Running time 2:35 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for one of Signature Theatre's most impressive productions to date
Winner in a tie for the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for March
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: In a dirty, overcrowded prison in a Latin American country, a political prisoner active in "la revolution" is thrown into a cell with a distinctly non-political prisoner, a window dresser who is serving time for corrupting a minor (male) and who survives through escaping into his imagination and visualizing the movies of his favorite star, Aurora. The sadistic warden tempts the window dresser with release if he will learn who the revolutionary's contacts on the outside are and turn the information over to him.

Based on the 1976 novel by Argentina's Manuel Puig, this musical had a fairly unusual path - from Toronto to London to Broadway and now to Arlington. Kander and Ebb, who already had Cabaret, Chicago and half a dozen other Broadway musicals to their credit, teamed with Terrence McNally with whom they wrote The Rink. Garth Drabinsky's Livent Entertainment mounted it in Canada and then took it to London where it was very well received. Then, and only then, did they bring it to New York where it walked away with Tony Awards for best musical, best score, best book, best lead actor, best supporting actor and best actress of 1993! Now Signature mounts one of its most impressive productions to date. Schaeffer uses practically every element you can think of but keeps it all under control, maintaining a balance that serves the drama of the story well. Karma Camp's choreography - as executed with energy and dramatic effect by a chorus of six prisoners - is often remarkable, especially the moves she provides for Matt Connor for a death scene triggered by the Spider Woman's kiss.

Foster, who was the original Bobby Strong in Urinetown on Broadway, and was nominated for a Tony for his Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, gives a very different sort of performance in this very different sort of a show. He mouths the words of the songs of the movie in his head while Diaz sings them, and in his eyes you can see the release from the horror of his imprisonment. He flutters his hands, fiddles with his scarf and touches his lips with mannerisms that belie the strength of character he discovers within himself by the end of the evening, and his transition is subtle but unmistakably natural. Chase, who has had most success on Broadway as a replacement leading man (Miss Saigon, Aida, Rent, The Full Monty) adds a strong masculine persona and a fabulous voice to the mix. Cupo avoids overdoing the evil of the warden, letting his words and actions horrify rather than going for an impersonation of evil. Channez McQuay is similarly effective on the other end of the good/bad spectrum as the window dresser's mother, succeeding by letting the songs she sings create her character without a false touch of overacting in what could be a few mawkish moments. 

The astonishingly effective set is by Adam Koch who is relatively unknown here in the Potomac Region. (He designed the recent Tick, Tick...Boom! at Metrostage.) With prison cells flanking the center platform and a flying bridge at the back, the central cell is defined by floor lights shining up through the mist. The light of a movie projector's beam shines from the back wall as the prisoners retreat into fantasy through their memory of vintage films. The vision of Diaz, surrounded by the prisoners who make up her dancing chorus in the fantasy is striking, thanks in part, to great costumes at both extremes by Anne Kennedy. As usual at Signature, the supporting orchestra is marvelous. In this case, it is a ten-member band with no strings which gives the score a somewhat different sound than it had on Broadway. The absence of stings robs the dream sequences/movie numbers of some of their romantic power but emphasizes the hard realities facing the prisoners.

Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Book by Terrence McNally. Based on the novel by Manuel Puig. Originally directed by Harold Prince. Directed by Eric Schaeffer. Choreographed by Karma Camp. Music direction by Jon Kalbfleisch. Conducted by Jenny Cartney. Design: Adam Koch (set) Anne Kennedy (costumes) Chris Lee (lights) Matt Row (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Danny Binstock, Christopher Block, Kurt Boehm, Andy Brownstein, Will Chase, Matt Conner, Steven Cupo, Natascia Diaz, Erin Driscol, Hunter Foster, James Gardiner, LC Harden, Jr. Channez McQuay, Stephen Gregory Smith.

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Running time 1:25 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for an example of the power of an actor's work
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Storyline: Martin Moran shares with the audience the true story of his sexual relationship with an older man, a counselor he met at a Catholic boys' camp. He was 12 when the relationship began, 15 when it ended. Now he's 42 and he has recently visited the man in the Veterans Hospital in Los Angeles, seeing him for the first time since childhood.

Moran is an actor, perfectly comfortable on stage. On Broadway, he's cavorted as Sir Robin in Spamalot, sung as the song-writing dentist in Bells are Ringing and gone down with the ship in Titanic. He's toured and worked in regional theaters around the country. Each time he's had a role to play. Playing himself requires just as much definition of his role as a fictional one. Here he's working from a script, but it is one he wrote himself. Whether it is his own charm as a performer, his skill as a writer or the good sense and theatrical taste of his director, Seth Barrish, the result seen on stage in Signature's smaller black box house, The Ark, is a marvel of self control in self revelation.

The "seduction" of the audience is so subtle that at first you might not even notice it has begun. Moran steps onto light on the Turkish carpet, which, along with a stool, a table with a framed photograph and a dog-eared book constitutes the entire set. He begins with what seems a friendly greeting leading up to the "please turn off your cell phone" announcement and it takes a while before you realize he's actually well into his story. The lights haven't gone down yet ... it takes twenty minutes for the ever-so-slow fade to take the house lights down. The reduction in the level of the lighting continues until the final blackout. Indeed, the most illuminating revelation of the evening comes as he reads from his diary description of the first sexual act his abuser commits in the dark of night in a camp sleeping bag.

Moran isn't the only person you come to know during this one-act play. The abuser becomes a real person as well - no event as impactful as this can be completely one sided. Moran shares his conversation with the now-elderly man and his revelations of his own history. That history includes jail time - Moran was not his only victim. Moran makes his abuser's story as human as his own.

Written and performed by Martin Moran. Directed by Seth Barrish. Design: Chris Akins (production designer) Erin Jones (light board operator) Carol Pratt (photographer) Katherine C. Mielke (stage manager).

 
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Running time 1:35 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a premiere of a youthful,
 high-energy musical

Storyline: Four friends gather in the bleachers of the high school football field as they approach the first anniversary of their graduation. They used to be fast friends, bound together by the shared experience of having been rejected for the football team that played on this very field. They haven't seen each other in that year and each has grown up a bit, and, as a result, they have grown apart.

The 23 year olds who wrote this musical are Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner. Nick who? James which? You might recognize Gardiner, but as a performer, not a book writer. He appeared here at Signature in, among other musicals, The Witches of Eastwick (he was the young man Mark Kudisch tried to teach how to "Dance With The Devil.") Blaemire also has performing credentials in the Potomac Region such as the Signature Cabaret Singing Shakespeare and the Actors' Theatre of Washington (now Ganymede Arts) version of The Rocky Horror Show. However, the credit that sticks in the mind the most is his wonderfully droll rendition of "Mama Says" in the production of Footloose at Toby's Dinner Theatre of Columbia. Their book and pop-rock score seems a bit wordy in the early going, but settles into a highly effective pattern by the time the big numbers such as "Things Are Different," "The Good Old Glory Type Days" and especially "Other Human Beings" come along.

