus Army" which was attacked by US troops when they demonstrated in favor of immediate payment of the bonus they had been promised for their World War One service but never received, was "cheered in '17, jeered in '32." The chief disappointment is the miser at the heart of the story, James Gale, who simply fails to motivate the conversion from grouch to benefactor.

Four songs were written for the production and are grafted onto the story. They are by Henry Krieger, whose music for Side Show was very effective, and Susan Birkenhead, who provided Magruder with lyrics for the musical Triumph of Love.  "Three Wise Kings" seems an effort to connect the three-ghost concept of Dickens with the biblical trio and "Heroes of the Home Front" is a prototypical 1940s number for a big band vocalist that lets the entire cast let loose with a bit of a jitterbug. George Fulginiti-Shakar and Garth Hemphill treat the material with the respect it deserves, developing arrangements and orchestrations for "Heroes of the Home Front" that sound authentic as a USO dance of the day. Similarly, Adam Larsen developed projection designs that enhance the production significantly. Chuck Fox, on the other hand, didn't devote the same level of attention to detail as properties master, providing, among other things, an electric typewriter dating from a decade after the war as a key set piece.

Adapted from Dickens by James Magruder. Directed by Molly Smith. Music by Henry Krieger. Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. Musical direction by George Fulginiti-Shakar. Orchestrations by Garth Hemphill. Arrangements by George Fulginiti-Shakar and Garth Hemphill. Choreography by Parker Esse. Design: William Schmuck (set) Vicki R. Davis (costumes) Christal Schanes (wigs and makeup) Adam Larsen (projections) Chuck Fox (properties)  John (Jock) Munro (lights) Garth Hemphill (sound) Susan R. White (stage manager). Cast: Christopher Bloch, Clinton Brandhagen, Mollie Clement, Daniel Eichner, James Gale, Tim Getman, Tara Giordano, C.J. Harrison-Davies, Gia Mora, Connan Morrissey, Hugh Nees, Lawrence Redmond, Nancy Robinette, Clay Steakley, Bayla Whitten.

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Running time 2:40 - one intermission
A musical version of a popular novel of the struggle of poor African American women in an urban housing project
Click here to buy the novel

Storyline: A crumbling and neglected housing development on a cul-de-sac formed by an unsightly concrete wall is the setting where the neighborhood women learn the power of community action with all its frustrations as well as its rewards. Their natural leader is Mattie who was forced to move into the project when she lost her house which she had posted as bail for her son who then fled. Others with problems of their own to face include Mattie's niece who suffers the loss of her daughter, Mattie's friend of longstanding who stops in the neighborhood in between men in her life, and a lesbian couple who engender the animosity of some of the ladies and the hatred of a street gang.

Tim Acito, a dancer turned playwright, lyricist and composer, handled all three aspects of the crafting of this musical: music, lyrics and book. He did the same for a smaller project called Zanna, Don't!, a musical fantasy of a high school where to be gay is the norm and to be straight is to be discriminated against by the heterophobes among your classmates. That smaller musical played Off-Broadway, garnering nominations for Drama Desk Awards for Best Musical, Best Music, Best Lyrics and Best Book. His new musical is a much more ambitious, larger scale work and he proves again to be up to the task. One choice he made was to limit the characters portrayed on stage to, as the title of both the novel and show has it, The Women of Brewster Place. Gone are the male characters who populated much of the book. The musical is not necessarily the better for the streamlining. However it does provide director Molly Smith and projection designer Adam Larsen an opportunity to create some memorable moments of threatening shadows and silhouettes. Still, there are scenes with directed distractions (such as excessive fussing with a bathtub) and others with hard to understand understatements (such as a brief outburst instead of a heart-stopping, gut-wrenching wail by the otherwise very good Shelley Thomas when she sees her daughter die).

Tina Fabrique holds forth as the star of the night, but with a performance that lacks the kind of star-power that could have lifted this show to the heavens. She's smooth where she should be rough and calm when she should be shaking things up. Her voice is never a fraction off pitch and she never misses a beat, but the polish of her song styling belies the emotion Acito wrote into the songs. She does a good job, however, when sparked by the delightful Marva Hicks in a duet on an homage to Billie Holiday. There are moments for others to shine as well. Monique L. Midgette lights up as a civil rights activist in tie-died tee shirt, especially when sparked by Terry Burrell as her only-slightly-disapproving mother, and Suzanne Douglas and Harriett D. Foy shine individually and collectively as the lesbian couple whose story becomes the dominant element of the second act.

William Foster McDaniel not only conducts, he plays keyboard while leading the six-member pit band hidden below the stage. He collaborated with Acito on the orchestrations which are essentially drab underscores for the vocalists using two keyboards and a rhythm section. The score is varied enough that it calls out for more colorful, more resourceful support. But no violin, viola or cello, let alone any brass or woodwind, enlivens the sound. The choreography by Kenneth L. Roberson seems similarly perfunctory, missing out on a number of opportunities to add to the production's sense of style and storytelling.

Music, lyrics and book by Tim Acito based on the novel by Gloria Naylor. Directed by Molly Smith. Music direction by William Foster McDaniel. Orchestrations by Tim Acito and William Foster McDaniel. Choreographed by Kenneth L. Roberson. Design: Anne Patterson (set) Adam Larsen (projections) Paul Tazewell (costumes) Chuck LaPointe (wigs) Michael Gilliam (lights) Garth Hemphill (sound) Amber Dickerson (stage manager). Cast: Cheryl Alexander, Terry Burrell, Suzzanne Douglas, Tina Fabrique, Harriett D. Foy, Eleasha Gamble, Marva Hicks, Monique L. Midgette, Tijuana T. Ricks, Shelley Thomas.

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September 14 - October 14, 2007
Well
Reviewed by Brad Hathaway

Running time 1:55 - no intermission
A very theatrical riff on health and values
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: An Author/Performer tries with ever decreasing success to control the characters she has created in her "theatrical exploration" of issues of health - personal and societal. The characters, and the actors and actresses playing them, keep taking charge of the scenes, taking them in directions she didn't expect and interacting with her mother whose health is at the core of her story.

Lisa Kron wrote this unconventionally structured one-act play and performed the central role as she nurtured it through a development process that took her and it to CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore, the Sundance Theater Lab in Utah, the La Jolla Playhouse in California and the Public Theatre in New York before eking out a two-month run on Broadway. Short run or not, it earned enough attention to garner Tony Award nominations for her as an actress as well as for her co-star, Jayne Houdyshell who played her mother.

Robinette is a delight all evening long and Ackerman gives a bright, lively and intelligent performance as Kron. The supporting cast gets a collection of great one-liners and some fabulous bits such as Donnetta Lavinia Grays popping up out of the floor at key moments. However, none is given much of a character to develop. Indeed, each plays multiple parts and also plays him or herself in one of Kron's hyper-theatrical touches. Susan Lynskey gets the award for best delivery of a single line for her deadpan pronouncement "I am Joy!" and, later, ingratiates herself with the entire audience when she breaks character to ask Nancy Robinette if they can stay in touch after the run of the show has ended.

Arena's decision to mount this essentially intimate show in the large arena-style Fichandler rather than the smaller proscenium theater, the Kreeger, is questionable at best. The large space of the stage works to swallow the interaction between the performers. The fact that a significant portion of the audience cannot see some of the reactions is a difficulty and Director Kyle Donnelly fails to insist on the level of clarity in the casts' enunciation that might have at least partially alleviated that problem. Set designer Thomas Lynch compounds the problem by leaving so much of the center of the space empty and pushing a lot of the action to the sides. Placing the mother's cozy nook and well-worn lazy boy recliner at the south-eastern corner of the stage deprives many of the audience members on those sides the chance to see a great deal of Robinette's work. Tickets on the west and north side are definitely preferable for this production.

Written by Lisa Kron. Directed by Kyle Donnelly. Design: Thomas Lynch (set) Nan Cibula-Jenkins (costumes) Nancy Schertler (lights) Lindsay Jones (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Lloyd Davis, Jr. (stage manager). Cast: Emily Ackerman, Scott Drummond, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Mark Damon Johnson, Susan Lynskey, Nancy Robinette.

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Running time 2:35 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for an absorbing examination of the creative impulse
v Brief partial nudity
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Awards for August and September
Winner of the $25,000 prize of the American Theatre Critics Association /  Steinberg Award for Outstanding New Play of 2007

Storyline: As her final project before the ravages of disease cut short her life and career, a musicologist delves into the mysteries behind Ludwig van Beethoven's composition of not one but thirty-three variations of a single waltz. As she struggles to connect with Beethoven, her daughter struggles to connect with her before it is too late.

Moisés Kaufman explored hatred in The Laramie Project and bigotry in Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (well, both in both, actually). Now he explores creativity. Laramie was marked by its refusal to accept simple answers to complex issues and Indecency was notable for its examination of historical records in the search for that which can't be written down on dry parchment and paper. This play is also much more than a recreation of an historical event, exploring not just what happened but why and placing it all within a context that makes it breathe. His own program note disclaims historical recreation, terming the product "a series of variations on a moment in a life." No life exists in a vacuum, however, and Kaufman's play becomes something of a fugue intertwining moments in the lives of three interconnected sets of people.

Peil's performance is strong both in the progression of her individual character and in her reactions to her medical deterioration as she battles Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease). She is also superb in the way she establishes connections with the rest of the cast. Laura Odeh is nicely chipper at first but drawn into the tragedy of her mother's decline and Greg Keller is properly awkward in a charming way as the nurse who falls for the daughter and supports her through the ordeal. Their own development as a couple is nicely done.  Susan Kellermann progresses from stiff, Teutonic librarian to compassionate friend in measured steps. Peal also interacts with the world of Beethoven where Don Amendolia makes more out of the music publisher than a mere functionary and Erik Steele provides clarity as well as background information as Beethoven's biographer Anton Schindler. Graeme Malcolm is the great composer himself, known as a raging titan of a man, and he handles the range of emotions well.

Derek McLane has contributed a set that flows as elegantly as the script, featuring frames holding individual pages of Beethoven's music framed by shelves of document boxes. The music pages form surfaces on which projections of titles ("Variation #24"), places (a map of Bonn), events (the musicologist undergoing an MRI) and images of the music itself are shown. These projections by Jeff Sugg advance the story, manipulate atmosphere and reinforce themes while giving the entire project a unique feel. And Diane Walsh's piano at stage right wraps it all together as a unified piece through her performance of many of the variations for which the play is named. She has just released a CD of the full set of the variations which is available through the theater or click here to order. 

Written and directed by Moisés Kaufman. Choreography and movement by Peter Anastos. Design: Derek McLane (set) Jeff Sugg (projections) Janice Pytel (costumes) Chuck LaPointe (wigs) David Lander (lights) André Pluess (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Meghan Gauger (stage manager). Cast: Don Amendolia, Greg Keller, Susan Kellermann, Graeme Malcolm, Laura Odeh, Mary Beth Peil, Erik Steele, Diane Walsh.

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July 5 - July 22, 2007
Emergence-SEE!
Reviewed by Brad Hathaway

Running time 1:30 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for emotion-packed poetic imagery

Storyline: When the specter of a slave ship named Remembrance surfaces in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, many emotions are released but none quite as strong as those of the two sons of a single thought-provoking man who clambers aboard and holds forth from the upper deck.

Each of the vignettes in this survey of land-based reactions to the metaphysical occurrence in the harbor lasts just about as long as necessary, and then Beaty moves on. Some of the vignettes are stronger than others but none drags on too long. As a performer, Beaty is precise. Since his material is all poetry - and hip hopish poetry at that - the rhythm of his delivery is as important as the inflections and how he says what he says is an important part of the performance. Beaty has an impressive level of breath control. His inhalations are easily as important and carefully choreographed as the enunciation of the text as he exhales. Variety, not normally a feature of the often monotonous Hip Hop, which after all, takes its name from a droning two-beat imitation of marching soldiers, is very much a part of Beaty's delivery and each of the vignettes or poems has its own distinctive meter.

Strangely uncredited is Kenny Leon who directed last year's production of this work at New York's Public Theatre. The contribution of a strong director can make or break a solo show being performed by its author. Someone has to be able to say "enough, already!" to rein in a creative individual working with his own material. Since we didn't happen to see the production when it was directed by Leon, we can't comment on how this current incarnation differs from the work when he was at the helm. We can say, however, that this show does not seem to suffer from some of the self-absorption that solo shows unfettered by a strong director often exhibit. Perhaps this is simply a credit to Beaty himself. Perhaps it is a residual benefit from the work of Leon. Whichever, what is on the stage is tightly controlled and highly satisfying.

While this comes as close as any show to the proverbial "one man show," there are contributions of note from people who don't happen to be Daniel Beaty. Most importantly, Jason Arnold who has designed lighting for many local shows, supports the emotions of the performance with carefully selected color schemes on the plain back drape which backs the stage at Arena's Kreeger Theatre, and alternating tight or wide lighting on Beaty as the material requires.

Written and performed by Daniel Beaty. Design: Jason Arnold (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Michal Daniel (photography) John Eric Scutchins (stage manager).

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Running time 2:40 - one intermission
A charming and visually magic puppet and live-actor presentation
Tickets $55 - $74

Storyline: Peter Pan is a boy who has escaped the real world where boys have to grow up to be men by joining the other lost boys in Neverland, but he misses the stories his mother used to tell. He visits the Darling household in London to listen to Mrs. Darling read stories to her children. The eldest of the children seems to him to be a perfect candidate to take back to Neverland to tell stories to all the lost boys and to be their mother. They fly to Neverland where they have adventures battling Captain Hook's pirates. The Darling children want to return to their home and the rest of the lost boys want to join them - but Peter continues to refuse to grow up.

Mabou Mines, named for the town in Nova Scotia where they rehearsed their first show in 1970, is a troupe that specializes in having the entire company of creative talents collaborate on all aspects of a production. The team developed Peter and Wendy in 1996 for the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. With East-Asian puppetry and a Celtic musical score, this production is based on the novel J.M. Barrie wrote in 1911 following the success of his 1904 play. His novel was viewed as a bit darker than his play, and this version shows the effects of his increased emphasis on the loss of innocence. Most of the more popular adaptations - for film and for theater - concentrate on the joys of childhood and treat the theme of the problems of adulthood as just a dash of spice in the otherwise sweeter concoction. Mabou Mines tries to capture that darker feel while, at the same time, being true to the spirit of Barrie's novel.

Karen Kandel was very much a part of that original troupe that developed the piece ten years ago when she originated the part of the narrator. She's performing it again for the first month of this two month run. (Marsha Stephanie Blake takes over the role on May 29.) Kandel is the only un-masked real person on stage. The rest of the cast are covered in white in a reverse-polarity version of the traditional manipulators in Japanese bunraku puppetry who are dressed in black, and the audience is expected to ignore their presence. Here, in white, their presence is emphasized to delightful effect. The puppets themselves are marvelous. The Peter Pan puppet has about as much stage presence as any live actor we've seen this season, and the creation of the dog Nana out of what seems to be just a pile of old rags is a delight. The narrator creates all the voices (and Nana's bark) as well as narrating the story itself. She voices many of her lines with her head or at least her mouth hidden from view so that the audience concentrates on the puppet and not on her. Still each syllable she utters is clearly heard throughout the hall. Ah, the magic of the wireless microphone!

The show is a play with music, and not just incidental music. There are 8 songs plus two "tunes" in the score. Six musicians sit on one side of the stage while a seventh who handles percussion and live sound effects sits on the other. Among the six musicians is Susan McKeown who stands to sing such Celtic-sounding songs as "Memories to Bed" "Light That Beauteous Flame" and "The Wendy House Song." All the music was composed by Johnny Cunningham and is charming and lilting. The Celtic feeling compliments the accent that Kandel has given to her Peter Pan - a distinctly Scottish Gaelic brogue in honor of J. M. Barrie who was born in Forfarshire, Scotland.

