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Gender bending the boards

‘Hair,’ saints in drag, ‘Falsettsos’ and more among season’s wacky offerings

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D.C.’s new fall theater season promises to be one of its better in terms of LGBT presence on stage and off. While a lot of local theatrical offerings veer more toward musical and/or cheery material this season, there is undoubtedly a wide range of shows to see. Here’s a sampling of what’s coming up.

In October, famed elderly British drag queen and gay rights activist Bette Bourne is bringing his solo act to the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater for three nights only (Oct. 28 to 30). Bourne’s celebrated “A Life in Three Acts” follows his post-war childhood to his experiences with a Notting Hill drag commune in the 1970s and his seminal role in the formation of the Gay Liberation Front in Britain, as well as his years with the world-famous BLOOLIPS gay theater company.

Other enticing scheduled offerings at the Kennedy Center include the national tour of Broadway’s first great rock musical “Hair” (Oct. 26 to Nov. 21) and the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic musical “South Pacific” (Dec. 14 to Jan. 16) for a holiday engagement in the Opera House.

There’s a lot to lure Blade readers to Signature Theatre in convenient Shirlington Village this fall. Currently playing is rock musical “Chess” (through Oct. 3), a Cold War love story set against the very intense international chess circuit. Marvelously reworked and staged by the Signature’s gay artistic director Eric Schaeffer, “Chess” features a top notch cast including talented Broadway regulars Jill Paice, Jeremy Kushnier and actor Euan Morton (best known for playing Boy George in “Taboo”).

Other imminent Signature productions include Ken Ludwig’s new comedy “A Fox on the Fairway” (Oct. 12 to Nov. 14). A tribute to the great English farces of the 1930s and ’40s, the madcap romp is set to be directed by John Rando ands stars the very talented (and gay) Holly Twyford. In “Walter Cronkite is Dead” (Oct. 26 to Dec. 19) by gay playwright Joe Calarco, two very different women (played by Helen Hayes-winning favorites Nancy Robinette and Sherri L. Edelen) find themselves sharing a table in an airport. Representing two sides of the culture wars – one red state, the other blue state – they reluctantly open up and ultimately find common ground. Calarco also directs. And in December, Schaeffer directs Broadway vet Florence Lacey as Norma Desmond in Signature’s hotly anticipated take on the musical “Sunset Boulevard” (Dec. 7 to Feb. 13).

The Washington Shakespeare Company (WSC) opens its season with “By Any Other Name: an Evening of Shakespeare in Klingon,” starring gay actor George Takai, best known as Mr. Sulu from “Star Trek.” This fun-filled production includes performances of well-known Shakespearean scenes in both English and Klingon, the language spoken by the fictional warrior race in the sci-fi cult favorite. The special one-night even (Sept. 25) takes place at the Rosslyn Spectrum in Arlington.

After finally leaving its funky warehouse location on Clark Street, WSC is set to christen its new home at Arts Space for Everyone (ASE) in Rosslyn with a futuristic production of Shakespeare’s “Richard III” (Oct. 21 to Dec. 12). Tackling the play’s ruthless title hunchback is company veteran Frank Britton, 31.

“When I first heard that WSC was mounting ‘Richard III,’ I set my sights on playing Richard’s ill-fated brother Clarence. I’m a character actor who typically plays supporting roles and I’m fine with that,” says Britton who’s bisexual. “So when [co-directors and life partners Christopher Henley and Jay Hardee] offered me the lead it felt too good to be true. And because there are not a lot of opportunities for African-American actors to play Richard, I’m especially excited and grateful.”

For fall, Factory 449: a Theatre Collective is presenting a world premiere production of Eric Ehn’s “The Saint Plays,” an intriguing six-part work that, according to collective member and the play’s director John Moletress, “takes Roman Catholic saints and smashes them into a contemporary narrative.”