Neither Blaemire nor Gardiner perform in this production, however. The four lads at the end of their freshman year of college are played by four fresh faces with strong resumes, just not at Signature. Steven Booth leads the pack as a writer who convened the reunion. Andrew Call is a frat boy whose self assurance is shaken by a developments revealed by Jesse JP Johnson, while Adam Halprin provides a dash of maturity into the mix. Each character is clearly drawn and fully human, with weaknesses as well as strengths you might expect from young men of this age.

Schaeffer keeps everything in balance. The set design is simple but elegant ... a platform painted to simulate turf, eight rows of bleacher seats and a bank of stadium lights as a backdrop that can change color with the mood of the moment and create patterns and movement when that will help get the message across. The costumes clearly match the characteristics of each character and the lighting subtly segues into night as the evening progresses. Most notable, however, is the way the entire production moves. It is notable that James Gardiner's twin brother Matthew is credited with "assistant direction and musical staging." How much of the energetic romping up and down the bleachers and the reclining over and sprawling on the benches is Schaeffer's blocking and how much is Gardiner's contribution isn't clear. But whoever saw to the pent-up energy of the movement and the youthful posturing that marks the entire performance deserves great credit.

Music and lyrics by Nick Blaemire. Book by James Gardiner. Directed by Eric Schaeffer. Musical staging by Matthew Gardner. Musical direction by Derek Bowley. Music arranged and orchestrated by Jesse Vargas. Design: James Kronzer (set) Sasha Ludwig-Siegel (costumes) Mark Lanks (lights) Matt Rowe (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Jess W. Speaker III (stage manager). Cast: Steven Booth, Andrew C. Call, Adam Halpin, Jesse JP Johnson. Musicians: Derek Bowley, Jean Finstad, Jon Jester, Steven Walker.

 
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Running Time 1:40 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a fascinating look at the
creation of a dance piece
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for November
Price range $41 - $63

Storyline: A famous ballet choreographer who has been out of the limelight for a long time hires two dancers to help him develop a new choreography for Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, a famously challenging work to choreograph. As they work through its many concepts and approaches, it becomes clear that he is much more interested in the challenge than in finally bringing the work to performance, leaving at least one dancer feeling that her chance for a big break in the field is slipping away from her.

When d'Amboise includes in the script a statement that George Balanchine said that The Rite of Spring could not be choreographed, he may have known whereof he spoke. After all, d'Amboise was a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet where he danced for both Balanchine and Robbins. He earned his Tony Award nomination on Broadway, however, for dancing to the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber in Song and Dance. Thus, he knows the dance worlds of both classical ballet tradition and musical theater. He uses his knowledge of both here as he creates a dance play that works on both levels: as a play it is sufficiently interesting in its story telling and its character creation to be satisfying, while as dance it is sufficiently challenging to the performers to be believable and intriguing when performed with by a cast sufficient skill to be pull it off.

The two cast members playing dancers have that skill and are beautiful to watch. Whitehead is graceful in motion and carries her dialogue scenes well although she is just a bit too soft spoken. The concentrated listening her lack of projection requires occasionally creates a distraction when other elements should be getting your attention. Hanes has the least well resolved character to play and does a fine job with it. A good deal of the "back story" concerning his prior work with the choreographer is hinted at but left dangling. Still, Hanes sinks his teeth into what he is given and both Hanes and Whitehead are superb dancers for musical theater. Whether they would pass muster in a quality ballet corps is better judged by more qualified dance critics. Anderson, who plays the role of the choreographer, is himself a Broadway veteran, having among other things, originated the role of the anti-dancing father in Footloose. His moves are sufficiently athletic and graceful to make it believable that he is a man obsessed with the world of dance.

You may come away thinking that all the music you heard during the show is the product of Igor Stravinsky, whose ballet score for The Rite of Spring caused a scandal when it was premiered by Diaghilev's Ballet Rouse in Paris in 1913 with the choreography of Nijinsky. Actually, the sound and original music credit for this production is given to Jeremy J. Lee who skillfully augments selections of Stravinsky with material of his own which serves the needs of the story quite well. One phrase he uses repeatedly is almost Sondheimesque.

Written, directed and choreographed by Christopher d'Amboise. Design: Chris Barreca (set) Kelly Crandall (costumes) Mark Lanks (lights) Jeremy Lee (sound and original music) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Stephen Lee Anderson, Tyler Hanes, Chrissie Whitehead.

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Running time 1:50 - no intermission
An accessible slam poetry program on the power of words
Price range $41 - $63
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for October
v strong language

Storyline: Two spoken word artists work their way through hip-hop-tinged routines in meter and rhyme on topics of race, religion, sexuality, love and the power of communication.

Connell  is a lanky bundle of energy who moves with a certain electrically charged jerk as if reacting to the electrical releases in his nerve endings in time with the meter of the poetry. Sekou (or Mr. misfit?) seems more changeable, reflecting different characteristics in the different roles he adopts within the poetry. At one moment he's a best friend, a buddy, and the next a dreadlocked image of a street thug with a handgun shoved in the face of an audience member in the front row. Their progression through the material is rapid, spinning at a high-energy rate as if they feel they have three hours of material and only two to deliver it.

That material stretches from humorous riffs on the meanings of words to dreamy digressions on the ways to express romantic love. There are explosions about the misogyny of other hip hop material, the dangers of urban street life and the losses society has suffered from hatred ranging from the assassination of leaders to hate crimes based on race, sex or neighborhood. The tone switches abruptly from intensely serious to comic. Through it all, a clever turn of phrase is valued - "I Don't Want to be the fire fighter. Let me be the fire." "This world will never be better than we are." "White has nothing to fear but white itself." It all is wrapped up (if you will pardon the pun) in the theme of "taking back the word" with the claim that "to stay silent is blasphemy."

One name in the credits familiar to Signature regulars is that of Michael Clark. He provided the projections for Saving Aimee, One Red Flower, and Allegro here as well as those for The Persians at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Merrily We Roll Along at the Kennedy Center and The Jersey Boys on Broadway. His work here consists of visuals shown on the nine flat-panel high-definition television screens featured in Myung Hee Cho's scenic design. The projections range from iconic images such as the news photos of people reacting to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King to the youthful face of hate crime victim Matthew Shepard. The images magnify the impact of the words.

Written and performed by Steve Connell and Sekou (tha misfit). Directed by Robert Egan. Design: Myung Hee Cho (set and costumes) Michael Clark (projections) Chris Lee (lights) Adam Phalen (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Taryn J. Colberg (stage manager). Cast: Steve Connell, Sekou (tha misfit).

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Running time 2:40 - one intermission
Sondheim's sparkling score well performed but hampered by story-telling difficulties
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: The story of the careers and friendships of three artists - a composer, a lyricist and a writer - is told backwards from the perspective of the peak of their careers. The sacrifices, compromises and mistakes they make are peeled away from their strained friendship until the story finally gets to one early morning in 1957 when they stood on the roof of their apartment building in New York City to watch Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, pass overhead. Then all things seemed possible.

