Theater
McNally, Fierstein, Lypsinka to light up spring theatrical season
With spring comes a deluge of promising new productions, many of special interest to LGBT theater-goers. Here’s a sampling.
Gay playwright Terrence McNally is a lifelong opera devotee who has lovingly infused opera themes, characters, lore and trivia into some of his best plays. In honor of the multiple Tony Award-winning playwright’s passion, the Kennedy Center (www.kennedy-center.org) presents “Terrence McNally’s Nights at the Opera,” a five-week celebration featuring three of the playwright’s most opera-centric works, through April 18.
The mini-festival kicks off with McNally’s new backstage drama, “Golden Age” (through April 4). According to press notes, “Golden Age takes place backstage at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris on the evening of Jan. 24, 1835. The occasion is the premiere of Vincenzo Bellini’s opera “I Puritani.” Assembled are the composer and his faithful friend, Francesco Florimo, and the four singers for whom the opera was expressly composed known the world over as the Puritani Quartet. Bellini’s rivalry with his fellow Italian composer, Gaetano Donizetti, for French favor was at its height. This opera was to cement his supremacy. It was to be his last.” The production features Broadway’s Marc Kudisch and out actor Jeffery Carlson as Bellini. A talented stage veteran, Carlson is also known for his role as transgender Zarf/Zoe on the daytime soap “All My Children.”
Next up is McNally’s “The Lisbon Traviata” (March 20 through April 11) — a tragicomedy about opera obsession featuring longtime gay best friends and opera buffs played by celebrated out actors Malcolm Gets and John Glover. The McNally salute closes with Tyne Daly as Maria Callas in “Master Class” (March 25 to April 18), the terrific Tony-award winning play concerning la Callas and the classes she taught at Julliard. Daly, who garnered awards for playing TV detective Mary Beth Lacey and Mama Rose on Broadway, seems an improbable choice to assay the imperious diva. But considering both ladies’ known flair for the dramatic, it just might be a case of perfect casting.
Gayer theatergoers with deep pockets might like the Kennedy Center’s Spring Gala (May 2) in honor of the center’s founding chairman Roger L. Stevens, co-hosted by Liza Minnelli and gravelly-voiced gay actor Harvey Fierstein who will already be in town performing Tevye the milkman in “Fiddler on the Roof” (April 13 to May 19) at the National Theatre (www.nationaltheatre.org).
Through March 21, you can still catch “Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?” at Theatre J (www.washingtondcjcc.org). In his engaging one-man show, Josh Kornbluth explores his relationship to gay artist Andy Warhol’s controversial portraits of 10 world famous Jews including lesbian writer Gertrude Stein. Coming up in May at Theatre J, out actor Sarah Marshall takes the plunge in Theatre J’s production “Mikveh” (May 5 through June 5). With an all-female cast, Hadar Galron’s play takes audiences inside the secretive world of the ritual bath practiced by Orthodox Jewish women and explores the feminist consciousness and evolving role of women in contemporary Israel.
In April, Signature Theatre (www.signature-theatre.org) presents the Washington-area premiere of “[title of show]” (April 6 through June 27), a musical by then-struggling writers about struggling writers writing a musical. Written and composed by a pair of gay southerners, Hunter Bell (book) and Jeff Bowen (music and lyrics), the wittily titled work is directed by Matthew Gardiner and features a young cast including two talented Helen Hayes Award-winning actors Erin Driscoll and Jenna Sokolowski.
Also in April, Ganymede Arts’ Jeffrey Johnson plans to slip into a dress and heels on at least three separate occasions. First on April 15, he’s scheduled to unleash his pink-haired alter ego Galactica for a free evening of song and sweets at ACKC, the cocoa bar café on 14th Street. Next, Johnson reprises his portrayal of Jackie O’s kookiest cousin in “Edie Beale Live at Reno Sweeney” for two nights (April 29-30) at Cobalt before taking the act to Joe’s Pub in Manhattan.
Ganymede (www.ganymedearts.org) is also mounting a production of “Naked Boys Singing” (May 7 through June 13) at the very intimate Playbill Café. The title says it all. This lighthearted revue whose casting is definitely crucial to its success features undressed men and a score that includes numbers like “Muscle Addiction” and “Perky Little Porn Star.”
The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s (www.shakespearetheatre.org) gay artistic director Michael Kahn is staging playwright David Ives’ adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s classic French farce “The Liar” (April 6 through May 23), and the company is also presenting George Bernhard Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” (June 8 through July 11), an amusing look at social problems of his day starring “Designing Women’s” Dixie Carter as the title character, an aging hooker.
