‘Red’
Through March 11
Arena Stage

Actor Patrick Andrews is in Washington for Arena Stage’s production of the Tony-winning play ‘Red.’ In March, he returns to Chicago for ‘The Iceman Cometh.’ (Photo courtesy Arena Stage)

Typically with works portraying the mentor/pupil dynamic, pupils take a backseat, says young actor Patrick Andrews. But in “Red,” John Logan’s exploration of artist Mark Rothko rocky relationship with his studio assistant Ken (currently playing at Arena Stage), it’s different. The playwright has written a student who has as much range as the teacher.

In the part of Rothko’s assistant, Andrews gives the audience a peek into the late great abstract expressionist’s working life. Ken enters the darkly lit studio buttoned down and respectful. As the weeks pass, he settles in to a more relaxed candidness, unreservedly serving as his boss’ moral/spiritual meter. Because Rothko (played by D.C. favorite Edward Gero) is bombastic, self-absorbed and frequently hits below the belt, Ken learns to give as good as he gets. Through all the arguing and Rothko’s highhanded pontificating, both men ultimately learn from one another.

The openly gay Logan wrote and premiered “Red” in London in 2009. The production successfully transferred to Broadway, winning Tony Awards for best play and best featured player (Eddie Redmayne as Ken). For the play’s first truly American production last fall, Logan chose Chicago’s prestigious Goodman Theatre. It was staged by the company’s artistic director Robert Falls and featured Gero and Andrews. And now the Goodman production (with a few tweaks) has come to Washington.

Playing Ken — a gem of a part drawn from Rothko’s many assistants — is a nice opportunity for any young actor. At 26, Andrews, who is gay, knows it, and he takes his work very seriously. “An actor is only as good as his last performance. He must be totally committed to the storytelling that is taking place onstage on any given minute.” And though he breaks into a wide grin explaining his love of performing, Andrews reiterates that for him acting is not a game. He’s made a lifestyle choice that demands complete dedication. He sees himself as part of a noble, thousand-plus-year-old tradition.

The actor’s first artistic memory involves seeing Rothko’s huge abstract paintings at the famous Rothko Chapel in Houston with his family. He describes much of his Amarillo, Texas, childhood as art driven — lots of museums and creating things. But mostly, he focused on drama and dance. As a teenager, Andrews was on track to become a professional ballet dancer, but at the last minute he declined an offer to enter a young apprentices program with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, opting to follow a broader theatrical career path. Directly out of high school, he landed a job in the national tour of “Fosse” and has been working ever since.

Andrews is based in Chicago where he’s an ensemble member of the progressive American Theatre Company and an artistic associate with the LBGT-centric About Face Theatre. Andrews is also heavily involved in the city’s queer art scene and is a member of the three-man band, DAAN: “It’s named for band founder Dan Foley. We added the extra ‘A’ to sound pretentious. We like to play around with the performance art aesthetic,” he says. “We describe our sound as ‘queer electro fuck music.’”

While singing and dancing in musicals, says Andrews, his being gay never came up, but after he began to be cast in more dramatic roles, his sexuality came into question: Recently, he danced in a music video with drag performer Dida Ritz (currently featured on “RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 4” on Logo). For a moment, Andrews says, he considered working under a different name for the project, but then quickly rejected the idea. “I could never compartmentalize my career. It’s not something I’d do. But it will be interesting to see how my work in major regional theater and the things I do with Chicago’s queer artists collective will overlap. My hope is that one will nourish the other.”

“Red” closes March 11. The following day he returns to Chicago and the Goodman to begin rehearsals for Robert Fall’s production of O’Neill’s epic “The Iceman Cometh” starring Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy. Andrews is cast Don Parritt, an 18-year-old anarchist on the run, another plum role in yet another notable production. This grounded young actor’s star is definitely rising.

Rachel Zampelli as Callie (left) and Alyssa Wilmoth as Sara in No Rules’ production of ‘Stop Kiss.’ (Photo by C. Stanley Photography; courtesy No Rules)

In playwright Diana Son’s “Stop Kiss,” New York City is a dangerous thing that demands respect or else. After 10 years in Manhattan, jaded Callie understands this, but her new friend Sara, a recently arrived Midwesterner who teaches third grade in the Bronx, doesn’t quite get it, and despite numerous warnings — disregard loud neighbors, ignore catcalls, avoid panhandlers — nothing can alter her open and courageous approach to life.

Though slightly concerned by Sara’s lack of street smarts, Callie is mostly delighted with her refreshing forthrightness. Romantic impulses ensue. But despite a mutual attraction, the women (who up until this point have only dated men) are hesitant to act on their feelings. When they finally do, their first kiss is interrupted by extreme violence that almost ends their budding relationship altogether.