Sondheim and his collaborator George Furth, with whom he had created Company ten years earlier, based this musical on a 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart which presented its story in reverse chronological order. The technique requires a good deal of special attention to pure storytelling which this production, like the original, simply fails to provide. A number of the strengths that have kept Sondheim aficionados returning to take another crack at the musical are here as well. There's the oft-times seeming autobiographical nature of the central characters which are so seductive to Sondheim fans. There's the intriguing solutions he devised to the challenges of building a musical score backwards, with what seem to be reprises coming before the initial statement of a tune and echoes of melodic themes not yet heard. There's also the satisfaction of some really fine songs such as "Not A Day Goes By" and "Good Thing Going" which have gone on to have success as popular songs when recorded by the likes of Sinatra, Manilow and Minelli.

As is often the case at Signature, Schaeffer has gathered a very talented cast of young performers for big roles and small ones. Gartshore and Olivera are exceptionally good, Erik Lieberman makes a good Signature debut as does Bayla Whitten as the composer's first wife and Tory Ross as his second. Whitten is particularly strong even though her part is the least well structured in the reverse-in-time format of the musical. The ensemble also features distinctive personalities rather than a composite of nonentities. Matt Conner, Emily Levey, Adam Cooley and James Gardiner stand out.

The visual design for this production is distinctive but misses the opportunity to help tell the story and includes some distractingly unattractive costumes. Even though there are multiple locations in the story, the entire musical is performed on one set. As a result, there are few visual clues to help the audience follow the story back in time and place from Hollywood to New York, from Broadway to a nightclub and from courtroom to the rooftop of an apartment house. The costume designs harm some of the more important performances. Most seriously affected are Gartshore who is given suits of black and white check that might serve as test patterns on an old black and white television, and Erik Liberman as Gartshore's lyric writing partner who is decked out in a sickly green that defeats any effort to create an attractive character.

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by George Furth. Based on the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Directed by Eric Schaeffer. Choreographed by Karma Camp. Musical direction by Jon Kalbfleisch. Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick. Design: James Kronzer (set) Robert Perdziola (costumes) Chris Lee (lights) Matt Rowe (sound) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Michael Bannigan, Christopher Bloch, Mark Chandler, Matt Conner, Adam Cooley, Rebecca Cznadel, Jenna Edison, James Gardiner, Will Gartshore, Emily Levey, Erik Liberman, Tacy Lynn Olivera, Tory Ross, Bayla Whitten.

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Running time 1:00 - no intermission
A three-vocalist cabaret
Table Seating in The Ark - $28

Storyline: As explained in the between-song patter, the songs are either lost songs from hit Broadway shows of the past or they are hit songs from shows that have disappeared from the consciousness of all but the hardiest show music maven.

The line up of some twenty songs include works that will be familiar to many and others that will be obscure to almost all. Who, for instance, is going to remember "Washington Square," a song with lyrics by Cole Porter but music by Melvelle Gideon from a 1920 review titled As You Were? Few will recall "My Love Is A Married Man" from Lerner and Loewe's 1945 The Day Before Spring, but many will hum along (quietly, one hopes) to "Do, Do, Do" or "September Song," "Why Was I Born?" or even Rogers and Hart's "Mountain Greenery."

Williams brings the chipper personality and shimmering smile that made her so memorable as Philia in Signature's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the old "garage" and Little Red in the recent revival of Into the Woods here at Signature's new home. She's the right one to sing the song made famous by Betty Boop, "I Wanna Be Loved By You." Cueller's Signature shows have included Saving Aimee, Into the Woods, My Fair Lady and Assassins. She belts out the likes of George and Ira Gershwin's "Lorelei" and Porter's "Don't Look At Me That Way." Pearson is a new face here at Signature. He's mellow voiced in his lower register and has a wide range that is stretched a bit by some of the material here such as the Gershwins' "Mine" and Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson's "September Song" but does a fine job with the Hoagy Carmichael/Standley Adams number "Little Old Lady.

First time out, the trio is ill rehearsed for the patter explaining the numbers and some of that patter includes misinformation. For example, Lerner and Loewe's musicals prior to My Fair Lady included Paint Your Wagon and Brigadoon in addition to What's Up and The Day Before Spring which were mentioned in the patter and Sweet Adeline was definitely not a revue. Still, who can grumble when given the opportunity to discover Porter's comic "Mister and Missus Fitch"?

Conceived and directed by Michael Baron and Matthew Gardiner. Music direction by Gabriel Mangiante. Cast: Priscilla Cuellar, Matt Pearson, Lauren Williams.

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Running time 2:35 - one intermission
t Potomac Stages Pick for a high-flying high-energy musical
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for June and July
v Sexual themes
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: The musical based on John Updike's novel set in an up-tight New England town where three less-than-conformist women conjure up a devil who releases them from their inhibitions and unleashes their passions. Things get out of hand when he has them turn their powers against the town's over-controlling biddy, but all ends happily when they take control back from this devil and help a pair of teens find true love.

John Dempsey and Dana P. Rowe were last represented at Signature with The Fix, which Schaeffer directed at the request of legendary producer Cameron Mackintosh, who had mounted it in London with less success than he had hoped. It was a big hit here in one of Schaeffer's best works. The four (Dempsey, Rowe, Schaeffer and Macintosh) reunited to make this musical, based on the Updike novel and the 1987 movie (think Jack Nicholson), which opened at London's 2,200 seat Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 2000 and transferred to the 1,100 seat Prince of Wales Theatre in 2001. Now Schaeffer brings it down to the scale at which he made his reputation here for immediacy and intensity. He moves his forces about on a very large playing space and takes advantage of the space above and to the sides of the stage in the new space. Still, the set up for the big act one flying effect drags a bit too much and Schaeffer dips into the collection of crotch and breast visual gags a few times too often. Dempsey and Rowe have written two new songs (replacing "Eye of the Beholder" with a more tightly targeted "Your Wildest Dreams" for Emily Skinner's witch and giving Kudisch an autobiographical introduction to his character of "Darryl Van Horne") and revised some others as well as making additional changes to the book.

The first act is the brighter, funnier and more enjoyable of the two. It is where the trio of duets serve as the center of the entire story as Kudisch's devil brings each witch face-to-face with her principal inhibition, and then guides her past it. Each number is an opportunity for the witch involved, and first Noll and then Donovan and finally Skinner deliver knock-your-socks-off performances supported beautifully by Kudisch. Each of these women soar in their big number with an energetic passion that exceeds even the flying effect at the climax of the act.  Erin Driscoll is at her chippery best creating the the teenaged daughter of the terrible town biddy, played by Karlah Hamilton in a mode that could use a touch more cartoon. Driscoll teams with James Gardner as the teenagers in love in the first act. The second act gets a bit darker than you might expect with an on-stage murder and a dissipated devil.  But there are delights here as well with the three witches joining in on "Another Night at Darryl's."