Gay director/actor Jay Hardee is staging Washington Shakespeare Company’s production of “Every Young Woman’s Desire” (May 20 through June 20) at the funky Clark Street Playhouse in Arlington. The company describes the show as “a darkly comic psychological thriller first produced in Santiago in the final years of Pinochet’s authoritarian rule, [it’s] about a woman’s struggle with a mysterious and dangerous intruder and goes to the heart of the brutal dictatorship’s mechanisms for control: terror, seduction and security.“
On Mondays throughout May at Church Street Theatre, Factory 449 (www.factory449.com) inaugurates its annual play reading series, “Factory Made.” The plays – all of which under consideration for full productions in the company’s upcoming seasons – include “In the Flesh,” (May 3) a prison-set nightmare adapted from a short story by gay horror write and filmmaker Clive Barker; and “Wig Out!” (May 24), a dramatic foray into the compelling and fiercely competitive subculture of drag balls penned by gay playwright Tarrell Alvin McCraney’s (“In the Red and Brown Water,” “The Brothers Size”).
At the Studio Theatre (www.studiotheatre.org), John Epperson’s now-legendary drag creation Lypsinka takes on James Kirkwood’s campy saga of two aging divas desperate to revive their fading careers in “Lypsinka in Legends!” (June 16 through July 4). With her unique blend of artistry and postmodern genius, the undisputed queen of sync will no doubt breathe new life into Kirkwood’s rickety vehicle. First performed by Mary Martin and Carol Channing in the mid-’80s, “Legends” was revived three years ago with Joan Collins and former “Dynasty” co-star Linda Evans in a multi-city tour that included D.C.
Be sure to catch “Clybourne Park” at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (woollymammoth.net) through April 11. The play is a powerful take on race and gentrification in 1950s Chicago. And when that wraps, “Gruesome Playground Injuries” debuts May 17 and runs through June 13. It’s the story of the relationship between two boys who meet at age 8 in the nurse’s office and then grow up, enduring heartache and raising the question of how far one friend can go in helping another.
And if you’re in the mood for a bit of musical comedy fused with political satire, check out “Dancing with the Czars” from Hexagon 2010 (hexagon.org), a charitable non-profit staging this show through April 10 at the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Performing Arts Center (7995 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD).
Theater
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with one of these three plays
‘Waitress,’ ‘Love Birds,’ ‘Fuenteovejuna’ offer differing takes on love

For theatergoers seeking to mark Valentine’s Day with live music, love, and friendship, the DMV offers some new spins on traditional themes.
Poised to make its regional debut at Olney Theatre Center, Sara Bareilles’s hit musical “Waitress” (Feb.13-March 30) may not seem like a usual love story, but it’s a love story nonetheless.
“It’s about learning to love and value yourself,” says MALINDA who plays Jenna, the show’s titular server/baker with aspirations to bake prize-winning pies and change her life. “It’s also about sisterhood. From the start, the women involved in the show decided to be there for each other onstage and off, and it shows. For anyone with girl group love in their lives, this is an especially good show to see.
“Jenna doesn’t get a lot of satisfaction out of her primary partnership. Along with self-love she explores the antithesis of that — partner violence. Our director [Marcia Milgrom Dodge] took the lesson of community support and community love to heart.”
Prior to coming out as bisexual in 2022, MALINDA considered herself more of a “quiet queer.” However, the inspiration derived from Irish music (“music of the oppressed”), which she’s famed for singing on TikTok, compelled her to go public.
She didn’t always believe her queerness to be special: “For me,” MALINDA says, “it was like saying my eyes are hazel. There wasn’t much to celebrate. But then I realized there were missing voices in my community. Felt like the right thing to do, and it’s been one of the great blessings of my life.”
Six years ago, after her Helen Hayes Award-winning turn in “Once,” MALINDA took a break from musical theater. She needed time to age into dream parts, and one of those roles was Jenna. She recalls, “Going back to theater was prominently featured on my vision board, so when Marcia asked me to commit to ‘Waitress,’ I happily agreed.”
For her, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to reach out and tell friends, family, and, of course, romantic partners, just how much you love them.
And she adds “that’s exactly how I plan to celebrate.”
D.C.’s delightful Holly Twyford is spending Valentine’s Day working at the Folger on Capitol Hill. She’ll be on stage, her wife will be in the audience, and depending on the length of the program, they’ll go out to dinner afterward.
For four performances, the multi-Helen Hayes award-winning actor is serving as narrator for “The Love Birds” (Feb. 14-16), a new Folger Consort work that blends medieval music with a world-premiere composition by acclaimed composer Juri Seo and readings from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “A Parlement of Foules” by Twyford.