Conceived and created by Mabou Mines from the novel by J. M. Barrie. Adapted by Liza Lorwin. Directed by Lee Breuer. Music composed by Johnny Cunningham. Lyrics by members of the original company. Music direction by Alan Kelly. Fight direction by B. H. Barry. Live sound effects score by Jay Peck. Puppet design and construction by Julie Archer, Stephen Kaplin, Walter Stark, Jane Catherine Shaw and Basil Twist. Design: Julie Archer (set and puppets) Sally Thomas (costumes) Andrew Moore (film) Edward Cosla (sound) Lloyd Davis, Jr. (stage manager). Cast: Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith, Deana Acheson, Matthew Acheson, Lute Breuer, Emily DeCola, Karen Kandel or Marsha Stephanie Blake, Jessica Scott, Jessica Chandlee Smith, Eric Wright. Musicians: Jay Ansill, Aidan Brennan, Jerry Busher, Tola Custy, Stephanie Geremia or Ivan Goff, Alan Kelly, Susan McKeown.

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Running time 1:10 - no intermission
An extended mime-to-soundtrack act featuring
 elaborate paper costumes
Tickets $39

Storyline: Italian clown Ennio Marchetto prances about in paper constructions combining costuming and caricature to the music of well known pop figures from Judy Garland to Liza Minelli, Frank to Nancy Sinatra, C3PO to ET and all Three Tenors to all three Supremes.

Marchetto was born in Venice, very near the home of the eighteenth century playwright Carlo Goldoni, who is credited with modernizing much of the commedia dell'arte format. Taking his cue from both the contributions of Goldoni and the traditions of Venetian masks and costume making for Carnival, along with a dash of Disney, Marchetto expanded his use of paper dolls to entertain his sister into a full-fledged career of creating paper cutout caricatures he could wear. Nearly twenty years ago he turned this into a performance piece which earned him success at the Edinburgh Fringe. Since then he has toured with the act throughout most of Europe and around the United States.

The paper creations are clever and fun. Most have a cut out space for Marchetto's face, and he mugs with abandon as he prances up and down in the rhythm of the recordings of the targets of his barbs. The creations unfold, re-fold, reverse, separate, pop up and tear apart in inventive ways.  For the Three Tenors, for example, a single suit and circle of hair serves as Luciano Pavarotti but soon the suit folds out to reveal Domingo on one side and Carreras on the other. Often, intriguing connections are drawn between icons - Judy Garland's little Dorothy dreaming of going over the rainbow morphs into ET longing to go home.

Paper is, of course, a two dimensional medium and Arena is presenting this act in the four-sided Fischandler Theatre with half of the audience area screened off so that no one in the audience is behind the performer. The west side is now what you would call "the center section" with half of the north and half of the south sides flanking the stage. The view is acceptable from the north or south because Arena is not selling the seats where the sightlines would be too extreme. While, at $39, those seats are expensive for a fringe-type show (tickets to most shows in the Capital Fringe Festival last year were $15) Arena has a number of discounts available running from their traditional "fivetwentyfive tickets" at $10 for patrons between five and twenty-five years old to half-price tickets that go on sale an hour and a half before curtain. 

Concept: Ennio Marchetto. Design and direction: Ennio Marchetto and Sosthen Hennekam. Lighting and sound design by Sosthen Hennekam. Cast: Ennio Marchetto.

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 A superbly entertaining trip through the formative years
 of the modern woman
Tickets $47 - $66
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Viewed episodically in flashbacks, a young woman's life progresses from a high school sock hop to the time when her biological clock tells her she has to make a final choice between her profession and her maternal instincts. In between come college, forming enduring relationships with men and women, watching friends get married and become parents, achieving professional recognition and even some celebrity. Through it all, the things gained are always accompanied by the sense that there are things lost or at least chances missed.

How many Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, especially those that also won the Tony Award for best play, have been so heavily criticized for supposed weaknesses in the script? People keep picking The Heidi Chronicles apart for failure to consistently defend the feminist position, for simplistic characters, for failing to write a scene for the heroine to stand up to the men in her life, for "sit com" comedy in supposedly tackling serious themes, for a weak ending - for just about everything. Yet the text is so compellingly interesting and the issues it airs are so true to their time, that almost every complaint is not that it's bad but that it isn't as good as it seems to want to be. Well, that's churlish. In fact, the play may well raise hopes or expectations that it can't always meet, but it is constantly striving for something admirable, and perhaps its very imperfections are a realistic representation of the gap that always exists between human aspirations and what humans can actually accomplish.

Karas' Heidi grows from idealistic and hopeful teen to outwardly confident but internally conflicted adult while giving voice to both the serious truths and the humorous observations with which Wasserstein paints her portrait. She benefits from a strong cast in the frequently stereotypical supporting roles including Harmon as the predictably sensitive gay man friend, and the always good - and marvelous here - Marty Lodge, who exudes a confidence and intelligence as the flippant heterosexual who comes to believe he made a mistake settling for a lesser love than Heidi. Watching Lodge and Karas work together is reason enough to see this show.

Tazewell Thompson turns the evening into a parade of time slots - pre-Beatle 60's, protest-torn 68, etc. Time and feel for each vignette is established not only through Merrily Murray-Walsh's evocative costumes but by a series of views of icons of the moment projected on a large cube hanging precariously over Donald Eastman's set of carpeted flooring. The projections were researched and assembled by Kirby Malone and Gail Scott White of George Mason University's Multimedia Performance Studio with an eye toward giving the audience a quick and entertaining way to recognize the shift of time and place. It works nicely and avoids the problem of lengthening the evening which comes close to three hours as it is.

Written by Wendy Wasserstein. Directed by Tazewell Thompson. Design: Donald Eastman (set) Merrily Murray-Walsh (costumes) Jill Kaplan (wigs and makeup) Kirby Malone and Gail Scott White (projections) Rob Hunter (fight director) Robert Wierzel (lights) Fabian Obispo (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Amber Dickerson (stage manager). Cast: Susan Bennett, David Covington, Wynn Harmon, Ellen Karas, Hope Lambert, Marty Lodge, Emerie Snyder, Catherine Weidner.

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February 23 - April 8, 2007
Frankie and Johnny in the
Clair de Lune
Reviewed by Brad Hathaway

Running time 2:20 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for two fine performances in a
superbly written play
v Includes adult sexual material and significant nudity
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: After their first date, a waitress and a short order cook have returned to her apartment and gone to bed together. After making love, she is ready to have him leave so she can have her privacy back. He, on the other hand, thinks he knows a good thing when he sees it, has fallen in love, and has no intention of leaving. 

There seem to be two ways to approach Terrence McNally's 1987 two performer piece. The movie had a much more attractive pair (Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer) than the original Off-Broadway presentation (Kathy Bates and Kenneth Welsh). Two years ago Vincent M. Lancisi directed the play at Everyman with a decidedly romantic approach, while here David Muse directs with a rougher but no less involving style. It isn't that Muse's Buddeke and D'Ambrosio are any less attractive people than Lancisi's Zachary Knower and Deborah Hazlett. It is that Muse digs a bit deeper into the desperation of Johnny's fear that this might be his last opportunity for happiness and lets Frankie's fear of failure simmer just a bit closer to the surface, where Lancisi seemed to highlight Johnny's hopes and Frankie's temptation. Both productions, however, earned designation as a Potomac Stages Pick.

D'Ambrosio's Johnny is a character quick to clutch at any opportunity to break his sad cycle of failure. He's clearly already in love with Frankie as the play begins in the throes of their first sexual climax. Only slowly do you discover the extent of those failures he'd like to put behind him. Buddeke's Frankie  share's the audience's slow discovery of the complexity of what Johnny is offering and it reinforces her reluctance. Still, she captures the internal conflict of this waitress who is just as afraid of missing out on a chance for a future with Johnny as she is of being hurt again. As she says, she wants a life that would keep her birth from being as meaningless as her death.

Neil Patel's set hides the apartment from the audience with the hallway wall rather than a show curtain, revolving to reveal the cramped feeling Manhattan (Clinton, actually, we are informed in the dialogue) one room flat with its pull out sleep sofa/bed and a small cooking island in the kitchen area. A key to the efficiency of this efficiency as a set is Nancy Schertler's lighting, which not only provides the light of the moon from the title, it shifts mood and defines the structural elements of the play, shining light on the character's moments of self revelation and providing pools of light for Frankie and Johnny to share in their more intimate moments.

Written by Terrence McNally. Directed by David Muse. Fight direction by Robb Hunter. Design: Neil Patel (set) T. Tyler Stumpf (costumes) Nancy Schertler (lights) Daniel Baker (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Amy K Bennett (stage manager).  Cast: Kate Buddeke, Vito D'Ambrosio. (With Stephen Schnetzer as the voice of the radio announcer.)

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Running time 2:55 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for bringing history alive
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: 1839 Wylie Avenue, Aunt Ester's house in the hill district of Pittsburgh, has been a way station on the underground railroad, a house of refuge and Aunt Ester has been a soul cleaner for all of her nearly 300 years. Slavery may well be officially over, but the legacy of slavery and the subjugation of the black population lingers with all its devastating results. In 1904 a young man fleeing the oppression in the deep south arrives at the house seeking Aunt Ester's aid and sparks events that link the history of an enslaved race to the new century.

You don't need to know anything about the other nine plays in the cycle to find this one fascinating, troubling and ennobling. It may well be filled with references to places and people who have relevance to the future that Wilson chronicles in such wonderful works as Pulitzer Prize winners Fences and The Piano Lesson, or the marvelous Ma Rainey's Black Bottom or Joe Turner's Come and Gone, but it is a free standing work. It is filled with vibrantly alive characters ranging from nearly 300 year old Aunt Ester herself to the old man who worked with her helping blacks flee to freedom along the underground railroad and the young girl she hopes will replace her when she dies. A central scene linking all that is to come with what has gone before takes place in the hold of a slave ship named "The Gem of the Ocean" and is staged with chilling effectiveness. It is contrasted nicely by a scene where words do the impressing, not stage craft. It is the kitchen table discussion of slavery and freedom between two old veterans of the fight and a young man just coming to understand the legacy he has inherited. It is the genius of Wilson that the views of multiple generations clash with the values of each given equally revealing, respectful and eloquent voice.

Two actresses shine through the entire production. Pascale Armand catches the essence of the "modern woman" emerging at the start of the century while Lynnie Godfrey brings the ancient matriarch herself, Aunt Ester, to effervescent life with a marvelous melding of honest, decent dignity and affectionate humor. Her use of her hands is fascinating as she gestures, points, sways and sweeps side to side, always alive with motion and focusing her point. Male roles are given their due as well. Joseph Marcell skillfully builds his portrayal of Solly Two Kings (he was named for the biblical kings David and Solomon) from a bright but seemingly peripheral comic character to a central feature of the story, making you like him as a person before you discover his links to the past and his importance for the future. LeLand Gantt gives a vibrant and multi-dimensional portrayal of the family member seduced into serving the power structure of a white-dominated society. Timmy Ray James manages to make the part of the sympathetic white man seem human rather than a simple dramatic device. Of course, he has the nice touches that Wilson wrote for the part, but it still can be a trap in less skilled hands.

This review is based on the matinee performed at noon on a Tuesday rather than the official press performance or other normal evening show and a word is in order about the impact the show had on a mostly teenage and highly diverse audience. The energy level in the lobby both before the show and during the intermission was sky high with a matching volume. However, the audience was as quiet and attentive as any I've been in as these students came under the spell of August Wilson's dramatization of the history of the descendents of the scourge of slavery. They were positively engrossed in the experience and the cast seemed to be sparked by the intensity in the room. The shared experience was memorable. It is to be hoped that many of the students will find a way to catch the Ford's Theatre / African Continuum Theatre Company production of Wilson's 1970s installment, Jitney, which is playing at Ford's through February 25.

Written by August Wilson. Directed by Paulette Randall. Design: Scott Bradley (set) Ilona Somogyi (costumes) Sara Jean Landbeck (makeup) Jon Aitchison (hair and wigs) Cliff Williams III (fight choreography) Allen Lee Hughes (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Lloyd Davis, Jr. (stage manager). Cast: Pascale Armand, Jimonn Cole, LeLand Gantt, Lynnie Godfrey, Timmy Ray James, Clayton Lebouef, Joseph Marcell.

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December 15, 2006 - January 28, 2007
Noises Off
Reviewed by William Bryan

Running time 2:30 – one intermission
 t A Potomac Stages Pick for a side splitting
night of humor
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Michael Frayn's farce presents both the on-stage and off-stage picture of the night when anything that could go wrong does go wrong for a production of a comical play.

Director Jonathan Munby must be given a large amount of the credit for the successful production. Since the play revolves around the on stage and backstage antics of a sex farce called Nothing On, Mr. Murphy ends up directing two if not three plays. Thinking about the challenges reminds one of the infinite mirrors where an image is reflected repeatedly down through the mirror. He directs the director, played by James Gale, who directs the neurotic cast of Nothing On (the farce). As convoluted as the production sounds, and as much of a nightmare it must be to get the timing right, all that comes across during the production is the humor and laughter of this engaging show.

Cast credit must also be acknowledge for the roles played, though it must appear to many of the cast members that they have seen each of the stereotyped actors presented in Noises Off at some other time during their careers. This is a veteran cast, and it shows. They not only had to overcome the challenges presented by the play itself, but also to avoid reproducing the performances seen in the excellent movie version which featured perfect casting and the luxury of multiple takes if something didn’t go quite right. Helen Carey plays Dottie, an aging stage star who puts her own money into the production, portrayed in the film by Carol Burnett. To her credit, she makes the role her own though you never quite get the feeling of romance between her and Gary, played by Stephen Schnetzer, which only slightly dulls the witticisms their romance should set later in the play. It is a pleasure to see Robert Prosky return to the stage. Known widely for his roles in Mrs. Doubtfire, The Natural, and of course three years on Hill Street Blues, he plays the alcoholic actor who plays the burglar dad, who plays…wait, too many roles, but still, a very enjoyable performance.

Even the playbill was crafted with the theme of the play within the play in mind, being one of those that seems to be for two plays, Noises Off if read one way, and Nothing On if read the other. The creative team continues their excellent work with a classic set from Alexander Dodge that lets us join the cast both on stage and backstage without interrupting the flow of the laughter or killing the show's timing. The spirit of the holidays is finally releasing its hold over the Potomac Region and what better way to start off the new year of theater than with a great night of great laughs. Not a dry eye can be found in the house at the end of the show and tears of laughter have been a rare commodity as of late in our area. Welcome back tears - and well done Arena Stage!

Written by Michael Frayn. Directed by Jonathan Munby. Fight direction by Robb Hunter. Design: Alexander Dodge (set) Linda Cho (costumes) Michael Gilliam (lights) Lindsay Jones (sound) Amber Dickerson (stage manager). Cast: Helen Carey, Lynnda Ferguson, James Gale, Susan Lynskey, Amelia McClain, Robert Prosky, Jay .Russell, Stephen F Schmidt, Stephen Schnetzer.

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November 17 - December 31, 2006
She Loves Me
Reviewed by Brad Hathaway

Running time 2:45 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a charming musical love story
Ushers' Favorite Show Award winner for December, 2006
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: The stories of six clerks in a European perfume shop intertwine at Christmas time. One is writing to a woman he never met and falling in love with her. Another is writing to a man she never met and falling in love with him. (Guess how that comes out.) A delivery boy wants to advance to sales clerk while another clerk is having an affair with the boss’ wife.

One of the gems of the musical theater from the 1960’s, She Loves Me is a simple love story with a superb score for a relatively small cast. It is a delicate piece that requires huge supplies of charm, style and grace to pull off, and Arena proves it is capable of giving the show its due. The book by Joe Masteroff could be (and is) used as a text book in storytelling balance, building characters who feel real and who interact intelligently. The songs use humor and heart in almost equal portions to create a romantic atmosphere (to quote from the song that Donnelly places at the start of the second act). The big hit from the show was the title song which was recorded by just about every pop singer before the Beatles changed the pop-music business forever.