One group that doesn't need any more time to achieve maximum chemistry playing together is the twelve member orchestra under Jon Kalbfleisch, playing Bruce Coughlin's nicely embroidered orchestrations from the balcony behind the set. Matt Rowe's claps of thunder (accompanying Chris Lee's flashes of lightening) establish the supernatural theme. Choreographer Karma Camp does some of her most impressive work of late both with the big chorus numbers such as "Dirty Laundry," where she has the townspeople slapping and snapping towels in tempo, and in the duets between individual witches and Kudisch's devil. She has obviously worked with each cast member to come up with postures, gestures and little touches that help them form an ensemble of note. For example, off to one side during the “”Dance with the Devil” number is a sight you may have thought you'd never see ... Diego Prieto spanking Ilona Dulaski in her patent leather outfit! (Don't ask ... just go see it.)

Music by Dana P. Rowe. Book and lyrics by John Dempsey. Based on the novel by John Updike and the Warner Brothers motion picture. Directed by Eric Schaeffer. Choreographed by Karma Camp. Music direction by Jon Kalbfleisch. Orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin. Design: Walt Spangler (set) Elejo Vietti (costumes) Chris Lee (lights) Matt Rowe (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Jeremy Benton, Brianne Cobuzzi, Matt Conner, David Covington, Jacquelyn Piro Donovan, Erin Driscoll, Ilona Dulaski, Sherri L. Edelen, James Gardiner, Karlah Hamilton, Mark Kudisch, Amy McWilliams, Christiane Noll, Brittany O'Grady, Diego Prieto, Tammy Roberts, Thomas Adrian Simpson, Emily Skinner, Scott J. Strasbaugh, Harry A. Winter.

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Running time 1:40 - No intermission
A highly theatrical exploration of an interesting historical event
v Sexual acts simulated on stage

Storyline: In 1809, Suzanna Cox, a 24 year old indentured servant in a farmhouse some fifty miles into rural Pennsylvania from then-bustling Philadelphia, was arrested, tried, convicted and hanged for the murder of her newborn child.

Bathsheba Doran, a British born playwright now based in the United States, has immersed herself in the world of rural Pennsylvania at the start of the nineteenth century. Her facts seem solid, although it is hard to imagine the wife of a frustrated farmer who misses cosmopolitan pleasures telling him he should go into Philadelphia more often, saying it is "only fifty miles away." Doran brings a unique eye to the project as one born and raised outside of the US. She pays a great deal of attention to portraying the world that Suzanna Cox would have known: her employers, a would-be writer from Philadelphia and a publisher who wants a ballad of her story for publication in a serial not unlike the cliff-hanging movie serials of another century, and even Daniel Boone. Boone is apparently a fixation of Cox's imagination, for he left Pennsylvania for Kentucky long before Cox began her servitude. One aspect of the story which seems to have fascinated Doran is the level of knowledge a woman like Cox would have had about the functioning of her own body. Apparently Doran came to the conclusion that life on a farm isn't enough to assure an understanding of sexuality. There are a number of explicit scenes of sexual activity on stage which are, for the most part, cloaked in the clothing of the time.

Anne Veal plays Cox with a reserved dignity of one who is resigned to a life beyond her control, and Charlie Matthes avoids making his portrait of the man who takes advantage of her lack of control too one-sidedly venal. No one in this household is really getting much of what they want from life, even the wife played with a strength that seems right in the isolation of a farm by Vanessa Lock. James Slaughter is very believable as well as highly enjoyable as the somewhat self-important publisher who has some of the brightest dialogue in the piece, and Michael Grew matches him line for line when he has a chance. When told he should write about Boone, Grew asks "do I have to go to Kentucky?" with such a feeling of dread for such a journey that the reality of life in the newly formed United States of America comes home. It is the character of Boone, however, that seems to be too much of a stretch for a single act with this much story to tell. Richard Pelzman does about as much as can be done to humanize this icon, but it remains a puzzlement just why Doran wrote him into the play in the first place.

By today's standards, things were primitive in the world of Suzanna Cox, and not only does the simple set reflect this, Kate Turner-Walker's costumes add to the feeling of reality. They look appropriate to time, place and social/economic realities, and they look as if they really are clothing. Much of the play takes place indoors at night and Chris Lee's lighting gives a good feel for the limits of illumination both in the private homes of the time, but also of the public houses and offices in Philadelphia, while Matthew M. Nielson's soundscape draws you into the environment where sounds indicate the world outside what can be seen beyond the small circles of light.

Written by Bathsheba Doran. Directed by Joe Calarco. Design: James Kronzer (set) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes) Chris Lee (lights) Matthew M. Nielson (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Katherine C. Mielke (stage manager). Cast: Michael Grew, Vanessa Lock, Stephen Patrick Martin, Charlie Matthes, Richard Pelzman, James Slaughter, Anne Veal.

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Running time 2:50 - one intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for a rousing gem of a new musical
Winner of the Ushers' Favorite Show Award for April

Storyline: A bio-musical based on the life of Aimee Semple McPherson, the charismatic evangelist of the 1920s who founded the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, was the first female radio preacher and became controversial for her show business approach to preaching. She became a nationwide phenomenon with a flamboyant public persona. Even her mysterious disappearance, which she claimed was a thirty-two day case of kidnapping but the authorities believed was a publicity stunt to disguise a tryst with a lover, could not harm her claim to the adoration of her followers.

All of the lyrics and the script are by Kathie Lee Gifford. She also composed the music for a spirited Irish jig-style number that manages to encapsulate the first two years of Aimee's first marriage into about six minutes. She chooses to tell the story within the structure of McPherson's trial for "corruption of morals, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to manufacture evidence." The structure works fairly well until late in the show when things seem to come to a halt while the trial itself is completed in a non-musical number. As good as Andrew Long is in the non-singing role of the prosecutor, the show simply doesn't need a non-singing segment. Ah, but but when the show is singing! Gifford has written clear lyrics that tell the story with something of the same plain-speaking, heart-on-the-sleeve openness that was a trademark of Sister Aimee's sermons. She doesn't try to show off with excessive alliteration or complicated rhyme schemes, just as Aimee wouldn't have tried to impress her listeners with her eloquence - get the message delivered clearly and passionately! The first act is very tightly structured and flows nicely. The second, however, starts to stumble a bit over the increased attention to the trial and the strange amateurishness of the show's recreation of the pageants that made the services at her Angelus Temple so popular. Some of Gifford's lyrics are set to music by David Pomeranz and others by David Friedman. Either way, they work wonders.