Sounds pretty grim, but actually there’s comedy in this drama. Staged by celebrated local actor Holly Twyford (who’s gay) in her directorial debut, No Rules Theatre Company’s production evokes just the right balance of laughs and pain in what’s ultimately a sweet story about love and commitment. At a recent performance, the sizable lesbian portion of the audience seemed particularly pleased at seeing familiar parts of their lives effectively portrayed on stage. They laughed and groaned at the female characters’ clumsy romantic overtures and were audibly disturbed by the play’s gay bashing, a pivotal plot point which takes place off stage.

The action begins when traffic reporter Callie (the reliably good Rachel Zampelli) agrees to cat sit for a friend-of-a-friend named Sara played naturally by Alyssa Wilmoth. Though the women seem polar opposites — Callie is more interested in trendy restaurants than work and Sara is utterly devoted to her underserved students — they click. Still both deny their growing romantic feelings. Sara remains in touch with Peter (Jonathan Lee Taylor), the ex-boyfriend she left in St. Louis, and Callie periodically sleeps with George (Ro Boddie), a longtime sort-of boyfriend whom she may or may not one day marry. The lesbian couple’s getting together is long in coming. At some point, you’re ready to yell “C’mon, plant one on her already.”

The story unfolds non-chronologically, moving back and forth from Callie’s messy apartment to a stark hospital room. Because we know the ordeal that’s awaiting our heroines, it’s as if a dark cloud is gathering over what should be the carefree early days of falling in love.

Costume designer Frank Lobovitz ably assists in demonstrating the women’s differences: Sara is unmistakably a Gotham newbie in her blue wool car coat and synthetic print skirts, while Callie is experimenting with sophisticated looks in black with mixed results. The strong supporting cast includes Karin Rosnizeck, who plays both a soignée witness to the crime and a patient nurse, and Howard Wahlberg as a veteran New York detective.

The straight playwright covers all the coming out bases: Discomfort with revealing sexuality to friends and co-workers, problems with parents and potential in-laws, etc. The 1998 play might sound instructive if it weren’t for its thoughtfully written, intimate scenes. Twyford especially excels in staging the work’s quieter moments,  particularly the softly lit scene in which Callie tenderly helps Sarah change from her hospital gown to street clothes. Only when Sara must choose whether to return to St. Louis or remain in New York does Callie truly bare her soul, uncharacteristically committing wholeheartedly.

Mikey Cafarelli (left) and Paul Scanlan in ‘Two Guys Become Interns,’ a gay-penned cabaret act at Black Fox. (Photo by Mark Braswell)

The cabaret show “Two Guys,” which premiered at Black Fox Lounge in June, is back but in a substantially different incarnation. Conceived as a musical revue, it now has a storyline and new players.

Gay composer/playwright Mark Braswell, a local attorney by day, came up with the premise while observing interns at his own federal office.

“I just realized it’s kind of a Washington institution,” he says. “It’s filled with potential humor and I don’t think that anyone has ever written about it.”

Going by their own first names in the show, local actors Mikey Cafarelli and Paul Scanlan, both straight, play interns who swap war stories at a bar. One is interning at the White House, the other on the Hill. The show is fleshed out with Braswell’s original compositions, which he began in 1995. Braswell saw Scanlan at a Signature Theatre open house this summer and offered him the part. The two actors are friends so once cast, Scanlan brought Cafarelli onboard.

“His songs, especially his ballads, are really heartfelt and come from a real place,” Cafarelli says. “And the more up-tempo ones are fun and light and provide good contrast to the more dramatic material. I think it’s pretty good musical theater.”

Pianist Jason Solounias will accompany. Braswell is self-financing the production and also directing. He’s also written several musicals that have been produced both here and in other cities such as “Love Notes,” “Private Love Notes,” “That Funny Kind of Feeling” and “Paying the Price.”

Braswell, 53, says his day job has given him the means to pursue his creative side in his spare time.

“People say all the time, ‘How do you have time for this,’” he says. “I just say, ‘While you’re out on the golf course or playing bridge, I’m writing musicals.’”

He enjoys theater and cabaret for its chance to gauge immediate reactions.

“It’s live and immediate and I guess if I were to write a short story or something like that instead, then I’m not around to see the impact of how it unfolds. Plus live theater is a little different every night. … There’s a closeness and a warmth that everybody seems to enjoy so much.”

Songs include some, such as “Before Tomorrow,” that the composer has used in other productions. Others are new and were written to propel the “Interns” storyline.

For more information or to reserve tickets, go to truenote.com.