The cast is almost uniformly marvelous - not a let down in the bunch. Brynn O'Malley makes her Potomac Region debut in the role of the letter writing romantic, and she charms everyone in the house. The part could be too saccharine, but she finds just the right combination of romantic dreaming, dramatic discovery and humor to keep both of the sugar-themed solos, "No More Candy" and "Vanilla Ice Cream," from over dosing on sweetness. Kevin Kraft is a match for her, bringing both a comic flair and a romantic sensibility to the senior clerk with whom she has carried on an epistolary affair. He moves with a natural grace and sings with style. There is a fine chemistry between them from her entrance to the final blackout. Jim Corti is a real kick as the clerk who will do anything to avoid loosing his job, and Clifton Guterman is just as much fun as the delivery boy who dreams of clerkdom. Sebastian La Cause moves like a swinger and croons like a would-be Sinatra (although occasionally going a bit flat) as the clerk who is a cad, and Hal Robinson finds the sentimental core underneath the gruff exterior of the shop owner. Nancy Lemenager picks things up with her "Trip to the Library."

Director Donnelly has J. Fred Schiffman go a bit overboard with shtick and choreographer Kenneth Lee Roberson get a bit too farcical at the start of the second half, but the crowd seems to eat it up and the show soon gets back to the charm with Guterman's big number, "Try Me." Otherwise, Donnelly treats the exquisite material here with the respect it deserves without allowing that respect to turn the production into some sort of museum exhibition. She knows that revival means "bringing back to life" and she does just that, breathing freshness into the piece. Some touches are dictated by the fact that the show is being staged in the round. She's good at spreading the action so no one side of the house feels slighted and the sightlines are excellent no matter where you sit. With the help of an elegant set design and sharp, attractive costumes, the locale is made clear. While the script only says it takes place in "a city in Europe," Bock's music places it clearly in Hungary's capital city, so Donnelly adds an on-stage violinist to give us an additional clue and has the program simply say "Budapest in the 1930s." The fourteen member orchestra hidden below the stage delivers both lushness with five string players and liveliness with great reed and woodwind playing. The  English horn (neither English nor a horn) of Rita Eggert is particularly delightful.

Music by Jerry Bock. Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. Book by Joe Masteroff based on a play by Miklos Laszlo. Directed by Kyle Donnelly. Choreographed by Kenneth Lee Roberson. Music Direction by William Foster McDaniel. Orchestrations by Don Walker, adapted by Frank Matosich, Jr. Design: Kate Edmunds (set) Nan Cibula-Jenkins (costumes) Jon Aitchison (wigs) Nancy Schertler (lights) Garth Hemphill (sound) Susan R. White (stage manager). Cast: Kurt Boehm, Jim Corti, Ashlee Fife, Clifton Guterman, Jennifer Irons, Joe Jackson, Kevin Kraft,  Sebastian La Cause, Jeremy Leiner, Nancy Lemenager, Gia Mora, Brynn O'Malley, Hal Robinson, Roger Rosen, Michael Scott, J. Fred Shiffman, Rosalie Tenseth, Jesse Terrill

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t A Potomac Stages Pick for a one woman show that entertains and educates
Running time 1:30 - no intermission
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A one woman show wherein nine women present the effects of the Iraq war upon their lives. From the rich artist to the spoiled schoolgirl, from the bereaved mother to the terrified doctor, lives, loves, and losses are explored across a war torn stage, a war torn country, and a war torn world.

The one person show is perhaps the most difficult of stage performances to successfully achieve. There is no one else on stage to rely upon or to build with. Hal Holbrook is often credited with setting the model one man show with his Mark Twain Tonight! performances in the 1960s.  Heather Raffo demonstrates once more the excellence that can be achieved through a one person show with her uncanny ability to rapidly switch among the roles of nine very different women. Using only minor costume changes which occur most often in a quick whirling dervish of light, sound, and movement, she transforms both herself and her stage with each change of character. Over the course of the performance she becomes: a teenage girl infatuated by N-Sync, a doctor terrified by mutations and cancers, a Bedouin after three husbands, a grieving mother who has forsaken her own name, an Iraqi-American watching from afar, a ex-patriot in London, a beggar on the streets, an artist who loves her country, and a woman who teaches us what a shoe can tell of a life.

These remarkable stories, and the skill that Heather Raffo uses to bring them to life, would be much less effective without the set by Antje Ellermann and the lighting of Peter West.  Together the two worked to allow the actress to move from a river stream to a hospital ward, from a London flat to an American apartment, from an artist’s loft, to a war torn street.  The stage never changes, yet our perceptions of it are altered with each change of character on stage due to the way the actress can move through this set and the lighting that establishes the mood.  Sounds provide the final touches to paint the tapestry that are the lives and locations of these remarkable women.

The show is political.  Given its content, it could not be otherwise.  Yet, with minor exceptions, it does not pursue blame or responsibility so much as it illustrates the terror, heartbreak and atrocities of war for those of us who have become detached by only seeing what the media shows in thirty second clips on the evening news.  The lives presented to us are all fictional, a conglomeration of lives that the author discovered while living with many Iraqi women as she worked on her Masters thesis.  A painting, called “Savagery,” which she found in the Saddam Art Center in 1993, makes it's way throughout the play tying together the lives of the women portrayed.  The story of the painting, its creation, and its final resting place, interwoven with the stories of the women around it and that of the war which encompasses them all, lets us see once more the strength of the human spirit, and more so, how the ripples and waves of a conflict of this size can change the world.

Written and performed by Heather Raffo. Directed by Joanna Settle. Design: Antje Ellermann (set) Kasia Walicka Maimone (costumes) David Neumann (choreographer) Peter West (lights) Lynne Soffer (voice and dialect coach) Obadiah Eaves (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Martha Knight (stage manager).

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Running time 2:40 - one intermission
An awkward but highlight-filled production of
Kander and Ebb's troubling musical
The material is appropriate for mature teens but not for younger theatergoers
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: An American would-be novelist comes to Berlin as the Nazis are taking power. He meets the occupants of a slightly seedy rooming house and a shabby cabaret, "The Kit Kat Klub." His landlady breaks off her engagement to a greengrocer because of threats from the Nazis since he is Jewish and she is not. An English girl who is a singer at the cabaret, who has very little talent but with whom he falls in love, places her career ahead of any effort to avoid the impending conflagration.

Smith has the benefit of some fine performances as she brings the show to life in her unique vision. Brad Oscar is an impressive presence all evening long and his singing of both "I Don't Care Much" and "If You Could See Her" is memorable. Meg Gillentine finds the hard-to-find line between the vocal demands of the songs and the supposedly limited talent of her character. The pair of Dorothy Stanley, as the widow who runs the boarding house, and Walter Charles, as her fruit shop suitor, is superb although Charles' marvelous work is impaired by the demands of Smith's approach which doesn't give him the opportunity to reveal his fears that his Jewishness really will be unacceptable in the Nazi world that is surrounding him. Sherri L. Edelen is marvelous as the prostitute who has a string of "nephews" visiting her room in the boarding house and J. Fred Shiffman gives just about the strongest performance as the Nazi functionary in memory. Glenn Seven Allen, on the other hand, is merely a pleasant presence as the American writer through whose eyes we see the story.

Brad Oscar, in his big Broadway breakthrough as the understudy who became the star of The Producers, had a line in that musical that seems in retrospect to be a comment on the staging here. His character in that earlier show claimed to be the inventor of "theater in the square - nobody had a good seat!" Well, the Arena is a theater in the square and all too often in this production a scene is interrupted by a turn to the side that isn't motivated by what is happening to the characters, it is obviously motivated by the need to show the people on a different side of the house just what is going on. Smith avoided this problem with her marvelously fluid staging of Camelot in this same square with the help of Baayork Lee's elegant choreography (the misconceived joust of that production aside). Lee also helped move the focus in Damn Yankees with aplomb. Here, David Neumann provides what choreography there is, but Smith doesn't have many of the scenes use much dance, with the exception of the song "If You Could See Her Through My Eyes" in the cabaret and the engagement party in the boarding house. Otherwise, this is a fairly static musical and Smith is left spinning her performers left and right at awkward moments to spread the view for the audience that surrounds the stage. Makeup designer Sara Jean Landbeck nicely avoids the excesses of some other productions of the show. Anne Patterson provides a multi-layered setting that supports Smith's effort to blur the distinctions between the cabaret and the outside world. In an effort to set up a visual representation of the show's main theme, Patterson also provides a silly looking model train for the early scene of the American writer's arrival in Germany. But the purpose of the train's appearance becomes clear at the end of the show in an emotionally affecting visual effect.

Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Book by Joe Masteroff. Based on the play by John Van Druten and the stories of Christopher Isherwood. Directed by Molly Smith. Choreographed by David Neumann. Music Direction by George Fulginiti-Shakar. Design: Anne Patterson (set) Austin K. Sanderson (costumes) Bettie O. Rogers (hair and wigs) Sara Jean Landbeck (makeup) Joel Moritz (lights) Phillip Scott Peglow (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Susan R. White (stage manager). Cast: Glenn Seven Allen, Julie Burdick, Billy Bustamante, Walter Charles, Sherri L. Edelen, Jenna Edison, Hillary Heather Elliott, Meg Gillentine, Danna Harris, Lynn McNutt, Monique L. Midgette, Brad Oscar, Kyle Pleasant, Carlos Ponton, Diego Prieto, J. Fred Shiffman, Dorothy Stanley, Jason Strunk, Erica Sweany, Brett Teresa.

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Reviewed May 11
Running time 2:40 - one intermission
A time-travel comedy
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Storyline: Three women in 1888 set out on an exploration into "Terra Incognita" only to find that the unknown territory they visit is the future. They arrive in 1955, where words they thought the knew mean something else, and the landscape is filled with items they don't recognize. Two remain in 1955 while the third continues on into the future's future.

The production began life in Westport Connecticut where Thompson has just become the Artistic Director of the legendary Westport Country Playhouse established as the premiere out of town (that is, out of New York) theater in the 1930's by the Theatre Guild's Lawrence Langner, and rescued from dilapidation by Joanne Woodward at the start of the new century. It ran for most of March on the Playhouse's traditional proscenium style stage. Now he brings the cast and design team from that effort to work in the arena style theater with the audience not just in front but all around the playing space. Thompson knows a thing or two about directing in the round as he demonstrated with M. Butterfly in this space. However, in adjusting an already blocked production from one- to four-sided is a difficult trick which escapes him here. If you have a choice, see the show from the north side. It should be a much better show than the one you would see from the South.

Laiona Michelle returns to Arena where she was so very good in Thompson's Yellowman. Her fellow travelers are Molly Wright Stuart and Susan Bennett, both making their Arena debuts (Bennett was one the Joad kids in Ford's The Grapes of Wrath). Their reactions to the stimuli of discoveries vary nicely and they manage to create unique personas even without much in the way of back-story provided in the script. The major contribution of the Westport Playhouse seems to be Tom Beckett playing the seven people and one Yeti the ladies happen upon. He switches characters as readily has he changes costumes and each entrance seems to give the production a brief shot in the arm.

The three "sister sojourners" are earnest, energetic and all agog as they proceed - well, pace back and forth - across the bridge that Donald Eastman has placed across Arena's yawning black pit. The bridge is bare white with slats allowing light up through the floor. A few set pieces slide in from the sides, most notably a set of three old gas pumps that seem to appear just as the piece is in need of some energy.

Written by Eric Overmyer. Directed by Tazewell Thompson. Design: Donald Eastman (set) Carrie Robbins (costumes) Sara Jean Landbeck (wigs) Robert Wierzel (lights) Fabian Obispo (sound and music) Scott Suchman (photography) Linda Harris (stage manager). Cast: Tom Beckett, Susan Bennett, Laiona Michelle, Molly Wright Stuart.

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Reviewed April 6
Running time 1:35 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages pick for a glimpse of musical history

Storyline: A fictional recreation of one of the last appearances of Billie Holiday in a jazz club in Philadelphia shortly before her death at the age of 44 features over a dozen of her songs as well as a rambling narrative as she shares with the audience her memories of her hard life on the road as a black entertainer in the 1940s and 50s. Songs include "Strange Fruit," "Taint Nobody's Biz-Ness" and "God Bless the Child" (whose got his own).

Billie Holiday's actual last performance was at a benefit concert in New York. She could only do two songs before leaving the stage that night. This fictional version of a very different "nearly final performance" is in a bar in the town of her birth, Philadelphia. She manages fourteen songs and shares memories while becoming progressively inebriated from the on-stage glass of vodka or gin and, one supposes, from the off stage intake of something less legal. As her voice and her energy ebb she finally is reduced to complete silence but not submission.

Lynn Sterling creates a compelling portrait of Billie Holiday. In a lovely white gown that seems just waiting for the chanteuse's signature white gardenia, she withers before your eyes but retains an angry dignity that refuses to accept the limitations of the body or the voice. Sterling's voice is clearer and stronger than Holiday's was in her last days, which may be why she's able to get through all 14 songs. She gives them a delivery reminiscent of Holiday without attempting an impersonation.

William Foster McDaniel leads the onstage trio in a solidly accurate jazz backing for the lady. McDaniel also has a role to play as Holiday's last music director/accompanist. He has a few lines and delivers them without drawing attention to the fact that he is a musician and not an actor.  Danny Holgate's arrangements include a three-song overture that sets just the right tone. The set is an authentic-looking venue with even a few cafe tables at the front where some lucky audience members get to share the evening in the style to which customers would have been accustomed. Just to complete the feel, you are allowed to bring beverages to your seat with you even if you aren't sitting at the cafe tables.

Written by Lanie Robertson. Directed by Kenneth Lee Roberson. Musical direction by William Foster McDaniel. Musical arrangements by Danny Holgate. Design: Shaun L. Motley (set) Austin K. Sanderson (costumes) Jon Aitchison (wig) Michael Gilliam (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Amber Dickerson (stage manager.) Cast: Lynn Sterling, William Foster McDaniel with Eric Kennedy (drums) and Thomas E. Short, Jr. (bass).

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Reviewed March 9
Running time 2:35 - one intermission
 A comic fable 
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: During the drought-ridden depression years, a stranger claiming he can make rain enters the lives of the Curry family: caring but pragmatic father J.C. Curry, skeptical realist elder son Noah, romantic younger brother Jimmy and daughter Lizzie on the verge of spinsterhood. The stranger may offer a miracle more important than rain.

If the storyline above sounds familiar, but you know you never saw The Rainmaker before, it may be because Nash later converted the play to a musical with Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt under the title 110 In the Shade. That musical received a glorious revival three years ago at Signature Theatre. It is fascinating to see the scenes which inspired many of the songs in the musical version, and just how many of Mr. Nash's lines of dialogue contained the elements of abstraction and allusion that made them work well in a musical. Music plays an important part in this production of this non-musical - incidental music, not songs. For instance, the con-man's entrance is underscored by a nearly otherworldly musical theme that is nearly subtle enough to be subliminal but helps cast an immediate spell.

Day creates a Lizzie for whom you can root, which makes her final avoidance of the dreaded future as an old maid a pleasure. Michael Laurence makes the stranger of a con man very strange indeed, emphasizing the fast talking shtick of a traveling salesman rather than smooth charm or romantic magnetism. This makes Day's success at making her sexual awakening in his arms seem a good thing somewhat more difficult, but she pulls it off. The rest of the cast is solid with nicely human portrayal of the deputy sheriff she's really fated for by Frank Wood. Best of all, however, is William Parry in the hardest of the roles to pull off, that of Lizzie's father who has to say some really dumb things and yet deliver a number of of the show's most memorable, cogent lines with conviction and apparent wisdom. There is a standout small part performances by Ben Fox in the early part of the run as Lizzie's younger brother, but he is leaving the cast only three weeks into the run, to be replaced by Jesse Hooker.