Carolee Carmello, who makes her Signature debut after such successes on Broadway as Parade and Lestat, both of which earned her Tony Award nominations, is a passionate dramatic actress who can also sing thrillingly. She is at her best when the songs she gets to sing are dramatically rich, as are most of the songs she has here. She creates a character that goes from adolescent to adult, obscurity to fame and health to dependence with real humanity. E. Faye Butler returns to Signature after Gospel According to Fishman, and her gospel and blues moments are among the strongest in the show. As a madam (leading her "girls" through "A Girl's Got To Do What A Girl's Got To Do") she is reformed by Sister Aimee's preaching and picks up the pace with "God Will Provide." She provides some of the warmest and most humorous moments. Florence Lacey adds to her credits here at Signature with a strong performance as Aimee's over bearing mother, and Ed Dixon, who starred with Lacey in the earlier Gifford/Pomeranz musical Under the Bridge, which Schaeffer directed off-Broadway, manages to avoid going too far with either the sweetness of his first act part when he's playing Aimee's father or the hatefulness of the bigotry of Aimee's rival preacher who he plays in the second act. He is touching in "Letter from Home" and then booms out "Demon In A Dress."

Walt Spangler's excellent two-story set spans the long wall of Signature's new large theater, The Max, before a bank of nearly 300 seats. A wide flight of wooden stairs dominates the center until it splits - sliding to the sides, exposing a large playing space. The entire structure is in light pine planking on which Michael Clark's well-selected projections of headlines, photographs and biblical quotations shine. Unfortunately, the somewhat busy surface of the lower half of the set make many of the projections difficult to read. The orchestra occupies one side of the ledge that surrounds the theater. They are playing orchestrations that may not make the most of the thirteen-player compliment all the time, but are often as rousing as the gospel-tinged sound of the big revival meeting numbers or as tender as the more intimate moments written for Aimee and her loves. There is a lovely piano and saxophone break in the touching trio "Paying the Price" that is particularly nice.

Music by David Pomeranz and David Friedman. Book and lyrics by Kathie Lee Gifford. Directed by Eric Schaeffer. Choreographed by Christopher d'Amboise. Musical direction by Michael Rice. Orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin. Design: Walt Spangler (set) Anne Kennedy (costumes) Michael Clark (projections) Chris Lee (lights) Robert Kaplowitz (sound) Scott Suchman (photography) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Michael Bannigan, Doug Bowles, E. Faye Butler, Carolee Carmello, Priscilla Cuellar, Ed Dixon, James Gardiner, Evan Hoffman, Jennifer Irons, Carrie A. Johnson, Florence Lacey, Andrew Long, Adam Monley, Diego Prieto, Tammy Roberts, Margo Seibert, Corrieanne Stein, Steve Wilson, Harry A. Winter.

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Running time 0:50 - no intermission
The first Signature Cabaret in the new space
Price - $27

Storyline: Three young male vocalists take turns delivering solos or combine to create group renditions of songs from Broadway shows based on the plays of William Shakespeare.

The choice of material is rather adventurous given the constraints of sticking with the theme of the Shakespeare in Washington festival. Some of the songs are from shows that would be expected, such as Bernstein and Sondheim's Romeo and Juliet-based West Side Story ("Something's Coming," "Tonight," "One Hand, One Heart," "Maria" and "Somewhere,") Cole Porter's Taming of the Shrew-based Kiss Me, Kate ("So In Love," "Too Darn Hot,") Rogers and Hart's Boys from Syracuse based on Comedy of Errors ("Falling in Love With Love," "This Can't Be Love") and Galt MacDermot and John Guare's musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona ("Love's Revenge," 'Summer, Summer.") Interspersed with those predictable choices, however, are songs from Michael Valenti and Donald Driver's tuneful version of Comedy of Errors, Oh, Brother! ("I To The World," "What Do I Tell People This Time?") as well as "What Do I Know of Love?" from Driver's Off-Broadway Your Own Thing based on Twelfth Night which he wrote with Hal Hester. There are two numbers attributed to a show titled Sighs of Fire (a nifty title lifted from Twelfth Night) which uses words from As You Like It ("Under the Greenwood Tree") and Two Gentlemen of Verona ("Who Is Sylvia?"). Most refreshing, however, is the inclusion of Stephen Sondheim's setting of a passage from Cymbeline, "Fear No More," which came from his musical based on Aristophanes' The Frogs.

The trio of singers comment during their banter that they are grateful that a full house came out to hear them since "You don't know who any of us are." For the record, then, Blaemire is fresh out of the national tour of Altar Boyz and is now preparing for his Signature mainstage debut in The Witches of Eastwick. Keyes has just finished small parts in two of the short plays in  the limited run revival of The Apple Tree on Broadway and the one-weekend concert version of Irving Berlin's Face the Music at Encores in New York. Snow just graduated from the Boston Conservatory and worked at Goodspeed in Connecticut in the revival of Pirates of Penzance. They all offer clear voices, careful enunciation which serves the lyrics well, sharp stage presence, a sense of excitement over their material and a nice feeling of camaraderie. They are at their best when either sitting or standing before their microphones. however, because the three have varying levels of skill with a hand-held microphone. This is, sadly, a skill that seems to be escaping the newer generation of musical theater singers who have worn wireless microphones for much of their early training and experience.

The black box is nicely set up with candle-bedecked cabaret tables. The bar in the lobby is open before the show and you are welcome to bring your drinks into the theater with you. The black box is literally that: black floor, black walls and black ceiling. To top it off, all three vocalists wear black. Chris Akins has lit the stage area with sharp colors, however, providing a dramatic look which is further enhanced with copious amounts of stage mist.

Directed by Matthew Gardiner. Lighting designed by Chris Akins. Stage managed by E. Brooke Marshall. Photography by Rachel Applegate. Musicians: Jay Crowder, Lee Hinkle. Cast: Nick Blaemire, Justin Keyes and Jason Michael Snow.

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Running time 55 minutes – no intermission
A short show that races at the speed of thought
v Includes some strongly sexual material
Click here to buy the script

Storyline:  Four roles reveal interlocking tales through memories, re-enactments and monologs that speak of the pain and beauty of the human condition.

As written the play is set nowhere, with actors in the script identified as A, B, C, and M. Thus, director Jeremy Skidmore has all the leeway anyone could wish to interpret the production. For a less capable director this freedom, combined with the power of the material, would be overwhelming. Skidmore manages to apply just enough concrete presence to the roles being portrayed that the play congeals into a fascinating stream of consciousness production. It’s one detrimental feature is just how fast it flows, leaving audience members asking at the end of its short 55 minute performance, “Is that it? Or is that intermission?” The play continues to unfold long after it is finished, providing material for conversation both in the lobby, on the way home, and again more into the next day.

The set as presented by Tony Cisek is a simple thing yet also a beautiful work of art. Shimmering grey sand lies in a raised platform with a captivating light design from Dan Covey striking it from above and several smaller spots coming up through the sand during the show. This allows the actors to roam about the black box space in much the same manner as their lines roam about the audience’s minds. This is fully an ensemble piece, and so often it seems that roles have changed or reversed as the stories being woven together lose and regain their identity within the cohesive whole. The actors are all very good, no one standing out more than another, until they truly are just A, B, C, and M.