BOX INFO:

‘Two Guys Become Interns’

Black Fox Lounge

1723 Conn. Ave., N.W.

Monday at 8 p.m. and the following three Mondays as well (Sept. 26, Oct. 3 and Oct. 10)

$15 in advance; $20 at door; $10 for interns

truenote.com

‘Tosca’ lead Patricia Racette at Washington National Opera’s rehearsal space in a Takoma Park warehouse. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Hardcore opera fans may quibble at the repetition, but hang around D.C. long enough and there’s a chance to see just about any standard-canon opera you can think of. Washington National Opera, now not-so-strange bedfellows with the Kennedy Center, kicked off its fall season last weekend with the Puccini warhorse “Tosca” with lesbian Patricia Racette in the title role.

Racette, who lives with her partner (mezzo soprano Beth Clayton) in Santa Fe, is hunkered down for the day at the Opera’s mammoth rehearsal/storage space in Takoma Park a few Mondays ago. Though dressed casually, she’s made up and coiffed as some of her afternoon press rounds are on camera.

Down several long hallways and through a giant costume room that looks like it could dress the entire cast of “Ben-Hur” and then some, Racette settles into a small and dingy library where CDs, VHS tapes and songbooks line the walls. During a 45-minute conversation, she riffs on her life off stage, the logistics of making it through live performance and why the stage, as opposed to the studio, is where she feels most alive musically.

Together for more than a decade and married since 2005, Racette says she and Clayton find a way to make their marriage work despite two busy careers that by necessity involve significant travel. Once several years ago they didn’t see each other for almost seven weeks.

“It was absolute torture,” Racette says. “Torture.”

Racette is developing a following in Washington. She was here in May for “Iphigenie en Tauride” (Gluck) after previous appearances in 2007 for “Jenufa” and 2009 as Ellen in “Peter Grimes,” all with WNO.

Though it half-heartedly reviewed the production, the Post called Racette’s “Tosca” performance “luminous” and “compelling” and praised her stamina and vocal authority in “Iphigenie.”

Racette calls singing opera akin to surfing.

“I mean it’s a fine art and it’s called a fine art for a very, very good reason because it takes a lot of study, a lot of concentration, a lot of precision and it’s ongoing. As long as you’re a singer, you’re tidying up and you’re working on these things. I don’t worry if I’m gonna hit the note, that’s not my thing. But you have to have everything in line and as fluid as possible because it’s true, once you get there, you’ve got that one chance and boom. It’s not like practicing when you say, “OK, out of those four tries, I hit it once. It’s like a very intricate, very involved surfing. You know you want to hit the wave as absolutely best you can. Do you hit it that way every time? Absolutely not, but you do the best you can. … I’ve seen other singers where they just didn’t get there and there’s a whole other level of mental angst with that but that’s not my typical issue.”

Do some singers channel a non-verbal signal to the audience that they might not hit the note, whether they know they will or not? Is it a way of contriving some suspense in the performance?

“I think some of it is milked,” she says, “but some of it is really real. When you come to the climax of “Vissi d’arte” (one of her “Tosca” arias), you’re taking your spring and jumping over the canyon, so you have to have all your faculties composed. It’s not something that just comes out, like la la la. It’s not but I think if you make it seem like that kind of moment, I think the audience feels almost robbed from the experience. I’ve been playing Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall and she hits this belty high note and it’s so exciting because she kind of falters for one second and there’s a part where she kind of misses it for a split second, but then regains it and that’s almost more interesting than perfection itself.”

It’s why Racette has almost zero interest in recording any of her signature roles.

“I did a little at the beginning of my career and I hated it. I’d rather have a root canal … To me that has nothing to do with music making or the art form. I want the audience’s energy, I don’t want to be there in that test tube of perfection. For me, it just took all the joy, all the magic out of it and I have no interest in it whatsoever.”

But what about legacy?

“You mean like in 50 years, Patricia who,” she says, with a hearty laugh.

Isn’t there a time and place to get it down just right?

“I guess so, but it’s not accurate. It never was accurate, it never will be accurate. That’s not the way we are. The excitement of live performance, both for the performer and the audience is that aspect, it’s live, it’s right now, you get that one chance at that note and, oh God, yes, that was fantastic, or ooh, ooh, that was a little bit off but, it involves the audience, it keeps them on that ride.”

Racette’s humble New Hampshire beginnings have been oft-noted. She calls her family and upbringing “not remotely” musical and “steeped in ignorance,” especially about opera. She grew up listening to Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer and as a self-taught guitarist started writing her own songs as “sort of a Joni Mitchell-type thing.”