The spareness of life in depression-era rural America is nicely represented by Michael Yeargan's set design which consists principally of a simple floor of wooden planking with a simple kitchen table which converts to a desk. Different locales are signaled by lowering lanterns or ceiling fans into place. The tack room where the con-man works his greatest con is nicely created with just a saddle and a rug. The whitewash arrow which is painted on the floor as part of the mumbo-jumbo of the con, however, is an unnecessary comic touch which does some real damage to Parry's still successful effort to make the part of the father work, and then requires cast members to skip over or plod through sections of the stage that seem to cry out for a "wet paint" sign. Other productions wisely place the arrow painting off stage.

Written by N. Richard Nash. Directed by Lisa Peterson. Design: Michael Yeargan (set) Ilona Somogyi (costumes) James F. Ingalls (lights) Mark Bennett (sound and additional music) Brad Waller (fight choreography) Scott Suchman (photography) Susan R. White (stage manager). Cast: Johanna Day, Ben Fox or Jesse Hooker, Michael Laurence, William Parry, Delaney Williams, Graham Winton, Frank Wood.

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Reviewed  January 26
Running time 2:20 - one intermission
Solid production of a neglected major play of the 1930s
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: In the depths of the depression, the Berger family of the Bronx struggle forward even as their financial situation is somewhat better than many of their neighbors but considerably worse than it was in the good times. While they react to the national disaster all around them, they attempt to deal with the family problems at home: the son is in love outside of the faith, the daughter is pregnant without a husband, the border they had to take in is a voice of despair, while the  grandfather's rants about the capitalist system seem to be more and more realistic.

Fichandler's touch with the play can be seen in the solidity of its physical production, the seriousness of its casts' approach and in the eye for detail in the setting and the text that make this a thorough exploration of a play whose place in the history of American theater is perhaps more important than its actual content. It was the first play by Clifford Odets to be produced on Broadway where he had some solid credentials as a performer and a member of The Group Theater of Stella and Luther Adler, Cheryl Crawford and others. It preceded the better known Waiting for Lefty by only a month, and once both were up and running, Odets had claim to the title of up-and-coming major playwright. The play remained somewhat in the shadow of Lefty.

What is on display here is a literate and emotionally charged portrait of a family under pressure. That the family happens to be Jewish is important not because the pressures of the depression were unique to them but because the author was Jewish and brought an intense feeling for the nuances of the cultural heritage of his characters to the crafting of his dialogue. Odets may well have treasured and even loved the traits he captured in this three-generational family, but, at least as played in this production, there's precious little evidence that he liked them. Part of that may be a reflection of the direction of this particular cast, however. Prosky makes the grandfather warmly human, Adam Green gives an energetic youthfulness to the grandson and Steve Routman manages to make the milquetoast father something less than dismissible, but the impact of Janna Robbins' overwhelming force in the harpy role of the mother overpowers them all, making the Berger home a painful place to be.

That that home is intended to be the picture of the pain of bad times is made clear not only in the pacing of Fichandler's production, but by the physical space created on the stage of the Kreeger. The finely detailed faithful replication of the apartment in which the family lives is bordered by a less realistic world, with the detritus of evictions scattered on the street below and the concrete structure of the building to the sides. Above it all is the strange representation of the rooftop of the building which draws damaging attention from the center of action, inside the apartment where the pressures of life in a collapsing world are the focus of the play.

Written by Clifford Odets. Directed by Zelda Fichandler. Design: Andromache Chalfant (set) Linda Cho (costumes) Jon Aitchison (hair and wigs) Allen Lee Hughes (lights) Marc Gwinn (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Martha Knight (stage manager). Cast: Richard J. Canzano, Adam Dannheisser, Adam Green, Hugh Nees, Robert Prosky, Brian Reddy, Jena Robbins, Steve Routman, Miriam Silverman.

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Reviewed December 15
Running time 2:35 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a bright, tuneful, upbeat evening
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for December 2005
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: At the height of fan frenzy over the Washington Senators baseball team, an aging fan exclaims that he'd "sell my soul for a long ball hitter" who could lead the team to victory past those damn Yankees who win the pennant every year. A dapper devil appears to take him up on the pledge, turning him into a young athlete with amazing powers. The fan, however, is smart enough to insist on an escape clause in the contract allowing him to pull out of the deal and return to his former self (and his wife) by a date certain. The devil imports his most seductive femme fatale to keep him from exercising his option just as the team gets to the final crucial game.

Smith and her choreographer Baayrok Lee get things off to a rousing start with the opening number, "Six Months Out of Every Year," with a swirling line of fans glued to their semi-portable nineteen-fifties television sets as the extent of the fans devotion and the dilemma faced by the wives who feel like widows during the baseball season is made clear. Lawrence Redmond, doing some of his finest work of late as the fan whose desperation is detected by Brad Oscar's delightful devil, yields the stage to his magic-induced youthful incarnation -- the robust and appealingly wide eyed, innocent Matt Bogart.

The score includes some well known songs of the golden age of Broadway when numbers such as "You Gotta Have Heart" could be heard on every radio station and television variety show and "Whatever Lola Wants" could be a catch phrase. Bogart, Redmond and Kay Walbye as the wife they pine for deliver a delectable "Near to You" and the vixen from the devil's staff, Meg Gillentine, slinks, slithers and sparks as she must in "Whatever Lola Wants" and "Who's Got The Pain?" Oscar, who nicely avoids mannerisms that might remind you that he's been doing a role originated by Nathan Lane for the last five years, makes a high time of "Those Were the Good Old Days." Here his role model seems more Jackie Gleason than Lane (or Jerry Lewis or even Ray Walston, whose earlier work in the role has remained fresh in the mind of many musical mavens). Instead, this is pure bright and brash Brad Oscar.

Colorfully costumed and brightly lit, the leads and the very talented ensemble go through their paces with verve. That ensemble features some of the better known local regulars of musicals, some in tiny parts - Michael L. Forrest is a great team manager, J. Fred Shiffman a good team owner, Christopher Block shows up as the commissioner of baseball, Harry A. Winter as a befuddled postmaster and even Deanna Harris is a member of the ensemble. Team members include Stephen Gregory Smith and Steven Cupo. Oh, how snappy and full the thirteen member band sounded for the sultry dance number, "Two Lost Souls," for Bogart, and Gillentine late in the second act. The mystery is why they didn't sound this good the rest of the night when they were somewhat thin and even subdued. But, then, the entire night the sound system seemed to have two settings - song and talk. You knew when the show was about to burst into song because the switch was thrown adding volume and possibly reverberation. Its a distraction nobody needs.

Words and music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. Book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop based on the novel by Wallop. Directed by Molly Smith. Choreographed by Bayork Lee. Musical direction by George Fulginiti-Shakar. Design: Rachel Hauck (set) Martin Pakledinaz (costumes) Jon Aitchison (wigs and hair) John Ambrosone (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Susan R. White (stage manager). Cast: Kate Arnold, Philip Michael Baskerville, Christopher Block, Matt Bogart, Kevin M. Burrows, Michelle Liu Coughlin, Steven Cupo, Drew DiStefano, Parker Esse, Michael L. Forrest, Meg Gillentine, Michael S. Goddard, Rayanne Gonzales, Deanna Harris, Cindy Marchionda, Ellyn Marie Marsh, Lynn McNutt, Tracy Lynn Olivera, Brad Oscar, Shaun R Parry, Christina Lynn Phillips, Diego Prieto, Lawrence Redmond, Stephen F. Schmidt, J. Fred Shiffman, Kim Shriver, Stephen Gregory Smith, Kay Walbye, Harry A. Winter, John Leslie Wolf.

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Reviewed November 10
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a profusion of interesting characters in an intriguing environment
Click here to buy the book

Storyline: Drawn from an oral-history book, the world of the barber shops in African American communities across the nation is recreated in a single three-chair shop in North East DC staffed by the elderly owner, a middle aged veteran of barber shops around the country and a young man just starting off on his career with clippers.

Popular culture chronicler Craig Marberry turned his attention to this world, traveling the nation to capture many of the stories for a book which he titled Cuttin' Up: Wit and Wisdom From Black Barber Shops. Charles Randolph-Wright, who directed the superb Guys and Dolls here in 1999 and the disappointing Señor Discretion Himself last year, returns to direct his own adaptation of Marberry's book. Traditionalists may tell us that the evening lacks a dramatic structure, that it doesn't build rationally to a climax and that it meanders around from pillar to post. So what? The meandering is delightful.

The three barbers who man the three chairs are nicely portrayed by the smooth senior Ed Wheeler, the slightly edgy Peter Jay Fernandez, who tinges his mid-aged barber with a touch of wanderlust, and young Psalmayene 24 as the latest addition to the barber profession, a young man who is still struggling with the challenge of getting out of bed on time in the morning. Wheeler is the emotional anchor of the production but Fernandez gets to introduce some of the more intriguing plot points as his character reminisces about his experiences in shops from Chicago to Denver.

The major contributor among the designers has to be Jon Aitchison whose wigs are a constant source of delight as Duane Boutté, Carl Cofield, Marc Damon Johnson and the ever-smooth Bill Grimmette become a series of a dozen different customers, each with a diverse personality reflected by a distinctive hair style. Shaun L. Motley's set meticulously recreates the milieu of an urban barber shop with three chairs, three sinks and a small waiting area nicely equipped the organized clutter of a long lasting establishment. For some reason, the major set piece was made on a swiveling platform so it could swing away for a semi-dream sequence featuring Marva Hicks, who handles all the female roles with panache. The superfluous extravagance of a moving set structure adds little to the evening but does little damage to the show as a whole because the audience is having too good a time getting to know these well-drawn characters to care about set changes.

Written and directed by Charles Randolph-Wright. Adapted from the book by Craig Marberry. Design: Shaun L. Motley (set) Emilio Sosa (costumes) Jon Aitchison (hair and wigs) Michael Gilliam (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Lloyd Davis, Jr. (stage manager). Cast: Duane Boutté, Carl Cofield, Peter Jay Fernandez, Bill Grimmette, Marva Hicks, Marc Damon Johnson, Psalmayene 24, Ed Wheeler.

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Reviewed October 6
Running time 2:25 - one intermission
 t A Potomac Stages Pick for sharp comedy writing and a lovely performance by the female lead
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for October 2005
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Just after World War II, a rough around the edges wealthy junk dealer who believes business success equals personal worth comes to Washington to buy influence in order to profit from the war surplus bonanza he sees on the horizon. He brings with him the woman he's kept for years whose own lack of self esteem is as marked as is his ego. Feeling that she needs to be polished up to appear with him in the social circles of Washington, he hires a young reporter to teach her current events and culture. Through his tutoring, she not only learns the intended lessons, she learns that she is as smart and as worthwhile as anyone in her circle and that the junk dealer, though wealthy, is no paragon of virtue. After years of having been a pawn in his questionable business arrangements, she refuses to continue to cooperate and brings his empire down.

The role of this not-so-dumb dumb blond was a breakout one for Judy Holliday when it opened on Broadway in 1946. In 1950 her performance in the movie version won her the Oscar for best actress. (Who knows, she might have copped the Tony award too but they didn't start giving it out until 1947.) Here we have Suli Holum in the role, and she is a pure delight. She avoids seeming too dumb to be real in the early going and her conversion is as much a change in self-confidence as it is in accumulated knowledge. Through it all, she remains a genuinely nice person for whom the audience can root without reservation.

Holum manages to establish a fine chemistry with the two men in her character's life - Jonathan Fried who is suitably loud, gruff and insensitive as the junk dealer who simply doesn't know any better, and Michael Bakkensen as the writer who gives her the keys to self-esteem and also falls in love with her. The mutual attraction between these two is part of the reason the show plays so nicely. Add to the mix a fine supporting cast with standout work by Rich Foucheux as the junk-dealer's compromised lawyer and Hugh Nees as his cousin, the flunky. Indeed, the cast is so rich that there is a sense of frustration that we never get to see enough of Nancy Robinette as a Senator's wife, or Susan Linsky, James Konicek or Kerry Rambow in an assortment of even smaller roles.

Kyle Donnelly, who helmed Ken Ludwig's Shakespeare in Hollywood in this same space two years ago, and Polk County the year before that, goes back with Arena a long way having been Associate Artistic Director here from 1992 to 1998. She knows how to use the spacious stage with the audience on all four sides with grace and skill, so no one section seems to be sitting at the back of the action, and yet that action doesn't seem to be artificially rotating. Set designer Kate Edmunds also knows a trick or two, having designed many productions on this stage. Her marble floor covered with red carpet and her low-silhouette stylish furnishings do accomplish what she said she set out to do, work in "offensive good taste" which is just perfect for this junk-dealer's concept of the best available accommodations. Indeed, the concept is extended to Michael Krass' costumes which heightens the fun. Fried's white socks are just the right touch.

Written by Garson Kanin. Directed by Kyle Donnelly. Design: Kate Edmunds (set) Michael Krass (costumes) Jon Aitchison (hair and wigs) Nancy Schertler (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Brady Ellen Poole (stage manager). Cast: Michael Bakkensen, Terrence Currier, Matt Dunphy, Rick Foucheux, Jonathan Fried, Suli Holum, James Kinicek, Susan Lynskey, Hugh Nees, Kerri Rambow, Nancy Robinette, Jesse Terrill.

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Reviewed September 8
Running time 3:40 - two intermissions
An interesting concept approached in three different centuries

Storyline: Three one-act plays explore the impact that playing a part in a play about the last days of Jesus Christ has on the actors. One takes place in Elizabethan England, one in Hitler's Germany and one in South Dakota during the 1980 Presidential Election.

Ruhl wrote her first play about actors portraying Jesus, Mary, Pontius Pilate and others over a decade ago. It is what is now the first - the one that takes place in an England you know to be Elizabethan because Elizabeth makes an appearance. Ruhl quickly followed it up with what is now the second of the three, the one where Hitler comes to see the play. These two have a solidity and sense of connected style. The third, fresh out of her typewriter (or whatever sort of word processor she uses) feels more avant-garde, structurally looser and a bit flightier, and even whimsical at times, even though she is still working in the arena of serious subjects.

Perhaps it is the effect of the decision to present all three plays as a single evening that makes them all feel slightly self indulgent, rather like much of the material is in place because it interests the author and not necessarily because anyone believes it will interest the audience. This is the reverse of what seemed so effective in The Clean House where there were a few diversions into slightly strange digressions but they seemed like a bit of spice added to an otherwise wholesome recipe. There is also the problem that the first two each take place in a specific year (1575 in one, 1934 in the second) so it takes a bit of getting used to the structure of the third, which takes place over a period of time (1970s, 1980s and the present day).

Arena has assembled a talented lot to play the recurring characters. Polly Noonan is a pure delight as the village idiot in the first two plays (she's less effective as a child in the third). Felix Solis is solid as the actor playing Pontius Pilate, and Howard W. Overshown, so very impressive here in Yellowman, is very good as the actor portraying the part of Jesus. Kelly Brady impresses as one Mary, and Leo Erickson makes a marvelous "director" for the play within these plays. The talent pool is quite deep with underutilized, but still very enjoyable, reliable regulars like Lawrence Redmond and J. Fred Shiffman, and Karl Miller emerges from the ensemble in the third play as the director of the Twentieth Century Passion Play. Robert Dorfman has the biggest challenge of the night and somehow manages to almost pull it off, although it really is a job for a star with significant credits as a mimic (Jim Dale, perhaps?). He has to channel Queen Elizabeth, Adolph Hitler, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, all in one evening. Notable too is Scott Bradley's set design with its shifting backgrounds and sections of flooring rising up to be a stage or a confessional or a toll booth or a crucifix.

Written by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Molly Smith. Design: Scott Bradley (set) Linda Cho (costumes) Joel Mortiz (lights) André Pluess (sound and original music) Scott Suchman (photography) Amber Dickerson (stage manager). Cast: Kelly Brady, Parker Dixon, Robert Dorfman, Leo Erickson, Carla Harting, Edward James Hyland, Karl Miller, Polly Noonan, Howard W. Overshown, Lawrence Redmond, J. Fred Shiffman, Felix Solis.