At just a little over a year old, the company — whose name references Warhol’s factory and the date the group was established – is still finding its aesthetic. Like the collective’s successful premier production “4.48 Psychosis,” “The Saint Plays” will incorporate film and video elements. Also like its predecessor, this production isn’t very long — while individual parts run from six to 31 minutes, the entire play clocks in at about two hours.

One segment dealing with one of the more commonly known subjects – Saint Joan — places the Maid of Orleans (played by Zehra Fazal) in an undetermined country wracked by civil war.

“I’m interested in the gender issues surrounding Joan,” says Moletress who’s gay. “When she died her charred naked body was paraded to prove that she was actually a woman and hence had no real power to begin with. For me, it ties in with DADT and how in order to serve some soldiers must hide certain aspects of themselves.

“Typically the church doesn’t like to talk about sexuality and gender,” Moletess says. “Part of what is so great about Ehn’s plays is how they travel through time and address these issues.”

Following on the heels of last season’s success, “Naked Boys Singing,” Ganymede Arts is anchoring its fall arts festival with another musical — William Finn and James Lapine’s “Falsettos” (tonight through Oct. 10). The story of Marvin, a gay New Yorker who grapples with his ex-wife, young son and gravely ill lover Whizzer, “Falsettos” is a musical comedy about life, loss and love.

Sometimes termed an AIDS play, the Tony Award-winning musical is more than that, says Jeffrey Johnson, Ganymede’s gay artistic director who is both staging and playing Marvin in the production.

“This is the story of the universal struggle that draws people close and defines what a family is. Yes, the characters are brought together by someone dying from AIDS, but any other tragedy could have been the catalyst.”

Ganymede’s latest venue is the affectionately named  “Noi’s Nook,” an improvised theater located in the back of  “Go Mama Go!” a 14th Street corridor gift shop formerly run by the company’s late and great patron Noi Chudnoff. The intimacy of the space and the fact that a lot of Finn’s songs are kept alive by cabaret singers has inspired Johnson to strip away scene changes and focus on the telling of the story.

“Falsettos sticks with Ganymede’s mission of telling the LGBT story,” Johnson says. “It’s not some 42nd Street, hyped up, toe-tapping good time. It’s an entertaining musical about real issues.”

At Woolly Mammoth, Sarah Ruhl’s funny and poignant take on turn-of-the-century hysteria treatments, “In the Next Room or the vibrator play” runs through Oct. 3. Gay actor Sarah Marshall is featured.

Also this fall, the Studio Theatre presents “Superior Donuts” (opening Nov. 10) from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts (“August: Osage County”). The comedy follows the unlikely friendship between a cranky white Chicago shop owner and an ambitious black teenager with a secret. Studio’s talented gay associate producing artistic director Serge Seiden directs.

Shakespeare Theatre Company  is kicking off its season with “All’s Well That Ends Well”” (Sept. 7 through Oct. 24) staged by the company’s now legendary gay artistic director Michael Kahn. Set just prior to World War I, the production features Tony Roach as Bertram and Marsha Mason as the Countess of Rossillion. For readers under 40, Mason was a big movie star in the 1970s.

Alexandria’s MetroStage opens its season with the world premiere of “Glimpses of the Moon” (Sept. 8 through Oct. 17), a Jazz Age musical based on an Edith Wharton novel. Helmed by David Marquez, a gay New York-based director/choreographer, the production features a fabulous cast including Natascia Diaz, Lauren Williams and Sam Ludwig.

Next month, Arena Stage inaugurates its superbly renovated waterfront campus with a production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic “Oklahoma!” (Oct. 22 through Dec. 26). Arena’s artistic director, Molly Smith, stages a truly diverse cast in the fabled show that defined the modern American musical. The production features local favorite E. Faye Butler as Aunt Eller, and hot gay New York-based actor Nicholas Rodriguez as Curly.