The speed of the show and the complexity of the language can initially result in almost a dissatisfied feeling when it is complete. Indeed it has been said that of Ms Kane’s plays, the last two reveal much more from a reading than a performance, but that would be diminishing the power of the words when presented by talented actors. This is advanced theater, well beyond the safe comfortable lights of Our Town. There is a place for such old classics, and thankfully Signature has provided a place for newer shows that test the limits of what theater can be. It should be noted that this is a mature show, with descriptions of abuse, molestation, addiction, adultery, and many other vices of mankind. What results when the lights come up and the audience leaves in a sort of daze is a deeply moving experience, with little room for fence sitters to say that it was just ok. This is a show that will bring out a firm response in the viewer, love or hate.

Written by Sarah Kane. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Design: Tony Cisek (set), Dan Covey (lights), Mark Anduss (sound) Kate Turner-Walker (costumes), Carol Pratt (photography), Roy A. Gross (stage manager). Cast: Kathleen Koons, Deborah Hazlett, Joe Isenberg, John Lescault.

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Running time 2:50 - one intermission
A performance in Hebrew with English surtitles
 

Storyline: A Hebrew translation follows Shakespeare's story of the prince of Denmark who discovers that his uncle has murdered his father, the king, and wed his mother, the queen. The quest for vengeance results in the deaths of guilty and innocent alike.

The production, directed by Omri Nitzan, is the biggest success to date for Israel's Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv. It debuted just two years ago and has gone on to tour Europe, play in London and now in the United States. It travels with its own audience seating, for the director's concept here is to place the audience in swivel chairs and mount the play on sidestages and a central corridor, surrounding them with the action. At Signature, these swivel chairs are even mounted in the balcony although none of the action comes up to that level, and the sightlines for balcony sitters reach only three of the four sides of the playing area beneath them. It is a modern dress production with costumes that are principally in black and whites with splashes of color for Queen Gertrude and Ophelia. Black set pieces, black walls and black furniture complete a dark brooding feeling.

The centerpiece of the production is, as it should be, the performance of this Hamlet. Itay Tiran is a young, handsome and virile actor who moves with grace as the teenage prince drawn face to face with the evil of adulthood. Claudius is Gil Frank who is a suave king clearly under the spell of beautiful Sara von Schwartze, as Gertrude. Hamlet's connection with Neta Garti's Ophelia is a bit of a stretch as she is a near "valley girl" bopping to the sounds of music on her mp3 player. (We see Hamlet strutting down the central aisle with his own Ipod as well.) Nitzan has his Hamlet playing piano and Ophelia's mad scene is a song - but these are acceptable conceits within a fairly straightforward telling of Shakespeare's tale.

After an evening-long escalation of passions, the final fight scene is something of a let down, however. While director Nitzan uses the assistance of a "fencing coach" (Ohad Balva), there is no credit for fight choreography and its lack is felt. It isn't that Tiran's Hamlet and Amir Kriaf's Laertes don't go at each other with suitable fencing skill. It is that the emotional intensity of battle seems absent. There is such concentration on technique that the underlying emotions of hatred, jealousy, fear and frustration that fuel the battle aren't on display. What is more, Frank's Claudius is reduced to ridicule with a silly little bit of hiding behind a podium waving a white handkerchief. Such a wan way to end an otherwise captivating performance!

Written by William Shakespeare. Translated by T. Carmi. Directed by Omri Nitzan. Music by Yossi Ben Nun. Design: Ruth Dar (set and costumes) Liora Inbar (properties) Rina Schefler (makeup) Karen Granek (lights) Valery Reizes (sound) Ronen Shalev (stage manager). Cast: Yaniv Biton, Noa Cohen-Shabtai, Ezra Dagan, Alon Dahan, Gil Frank, Neta Garti, Assaf Goldstein, Yitzhak Hezkiya, Amir Kriaf, Yoav Levi, Assaf Pariente, Sara von Schwarze, Nir Shalmon, Itay Tiran, Aviv Zemer.

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Running time 3:00 - One Intermission
 t A Potomac Stages Pick for an enthralling revival of a captivating musical
Click here to buy the CD 

Storyline: A bright first act blends the stories of Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella with an original fairy tale of The Baker and his Wife into a mélange augmented with the witch who holds Rapunzel in a tower, Little Red Riding Hood and assorted princes - all of which ends with the traditional "happily ever after." The dark and disturbing second act looks at the after which comes after "ever after," as the characters' stories are carried beyond the fairy tales' conclusions.

This is Sondheim's punniest, and with the exception of Merrily We Roll Along, his most openly clever score. His A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum may have been funnier, but none of his scores has been filled with so many genuinely funny puns. After all, Sondheim has to write in the manner of the character who sings the song, and most of Sondheim's musicals are about humanly complex adults. Here many of the characters are really children's book caricatures, which frees Sondheim to indulge his own fascination and facility with word play. His delight at that freedom is palpable. Where else could you find an entire song, humorous and delightful and story-advancing as it is, setting up a single punch line pun "The end justifies the beans?" The score is not all flippantry, however. The witch sings movingly of the pains of parenthood ("Children Will Listen") and there are layers upon layers of meaning to Jack's discovery that there are "Giants in the Sky."

To mark this milestone in Signature's history, the cast of the first show in this new house is composed exclusively of performers who have appeared in musicals at Signature's old converted chrome plating shop on the other side of Four Mile Run. Many have Helen Hayes Awards for work at Signature. There's Donna Migliaccio, who won hers for the same Sweeny Todd that brought the company she co-founded with Schaeffer to prominence. She's playing Jack's Mother with comic zest. Erin Driscoll who walked away with the Helen Hayes Award last year for her work in Signature's Urinetown is the silver throated Rapunzel. Dana Krueger, winner for Wings, is a striking presence as Cinderella's Mother. Stephen Gregory Smith, who earned his Helen Hayes Award in 110 In The Shade, is Jack of Beanstalk fame. Stephen Cupo, Helen Hayes winner for Cabaret, is Cinderella's Father. There's Eleasha Gamble in her tenth Signature show now making a marvelous witch, and the team of James Moye and Sean MacLaughlin as the princes who make "Agony" such a delight. The one voice that hasn't been heard at Signature before is that of the giant woman Jack left widowed at the end of act one. In the recent Broadway revival, this non-singing disembodied voice was a recorded Judi Dench. Signature goes that production one better with the voice of none other than Angela Lansbury, uncredited but unmistakable.

Precision and attention to detail are evident from the first entrance. When Harry A. Winter emerges from a door in the castle tower to announce "Once Upon a Time" he closes the door behind him in time with the down beat of Kalbfleisch's fifteen-piece orchestra's launch into the rhythmic riff underlying the opening song. Everything is working together even at that early moment, with a green back-light emerging from the open door, Winter's smooth sense of timing and the visual impact of Robert Perdziola's costumes placed on parade as Winter introduces one character after another. (Jon Aitcheson's wigs for Cinderella's Step Mother and Step Sisters are simply perfect.) The orchestra sounds gorgeous playing Jonathan Tunick's orchestrations of Sondheim's sometimes mellifluous, sometimes sharp but always intriguing music. The production continues in a firing on all cylinders mode right on through the special effect of the giant's booming footsteps. Through it all, while the hall may be a bit bigger than the old "garage," the essential intimacy and the immediacy of the magic making that has been the hallmark of Signature's best work for fifteen years is still alive and well here in "The Max." The only quibble on opening night was the complaint of difficulty hearing some of the lines from some in the "dress circle" seats that circle the house at what would be balcony level in a regular theater. No doubt this will be rectified as the company learns more about how this new space works.