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Reviewed July 8
Running time 1:55 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for energy,
music, uniqueness and “hattitude”
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Storyline: Based on photographs of African-American women in their church-going outfits with their crowning chapeaux, this mostly-gospel musical follows a Brooklyn girl who, when her brother is shot and killed, is sent to live with her relatives in South Carolina. It takes her a while to understand the rituals and values embodied in the traditions of her relatives and their friends. They explain it in song and dance but she comes to recognize the value of the pride represented by their “hattitude.”

What good is a hat? A hat is a way to assert your personality, show the world your pride and to put the finishing touch on your appearance - the crowning touch you might say. Blending traditional gospel singing, energetic percussion and a touch of hip-hop,  the images of African-American women sporting their finery in church (“When I get dressed to go to church, I’m going to meet the King, so I must look my best.”) becomes a rousing assertion of pride and personal worth. Director/choreographer Marion J. Caffey has added a layer of history and legend in what may be an effort to reach beyond the material, giving each character a second identity as an Orisha (God, Goddess or emissary of God in West African mythology). Costume designer Emilio Sosa, who designed the original incredible chapeaux of Arena's earlier production, has added a color-coding to the costume/hat combinations so that the "Orisha of Fire" is in reds and the Orisha of Seas is in blues, etc. It doesn't make any difference, however, for the show is still about these church-going ladies and their lids, attitudes and their music.

The show, performed without an intermission to interrupt the progress from one musical delight to the next, seems almost like a two-hour long challenge dance with each scene or song attempting to top the one that went before, and with each hat just a bit more assertive, distinctive and flamboyant than last. By the climax, the display of finery for the head is as much fun as the music has been. These ladies strut their stuff with such pride, such assurance and such confidence that it is positively contagious.

This cast is headed by the team of Roz Beauty Davis as the youngster sent south for her own good and Barbara D. Mills as the woman who receives her and introduces her to the company of good church-going men and women. Davis is great as the voice of the young while Mills dominates the stage as the strongest of the singing ladies, each of which is marvelous in her own number or numbers. Rob Barnes contributes solidly as the lone male on the stage - a stage which is flanked by two musicians, e’Marcus Harper on keyboard and Romero Wyatt slapping, hitting, pounding, and stomping as the percussionist.

Written by Regina Taylor. Adapted from the book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry.  Directed and choreographed by Marion J. Caffey. Musical direction by e'Marcus Harper. Design: Dale F. Jordan (set and lights) Emilio Sosa (costumes and hats) Rick Menke (sound) Jim Bush (photography) Marianne Montgomery (stage manager). Cast: Rob Barnes, Gretha Boston, Roz Beauty Davis, LaVon D. Fisher, Angela Karol Grovey, Joy Lynn Matthews, Barbara D. Mills. Musicians: e’Marcus Harper, Romero Wyatt.

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Reviewed May 12
Running time 2:40 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for clear storytelling and crisp acting
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Storyline: An old and hard drinking skipper of a coal barge learns that his daughter, sent to live with relatives on a farm in Minnesota at age five, is coming to see him. She's now twenty and he sees in her all the virtues he supposes she developed safe from the ravages of the seafaring life. Actually, she was raped by a cousin on the farm and ran away to St. Paul where she worked as a prostitute. When she arrives she takes up residence with her father on his barge, but when the barge is involved in a rescue operation, she meets a seaman who falls in love with her and proposes marriage. She turns him down because she doesn't believe she's good enough for him and reveals the truth of her background.

Nothing is allowed to get in the way of O'Neill's well plotted storytelling. On an uncomplicated set with few distracting details, the cast sets to work bringing Anna, her father and the young sailor to life with appropriate but not overwhelming accents. The pace is deliberate and accelerates nicely at key moments, and there is a refreshing absence of any long pauses over O'Neill's carefully crafted language. O'Neill gives all three characters lines that are so evocative and use imagery so well that it is tempting to punch up a favorite here and linger over a particular gem there. Such pauses, however, would damage the pace O'Neill so carefully built into his script. Smith keeps the focus on the story and the characters, allowing lines like "a sea man is as different from the ones on land as water is from mud" to be simply part of a larger speech, a burst of honest self revelation, just as intended.

That burst comes from Sara Surrey who is new to Arena's stage. We can only hope she will return, for her work is the kind of intelligent, character-driven and well thought out performance that any company needs. Her Anna seems just a bit fresh at the start but perhaps the washed-up-at-twenty prostitute has already begun her healing just by getting away from St. Paul. Once she takes up residence on her father's barge, however, she blossoms in renewed health, and it is easy to understand why her father would see only a healthful young lady, and the rescued seaman would see an enticing image of a future wife. Kevin Tighe uses the thick Norwegian accent ("Ay tank it's better Anna live on farm, den she don't know dat ole davil sea, she don't know fader like me.") to allow him to emphasize important words without seeming to be using the vocal equivalent of a yellow highlighter. It all sounds so natural and yet serves the drama so well. Dan Snook is at his best in the big confrontation scenes between himself as the seaman and first the father and then Anna. He can let loose a torrent of words ("Was there iver a woman in the world had the rottenness in her that you have, and was there iver a man the like of me was made the fool of the world, and me thinking thoughts about you, and having great love for you, and dreaming dreams of the fine life we’d have when we’d be wedded!") without slowing down a scene.

A small ensemble is used only in the first act to set up the story, but it includes a performance of note by Anne Scurria, who hoists many a beer with the father in Johnny-the-Priest's saloon, patterned after the real Jimmy-the-Priest's where O'Neill drank many a shot in the early part of the last century, a saloon that stood where the World Trade Center eventually went up and crashed down. Designer Bill C. Ray simply flies in a saloon sign and places a bar and a few tables on the ship planking platform that later becomes the father's coal barge. Once on the barge, the atmosphere is heightened by stage fog that isn't over-used but a soundscape that is. Eric Shim's sound design has rope creaking that seems to become a bit too prominent and monotonous and a fog horn that only seems to blast on cue, but he provides highly effective original music that nicely sets time and tone.

Written by Eugene O'Neill. Directed by Molly Smith. Fight choreography by Brad Waller. Design: Bill C. Ray (set) Linda Cho (costumes) Michael Gilliam (lights) Eric Shim (sound and original music) Anita Maynard-Losh (speech and vocal consultant) Scott Suchman (photography) Susan R. White (stage manager). Cast: Clinton Brandhagen, Bruce M. Holmes, Ian Lockhart, Alex Major, Anne Scurria, J. Fred Shiffman, Dan Snook, Sara Surrey, Kevin Tighe.

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Reviewed April 7
Running time 3:00 - one intermission
A host of unique characters in a struggle
 Click here to buy the script

Storyline: What to do with the family heirloom, sell it to invest in the future or keep it to treasure the past? That is the debate between two siblings in Pittsburgh in the late 1930's. The heirloom, in this case, is an upright piano formerly owned by the owner of their slave ancestors. It even bears the portraits of their ancestors, carved in the wood by their grandfather.

Wilson's script is full of characters with stories of their own. It is a fairly heavy piece of work although not as heavy as, say, King Hedley II. The principle story of the battle between Harriett D. Foy as the sister with possession of the family's piano and Jeorge Watson as the brother with dreams for the future, requires those two to embody the conflict between treasuring your heritage and forging your future. That is a heavy load and both Foy and Watson do well breathing life into their symbols. Watson is particularly good at showing the frustration his character feels at his own inability to get his sister to see the logic of his view. Wilson stretches the symbolism of the spirits of the past represented by the carvings on the piano as the climax of the play to reaches beyond the mere story of a single family's struggle.

The excellent supporting cast includes Cleo Reginald Pizana as the would-be reverend who wants to wed Foy. He is at his  best in his impassioned speech trying to convince her to put down the burdens of her past and marry him. There is also a strutting Frederick Strother as the former piano player now living by his wits, always with a con. He gets most of the laughs in this drama which has a good deal of humor in it. Carl Cofield seems a bit cosmopolitan for a the rural farm hand, but he pulls off both the humor of his encounter with Strother and the intensity of his momentary attraction to Foy.  David Emerson Toney as the uncle in whose house the play is set is possibly the most guilty of the shouting instead of projecting that seems to pervade the production. Tymberlee Chanel makes the most possible out of the relatively small part of the woman Cofield and Watson compete over.

The design team has done fine work here with Linda Cho providing costumes that span period, personality and occupation with elegance and precision. The nightgown for Foy, the elevator operator's uniform for Pizana and the outrageously ill fitting silk suit for Strother to sell to the gullible Cofield each set the tone for key moments. Kate Edmunds' set is a bit spacious for the environment of the cramped quarters of the family in the Hill District of Pittsburgh but it has the period feel just right.

Written by August Wilson. Directed by Seret Scott. Design: Kate Edmunds (set) Linda Cho (costumes) Allen Lee Hughes (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Amber Dickerson (stage manager). Cast: Simone Brown or Destiny Jackson-Evans, Tymberlee Chanel, Carl Cofield, Harriett D. Foy, Cleo Reginald Pizana, Frederick Strother, David Emerson Toney, Jeorge Watson.

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Reviewed March 10
Running time 1:45 - no intermission
Strong Sexual Subjects
t A Potomac Stages Pick for pure emotional impact
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: On his fiftieth birthday, a famously successful architect reveals to his astonished best friend that he is sexually and emotionally involved with an animal. The friend carries that story to the architect's wife in the hope that she can get him to abandon his behavior before it becomes known to the outside world. Try as they might, the man and wife can't see his involvement in the same light, can't come to grips with each other's views and can't find a way past the collapse of their world.

Wendy C. Goldberg directs this intensely honest presentation of Albee's emotionally devastating script with a cast of four, three of whom are simply superb in their roles. Kate Levy is so powerful as the offended wife that the few nits we would pick are really just that, nits (as you would expect, she breaks things but the vase and plate throwing seem more calculated than spontaneous and her three-part primal scream doesn't escalate but, rather, starts out at a peak she can't exceed.) Those nits aside, however, she captures all the emotional steps her character goes through from playful adoring partner before the revelation through the classic stages of shock, denial, anger, scape (you should pardon the expression) goating, violence and action in a performance that leaves you breathless.

The problems in Stephen Schnetzer's performance as the offending husband are more pronounced although he does give great voice to Albee's powerful  lines, and that is immensely important in this play of language. It is in between his line deliveries that his performance seems to falter. He doesn't react to what is happening around him so much as he seems to wait for his next opportunity to speak. Perhaps it is his and director Goldberg's interpretation of the role that each escalation in the consequences of his revelation will take him by surprise, but Albee's script seems to be based on the concept that he is so intelligent and so attuned to his world that he would be expecting and dreading each increase. True, Albee never lets him regret his love for his goat, but he's too smart not to know the awful consequences.

Rick Foucheux is, as he almost always is, a delight to watch. Here he's the best friend who's the first to be repelled by the revelations. The fourth member of the cast is Bradford William Anderson as the couple's son. This impressive young actor is making his Potomac Region debut in the role that earned him a nomination for Philadelphia's Barrymore Award, the equivalent of our Helen Hayes Award, when he played it at the Philadelphia Theatre Company last year. It is clear why he impressed the judges there as he carries his character through some of the very same emotional steps Levy displays as the mother, but with the additional complications of the ungainliness of youth, the yearning for connection of adolescence as well as the devastation of betrayal.

Written by Edward Albee. Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg. Design: Neil Patel (set) Anne Kennedy (costumes) Jane Cox (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Amy K. Bennett (stage manager). Cast: Bradford William Anderson, Rick Foucheux, Kate Levy, Stephen Schnetzer.

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Reviewed January 27
Running time 2:30 - one intermission

Storyline: Wealthy, upper crust socialite Lily Laird marries the equally well connected young man she's expected by social convention to wed. She fails to love him, however, and marriage for her is a constant search for fulfillment or at least enjoyment separate from her spouse. She's frustrated and resentful, thrown into the role of wife to a man she doesn't really even like, rather than continuing to be the quintessential jazz age flapper she was when single.

Arena makes the right move in the choice of director, bringing Anne Bogart and her entire SITI Company into the project. SITI is known for its emphasis on physical movement and the visual aspect of each performer's actions. The influences are clear here as the entire cast - SITI veterans and Potomac Region regulars alike - move briskly from pose to pose with precision and well-portrayed purpose. Perhaps the greatest example is the opening of the play, taking almost ten minutes, before a single word is spoken. In an almost Fosse-esque parade, individual characters emerge from the corners of the arena, taking up seats at club tables flanking the dance floor-like central playing space. It's an effect that sets just the right tone for the piece. Indeed, if the piece had the substance the opening promises, it would be quite a night.

The cast includes two performers without prior SITI or Arena experience, both of whom are notable. Karron Graves is bright, clear and, well, flapper-like in the lead role of Lily, while Marcus Kyd who was so good as the husband in MetroStage's marvelous production of One Good Marriage, is solid once again in a somewhat less satisfying role. Susan Lynskey strikes a marvelous pose as a fellow flapper, sporting one of James Schuette's classic costumes of the period. (His wedding gown for Graves is nothing short of stunning.)

Darren West's sound design is rightly credited as a soundscape. It is a superb blend of refined jazz-club band music and sound effects that give the production the aural equivalent of the sharp set and costume designs as well as the directors' touch for stylized movement. It is surprising, however, that West isn't given more of an opportunity to provide incidental music given that Kinghorn's notes also make the point that Treadwell "intended the script to be underscored by 'an almost unbroken musical accompaniment'." 

Written by Sophie Treadwell. Adapted by Michael Kinghorn. Directed by Anne Bogart. Dances by Barney O'Hanlon.  Design: Neil Patel (set) James Schuette (costumes) Christopher Akerlind (lights) Barron L West (sound) Scott Suchman (photography)  Elizabeth Moreau (stage manager). Cast: Akiko Aizawa, Shawn Fagan, Gian-Murray Gianino, Karron Graves, Susan Hightower, Marcus Kyd, Susan Lynskey, Christopher McCann, Barney O'Hanlon, Makela Spielman.

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Reviewed December 16
Running time 2:20 - one intermission 

Storyline: The story of the civil rights struggle of African Americans over the course of the 20th Century is viewed through the story of a 25 year-old girl who wants success in show business, her mother who is stuck in a series of dead end jobs as a maid and the two men in the girl's life, one black and one white. The characters remain the same age as the century progresses in a series of scenes using the musical and theatrical traditions of each succeeding period.

Despite its many awards and its reputation for quality work by its creators and original cast (it introduced Leslie Uggams to Broadway), the show was heavily criticized for an excess of political correctness and the fact that it was seen as a slice of patronizing liberalism from its white authors. Just who were these white liberals to be writing shuck and shuffle songs such as "Feet, Do Yo' Stuff" and "Smile, Smile" for black performers even in the service of a pro-civil rights piece, anyway? Whatever the truth of that judgment at the time, this revised version still has a feeling of sincere but formulaic liberality. The book is highly stylized, jumping through theatrical hoops from minstrel show through vaudeville to club act staging. This requires the audience to adjust to its episodic style, but the adjustment isn't too difficult. The concept of the characters staying the same age throughout a century gives the barriers that black entertainers hit in each of the eras a sense of  resiliency that justifies the overall theme the show hits in Laurents' repeated use of the question "when?"

It is amazing that this was the only score by Jule Styne to win a Tony award. It may not actually be his best but it does include a few great numbers and never is less than satisfying. Just as the book uses styles from each era, so does the score progress from early revue through stage-show styles and from big band jazz to pop sounds. The lyrics by Comden and Greene are always eloquent and frequently elegant. While they occasionally stretch the vocabulary that would be appropriate for both time and character in certain scenes, it is in service to a rhyme or phrase that is effective for its purpose. Laurents has expanded the piece, supposedly to cover the third of the 20th Century that has passed since the show was written, but the structure, the majority of the material and the feeling remains deeply rooted in the first two-thirds without trying to touch on emerging styles from rock to hip-hop.