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Theater

‘Andy Warhol in Iran’ a charming look at intersection of art, politics

Mosaic production plumbs kidnapping plot of iconic artist for humor

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Nathan Mohebbi as Farhad and Alex Mills as Andy Warhol in Mosaic Theater’s production of ‘Andy Warhol in Iran’ by Brent Askari. (Photo by Chris Banks)

‘Andy Warhol in Iran’
Through July 6
Mosaic Theater Company at Atlas Performing Arts Center
1333 H St., N.E., WDC
$70
Mosaictheater.org

Behind the blasé veneer, Andy Warhol was more curious than people knew. Particularly when it came to money. He kept a close eye on how the ultra-rich lived, what fellow artists were being paid and who was paying them, and, of course, all the new and more saleable ways of making and selling art.  

In playwright Brent Askari’s “Andy Warhol in Iran,” now playing at Mosaic Theater Company, Warhol (Alex Mills) is brought outside of his usual area of interest when he lands face to face with a young revolutionary. While Warhol could be artistically revolutionary, he didn’t connect with the idea of forgoing the pursuit of money and fame for the infinitely more difficult task of achieving social justice.

The 90-minute play is not fully factual, but rather inspired by Warhol’s real life 1976 trip to Tehran to make portraits of the royal Pahlavi family in the waning days of their reign, with a focus on Farah Diba, the Shah’s elegant wife and Iran’s last empress. 

The action unfolds in a Tehran hotel suite boasting a glorious view of the snowcapped Alborz Mountains not far from Iran’s vibrant and bustling capital. It’s here, disguised as room service, that Farhad (played by Nathan Mohebbi) gains entrance to Warhol’s rooms, seeking to kidnap the pop art star to garner attention for the university students’ movement. 

Warhol meets the armed intruder with a sort of wide-eyed wonderment, flummoxed why he has been selected for abduction. Warhol can’t understand why a young man like Farhad wouldn’t prefer to be paid a big ransom on the spot, or be cast as a star in one of the Warhol Factory flicks. 

When Farhad replies it’s because Warhol is the most decadent artist in the world, Warhol mistakenly takes it for the ultimate compliment. After all, his biggest successes had been connected to celebrity and consumerism (think Campbell’s Soup Cans. 1962).  

For Warhol, decadence is aspirational. He made portraits of financiers, movie stars, and jet setters. In fact, he’d been obsessed with the lives of the rich and famous since he was a small kid in Pittsburgh thumbing through Photoplay Magazine while bed bound with Saint Vitus Dance. 

Accompanying Warhol to Tehran (unseen) are his business manager Fred Hughes, and Bob Colacello, editor of Interview magazine. Together, they make a merry trio of gay social climbers. These kinds of trips were a boon to the artist. Not only did they solidify a new strata of high society contacts, but were also superbly lucrative, thickly padding the painter’s pockets. 

While in Iran, Warhol wanted only to view Farah’s vast world-class collection of jewels, sample the caviar on tap, and get his Polaroids. Then he’d fly first class back to New York and transfer the images to silk screen and sell the portraits to the Persian royals at a hefty price. He didn’t foresee any obstacles along the way. 

Serge Seiden’s direction is spot on. He’s rendered a wonderfully even two-hander with a pair of terrifically cast actors. And Seiden plumbs the piece for humor mostly drawn from the absurdity of the situation without missing any of the serious bits.  

As Warhol, out actor Mills is instantly recognizable as the eccentric artist. He’s wearing the button-down shirt, jeans, blazer, glasses, and, of course the famed shock of white hair wig (here a little more Karen than Andy). His portrayal is better than an imitation. He gives a bit of the fey and confused, but has also infuses him with a certain dynamism. 

The energy works well with the intensity of Mohebbi’s would-be kidnapper Farhad. And while it isn’t a romance, it’s not impossible to think that Warhol might fall for a handsome male captor.  

The connection between art and politics is almost always interesting; and though not a super deep dive into the era or the life of an artist, “Andy Warhol in Iran” is a compelling, charming, and sometimes funny glimpse into that intersection.  