She started taking a few voice lessons because she knew she’d need an audition tape for college. Though not classically steeped to any degree, she knew studying music in college would require exploring some of that. She envisioned either a guitar-and-clogs kind of singer/songwriter career or later, perhaps something jazzy like “a Manhattan Transfer-kind-of thing.”

Racette, now 46, calls her 18-year-old self, “Green — as green as they come.”

She cried for three days when her vocal teacher told her bread and butter would be in opera. Her raw vocal talent was just naturally best suited for it. She detested her salon piece (Handel’s “Oh Had I Jubal’s Lyre”) but sprawled out on her apartment floor listening to a record of Renata Scotto singing “Suor Angelica” ignited a passion within her. She laughs about it now.

“I had envisioned this rather simple, rather short sighted thing,” she says. “I didn’t know how to plan the life I have.”

In the operatic designations, Racette is a full, lyric soprano. She bristles slightly at too much emphasis on these categories as they can be confining. LGBT labels, though, don’t bother her at all.

“Oh, it’s very clear to me that I’m a lesbian,” she says. “I’m out and proud because the alternative is to be secretive and ashamed and I just can’t imagine behaving that way about the best thing in my life.”

Racette embraces her off-stage life and prides herself on wearing overalls, owning a toolbox and getting her hands dirty in construction projects, such as the Santa Fe house she and Clayton recently had finished.

“Oh are you kidding,” she says. “I’m on the roof and I’m checking things out, asking the questions. I’m very involved with that sort of thing. I’m very earthy in that way and very down to earth most of the time when I’m off the clock. No one can even imagine I do what I do. I’m never the leading lady then, I don’t have that hat on. It’s just not the sort of energy I have.”

And are lesbian opera divas anomalies?

“I think there are about 13 of us at last count,” she says. “But not all of them are out.”

And the men?

“Ehhh, it’s a pretty gay world,” she says.

She concludes her remarks with a knowing chuckle.

“A lot of the men singers are straight but yeah, most of my hair and makeup are my gays, which is as it should be I think.”

BOX INFO:

‘Tosca’

Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center

2700 F Street, N.W.

Tonight, Sunday matinee, Tuesday, Thursday and Sept. 23-24 performances remain (Natalia Ushakova sings the lead Sept. 23)

In Italian with English subtitles

$55

202-467-4600 or kennedy-center.org

‘The Real Inspector Hound’
by Tom Stoppard
Through May 29
8 p.m. Thursday-Friday
5 and 8 pm. Saturday
3 and 7 p.m. Sunday
Metro Stage
1201 N. Royal Street
Alexandria, VA
Tickets $45-$50
(students $25)
at 800-494-8497
or visit boxofficetickets.com

‘[title of show]’
music and lyrics by Jeff Bowen
book by Hunter Bell
Through May 14
8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday
3 p.m. Sunday
The Little Theatre of Alexandria
600 Wolfe Street
Alexandria, VA
Tickets $19-$22
at box office
or 703-683-0496
or visit thelittletheatre.com

From left, Sharon Grant (Heidi), Anne Marie Pinto (Susan), Josh Goldman (Hunter), Scott Harrison (Jeff), and Francine Krasowska (Pianist) in ‘Title of Show.’ (Photo by Shane Canfield; courtesy of Little Theatre of Alexandria)

A mysterious stranger, a murderer on the loose, bodies piling up at a remote manor house, the suspicion that one of the weekend guests must surely be the killer, the entrance of the savvy detective — Agatha Christie conventions ripe for the parody playwright Tom Stoppard brings to them in “The Real Inspector Hound.”

The early ‘60s-era play is on the boards now at Metro Stage in Old Town Alexandria through May 29. It’s a true giggle and so skillfully helmed by veteran director John Vreeke that it will keep you tingling on the edge of your seat in the intimate setting of Metro Stage, which has brought together three of the stars of an earlier play, “Heroes,” translated from the French original by Stoppard and staged there several years ago, where they won that year’s Helen Hayes Award for outstanding ensemble in a resident production.

Vreeke, a four-time best director Helen Hayes Awards nominee, directed that play also, which starred the same trio that, reunited here, glitters with bright wit as the conveyors of Stoppard’s ideas about police procedurals in murder mysteries, in “The Real Inspector Hound,” where nothing that is apparent is real and even the fourth wall of the stage, absent as the play opens, entirely dissolves half way through when all boundaries between actors and audience are broken into pieces.

In this play we immediately meet two theater critics sitting in other seats but facing us: Moon (Ralph Cosham) and Birdboot (Michael Tolaydo), the former afflicted with a huge inferiority complex as the second-string reviewer from his paper, and the latter a philanderer cheating on his wife with every ingenue he can bed after he gives her a swooning review.