Suzzanne Douglas takes the lead role here and sells some of the finer songs in the piece. Her "Being Good" which ends the first act is a strong torch song and she belts the final phrase to raise the roof. Her dream-song "My Own Morning" comes across well and she is particularly good in the lead slot of the trio "Talking to Yourself." The real topper of the show, however, comes from Ann Duquesnay who gets the audience romping with her on "I Don't Know Where She Got It." Of the two leading men Stephen Zinnato gets more depth into his role as the white friend/love interest than does Curtiss I' Cook as the black love interest/friend. Zinnato's heart-felt work on the reprise of "When the Weather's Better" is a dramatic highlight. The two do pair up for a lovely, soft-shoe duet on "Not Mine."

Music by Jule Styne. Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green with additional lyrics by Amanda Green. Book and direction by Arthur Laurents. Choreography by Hope Clarke. Musical direction, orchestrations and additional vocal arrangements by David Alan Bunn. Design: Jerome Sirlin (set and projections) Theoni V. Aldredge (costumes) David Lander (lights) Shannon Slaton (sound) T Charles Erickson (photography) Thomas Clewell (stage manager). Cast: Todd Cerveris, Curtiss I' Cook, Randy Donaldson, Suzzanne Douglas, Ann Duquesnay, Laurie Gamache, Gerry McIntyre, Crystal Noelle, Stephen Zinnato.

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Reviewed November 18
Running time 2:55 - two intermissions
t A Potomac Stages Pick for classic
comedy delivered with panache
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Storyline: Two English gentlemen get caught up in romantic intrigues. The country gentleman has adopted a false identity for his forays into London. The city gentleman uses that false identity for a foray into the country. Between the two of them they stir up a long hidden family secret.

Director Everett Quinton last worked here at Arena as an actor, playing Will Hays in Ken Ludwig's Shakespeare in Hollywood. As a director, he keeps the pace quick while avoiding skipping over any key plot points - something that is very important in farce where the plot is convoluted and can be confoundingly confusing. There is a trick to staging a play in the round that some directors handle better than others. In this case, Quinton has not found the way to have the action play to all four sides of the Fichandler. If you can get tickets on the north side you may not even notice, and if you are on the west or east you won't find it too distracting. But if you are on the south side, you may feel that you spend most of the evening watching the show from behind. That can be infuriating as scene after scene and line after line is delivered away from you, but it does mean that you get a long time to examine the absolutely gorgeous beadwork on the back of the best costumes of the night, those that Zack Brown designed for Claudia Robinson.

Robinson is marvelous as Lady Bracknell with her insistence on all the proprieties in the midst of the improper doings in this drawing room comedy, and Susan Lynskey expands her range of comedy with a fine performance. Paired as the men with too much time on their hands and a taste for the pleasures where the grass is greener, are the delightfully foppish Ian Kahn, making a notable Washington debut, and a high-energy imp, Michael Skinner, returning after playing alongside Quinton in Shakespeare in Hollywood. Tymberlee Chanel portrays Skinner's character's ward with a bright, chipper persona. Helen Hedman and Marybeth Wise have smaller roles that seem undeveloped in Quinton's scheme of things, while Hugh Nees doubles as the butler in both the city and the country homes

Zack Brown isn't the only one to do some spectacular design work for this production, although both his set design and his costumes and hats dominate your attention (the millinery for Lynskey surpasses anything on stage at Ford's recent The Matchmaker or, for that matter, at Studio for the notorious tableau of chapeaux in Far Away). Brian H. Scott's lighting changes the feel from cozy interiors in town to bright and sunny garden in the country while Timothy M. Thompson's selection of incidental music maintains the atmosphere of upper class gentility. Jon Aitchison's wigs include Hugh Nees' featured toupee which gets some great laughs. Note, too,  Ian Kahn's curls - just right for the part of the vain Algernon Moncrieff.

Written by Oscar Wilde. Directed by Everett Quinton. Design: Zack Brown (set and costumes) Jon Aitchison (wigs) Brian H. Scott (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Martha Knight (stage manager). Cast: Tymberlee Chanel, Helen Hedman, Ian Kahn, Susan Lynskey, Hugh Nees, Claudia Robinson, Michael Skinner, Marybeth Wise. 

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Reviewed October 7
Running time 2:40 - one intermission
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: The immigrant operators and employees of a small cigar factory in Florida await the arrival from their native Cuba of a new lector, the educated man who has been engaged to read to the workers as they spend their days rolling cigars. The previous lector recently died of old age but the new man is in the prime of life, infusing a sense of virility into the position, especially when he selects Tolstoy's Anna Karenina as the first book to read to the workers. As one woman says, in this book "everyone loves someone" and the concentration on matters of the heart spreads to the factory floor where everyone has some passionate connection with someone.

The arrival of the lector, played by Jason Manuel Olazábal as smoothly masculine and seductively literate, is the motivation for all that takes place in the confined world of these Cuban-Americans at the start of the great depression of the 1930s. The strength of the women is bolstered by his readings and the competition of the men is sparked by his presence. But it is really the strength of the woman who owns the factory and works at its benches along with the workers that is the centerpiece of this fascinating world, and Marian Licha is marvelous in that role finding its moments of humor and capturing its undercurrent of concern. Mateo Gomez is very good as well as her husband who gambles too much, struts too much, and, over the course of the play, goes from the depths to the heights of changing fortune.

Cruz's script provides the opportunity for a number of very theatrical effects, but director Jo Bonney wisely avoids drawing attention away from the people and their story by playing too many of these games. The ship the women meet in the first act, as well as the workers that Gomez addresses in the second, are somehow in or behind the audience with the world extending beyond the invisible "fourth wall" of the proscenium, but Bonney doesn't dwell on those conventions. She keeps the focus on the world on that stage, the factory that conscribes the worker's world.

That factory is an atmospheric set of rough hewed beams, grimy windows and distressed work benches. The atmosphere is completed by a sensitive score of incidental music which facilitates the changes in mood beautifully and costumes by Ilona Somogyi that are precisely right down to the shoes. But the real atmosphere of the piece is that of cigars. The leaf is omnipresent as it is soaked and spread, chopped and rolled, examined and - yes - smoked with a sensual sense of pride and pleasure. Its sweet smell wafts into the audience at times, tantalizing, without it seemed, being strong enough to bother the non-smokers in the crowd. Caught in the beams of Scott Zielinski's dramatic lighting, the aromatic cloud is a thing of romance.

Written by Nilo Cruz. Directed by Jo Bonney. Design: Loy Arcenas (set) Ilona Somogyi (costumes) Jon Aitchison (wigs) Scott Zielinski (lights) Darron L. West (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Barbara Rollins (stage manager). Cast: Mateo Gomez, Yetta Gottesman, Marian Licha, Chaz Mena, Jason Manuel Olazábal, Felix Solis, Michele Vazquez.

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Reviewed September 9
Running time 3:00 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages pick for intellectual intrigue and visual impact
Winner of the Usher's Favorite Show Award for September, 2004
Caution: Nudity
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: A French diplomat in China carries on an affair with a beautiful opera singer without knowing his lover was a man impersonating a woman. When he is caught passing state secrets to his paramour, and is tried for treason, he can cope with the disgrace and even with the scandal of the world believing his lover to be male, but he cannot accept the truth himself, and he is broken when the opera singer confirms his gender.

That this play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize is understandable. It is a challenging and unique undertaking with a highly unusual story treated in a highly stylized way with many intellectual threads woven together in a complex structure. That it didn't win is perhaps also understandable, for not all of its threads are sewn up satisfactorily, and a number of plot points remain to be dismissed rather than explained through the rubric: "Well, it all takes place in memory and memory isn't always accurate." That may be so, but a memory play requires either resolutions which are consistent with reality or a descent into madness, and this play offers neither. Instead, the final image - as absolutely gorgeously staged with a cascade of red blossoms turning to white - is artistically but not particularly intellectually satisfying in much the same way the resolution in the oft-cited Puccini opera, Madame Butterfly, is one of transcending beauty which is only marred by applying logic.

Bogardus is completely consistent in a part that is difficult because, as the narrator, he has to disclose information to the audience which his character either doesn't know or refuses to believe. That much of this information is presented in flashback scenes from his memory gives him a fine line to hew, but he does a fine job, allowing his character to be in a sense a cuckold viewed through his own eyes without becoming an object of scorn or ridicule. He creates a sympathetic, tormented character who is entirely believable. Liao is similarly challenged as a duplicitous character who is fascinatingly beautiful on the surface but whose actions and motivations are less attractive. He never crosses the line to parody in his gender switching (despite a kimono sleeve flipping gesture that is done too frequently) while making both the male and the female persona of the character fascinating.

These two, who are not only at the center of the piece but are its very core, are supported by fine actors in the secondary roles and good work by the design team. Terrence Currier is smooth indeed as the French Ambassador who uses the diplomat as cover for his own opinions, the marvelous Brigid Cleary is the diplomat's childless wife, Marty Lodge is droll as the wisecracking colleague and Kelly Brady is a sexy comedy relief for her quick scene as a new arrival in the diplomatic community. Only Ako's communist comrade seems an overblown caricature. Donald Eastman's set is a marble bridge on which Robert Wierzel paints patterns in light and Carrie Robbins' costumes, particularly those for Liao, are spectacularly effective as well as simply spectacular. Thompson could have used the services of a choreographer of note, however, as the plot points entrusted to dance come across as a bit clunky when compared to the graceful movement of Liao.

Written by David Henry Hwang. Directed by Tazewell Thompson. Design: Donald Eastman (set) Carrie Robbins (costumes) Jon Aitchison (wigs) Robert Wierzel (lights) Fabian Obispo (music and sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Brady Ellen Poole (stage manager). Cast: Ako, Stephen Bogardus, Kelly Brady, Brigid Cleary, Terrence Currier, Kenneth Lee, J. Hiroyuki Liao, Marty Lodge, Jeffrey Luke.

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Reviewed December 18
Running time 2 hours
t A Potomac Stages Pick for energy,
music, uniqueness and “hattitude”
Click here to buy the book

Storyline: Based on photographs of African-American women in their church-going outfits with their crowning chapeaux, this mostly-gospel musical follows a Brooklyn girl sent to live with her relatives in South Carolina when her brother is shot and killed. It takes her a while to understand the rituals and values embodied in the traditions of her relatives and their friends. They explain it in song and dance but she comes to recognize the value of the pride represented by their “hattitude.”

The show, performed without an intermission to interrupt the progress from one delight to the next, seems almost like a two-hour long challenge dance with each scene or song attempting to top the one that went before and with each hat just a bit more assertive, distinctive and flamboyant than last. By the climax, the display of finery for the head is as much fun as the music has been. These five ladies strut their stuff with such pride, such assurance and such confidence that it is positively contagious.

Those ladies include the emphatic Bernardine Mitchell, the delightful Karan Kendrick and the engaging Gail Grate. But Taylor succeeds in making this more than a mere musical revue based on the image of women in hats by the addition of two roles. One is the Brooklyn teenager, played with youthful verve by Desiré DuBose. The other is all the male characters in their world played by John Steven Crowley with a practically inexhaustible supply of mannerisms and personalities each perfectly suited to a vignette or a bit. Without them, this would just be five fabulously attired ladies who sing with gusto. With them, it is a dramatic journey well worth taking.

The stage is flanked by two musicians, e’Marcus Harper on keyboard and David Pleasant on everything else. He’s percussion, he’s guitar, he’s harmonica, he’s traps, he’s clapping, stomping, romping energy! And then there are those hats! Set designer Riccardo Hernández features the hats of Emilio Sosa on towers on either side of the simple, bare set. Those hats just get better and better as the evening goes on, more colorful, more dramatic, and more individual, until, for the final number, each lady sports her crowning glory.

Written and directed by Regina Taylor. Adapted from the book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry. Choreography by Dianne McIntyre. Musical direction by William F. Hubbard. Design: Riccardo Hernández (set) Emilio Sosa (costumes and hats) Scott Zielinski (lights) Darron L. West (soundscape) Scott Suchman (photography) Pat A. Flora (stage manager). Cast: John Steven Crowley, Desiré DuBose, Tina Fabrique, Gail Grate, Lynda Gravátt, Karan Kendrick, Bernardine Mitchell. Musicians: e’Marcus Harper, David Pleasant.

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Reviewed May 20
Running time 2 hours 50 minutes
t A Potomac Stages Pick for an important piece extremely well done
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: Williams puts a distinctly mid-twentieth century twist the Greek myth of the singer who descended into Hades to rescue his dead lady love. Set in the American south, Williams' hero is Val Xavier, a guitar playing young musician bearing a marked resemblance to the early Elvis (the play debuted a year after "Heartbreak Hotel"). The hell he needs to rescue his lady from is a loveless marriage to a sick old man. 

First - what they got right. The central element of the play is the sexual compulsion that grows between Val Xavier and his "Lady." Here the sparks work just right. Neither Matt Bogart as Val nor Chandler Vinton as Lady succumb to the temptation to get too hot too soon. Instead, their attraction to each other grows slowly but steadily until it overwhelms them and their story. Bogart, best known for his work in musicals, (Signature's 110 in the Shade and Arena's Camelot) demonstrates his strength as an actor here with just a few moments to strum on his guitar and sing. Vinton, who is a welcome addition to the local theater scene, introduces intriguing characteristics to her portrayal of "Lady." Both create characters with enough complexity that their attraction isn't a simple matter of sex, it is a reciprocal fascination that only slowly takes on a sexual compulsion. J. Fred Shiffman is excellent as "Lady's" sick old husband and Kate Goerhing is outstanding as a local vixen of the strain that only William's mind could create.

Smith's sure hand as a director falters in the final minutes of the show. After some two and a half hours building the tension to a level that has the entire audience convinced that the final scene is going to be simultaneously awful to watch and so compelling that it will be impossible to look away, Molly stages the final scene in a surprisingly matter of fact manner that brings the evening to an end but not to a climax. But the strength of the two and a half hours that has preceded the final five minutes is so impressive that, dramaticus interuptus notwithstanding, the evening is very good indeed.

Bill C. Ray has designed an allegorical set to match the allegorical script. A back wall scorched at the ramparts, a staircase leading up to hell (now there's an inversion!) that gives lighting designer Michael Gilliam a chance to shine, and a mysterious tree bursting through the floor boards make this version of Williams' fictional Two Rivers County a solid but strange reality. Eric Shim and Jack Cannon have composed a few songs for Bogart that serve the piece quite well. After all, with a Broadway musical talent like Bogart (Aida, The Civil War, Smokey Joe's Cafe and Miss Saigon) this Val Xavier must sing.

Written by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Molly Smith. Original music and sound design by Eric Shim and original lyrics by Jack Cannon. Design: Bill C. Ray (set) Linda Cho (costumes) Michael Gilliam (lights) Scott Suchman (photography) Brady Ellen Poole (stage manger). Cast: Matt Bogart, Rena Cherry Brown, Janice Duclos, Kate Goehring, Linda High, Bruce M. Holmes, Kate Kiley, Paul Morella, J. Fred Shiffman, Anne Stone, Frederick Strother, Chandler Vinton, Delaney Williams.

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Reviewed April 15
Running time 2 hours 40 minutes

Storyline: In a small Mexican village where life is so boring even the priests complain that no one confesses to anything interesting anymore, the illiterate town drunk discovers that a wealthy newcomer to town has eyes for his fifteen year old daughter. He dictates a rambling, threatening letter warning the man to cease and desist but the young man who types up the letter for him makes major changes to the text, creating a document that so eloquently expresses the feelings of a father that the newcomer becomes his close friend and even business partner. The conversion of the drunk into a successful businessman coincides with the production in his bakery of a loaf of bread which seems to have the image of the Virgin Mary in its crust. This is seen by the priests as a miracle and he becomes the village's main attraction. Three years later, when the daughter is of marriageable age, the father's new business partner wants her hand but she is in love with the typist who doctored the original note, and he threatens to expose the fraud if he can't marry her.