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‘Hunter S. Thompson’ an unlikely but rewarding choice for musical theater

‘Speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country’

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George Salazar in ‘The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical.’

‘The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical’
Through July 13
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, Va.
$47 to $98
Sigtheatre.org

The raucous world of the counterculture journalist may not seem the obvious choice for musical theater, but the positive buzz surrounding Signature Theatre’s production of Joe Iconis’s “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical” suggests otherwise. 

As the titular, drug addled and gun-toting writer, Eric William Morris memorably moves toward his character’s suicide in 2005 at 67. He’s accompanied by an ensemble cast playing multiple roles including out actor George Salazar as Thompson’s sidekick Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, a bigger than life Mexican American attorney, author, and activist in the Chicano Movement who follows closely behind. 

Salazar performs a show-stopping number — “The Song of the Brown Buffalo,” a rowdy and unforgettable musical dive into a man’s psyche. 

“Playing the part of Oscar, I’m living my Dom daddy activist dreams. For years, I was cast as the best friend with a heart of gold. Quite differently, here, I’m tasked with embodying all the toxic masculinity of the late ‘60s, and a rampant homophobia, almost folded into the culture.”

He continues, “My sexuality aside, I like to think that Oscar would be thrilled by my interpretation of him in that song. 

“Our upbringings are similar. I’m mixed race – Filipino and Ecuadorian and we grew up similarly,” says Salazar, 39. “He didn’t fit in as white or Mexican American, and fell somewhere in the middle. Playing Oscar [who also at 39 in 1974 forever disappeared in Mexico], I pulled out a lot of experience about having to code switch before finally finding myself and being confident just doing my own thing.

“As we meet Oscar in the show we find exactly where’s he’s at. Take me or leave me, I couldn’t care less.”

In 2011, just three years after earning his BFA in musical theater from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Salazar fortuitously met Iconis at a bar in New York. The pair became fast friends and collaborators: “This is our third production,” says George. “So, when Joe comes to me with an idea, there hasn’t been a moment that I don’t trust him.”

In “Be More Chill,” one of Iconis’s earlier works, Salazar originated the role of Michael Mell, a part that he counts as one of the greatest joys of artistic life.

With the character, a loyal and caring friend who isn’t explicitly queer but appeals to queer audiences, Salazar developed a fervent following. And for an actor who didn’t come out to his father until he was 30, being in a place to support the community, especially younger queer people, has proved incredibly special. 

“When you hear Hunter and Oscar, you might think ‘dude musical,’ but I encourage all people to come see it.” Salazar continues, “Queer audiences should give the show a shot. As a musical, it’s entertaining, funny, serious, affecting, and beautiful. As a gay man stepping into this show, it’s so hetero and I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I took it upon myself that any of the multiple characters I play outside of Oscar, were going to be queer.

Queer friends have seen it and love it, says Salazar. His friend, Tony Award-winning director Sam Pinkleton (“Oh, Mary!”) saw Hunter S. Thompson at the La Jolla Playhouse during its run in California, and said it was the best musical he’d seen in a very long time. 

“Since the work’s inception almost 10 years ago, I was the first Oscar to read the script. In the interim, the characters’ relationships have grown but otherwise there have been no major changes. Still, it feels more impactful in different ways: It’s exciting to come here to do the show especially since Hunter S. Thompson was very political.”

Salazar, who lives in Los Angeles with his partner, a criminal justice reporter for The Guardian, is enjoying his time here in D.C. “In a time when there are so many bans – books, drag queens, and travel — all I see is division. This is an escape from that.”  

He describes the Hunter Thompson musical as Iconis’s masterpiece, adding that it’s the performance that he’s most proud of to date and that feels there a lot of maturity in the work. 

“In the play, Thompson talks to Nixon about being a crook and a liar,” says Salazar. “The work speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country: We seem to take them one step forward and two steps back; the performance is almost art as protest.”