Standing behind a podium, she’ll read Chaucer’s words (translated from Middle English and backed by projected slides in the original language), alternating with music played on old and new instruments.
“The new music is kind of dissonant with the sounds of birdcalls and nature sounds, painting a picture of what’s going on in Chaucer’s poem that’s beautiful and funny. Chaucer describes the male eagles pleading for the hand of the female eagle. Chaucer seems almost unwittingly feminist when he has the female eagle ask her eagle suitors to give her a year to think about it.”
GALA Hispanic Theatre in Columbia Heights presents “Fuenteovejuna” (through March 2), a timely production staged by out director José Luis Arelleno. Penned in 1613, this work from the Spanish Golden Age ranks among playwright Lope de Vega’s most performed plays.
It’s about tyranny and love, Arellano explains. Within Lope de Vega’s timely tale of brutish power lies an intense love story. In fact, at the top of the show, four characters, two males and two females play a game. What is love? One of the players asserts that love doesn’t exist, while the others disagree. It’s a charming way to kick off the play.
The celebrated director isn’t one to telegraph messages, preferring audiences think for themselves. That said, he does, of course, make strong directorial choices: “If I have to choose between love or war, it’s more important to talk about love. For me, it’s a revolution.”
And apropos of a Valentine’s Day date, GALA’s production of “Fuenteovejuna” (performed in Spanish with English surtitles) is imbued with live music and verse, an important part of any romantic experience, adds David Peralto, the production’s poetry and verse consultant as well as Arellano’s longtime partner.
The busy Spain-based couple will celebrate Valentine’s Day in Seville and couldn’t be happier. Arellano describes Seville as the most romantic city in the world.
Theater
Broadway vet Ashley Blanchet tackles ‘Bedwetter’ at Arena
Sarah Silverman memoir a funny, poignant story of struggling with depression

‘The Bedwetter’
Feb. 4-March 16
Arena Stage
1101 6th St., S.W.
$69-$119
Arenastage.org
Skilled and experienced at comedy and drama, Broadway vet Ashley Blanchet says there’s a big difference between the two. She explains, “Comedy is right or wrong, you nail it or you don’t; whereas with drama there’s room for subjectivity. Because I started out as a dancer, being able to hit the mark makes a lot of sense to me. There’s a lot of rhythm to comedy.”
Currently Blanchet is eliciting laughs as Miss New Hampshire in “The Bedwetter” at Arena Stage. A musical based on comedian Sarah Silverman’s bestselling memoir, it’s the funny yet poignant story of a hairy 10-year-old girl’s struggle with clinical depression and bedwetting.
Blanchet’s Miss New Hampshire is a kind of fairy godmother character.
“Most of the time I’m in Sarah’s head. She first sees me on TV in Miss America, and soon I start talking to her.”
By the end of the piece, Sarah learns that Miss New Hampshire is also a bedwetter. Subsequently, the future comedian turns her weaknesses into strengths, taking her depression and bedwetting and using it to fuel her creativity and eventual career.
This isn’t Blanchet’s first time as Miss New Hampshire. She initially auditioned in 2019 and eventually created the role off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company in 2022.
She recalls going into the audition mostly cold. Only knowing that Miss New Hampshire is a pageant girl who unwittingly says some funny things, she partly fashioned her on Kristin Chenoweth’s ditzy Glinda in “Wicked.”
“Sarah [Silverman] and the show’s director Anne Kauffman, were laughing. I thought they were just being polite. Turns out, they really liked what I did.”
Although Blanchet, 37, doesn’t claim a personal connection to bedwetting, she can relate to the depression described in the show. Like Sarah, she had a difficult time transitioning into her teenage years. In fact, she credits theater with saving her life.
At 14, Blanchet left home to attend Walnut Hill School, a private performing arts high school in Massachusetts. From there, she moved on to University of Michigan, a great preparatory place for theater, she says. After graduating with a BFA, she went straight to New York where she made her Broadway debut as part of the ensemble in “Memphis.” Soon she began progressing to parts with words and songs.
Because so many musicals thematically touch on being different, Blanchet says bisexuality helps in her work.
“I’ve always felt a little bit of an outsider, so the concept of acceptance and learning to love yourself found in ‘The Bedwetter’ is something I can relate to from both a queer perspective and from being Black. As I get older, I’m increasingly grateful to be who I am.”
Going into college, Blanchet assumed she was straight, but after becoming exceptionally fond of a female friend, growing excited whenever they made plans to hang out, it became clear to her that her feelings were romantic. They were together for three years.
“Being bisexual, there wasn’t like a community waiting for me despite there being many bi people. I didn’t have what my gay guy friends seemed to find. For me, sexual attraction is more about energy than body parts. Coming to own that and be proud of it was a journey and is relatable to different situations including acting.”