The story of this musical's forty year journey from page to stage is, unfortunately, much more interesting than the story it tells on that stage. Loesser, the song writer whose Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, Where's Charlie, The Most Happy Fella, and even the less than successful Greenwillow, constitute a highly valued part of the legacy of the American musical theater, worked on this project until shortly before his death in 1969. His widow held onto the un-produced draft for over thirty years before deciding, on the basis of the marvelous production of Guys and Dolls which Charles Randolph-Wright directed here in 1999, to trust the material to Randolph-Wright and the Arena team. The comedy team of Culture Clash was brought in to polish up the book of the musical while retaining the music and lyrics, at least of the songs they ended up using. Thus, a third of a century after his death, a "new" musical by Frank Loesser finally took the stage.

The story the play presents, however, is correctly criticized by none other than Loesser himself in his letter to the author of the short story on which it was based announcing his decision to quit. He said that, try as he might, he had come up with something "deadly dull" and didn't know how to fix it. He even took the book to Abe Burrows with whom he had written How to Succeed and Guys and Dolls, Neil Simon who was famous for being able to "fix" the story of a musical, and to Joe Stein who wrote Fiddler on the Roof. None of them would take on the project either. He and they were right -- Culture Clash wasn't able to infuse the story with a solid narrative line or create characters about whom the audience would care. The version now on view also suffers from the problem that the music of the first act, at least until the final scene, seems to be from some different musical than the music of the second. The first part is full of pleasant but minor local-color material but then a switch seems to be thrown and the score becomes rich and lush with "You Understand Me" and "Heaven Smiles on Tepancingo" with which the act ends. The second act continues to present musical riches such as "Compañeros," "I Love Him, I Think" and "I Cannot Let You Go," but the show had gone almost three quarters of an hour before establishing that musical vocabulary and it became a case of too much too late.

The main role, that of the town drunk, is played with strong stage presence by Shawn Elliott, but he swallows the words in his dialogue as he attempts both a Mexican accent and an inebriated buzz. Much more satisfying is the work of John Bolton as the newcomer smitten by the young daughter. Every time he takes the stage the energy level of the entire production goes up. Elena Shaddow is that young daughter, using comically awkward gestures in an effort to seem young enough for the role early on and then blossoming into a grown woman with a gorgeous voice in the second act after the song "Fifteen to Eighteen" charted her change. Her impressive rendition of "I Love Him, I Think," however, simply served to underscore the schizophrenic nature of the score. One hopes for a recording of the score for it will probably be much more satisfying on disc than it is on stage.

Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. Book by Frank Loesser and Culture Clash based on a short story by Budd Schulberg. Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright. Choreographed by Doriana Sanchez. Musical direction and vocal arrangements by Brian Cimmet. Dance arrangements by Joey Arreguin. Orchestrations by Larry Hochman. Design: Tomas Lynch (set) Emilio Sosa (costumes) Michael Gilliam (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Barbara Rollins (stage manager) Cast: Robert Almodovar, John Bolton, Venny Carranza, Tony Chiroldes, Steven Cupo, Shawn Elliott, Royanne Gonzales, Deanna Harris, Ivan Hernandez, Laura-Lisa, Carlos Lopez, Lynette Marrero, Doreen Montalvo, Eduado Placer, Diego Prieto, Margo Reymundo, Elena Shaddow.

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Reviewed March 11
Running time 2 hours 5 minutes
t A Potomac Stages Pick for unique subject matter and emotional impact

Storyline: Alma and Eugene were two black kids growing up together in the Carolinas. She was raised to consider her dark blackness and thick features a mark of ugliness and ungainliness inherited from her mother. He was raised in a home where his father was jealous of his lighter skin color and delicate features. Their affection for each other grew from friendship in childhood to romantic attachment in young adulthood in part because each represented for the other the only person who saw beneath skin color and valued them for inner qualities.

Sometimes simple is the hardest thing to do on a stage. This two-performer show is done with just two chairs on a bare stage with a scrim background revealing a wall with a door and a window. The show maintains that simple look and feel but there are some very sophisticated elements subtly used to shift time, place and feel. The wall behind the scrim is lit in a sequence of subtle colors that shift with the mood. The two chairs are in squares of light at first but the action shifts to use most of the stage as the two characters' lives intersect. The first noticeable sound cue comes nearly half an hour into the show but overall the show has a very rich soundscape. There are even a few projections on the scrim, particularly important when the location shifts from North Carolina to New York. Just why some of the text in the projections is reversed is a puzzlement.

The two performers here are Howard W. Overshown who is familiar to audiences at Arena (Blue, Great White Hope) and elsewhere in the region (Shakespeare Theatre, Folger, Source, Theater J) and Arena newcomer Laiona Michelle. Both are performers audiences will remember. Overshown's laid back nonchalance has a touch of wistful regret, the source of which only comes into focus as the show approaches its searing climax. Michelle's mixture of insecurity and inner pride gives her the widest expanse to explore during the evening, and she takes every advantage of it. Her second act opening riff on a "New York Walk" and the freedom of movement she found on the streets of the city is a crowd-pleasing highlight, while his exposure of the ultimate resolution of the play's story takes the audience by surprise.

Tazewell Thompson, who has directed a dozen shows at Arena including his own Constant Star, keeps the focus on the story, avoiding overly cute or distractingly obvious theatrical touches. It is an approach that works well for the audience is drawn into the story of these "kids" in such a way that their fate has a tremendous emotional punch.

Written by Dael Orlandersmith. Directed by Tazewell Thompson. Design: Donald Eastman (set) LeVonne Lindsay (costumes) Robert Wierzel (lights) Fabian Obispo (sound and music) Scott Suchman (photography) Martha Knight (stage manager). Cast: Laiona Michelle, Howard W. Overshown. 

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Reviewed February 6
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes

Storyline: A porter on the docks in India is abducted by four-member gunnery unit of the British Army to fill in for one of their own who is hiding out from the authorities. They brainwash him into believing he is the missing British soldier but the porter, having lost his sense of identity, gets into a series of mishaps as he adopts the identity of others.

This early attempt at unorthodoxy by Bertolt Brecht, Germany’s legendary re-thinker of basic theatrical concepts who went on to give us The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage and Her Children and The Life of Galileo suffers from his inability to be meaninglessly entertaining. Here fart jokes and feces humor have to coexist with profundity. Absurd comic bits can be a delight on their own terms but here so many of them have deeper serious meanings and they sag from the weight of it.

An example is Act II’s fabulously funny scene in which the porter, played with a confused earnestness that is just a bit too heavy by Zachary Knower, is deluded into believing there is an elephant on stage when there is no such thing at all. Buster Keaton couldn’t do the comic routine better and Dwayne Nitz in the orchestra pit providing elephant sounds through a megaphone surely justifies the decision to give the two-member band billing as cast members (the other is composer David Maddox – together they make quite a team). The scene is performed with such energy and humor that it is a delight until it goes on and on in an effort to reach a deeper meaning.

A marvelous set has a square platform in the middle of an undulating desert of a floor and four circular covers that drop down to reveal what would become known as foxholes. A rain effect is very well done and is well lit so that the mist is unmistakable. But the effect is used twice in a case of overkill. It is symptomatic of the excess of overstatement that weighs down Brecht’s script and this production.

Written by Bertolt Brecht. Translation by Gerhard Nellhaus. Directed by Enikö Eszenyi. Original music by David Maddox and Dwayne Nitz. Design: Karl Eigsti (set) Ilona Somogyi (costumes) Nancy Schertler (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Barbara Rollins (stage manager). Cast: Tim Artz, Jane Beard, Ryan Clardy, James O. Dunn, David Fendig, Michael Hogan, Zachary Knower, C.S. Lee, Valerie Leonard, James Ludwig,  David Maddox, Michael Mandell, Dwayne Nitz, Eduardo Placer.

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Reviewed November 20
Running time 2 hours 50 minutes
t A Potomac Stages Pick for
glorious score and unique approach

Storyline: The legend of King Arthur and the Round Table is set to glorious music with lively literate lyrics. Arthur loves his queen Guenevere and he loves Lancelot, the Knight he would like to have as a son. But his real passion is his dream of a new order where might is used only for right. Guenevere loves him but falls for Lancelot. Lancelot loves Arthur as a father-figure, Guenevere as a woman and the concept of Arthur’s new brand of chivalry. These passions tear the court apart.

So what is the misstep? It is the decision to stage the joust in which Lancelot fends off the assaults of three of the courts greatest knights on stage rather than, as originally written, simply having the cast sing about off-stage actions. Bringing the joust on stage might not be a bad idea if you can make it a sword and spear fight on foot. But Smith and her choreographer, Baayork Lee, turn it into a dance with the Knights prancing about behind “horses” represented by dancers wearing horse heads. Instead of being a dramatic moment, it looks silly and it takes the show some time to recover any sense of substance. But recover it does, which is a testament to the skill of all involved.

Steven Skybell is a fine mature Arthur. He’s a bit too mature for the early scenes when Arthur is a callow youth. But he matures so marvelously that he wins the audience over and carries the show along on his dream of a world where right and not might prevails. Kate Suber, on the other hand doesn’t seem to grow much from early scenes to later ones but oh, can she sing! Her “Before I Gaze At You Again” is glorious. Matt Bogart, who earlier this year seemed such a mid-western enchanter as the magical Starbuck in Signature’s 110 In The Shade, is now quite convincing as a French enchanter as Lancelot in this timeless triangle. His “If Ever I Would Leave You” is so drenched with emotion it soars and his “C’est Moi” is both more complex and more compelling than the recordings of previous Lancelots made it seem.  

The visual impact of the show is very different than either previous stage versions or the movie. Here the designers have created an England that seems centuries earlier than other productions. This Camelot is rising from the woods of an England not too removed from the mists of pre-history, and magic is loose in the land. Just how we credit the “medieval specialists” Jutta Eming and Lawrence Redmond for this is not clear. But John Ambrosone’s lights shimmer with supernatural effects underneath one of Kate Edmund’s splendid set pieces, a suspended crown that falls out of kilter as Arthur’s reign crumbles. Costume designer Paul Tazewell uses velours and furs, headdresses and capes, chain mail and armor in astonishing ways. Taken together, the work of the designers creates a vision of an England that may never have been and an ideal that may never be reached for the show that held out Arthur’s hope for “one brief shining moment.”

Book and Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. Music by Frederick Loewe.  Directed by Molly Smith. Choreography by Baayork Lee. Fight choreography by Brad Waller. Music direction by George Fulginiti-Shakar. Design: Kate Edmunds (set) Paul Tazewell (costumes) John Ambrosone (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Martha Knight (stage manager). Cast: Anthony Aloise, Jennifer Andersen, Bev Appleton, Matt Bogart, Lawrence Brimmer, Debra Buonaccorsi, Kevin M. Burrows, Michelle Liu Coughlin, Vic DiMonda, Parker Esse, Jack Ferver, Michael L. Forrest, Deanna Harris, J. Edward Lucas, Jeffrey Luke, Zoie Morris, Eduardo Placer, Stephen F. Schmidt, J. Fred Shiffman, Steven Skybell, James Soller or Brandon Thane Wilson, Kate Suber, Christianne Tisdale, Gabriel Veneziano, Peggy Yates.

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Reviewed October 9
Running time 2 hours 30 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: The twenty-five year old daughter of a famous mathematician has spent five years caring for her father as mental illness progressively incapacitated him. On the eve of his funeral she has to cope not only with his death, but with the concern of her sister, the attention of one of her father’s graduate students and the lingering presence of her father in their Chicago home. She may have inherited some of her father’s genius but she fears she may have also inherited his "tendency to instability."

Naughton’s performance as the daughter is a fascinating thing to watch develop. She begins with a fully formed portrait of a young woman dealing with serious challenges and then deepens it as the evening progresses. Little by little she becomes more intriguing and her situation becomes more fascinating. The role is the centerpiece of the play and she provides the evening with its core.  Her ability to establish a relationship with her colleagues is notable. There is a strong bond of affection and shared history connecting her and Michael Rudko, as her father, a suitable sibling tension stretching between her and Susan Lynskey, as her sister, and a real spark of romantic and sexual attraction in her relationship with Barnaby Carpenter, as her father’s student who has an interest in both her and the proof.

As fabulous as the cast is, they happen to be working with a script that creates four well-defined people with dreams, fears, histories and opinions, whose dealings with each other are the natural results of their personalities and circumstances. It is all there in the text. This is no easy task as any playwright will attest, and Auburn gets it right in his very first major play. He also comes up with one of the great first-act curtain lines of recent memory. With a mathematical "proof" at the center of the story, Auburn turns his title into a double entandré. There is little actual discussion of higher mathematics, so the audience need not even know what a prime number might be in order to follow the discussions. There is never a sense that the author is "talking down" to the audience or artificially keeping the discussion non-technical. A welcome improvement to the original text in this production is the elimination of the one awkward effort to avoid technical details, a fairly clumsy "lets go for a walk and you can tell me what this means" moment which proves to be superfluous. The play is the better for its absence.

The superb set by Michael Brown captures multiple layers of the complexity built into Auburn’s play. The porch where all the action takes place is attached to an aging house that reflects the architectural heritage of the neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago. The house is emerging from a background of prime numbers, composition books and other accoutrements of an academic career. Allen Lee Hughes’ lighting subtly signals changes of time and mood while Anne Kennedy’s costumes say volumes about each character’s view of themselves.

Written by David Auburn. Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg. Design: Michael Brown (set) Anne Kennedy (costumes) Allen Lee Hughes (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Barbara Rollins (stage manager). Cast: Barnaby Carpenter, Sysan Lynskey, Keira Naughton, Michael Rudko.

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Reviewed September 12
Running time 2 hours 15 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: Warner Brothers is about to film Shakespeare’s comedy of fairies and sprites interacting with mortals when two of the stars of the film (Victor Jory and Mickey Rooney) are temporarily unavailable. Shakespeare’s own characters, Oberon and Puck, appear through their own peculiar magic to fill in for the missing stars and create the same kind of mischievous matchmaking among the movie people as they did among mere mortals in Shakespeare’s comedy.   

The mix of historical characters and the ones first devised by Shakespeare leaves Ludwig with the task of doing a lot of exposition in his first act which he handles with aplomb and not a little wit. Yes, he has to explain to modern audiences just who Max Reinhardt and Will Hays were while also establishing personalities for the likes of well remembered Hollywood types like Louella Parsons, Joe E. Brown and Dick Powell. But their characters become clear through plot lines that move smoothly and dialogue that is brisk and clever. Director Kyle Donnelly helps as well with touches such as placing the four Warner Brothers at the four corners of Arena’s square stage as they fight on the phone over the progress of the film, or the lack of it. Ludwig’s second act takes off as the farce is unleashed and then resolves into a satisfying sweetness.

The cast is a collection of favorites in the Potomac Region theater world of today just as they play a collection of favorites in the Hollywood film world of its day. How good to see Robert Prosky owning the stage at Arena again. How fun to find Rick Foucheux creating yet another strong persona as Jack Warner or Hugh Nees going over the top again, this time as Joe E. Brown in drag no less!  Alice Ripley is a great deal of fun in the dumb (as a fox) blond role. As Oberon, Casey Biggs swaggers as a kind of bemused Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. type who observes the fantastic goings on on the sound stage, while Emily Donahoe makes a  truly puckish Puck who might well have been better casting for the Warner’s than Mickey Rooney was (and he was great). 

As can be expected at Arena, the production values (to use a Hollywood phrase) are first rate. Thomas Lynch’s set creates both the utilitarian feel of a sound stage and the magic of the movie’s set while Jess Goldstein’s costumes are a mixture of Hollywood flash, thirties styles and the peculiarities of each character. Obereon’s cape is a character all by itself and Biggs uses it for fabulous flourishes. Donnelly’s direction is crisp and clear during the exposition and allows the energy level to build at just the right time as the second act farce gets moving. Unfortunately, she stages many speeches and gags facing the north side of the four sided house, giving those on the south side the feeling that they are watching the backside of the show. If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, ask for seating on the north side.