Another actor is already on stage, but he is already dead, the corpse that, of course, never speaks but whose constant presence is somehow ignored by the actors in the play the two critics have come to review, a cast that includes the mysterious Major Magnus Muldoon — the crippled half-brother of the Lady of the Manor, glamorous vixen, Lady Cynthia Muldoon ((Emily Townley) — played by the third of the “Heroes” trio (John Dow).

Before long there are more corpses than just one on stage and Moon and Birdboot have gotten — literally, and fatally — into the act.

This same device of a play-within-a-play is also on stage across town in Old Town Alexandria at the Little Theatre of Alexandria, in the clever spoof of how to “put on a show.”

It’s about two would-be hit-makers who are actually “nobodies in New York” trying to write a musical, and the result is their musical about two guys trying to write a musical. Their 2006 one-act musical comedy, a hit Off-Broadway, Obie-winning there — “[title of show]” — moved briefly to Broadway in 2008 and has also spawned a national tour now under way and recent productions at Signature Theatre in Arlington and now at Little Theatre, a community theater with a professional skill set.

It’s called “[title of show]” because the two — real-life Jeff Bowen (music and lyrics) and Hunter Bell (book) — couldn’t think of another title when they were submitting a script with a few songs to win success in the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2004. Bowen and Bell, both gay, also played themselves in the show in its several incarnations including in the national tour that is set to close in July in California and then move to London’s West End later this year.

On stage at Little Theatre, there are only four characters: Bowen (here played ably by Scott Harrison, lawyer by day) and Bell (Josh Goldman, a graduate last year of the College of William and Mary, where for three years he performed with the college’s improv theatre team), and also their two real-life (at the time) best friends (not beards or girlfriends), Heidi (Sharon Grant) and Susan (Anne Marie Pinto).

All four perform superbly with great voices and comic sensibilities brought to a perfect storm of their four distinctive humors by director Michael Kharfen, first time at the helm of a Little Theatre play but previously seen there on stage in “Sleuth.”

Porn star Tiger Tyson (photo courtesy of James Earl Hardy)

The play “Confessions of a Homo Thug Porn Star,” based on the life of gay porn actor Tiger Tyson, will be performed Sunday at 4 p.m. at Lace (2214 Rhode Island Ave., N.E.). Doors open at 3:30. Tickets are $20 and will be available at the door.

This is author James Earl Hardy’s first play. He was struck by Tyson’s story during an interview and calls it a classic “rags-to-riches, American dream come true.” Tyson, who’s bi, dropped out of school and did jail time before delving into porn, where he’s become a sensation.

Tyson plans to attend this weekend’s performance and sign autographs. A question/answer session will be held after the performance, which stars gay actor Johnathan Cedano as Tyson.

A portion of the proceeds go to Al Sura, an HIV charity.

(photo courtesy of Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company)

Dance company Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company, a prominent local gay-helmed dance outfit with several awards to its credit, performs a trio of works tonight and Saturday at Marvin Theatre on the George Washington University campus (800 21st St., N.W.).

The program includes “Charlie Chan and the Mystery of Life,” a work the troupe premiered last year that drew rave reviews. Burgess calls it a “coming-of-age story about realizing I am gay.”

“It’s the first time I’ve created a work so personal and I’m very excited to share it with audiences,” he says.

“America’s Cloud” is a dance commissioned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art to interact with a visual installation by artist Spencer Finch. It’s set to songs by Civil War-era composer Stephen Foster.

Burgess is chair of the theater and dance department at George Washington University. He’s gay and all the male dancers in the company are as well. The company recently visited Mongolia where they performed and worked with dancers there in a tour sponsored by the U.S. Embassy of Mongolia and the U.S. State Department.

Tickets are $25 for general admission and $17 for students. Call 202-994-1660 for more information.

‘Magnificent Waste’
Through May 8
Factory 449: a theatre collective
Flashpoint’s Mead Theatre Lab
$20
916 G. Street, NW
866-811-4111
www.flashpointdc.org

For its third fully staged offering, Factory 449: a theatre collective is taking on the art world with a production of “Magnificent Waste,” playwright Caridad Svich’s polemic on excess and superficiality in our celebrity-driven culture.

Shock artist Lizzie B is very aggressive, professionally and personally. At her New York opening, she boldly propositions a well-heeled patron named Arden. While not interested in her, he does like the art she’s selling: an installation featuring a slim male in pink briefs and feather boa reclining on a floor of Good and Plenty candy boxes inside a brightly-lit cube. And that’s just fine with Lizzie — she’s happy so long as she’s closing a deal one way or another.