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A hilarious ‘Twelfth Night’ at Folger full of ‘elegant kink’

Nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan stars as Duke Orsino

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Alyssa Keegan (Photo courtesy Folger Theatre)

‘Twelfth Night’
Through June 22
Folger Theatre
201 East Capitol St., S.E.
$20-$84
Folger.edu

Nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan (they/them)loves tapping into the multitudes within. 

Currently Keegan plays the melancholic Duke Orsino in Folger Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Twelfth Night.” Director Mei Ann Teo describes the production as “sexy, hilarious, and devastating” and full of “elegant kink.” 

Washington-based, Keegan enjoys a busy and celebrated career. Her vast biography includes Come From Away at Ford’s Theatre; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Helen Hayes Award, Best Actress) and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, both at Round House Theatre; Diana Son’s Stop Kiss directedby Holly Twyford for No Rules Theatre Company; and Contractions at Studio Theatre, to name just a few. 

In addition to acting, Keegan works as a polyamory and ethical non-monogamy life and relationship coach, an area of interest that grew out of personal exploration. For them, coaching seems to work hand in hand with acting. 

WASHINGTON BLADE: You’re playing the lovesick Orsino in Twelfth Night. How did that come about? 

ALYSSA KEEGAN: The director was looking to cast a group of actors with diverse identities; throughout auditions, there were no constraints regarding anyone’s assigned sex at birth. It was really a free for all. 

BLADE: What’s your approach to the fetching, cod-piece clad nobleman?

KEEGAN: Offstage I identify as completely nonbinary; I love riding in this neutral middle space. But I also love cosplay. The ability to do that in the play gives me permission to dive completely into maleness. 

So, when I made that decision to play Orsino as a bio male, suddenly the part really cracked open for me. I began looking for clues about his thoughts and opinions about things like his past relationships and his decision not to date older women.

Underneath his mask of bravura and sexuality, and his firmness of feelings, he’s quite lonely and has never really felt loved. It makes sense to me why his love for Olivia is so misguided and why he might fall in love with the Cesario/Viola character.

BLADE: As an actor, do you ever risk taking on the feelings of your characters? 

KEEGAN: Prior to my mental health education, yes, and that could be toxic for me. I’ve since learned that the nervous system can’t tell the difference between real emotional distress and a that of a fully embodied character. 

So, I created and share the Empowered Performer Project. [a holistic approach to performance that emphasizes the mental and emotional well-being of performing artists]. It utilizes somatic tools that help enormously when stepping into a character. 

BLADE: Has changing the way you work affected your performances?

KEEGAN: I think I’m much better now. I used to have nearly debilitating stage fright. I’d spend all day dreading going onstage. I thought that was just part of the job. Now, I’ve learned to talk to my body. Prior to a performance, I can now spend my offstage time calmly gardening, working with my mental health clients, or playing with my kid. I’m just present in my life in a different way. 

BLADE: Is Orsino your first time playing a male role?

KEEGAN: No. In fact, the very first time I played a male role was at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va. I played Hipolito in Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy. 

As Hipolito, I felt utterly male in the moment, so much so that I had audience members see me later after the show and they were surprised that I was female. They thought I was a young guy in the role. There’s something very powerful in that.

BLADE: Do you have a favorite part? Male or female? 

KEEGAN: That’s tough but I think it’s Maggie the Cat. I played the hyper-female Maggie in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Round House. In the first act she didn’t stop talking for 51 minutes opposite Gregory Wooddell as Brick who barely had to speak. That lift was probably the heaviest I’ve ever been asked to do in acting. 

BLADE: What about Folger’s Twelfth Night might be especially appealing to queer audiences?

KEEGAN: First and foremost is presentation. 99% of the cast identify as queer in some way. 

The approach to Shakespeare’s text is one of the most bold and playful that I have ever seen.  It’s unabashedly queer. The actors are here to celebrate and be loud and colorful and to advocate. It’s a powerful production, especially to do so close to the Capitol building, and that’s not lost on any of us.

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