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by James Lapine. Directed by Eric Schaeffer. Musical Direction by Jon Kalbfleisch. Choreographed by Karma Camp. Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick. Design: Robert Perdziola (set and costumes) Mark Pack (properties) Chris Lee (lights) Tony Angelini (sound) Carol Pratt (photography) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Florrie Bagel, April Harr Blandin, Matt Conner, Daniel Cooney, Priscilla Cuellar, Steven Cupo, Erin Driscoll, Eleasha Gamble, Dana Krueger, Sean MacLaughlin, Channez McQuay, Donna Migliaccio, James Moye, Stephen Gregory Smith, Stephanie Waters, Lauren Williams, Harry A. Winter. 

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Running time 2:50 - one intermission
 t A Potomac Stages Pick for strong performances
 in a great musical
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: The musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion adds personal romance to the original’s love affair with the English Language as a dialectician who believes that the way a person speaks "absolutely classifies him" takes on the challenge of teaching a flower girl from Covent Garden to speak well enough to be accepted as a princess at a court function. He (and she) succeeds. But in the process, he "grows accustomed to her face" and wants her in his world permanently, despite his protestations that he would "never let a woman in my life."

This show is legendary for the success of Lerner and Loewe's adaptation of a play many thought could not be made into a musical. No lesser talents than Rodgers and Hammerstein themselves had tried and abandoned the project. Hammerstein told Lerner "It can't be done." But, to paraphrase the second act opener "They Did It!" With respectful but absolutely necessary changes to the plot of the original, careful alterations of character traits and with the near-perfect placement of some superb songs with wonderfully literate lyrics set to gorgeous and superbly functional music, Shaw's creation became not just a good musical, it became a better play than its estimable source. "Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?" "I Could Have Danced All Night," "On The Street Where You Live" and "I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face" are some of the premiere romance songs to emerge from the golden age of the American musical. The sub-plot involving the flower girl’s father provided the opportunity for such classic music-hall style production numbers as "Get Me to the Church on Time" and "With A Little Bit of Luck" while the concentration on elocution, enunciation, pronunciation and all things linguistic gave them the chance to produce some of the finest patter songs since Gilbert and Sullivan with "Why Can’t the English (teach their children how to speak)?" "I’m An Ordinary Man" and "A Hymn to Him" which poses the time honored question "Why can’t a woman be more like a man?" Add to all this the terrific release of exuberant joy in "The Rain in Spain" and you have a score with more beauty, wit, depth and charm than a dozen more mundane musicals.

Andrew Long is Professor Henry Higgins in a performance that is clean, clear, commanding and so far from an imitation of Rex Harrison, for whom the part was written, that it stands alone. His singing is quite strong and he sings rather than speaks more of the patter material than some others have. His Eliza is Broadway veteran Sally Murphy who likewise avoids imitating earlier performances. Her high energy on the anger songs "Just You Wait," "Show Me" and "Without You" is impressive, and her lyrical delivery of both "I Could Have Dance All Night" and the reprise of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" is a treat. Terrance P. Currier is the disappointment of the show as her father. He does a generally good job with the humor of the library scene ("I'm one of the world's undeserving - and I intend to remain undeserving") but he's just not the music-hall song and dance man needed for the big numbers "Get Me to the Church on Time" and "With A Little Bit of Luck." Luckily, Tomas Adrian Simpson and Steven Cupo are available to shore him up on these numbers. Will Gartshore is a delight in one of Broadway's smaller roles with a major hit song. He fills the hall with his tenor on "On The Street Where You Live" and also does a great job establishing himself in the minds of the audience in the preceding scene which is a key to making the song work. Harry A. Winter does some of his best work ever at Signature with the role of fellow linguist Colonel Pickering, and Dana Krueger is a crowd-pleaser in the smaller role of the professor's mother.

The two-piano accompaniment goes strangely un-credited (as opposed to the attention lavished on the work of the original orchestrations of Robert Russell Bennett and Phil Lang) and is a weakness in the production. The playing may well be fine, but there is none of the breadth of tone or spaciousness that two-pianos can provide and the balance is such that there are times the accompaniment seems to disappear and others when it seems to overpower the vocalists. Sound designer Tony Angelini provided very effective ambient sounds of passing horse-drawn carriages prior to the show's opening but during the show itself the use of cane tapping to simulate horse hooves in the Ascot races was distractingly artificial. Visually, the overall look of the show is a fine blend of the intimacy of Signature's 136-seat black box theater and Victorian feel with its shiny black thrust stage and pillars that draw on the industrial look of this former chrome plating building. The use of cloth panels as background, which, when lit from behind, reveal chorus members was effective and impressive the first time the effect was used in "The Servants Chorus," but achieved a "ho, hum, been there, done that" feeling later in the show, especially when the figures revealed were wearing those silly sleeveless jackets.

Music by Frederick Loewe. Book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. Directed by Eric Schaeffer. Choreographed by Karma Camp. Music direction by Jenny Cartney. Design: James Kronzer (set) Jenn Miller (costumes) Mark Lanks (lights) Tony Angelini (sound) Carol Pratt (photography) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Matt Conner, Priscilla Cuellar, Steven Cupo, Terrence P. Currier, Kathryn Fuller, Eleasha Gamble, Will Gartshore, LC Harden Jr., Evan Hoffman, Dave Joria, Maureen Kerrigan, Dana Krueger, Andrew Long, Channez McQuay, Sally Murphy, Thomas Adrian Simpson, Stephen Gregory Smith, Lauren Williams, Harry A. Winter.

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Running time 2:00 - no intermission
 t A Potomac Stages Pick for an intriguing and sometimes humorous portrayal of the misfits who tried to kill Presidents
Winner of the 2006 annual Ushers Favorite Show Award
Click here to buy the CD

Storyline: The stories of the people who assassinated or attempted to assassinate Presidents, from Abraham Lincoln through Ronald Reagan, are woven into a one act dark fantasy with the focus on the two most famous -- John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. Much of it is true to the historical record but it culminates in a fascinatingly constructed scene in which Booth leads the spirits of the assassins in an effort to convince Oswald to assassinate Kennedy, bringing new meaning to the term “JFK assassination conspiracy.”