When not hawking her work, Lizzie (played as an anger-fueled survivor by Lisa Hodsoll) spends her off time downing vodka and pills with TV chat show host Bret (likable actor Tony Villa) and Mindy, an aging It girl (Sarah Strasser making her Factory 449 debut). A self-described but ill-defined ménage a trios, the symbiotic trio mostly uses one another to advance careers, score drugs and pass the time, all the while spewing endless babble punctuated by brief flashes of profundity.

On the sly, Lizzie begins a relationship with Arden (played appropriately weird by Stephen F. Schmidt) who collects beautiful-but-disposable things like cheap black lighters and unsettled young men. Initially the pair meets exclusively at a trendy oxygen bar until Arden eventually invites Lizzie to see her installation now in his Park Avenue apartment and have sex. Afterward, zombie-like Arden informs Lizzie that since he doesn’t like women, he entered her as if she were a man. She shoots him a slightly dirty look, but isn’t terribly fazed … most likely it’s nothing the jaded artist hasn’t heard before.

Peopled by unlikable, one-dimensional characters (whom the five-person cast mine with varying degrees of success), Svich’s mercenary New York scene feels familiar. Yes, the selling of an installation featuring a real live boy sparks debate, but the play otherwise retreads frequently travelled territory — soulless New York artists, the cult of celebrity and all that.

Slated to receive the John Aniello Award for outstanding emerging theatre company (along with co-recipient No Rules Theatre Company) at the Helen Hayes Award on Monday, Factory 449’s plays are interestingly staged and “Magnificent Waste” is no exception. Director John Moletress, who’s gay, envisions the intimate Mead Theatre Lab as an art gallery. In fact, when entering the space, audience members are encouraged to move among the art work (Lizzie’s installation and various projected anti-consumerism statements) before taking their seats. And like the collective’s previous works, video design — compliments of Jesse Achtenberg — plays an integral part in this production as well.

As the young man, James T. Majewski ultimately climbs out of his box and vividly relays his story. It seems he was in search of a place to crash when he met Lizzie at an art party. His need to be admired and adored made him an ideal fit for her latest installation; and, of course, cunning Lizzie was more than happy to encourage his longing to transform his life by connecting with the gods through art.  Before the party had even ended, she marked her new find with a Sharpie, rendering him — like everything else in the world Svich depicts — salable.

‘The Inspector’
A world-premiere opera based on Gogol’s play ‘The Inspector General.’ Music by John Musto, book and libretto by Mark Campbell. April 29 at 8 p.m. and May 1at 3 p.m.
Free one-hour talk at the Center for Education, next door to The Barns, an hour prior to each two-hour show.
The Barns at Wolf Trap
1645 Trap Rd., Vienna, VA
Tickets: $32-$72
877-965-3872/wolftrap.org

Mark Campbell (Blade photo by Michael Key)

Comedy is a different animal when it comes to opera.

That’s the experience of Mark Campbell, author of a new comic opera, “The Inspector,” that features his laugh-out-loud, incisive libretto matched perfectly to the expressive melodies in composer John Musto’s sophisticated-yet-fun style. It comes to the stage in its world premiere at The Barns at Wolf Trap on three nights beginning Wednesday.

Based on all advance indications, it will be another triumph for the veteran collaborators, Campbell and Musto, whose comic operas “Volpone” won major plaudits at Wolf Trap in 2004 and returned there for a successful reprise in 2007.

“We were their matchmakers,” Kim Witman, Wolf Trap Opera’s director, rightly boasts, about bringing the two together for “Volpone,” and she admits that “anytime you do that, you just don’t know at the beginning what’s going to work or not.”

This combo worked so well, says Witman, “that we’ll take the credit” for making it happen. About “The Inspector,” she says, “They both have an approach to this work that is modern in feeling, not as in avant-garde” — which in opera can be cold and remote — “but that hits the sweet spot.”

“The Inspector,” an update of the 1836 classic tongue-in-cheek satirical play by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol,  ”intersects as music and words,” she says, “with its own spin on our contemporary world, because this is not about high art, but they each set out to entertain.”

What’s great about the two, she adds, is that “they use actual English words and the same syntax you would use if you spoke to someone on the street, so it doesn’t feel theatrical, it just sounds familiar,” in Campbell’s way with words and Musto’s melodic punctuation.

Witman, an old hand at making opera come alive for new audiences, admits that “We’re hampered by the fact that we are called opera,” but she stresses, “in many ways ‘The Inspector’ is really musical theater. It’s simply that it’s sung by people with operatically trained and expressive voices, without microphones.” She points out that on Broadway, singers’ voices are amplified, but not in opera. “That’s what makes it opera,” but with “The Inspector,” she says, “in everything else it could just as easily be musical theater.”