Written by Ken Ludwig. Directed by Kyle Donnelly. Design: Thomas Lynch (set) Jess Goldstein (costumes) Karma Camp (choreography) Brad Waller (fight choreography) Nancy Chertler (lights) Susan R. White (sound) Brady Ellen Poole (stage manager). Cast: Casey Biggs, Bethany Caputo, Emily Donahoe, David Fendig, Rick Foucheux, Scott Graham, Eric Jorgensen, Ellen Karas, Maggie Lacey, Robert McClure, Hugh Nees, Robert Prosky, Everett Quinton, Adam Richman, Alice Ripley, Michael Skinner.

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Reviewed May 6
Running time 2 hours 35 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: The nominee for Surgeon General of the United States is a successful doctor who lives in Georgetown, the daughter of a United States Senator, a fifth generation descendent of a President, a hospital administrator and, oh yes, a wife and mother. Popular approval of her candidacy begins to erode as the fact that she once failed to respond to a summons for jury duty provides a rallying cry for those who resent her success but can’t come right out and say “a woman’s place is in the home.”

Wasserstein’s script is a superb blending of intelligent wit and serious purpose. Decked out in the guise of a light comedy with all the flippant retorts, glib rejoinders and penchant observations on the state of the body politic, and peopled with prototypes of the professionals who think they influence important events, is a serious examination of the state of modern feminism and the fate of the modern female: No matter how many barriers are removed and no matter how many opportunities open up, following one dream always involves sacrificing at least part of another one. The role of spouse and parent still places uneven demands based on gender. Balancing it all is a modern challenge highlighted by Wasserstein’s combining the political and the social issues in one well constructed plot.

Smith assembled a marvelous cast. Johanna Day is intensely human as she lets the emotional reactions of the nominee build to just the right explosion, J. Fred Shiffman is sharp-edged enough as her husband to be believable as he holds his own in a world being temporarily turned upside down by the controversy surrounding his wife. The team of Robert Prosky and Laurie Kennedy as the nominee’s father, the Senator, and his new wife, is a delight to watch as these two marvelously confident performers use tiny telling details to create warmly human characters where there might only be stereotypes. Holly Twyford creates a portrait of a younger activist getting her first taste of what she assumes is power, just because she’s getting attention. She is fabulously clueless as her elders, having learned a thing or two since they were at her stage of growth, react with a combination of amusement and tolerance.

The production benefits greatly from a sound design by Martin Desjardins who combines the Beach Boys and other popular material called for in the script with less identifiable but still strikingly appropriate music segments to segue from scene to scene in a thoroughly theatrical feel. It adds to the atmosphere already established in Bill C. Ray’s single set of rich wooden flooring for the interior of a fine Georgetown home, brick patios (complete with fish pond) and furnishings that, as the political consultant brought in to spin the response to the scandal quickly points out, speak volumes about the social standing of the owners. For the climactic television interview of in act two, much more middle-American chairs are brought in to establish a very different image.

Written by Wendy Wasserstein. Directed by Molly Smithy. Design: Bill C. Ray (set) Gabriel Berry (costumes) John Ambrosone (lights) Martin Desjardins (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Brady Ellen Poole (stage manager). Cast: Johanna Day, David Fendig, Gail Grate, Damon Gupton, Laurie Kennedy, Tuyet Thi Pham, Robert Prosky,  J. Fred Shiffman, Thyee Tilghman, Holly Twyford, Alex Webb.

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Reviewed March 28
Running time 2 hours
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: Revues don’t have storylines, as such. Here we have a cast of five and a five piece jazz combo run through over 30 songs associated with jazz pianist and vocalist "Fats" Waller, who recorded over 500 songs and wrote almost that many between 1922 and his early death in 1943. Among the most recognizable songs of his career and of this revue are “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Mean to Me,”  “’T Ain’t Nobody’s Biz-Ness If I Do,”  “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter” and, of course, “Ain’t Misbehavin.’”

This cast has a great deal of talent and they pair up with a sense of rapport on their duets. This is understandable since they have been performing the show since January at Center Stage in Baltimore where the first half of this joint production had an extended run. Still, there is more the feeling of individual talent than of ensemble excitement. The immediate standout is Doug Eskew whose mellifluous booming voice and impressive bulk would make him stand out in any crowd. But what makes him remarkable in this performance is that he seems to love this material and he sells every moment of his time on stage. Others sell their individual moments but seem to let down just a bit when the spotlight shifts to a colleague.

Each of the others has significant talents and shows them to great advantage in their individual spots. E. Faye Butler is just as much a kick as was expected by those who remember her here in Polk County and Dina Was. Janeece Aisha Freeman’s dancing strikes sparks while her “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now” is one of the high spots of the high spot filled second act.

William Foster McDaniel leads the jazz combo and has a few nice solo moments as the pianist in this revue of a famous pianist’s work. But trumpeter Dantae Winslow seems a bit bored with the gig by now and his duets with Thomas “Whit” Williams on reeds seem out of balance. Still, the band does get hot when sparked by the singers in the second act and, by the big finale with “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write My Self A Letter” being sold by Doug Eskew, “I Can’t Give Your Anything But Love” crooned by Raun Ruffin who then is joined by E. Faye Butler on “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie” and everyone joining in on the title song, everyone on stage is having one heck of a good time – and so is everyone in the audience.  

Conceived by Richard Maltby, Jr. Directed and choreographed by Ken Roberson. Musical Director William Foster McDaniel. Orchestrations and arrangements by Luther Henderson. Design: Neil Patel (set) Paul Tazewell (costumes) Betsy Adams (lights) Karin Graybash (sound) Barbara Rollins (stage manager). Cast: Doug Eskew, E. Faye Butler, Janeece Aisha Freeman, Raun Ruffin, Amy Jo Phillips. Musicians: William Foster McDaniel, Dantae Wilslow, Thomas "Whit" Williams, Thomas E. Short, Jr., Eric Kennedy.

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Reviewed March 9
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Storyline: As a small Missouri town’s community theater is putting on George Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan, one of the town’s leading citizens is killed in what at first seems to be a hunting accident. The lead actress, fascinated as she is by her character’s relentless honesty and willingness to confront truth, is equally fascinated by details of the incident that don’t seem to fit with the official finding of accidental death.

There are notable performances aplenty in this production but director Wendy C. Goldberg keeps it an ensemble piece, moving her cast around the four-sided arena stage even more than would be required simply because it is theater in the round. She keeps mixing the elements together, creating a community not just of individuals but of groups – families, friends, congregations, colleagues. Jennifer Mudge, bright and cheerful as the bookkeeper at the cheese plant who tries out for the part of Joan on a whim, gets some of her cheerfulness from Linda Stephens as her mother in law who may be a successful administrator at the local college now but has a free-spirited past, having conceived her son during the rock festival at Woodstock. That son, played by Brian Keane with an honest openness that simply feels small townish, works at the plant where the boss used to care about his product but sold out to economic opportunities presented by big business. That boss is played with a satisfying mixture of self assurance, pride and pain by Jack Willis who lets his character’s disappointments show through just a bit.

This is a town of extended family relationships. The plant boss’s son is the smooth Scott Janes and his wronged wife is the silently suffering Monette Magrath who is compelling as she turns explosive when the plot thickens. In a town with four bars but five churches, the character of the Reverend is key and David Fendig gives him a depth that avoids stereotype. David Tooney is the Sheriff who's more interested in keeping a peaceful town than in digging into the case.

All this takes place in a physical world created by the combined efforts of set, costume, lights and sound designers whose work is unusually well balanced. The four low walls framing the stage have the wide horizons of the plains of Middle America painted over a white background that could be Twain’s white wash under one lighting condition, a glowing dusk in another. The town’s buildings are miniature models that are moved about and off as the local of individual scenes dictate. The lights switch from subtle to stark as characters speak directly to the audience in an Our Town like approach with a play within a play twist. It all creates an atmosphere of a town worth visiting, a community worth knowing all within a mystery worth solving.

Written by Lanford Wilson. Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg. Design: Michael Brown (set) Anne Kennedy (costumes) Nancy Schertler (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Pat A. Flora (stage manager). Cast: Jennifer Mudge, Linda Stephens, Brian Keane, Jack Willis, Scott Janes, Monette Magrath, David Fendig, David Toney, Jade Wu, Jefferson Breland, Susan Lynskey, Mark Pinter.

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Reviewed January 24
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes
Price range $34 - $52

There is a sense of excitement over a world premiere. The fact that this premiere is of a stage adaptation of the last novel by the author of Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth and The Matchmaker adds to the sense of importance. In fact, it might have taken on so much weight from its innate importance that it smothered in momentousness. But director Mark Cuddy avoids that pitfall and gets cast and designers to deliver a light weight charmer of an evening. Yes, it has important themes – self fulfillment, following dreams, the importance of character over social status. But they aren’t hammered home with serious self importance. They are slipped in between sly winks and a bit of chatter.

Storyline: In the middle of the roaring 20’s, a young man becomes dissatisfied with his humdrum existence as a teacher and sets out on a trip of self exploration around the world – but his car breaks down after 125 miles as he approaches Newport Rhode Island. He spends the summer charming the locals from all social strata, solving some of their problems and learning the age-old lesson that it isn’t where you are but who you are that is important, and heads home to resume his life.

Thornton Wilder wrote this, his last novel at the ripe old age of 75. Like its protagonist, Wilder had intended a novel of much wider scope – a piece that re-visited all the major locales that had been important in his life. The chapter on Newport, however, took on such importance that it alone evolved into a full novel. Wilder’s own description of the novel says it “is mostly wish-fulfillment fantasy. There’s no law against dreaming.” He also explains “I was born an identical twin; he lived an hour; if he had survived me he’d have been named Theophilus – second sons have been so named for generations in the Wilder line - so I wrote his memoirs.” Thank goodness there is no law against dreaming.

While the novel was narrated by its protagonist from old age, the play simplifies it all by just showing the episodes in the summer Theophilus (never just “Theo”) spent in the playground of the wealthy along Ocean Avenue. It is very episodic and gathers its central threads slowly. The charm builds so that the second act is much more satisfying than the first. But then, Oscar Hammerstein always said a second act should be half as long as twice as good as the first. Here, they get at least the “twice as good” part right. Hammerstein was, of course, referring to a musical. This is not a musical but it does feature some bright and sprightly period-sounding incidental music by Gregg Coffin that may well be running around in your head long after the final curtain.

The principal pleasure of the piece, though, is the performance of Matthew Floyd Miller as Theophilus. A Broadway and regional theater veteran, Miller is making his Arena Stage debut, giving Theophilus an easy going charm and likeability that makes it easy to see why everyone he meets seems willing to let him into his or her home, heart and mind. Six supporting actors take up all the roles of the men and women in his world. All are very good indeed, particularly Edward James Hyland whose collection of older men has a great deal of variety.

Written by Matthew Burnett. Based on the novel by Thornton Wilder. Directed by Mark Cuddy. Choreography by Terry Berliner. Design: G. W. Mercier (set and costumes) Ann G. Wrightson (lights). Cast: Matthew Floyd Miller, Edward James Hyland, Valerie Leonard, Sibhán Mahoney, Lynn Steinmetz, Michael Laurino, Andrew Polk.

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Reviewed December 13
Running time 2 hours 55 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Music by Richard Rodgers. Directed by Molly Smith. Musical Direction by Geroge Fulginiti-Shakar. Choreography by Baayork Lee. Design: Kate Edmunds (set) Robert Perdziola (costumes) Allen Lee Hughes (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound). Cast: Kate Baldwin, Richard White, Brad Anderson, Lori Tan Chinn, Lawrence Redmond, Liz Paw, J. Fred Shiffman, Kyle Prue, Tuyet Thi Pham, Max Perlman, Michael L. Forrest, Madeline Elena Holland, Brian Jordan Riemer.

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Reviewed November 8, 2002
Running time 2 hours 55 minutes
Price Range $35 - $53
t Potomac Stages Pick

Written by August Wilson. Directed by Tazwell Thompson. Fight choreography by Brad Waller. Design: Donald Eastman (set) Merrily Murray-Walsh (costumes) Robert Wierzel (lights) Fabian Obispo (sound). Cast: Tina Fabrique, Gavin Lawrence, Clinton Derricks-Carroll, Frederick Strother, Hugh Staples, Timmy Ray James, Hugh Nees, Kashi-Tara, Kenyatta Rogers, Stephen M. McWilliams.

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Reviewed October 4
Running time 2 hours 50 minutes
Playing in the Fichandler
Price range $34 - $57
t Potomac Stages Pick

Written by Moliére. Translated by Ranjit Bolt. Directed by Penny Metropulos. Design: William Bloodgood (set) Deborah M. Dryden (costumes) Allen Lee Hughes (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound) Lynn Watson (speech and vocal consultant) Scott Suchman (photos). Cast: Michel Emerson, Nance Williamson, John Leonard Thompson, Patrick Husted, Lawrence Redmond, Naomi Jacobson, Morgan Duncan, Heather Robinson, Carl. J. Cofield, Ian LeValley, Timothy Getman.

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Reviewed May 2
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes

Written by Eugene O’Neill. Directed by Molly Smith. Design: Kate Edmunds (set) Allen Lee Hughes (lights) Rosemary Pardee (costumes) Timothy M. Thompson (sound.) Cast: Tuck Milligan, Janice Duclos, Robert Hogan, David Fendig, J. Fred Shiffman.

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Reviewed April 5
Running time 2 hours 45 minutes
t Potomac Stages Pick

Written by Zora Neale Hurston and Dorothy Waring. Adapted by Kyle Donnelly and Cathy Madison. Directed by Kyle Donnelly. Music direction by Stephen Wade. Dance staging by Dianne McIntyre and Earl White. Fight choreography by Michael Jerome Johnson. Design: Thomas Lynch (set) Paul Tazewell (costumes) Allen lee Hughes (lights). Cast: David Toney, Carl Cofield, Keith N. Johnson, Bus Howard, Andre Montgomery, S. Robert Morgan, Harriett D. Foy, Rudy Roberson, Gabriella Goyette, Sherri LaVie Linton, Ida Elrod Eustis, Hugh Nees, Perri Gaffney, Clinton Derricks-Carroll, E. Fay Butler, Gin Hammond, Yusef Miller. Musicians: Morris Ardoin, John Cephas, Daryl Davis, Norvus Miller, Phil Wiggins.

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Reviewed March 2
Running time 2 hours
t Potomac Stages Pick

Written by Sam Shepard. Directed by Howard Shalwitz. Fight Choreography by Brad Waller. Design: Lay Arcenas (set) Rosemary Ingham (costumes) Nancy Schertler (lights) Neil McFadden (sound.) Cast: Ted Koch, Todd Cerveris, David Marks, Nancy Robinette.

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Reviewed January 23
Running time 2 hours 35 minutes

Written by John Glore. Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg. Design: Alexander Dodge (set) Michael Gilliam (lights) Anne Kennedy (costumes) Timothy M. Thompson (sound.) Cast: Andrea Anders, David Barlow, Holly Twyford, John Dow, Victoria Boothby, Bernie Passeltiner, Naomi Jacobson, Michael Russotto.

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Reviewed December 14
Running time 2 hours 5 minutes

Conceived and originally directed by Sheldon Epps. Directed by Kenny Leon. Choreographed by Patdro Harris. Musical direction by Dwight Andrews. Design: Vicki R. Davis (set) Susan E. Mickey (costume) Ann G. Wrightson (lights) Timothy M. Thompson (sound.) Band: William Knowles, Arthur Dawkins, Thomas Short, Fred Irby, III, Richard Seals. Cast: Chandra Currelley, Cynthia hardy, Bernardine Mitchell, Charles E. Bullock.

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Reviewed November 9
Running Time 2 hours 45 minutes