Blanchet has played Elsa in “Frozen” on Broadway. She was the also the first Black actor to play the title role in “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella” at Paper Mill Playhouse, a well-known regional theater in New Jersey. And Blanchet very happily led the cast as Maria in “The Sound of Music,” also at Paper Mill.
“These are parts that I never knew I’d do it. That’s kind of what it’s like to be Black in this business,” she says.
Scheduled to be in D.C. at Arena this winter, “The Bedwetter” cast assumed they’d be in for a wild time no matter how the election played out. They weren’t wrong. Fortunately for Blanchet, she’s immersed in her work and comfortably sharing digs with her big, beloved mixed-breed dog Cosmo.
Returning to the show, a Broadway-bound production, is proving an exciting challenge. “I’m like, ‘what did a I do last time? What made this joke work?’ I can’t remember,” she says laughing. “But it’s always good to return to the show, making tweaks and changes. I’m always trying to do anything I can to improve my performance.”
Theater
‘Downstate’ follows plight of four registered sex offenders
What happens after prison when you can’t escape taint of wrongdoing

‘Downstate’
Through Feb. 16
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$50-$102
Studiotheatre.org
Crime and punishment are up for discussion at Studio Theatre. In Bruce Norris’s challenging work “Downstate,” the provocative playwright explores the circumstances of those who’ve done their time but can’t seem to escape the taint of the wrongdoing.
Set in a tidy, no-frills group house somewhere south of the Chicago metropolitan area, “Downstate” gives us four disparate housemates with one thing in common: they’re all registered sex offenders.
Here, the men live. They wear ankle monitors and follow proscribed and increasingly stringent rules about where they can buy groceries and catch buses. What’s more, there’s the serious harassment from belligerent neighbors who are privy to their pasts.
We’re first introduced to Fred (Dan Daily), a former piano instructor. The snowy haired, avuncular resident who uses a mobility scooter and peppers sentences with “golly gee” and “gosh,” couldn’t seem more harmless. But Fred has a past.
And today, Fred also has guests. Andy (Tim Getman), a polite, fortyish financial planner, and his wife Em (Emily Kester), a not particularly Zen yoga instructor, who have traveled from Chicago.
It’s not a social call. Andy has come with a well-thought strategy on how to calmly confront the man who sexually assaulted him on a piano bench when he was 12. Since that day, Andy’s life has been plagued with anxiety and depression; he hopes to put some closure on the past.
Interruptions ensue. There are calls from the couple’s son at a nearby hotel who’s eagerly awaiting a promised trip to a water park. At the house, other residents mill about, sometimes queuing up to use the modest home’s one bathroom. Soon, Fred’s visitors leave, wholly dissatisfied.
Each of the ex-convicts’ stories are imbued with denial. Gio (Jaysen Wright) is an angry guy who quotes scripture, works out, and relies on cringy Eddie Haskell manners. Because Gio did time for statutory rape with an underage female he feels less deviant than his housemates Fred; withdrawn Felix (Richard Ruiz Henry), who sexually assaulted his very young daughter; and Diana Ross-adoring, comfortably queer Dee (Stephen Conrad Moore) who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy when he was 37 and after serving 15 years in prison continues to describe their connection as a loving relationship.
Eventually, Andy returns without his wife and engages with Fred. Emotions run hot. (Here, fight choreographer Robb Hunter’s knowhow goes on full display.)
Playwright Norris, whose other works include “Clybourne Park,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2011), cunningly delves into revenge, guilt, and mercy through both the residents themselves and other characters including visiting probation officer Ivy (Kelli Blackwell) who shows an unyielding toughness with the occasional flash of sympathy, and Effie (Irene Hamiliton), Gio’s lively young co-worker at Staples.
“Downstate” moves swiftly and is never dull. The dialogue rings true, and Norris is master of the shifting tone.
Perceptively helmed by director David Muse, the design team creates the perfect place for this difficult story to unfold. Set designer Alexander Woodward serves up a house with several mostly unseen bedrooms, a dated paneled common area, and smallish galley kitchen, all with furnishings culled mostly from thrift stores and yard sales. There are necessary details like a busy group bulletin board, Gio’s weight bench, and Fred’s keyboard, a scarily broken front window, and an ominous baseball bat leaning near the front door.
The space is persuasively lit by lighting designer Stacey Derosier, creating different moods, atmospheres, and, most memorably, an early morning light flooding in from the surrounding outside world.
In his director’s note, Muse writes “I hope this is the kind of play that stays with you after you leave.” In this, he certainly succeeds.
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