Opera is alienating to some, she says.

“Many people won’t come out to anything called opera, because they think they’ll feel stupid or that it’s stupid because they can’t understand it. It’s because of the trappings of opera, the exaggerated posturing, that people stay away, and because it’s in another language, so people think ‘I won’t understand it,’ and because they think it’s going to be five hours long.”

But “The Inspector” is sung in English, with constant wisecracks, and she says, “is very fast,” clocking in at just two hours long.

Campbell — who is gay, and openly declares, “I’m single and available for marriage, unfortunately not yet in New York (he lives in New York City), but in D.C.” — says that he and Musto “were told to write a comedy because they (Wolf Trap) loved ‘Volpone,’” which was based on the English play of that name (in Italian it means “sly fox”) written by Ben Jonson and first produced in 1606.

Musto is Italian — half Sicilian and half Neapolitan — so Campbell says that when they put their heads together they soon decided to revamp and relocate the classic Gogol comedy, set in Tsarist Russia, to Mussolini-era Italy, and instead of Russian-flavored music, Campbell says it is very Italian in flavor, with tarantellas, those Italian folk dances with fast upbeat tempos, not cossack-style dances.

“The composer must help make the opera funny,” and all of Musto’s music, says Campbell, is created to make sure that the comedy of the libretto — the words — lands with flair and funny impact.

This is their fourth opera together. Three are comedies, and the fourth, says Campbell, has comic elements — “Later The Same Evening,” based on the paintings of American artist Edward Hopper.

“When it comes to comedy, we know how to do this,” he says.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

“It’s harder to do than drama, because it must do the same thing that drama does, create clear characters who want something, the same thing as when you tell any story, but it must also be funny.”

Campbell says that “you’d have to ask my friends if I’m funny” but that he thinks that he’s “actually a pretty miserable person, as are most people who have a comic bent, because at the core of their heart is something that’s pretty dark.”

Soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird, who sings the role of the mayor’s daughter, Beatrice, in “The Inspector,” agrees.   She has worked with Campbell before, in the 2007 revival of “Volpone,” when she also sang on the cast recording of it which was nominated for a Grammy.

“He’s very friendly,” she says, “but at the same time he’s very private, and a lot of artists are like that.”

“We know how to bond with people, but we save ourselves for a few people and put the rest into our art,” so she says that “you get to know more about Mark by reading his work than by spending time with him in a casual setting.”

And “The Inspector” is funny, albeit set in a dark time, in late 1920s Sicily, when the new Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, the fascist leader, or “Il Duce,” decided to try to clean up the inbred corruption on the island with its Mafia-style gangs that ruled in politics and society with a heavy hand of thuggery and thievery.

“His ego had been hurt,” says Campbell, who spent a long time researching the history of the period, “so he sent in his own inspectors — called “prefetti,” or prefects — to clean up the corruption in local power centers on the island. So the scene is set for the village (imaginary but based on his research) of Santa Schifezza, whose local mayor’s rule is both criminal and unchallenged, until someone the mayor (Fazzobaldi) believes to be Mussolini’s inspector arrives.

Tancredi, this mysterious stranger, traveling with his manservant Cosimo — exceedingly smart, acerbic even, and definitely more pragmatic than his “master” — arrive just as the citizens of Santa Schifezza have gathered to rehearse the town’s new anthem — which is so bad it’s utterly funny — for the next day, Municipal Mayor Day, a day Mayor Fazzobaldi has instituted in honor of himself.

But the mayor has been informed that an inspector from Rome will soon arrive, incognito, and put at risk the entire way of life, based on corruption, he has worked so hard to keep going. When the goofy twins, Bobachina and Bobachino, who run the post office, stumble in with the news that they have spotted a new arrival at the inn, and that he is tall, eloquent, elegant — and blond — the mayor immediately jumps to the conclusion that he must be the anticipated inspector.

“Comedy as a form of theater is different from humor,” says Campbell, born in D.C. and a Maryland resident until age 12. “In opera it’s usually found,” he says, “when characters are so obsessed with something — with greed or in the case also with abuse of power — that audiences don’t find it sad but funny.”

But he says his own favorite moments in comic operas are the sad or tragic moments, such as in the character of Figaro from the Beaumarchais play which formed the basis for Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro” and Rossini’s opera “The Barber of Seville.”

“I have done my job,” Campbell says, “if I have first seduced people with the jokes and then pull a 180-degree turn and stop them dead in their tracks, surprising them with an incredibly sad moment. Opera allows you to do that, and in many other art forms you just can’t do this so efficiently, because it has music which allows you to cut to the chase faster than with mere language.”