The mature Stephen Sondheim has never been constrained by the boundaries of tradition in his musicals. While others write boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy wins girl love stories, Sondheim writes about revenge driven maniacs and purveyors of human flesh (Sweeney Todd), obsessed artists (Sunday in the Park with George) or the clash of cultures (Pacific Overtures). As usual, not only is his subject unorthodox, his structure is as well. A series of vignettes - some set to song and some simple scenes - tied together by the concept that the acts of Booth and Oswald turn all the other assassination attempts from individual acts of derangement into, in one assassin's words, "a force of history." Kooks aplenty add up to a frightening force indeed. When those kooks are portrayed in song, the discipline of melody, meter, rhyme and structure help create deep character portraits within the limited time available. When non-singing dialogue or monologue scenes are used, however, it takes longer to make the points and things begin to bog down. Comedy alleviates some of this problem - the exchanges between the fabulous Erin Driscoll as "Squeaky" Fromme and the even more fabulous Donna Migliaccio as the ditsy Sara Jane Moore, who both shot at Ford, are highly entertaining. But some are simply overwritten. Strong performances can alleviate some of the wordiness of the book scenes. Kathryn Fuller is marvelous in the non-singing role of Emma Goldman. As good as Andy Brownstein is as Sam Byck, who tried to hijack an airplane to crash into Nixon's White House, and he is very good, he still has to go on and on in the diatribes he dictates to his tape recorder.

Ah, but when they all break into song! Then there is a clarity to the piece. The motivations of success-obsessed Charles Guiteau, who shot Garfield, or of John Hinkley, Jr., who tried to assassinate Reagan in order to impress a movie star, become clear and gripping in just a minute or two. Hinkley's love song "Unworthy of Your Love" sung by Matt Conner as a dweeb of a love-sick pup is a fine duet with Driscoll. The concept is strengthened with chorus numbers that make a character out of the instrument of destruction they all have in common ("The Gun Song") and make the connection to the American dream ("Another National Anthem"). This production uses the song "Something Just Broke" that was written after the original production. The key relationship in this fictional history is between the first assassin, the powerfully effective Will Gartshore as John Wilkes Booth, and the last "successful" one, Stephen Gregory Smith as Lee Harvey Oswald. Smith establishes that relationship with the opening "The Ballad of Booth" when he is the balladeer before becoming Oswald. He sings it well but its success is particularly dependent on the fact that he acts the song so well, delivering the meaning behind the lines with an actors' clarity.

A show with such a fantastical concept calls for a significant flight of fancy in its design and Calarco's team led by set designer James Kronzer provides it in Signature's flexible black-box theater. The 136 seats are arrayed in a traditional arrangement facing an American flag of a curtain in what seems a very normal manner. But when the show begins, that flag falls to reveal . . . a theater! The seats in which the audience is sitting are facing identical seats facing them and the actors are in those seats staring at them (or reading their programs). The action takes place in and around the seats and up and down the aisles. Jon Kalbfleisch's nine piece band is hidden behind the back wall. Then, at the end of the show, the location becomes the Texas Book Depository warehouse space, where all the assassins are pleading with Lee Harvey Oswald. The windows of that building which are so familiar from the photographs from the time, redefine the space.

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by John Weidman. Directed by Joe Calarco. Choreographed by Karma Camp. Music direction by Jon Kalbfleisch. Design: James Kronzer (set) Anne Kennedy (costumes) Chris Lee (lights) Tony Angelini (sound) Carol Pratt (photography) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Ethan Ableman or Bradley Bowers, Doug Bowles, Andy Brownstein, Matt Conner, Priscilla Cuellar, Erin Driscoll, Mika Duncan, Daniel Felton, Kathryn Fuller, Will Gartshore, Peter Joshua, Donna Migliaccio, Diego Prieto, Tally Sessions, Stephen Gregory Smith, Steve Tipton.

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Reviewed April 2
Running time 2:05 - one intermission
A comedy of the home life of a sex researcher

Storyline: A live performance portrayal of the 1950 home life of a sex researcher totally oblivious the fact that wife is having an affair with his colleague and his daughter is struggling with both lesbianism and spinsterhood (which do you think her parents would fear the most in 1950?) is contrasted with a videotaped performance of a 2004 documentary in which an oft-married divorcée is interviewed for a study of sexual behavior and attitudes.

There are many new names in the program for this comedy - at least new to Signature Theatre. The playwright is new here but she's had her work produced at the Guthrie in Minneapolis as well as theaters in Atlanta, Louisville, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The director is new. He has a varied resume including directing, writing, teaching and running career development programs for directors. The set designer and the costume designer are new as well. Then, too, the cast of eight includes four who have never played Signature before, but they are all well known in the Potomac Region. Regulars from Will Gartshore to Amy McWilliams do well. McWilliams, however, is only seen in the pre-recorded video and a technological reproduction is no match for the live performances on the stage. This is, after all, live theater.

Two new faces for this space are at the heart of the piece. Ralph Cosham is the autocratic academician working on his final book about sex while being completely oblivious to the sexual side of the two women who share his life, his wife and daughter. Cosham manages to imbue the character with a touch of humanity. This is no mean feat given that it is written as a particularly colorless part. He not only gets the vocal mannerisms of the elderly German autocrat just right, he gets his body language to exhibit the same accent. Helen Hedman is the wife. She's funny, charming, impressive and a delight, but she also seems much too young for the role. The play includes the celebration of her 65th birthday with her daughter expressing surprise that it isn't her 70th, and she has a scene with Gartshore as her lover in which she expresses her fears that he will find her aging body a turn off. Now, you might chalk that up to insecurity, but that would change the point of the scene. Truth to tell, Hedman is just too lovely and sexy in a Donna Reed-ish sort of way for the part.

The set by Signature first timer Michael Carnahan is a thing of beauty, although some of the design decisions work against rather than for the play. The hiding of some 14 small-screen televisions behind see-through scrim to display the black and white tape of the 2004 "documentary" seems just a bit backward - how is it that the 1950s are portrayed in vivid, living color while the scenes in the age of the home theater/high definition TV are black and white? Still, the 1950 set is a gorgeous recreation of what was then seen as modern. So too are Alejo Vietti's costumes, which not only capture the look of the time but look as if they came directly from the Sears or Montgomery Wards down the block. Signature regular, sound designer Tony Angelini, helps set the mood with a selection of pop songs of the day that are well blended into the flow of the show. Indeed, they set the flow from time to time, making transitions smoother and emphasizing, sometimes wittily and sometimes subtly, the point being made in a specific scene. Props master Kimberly Cruce isn't given credit for properties design, but if she is the one who obtained all the period consumer items - especially the superb coffee carafe - she deserves a nod as well.

Written by Julie Marie Myatt. Directed by Michael Baron. Design: Michael Carnahan (set) Alejo Vietti (costumes) Mark Lanks (lights) Tony Angelini (sound) Carol Pratt (photography) Kerry Epstein (stage manager). Cast: Teresa Castracane, Ralph Cosham, Will Gartshore, Helen Hedman, Megan MacPhee, Amy McWilliams, Paul Morella, Casie Platt.

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Reviewed January 15
Running time: 90 minutes - no intermission
t A  Potomac Stages Pick as a fascinating musical dream sequence
 v Includes some strongly sexual material
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