Campbell, who wrote the funny lyrics to the musical “And The Curtain Rises,” which just closed its world-premiere run at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, has also just come from Norfolk, Va., where the Virginia Opera premiered this month his musical theater piece based on a Civil War theme, “Rappahanock County,” in collaboration with the composer Ricky Ian Gordon, who is also gay and whose own musical “Sycamores” premiered last year at Signature Theatre.

Campbell is philosophical about being single, having been, he says, “in several long-term relationships, which were fairly happy ones, but I am not someone who believes in love forever, because people change and can evolve into a relationship and then evolve out of it.”

Three of his former partners “are now among my best friends,” he says. “If you love someone, you want them to be happy, and if you’re truly invested with someone it’s just a matter of reformatting the relationship.” But he’s also realistic — because first “you must get past the awkwardness of the first couple of years and the first new boyfriends.”

Could a comic opera on the subject be far behind?

‘King Lear’
Through April 24
Synetic Theater
At Landsburgh Theatre, 450 7th St, NW
$40-$55
202-547-1122
synetictheater.org

The kingdom is a sandy strip of beach backed by bombed out buildings, and its aging monarch and his vicious court are all clowns.

For his latest installment in the company’s “Silent Shakespeare” series, Synetic Theater’s artistic director Paata Tsikurishvili reframes the bard’s tragedy “King Lear” as a tragic farce whose characters look as if they might be on loan from an especially spooky circus. Instead of wearing red rubber noses, they paint on dark circles and a deathly white pallor.

Greg Anderson as the King of France and Chris Dinolfo as gay son Cordelio in Synetic Theater’s current production of ‘King Lear.’ (Photo by Graeme B. Shaw, courtesy of Synetic)

Without a sound (other than a moody musical score and a few grunts, groans and screeches), the terrifically talented ensemble anchored by Irakli Kavsadze as Lear relies on nonstop, dynamic movement and mute but potent acting to retell the story of the old king who loses his mind after dividing his kingdom between two of his three daughters, foolishly basing the division on just how far they will go in flattering him. The words aren’t missed.

Staged by Tsikurishvili and choreographed by his wife Irina (who does double duty as Lear’s most savage offspring Regan) the cohesive, well-oiled production lucidly unfolds. Reading the synopsis prior to show time is helpful, but truly there isn’t a confusing or clunky moment in the 95-minute, quickly paced show. As always, Synetic ingeniously replaces text with action. For instance, rather than flatter Lear with flowery speech, Regan and her sister Goneril (the wonderfully deadpan Ira Koval) compete for their father’s favor by battling it out in a manic dance off.

The sisterly duo is a truly evil but entertaining pair. Styled like a punk schoolgirl crossed with a demented Raggedy Ann, Regan is a smirking, coke-snorting little monster. Though smoother, Goneril with her outsized eyes and down-turned mouth is no less malignant. And the sisters’ mutual love interest Edmund (played with a devilish athleticism by gay Synetic vet Philip Fletcher) proves equally ruthless in his pursuit of wealth and power.

Prolonged battle scenes give some of the cast an opportunity to show off their massive tumbling skills. Ben Cunis as Edgar leads them in incredible daring leaps and acrobatic feats. Dallas Tolentino does a wonderful sprinting in place bit where he appears to be flying through the forest hurdling fallen trees and spring boarding from rocks. His gravity-defying vertical leaps are simply incredible.

Now and then, Synetic takes liberties with its source materials. In this adaptation, Lear’s only honest daughter Cordelia is replaced by a good gay son — Cordelio (perfectly played by Chris Dinolfo in a tiny dunce cap and tight pants). After his sisters spy him in a hot clinch with his boyfriend, they out their brother (by painting his lips bright red and making him wear women’s rhinestone earrings) in front of the king. Lear reacts badly, disinheriting and banishing his only son. Eventually Cordelio reunites with his father, but in typical old school fashion the gay character bites the dust, not by his own hand but swinging from a noose nonetheless.

The show is beautiful. Synetic’s stellar design team have come together to create a haunting, splendidly conceived production. In the director’s notes, Tsikurishvilli cites filmmaker Federico Fellini as his inspiration for using clowns “to color an absurd world,” but the set, costumes and general feel indicate other influences including Tim Burton films and Picasso’s saltimbanque paintings. Scene after scene, the audience is bombarded with enduring tableaus. Whether it’s the defeated sad clown Lear chasing after a fluttering butterfly or the evening’s final moment when cast members stand in half light with colorful balloons tethered to their necks, these images aren’t soon forgotten.