Theater
The path of Kahn
Keeper of the classics celebrates 25 years directing theater in D.C.
Michael Kahn has a long reputation of making classical theater accessible to contemporary audiences. He’s celebrating 25 years in town this month. A party is planned for October. (Blade photos by Michael Key)
When Michael Kahn came to Washington in 1986, he intended to stay for two years tops. The plan was to share his theater expertise for a while and then get back to his life in New York and continue teaching and staging plays and operas.
But luckily for local theatergoers, things played out very differently. Instead, Kahn remained in town as artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater Company (STC) where he’s currently gearing up for the classical troupe’s 25th anniversary season.
Seated at a long conference table in STC’s busy administration offices on Capitol Hill, Kahn explains how he initially came to D.C. to help save the then-failing Folger Theatre and stayed on when he was named artistic director of a newly created Shakespeare Theatre at the Folger. Later he orchestrated the Shakespeare Theatre’s move to the larger Landsburgh location, adopted the STC name and more recently helped to expand the company’s home with the grand 775-seat Sidney Harman Hall.
“I took the job happily but not for a moment along the way did I think I was in for the long haul,” says Kahn, who is gay. “I’d think about leaving but then something interesting would always come up — an expanded season, the educational program, the STC Free-For-All [a terrific Washington tradition that annually offers free performances of a Shakespearean classic to the general public] and, or course, I’m glad I stuck around.”
Over the years, Kahn has successfully pursued STC’s core mission of doing classic theater “in an accessible, skillful, imaginative, American style that honors playwrights’ language and intentions while viewing their plays through a 21st-century lens.” In doing so, he’s created arguably the nation’s premier classical company and emerged as one of America’s foremost directors of Shakespeare.
Kahn alone selects the STC’s titles and directors. For the upcoming milestone season that kicks off in late August, Kahn wants to make things a little special. In addition to seven plays (a mix of dramas and comedies), he plans to celebrate the Bard with a pair of musicals performed in concert-style staging: Rodgers and Hart’s “The Boys from Syracuse,” a late-1930s swing version of “The Comedy of Errors;” and John Guare’s rock opera “Two Gentlemen of Verona.”
As a special anniversary treat to himself, Kahn will direct Eugene O’Neil’s “Strange Interlude,” a famously difficult play about love and deception that he’s longed to stage for years. He also plans to work with some of his favorite actors (many of whom can’t be named until contracts are signed), as well as two former STC associate directors who’ve made good outside of the nest – P.J. Paparelli (artistic director of Chicago’s American Theater Company since 2007) and successful New York-based freelance director Ethan McSweeny — who’ll stage “The Two Gentlemen From Verona” (the original non-musical) and “Much Ado About Nothing,” respectively.
D.C. native McSweeny met Kahn while still a secondary student at St. Albans School. He invited the director to speak to his drama club and Kahn agreed. During college and after, he interned with Kahn at STC, and at just 22, he was named the company’s resident assistant director.
“My four years at STC were graduate school for me,” McSweeny says. “I think directing is a craft that’s learned from watching a master craftsman like Michael in action. He doesn’t dictate. He just does it.
“Michael is also a tough teacher. With him, you’ve got to bring your A game,” McSweeny adds. “We alums of Kahn all maintain high standards — we inherited that from Michael. But in addition to the stick there’s the carrot: Michael can be a torrent of creative passion and it’s thrilling to be in the vortex with him.”
The school of Kahn isn’t reserved exclusively for promising directors. Actors have benefited as well. Via phone from New York, Veanne Cox, a delightful, versatile actor who rapidly has become an STC regular, recounts how six or so years ago Kahn happened to catch her playing the very dramatic part of a woman dying from cancer, and afterward matter-of-factly commented that she was made for Restoration Comedy. The story still makes Cox laugh, and she is quick to add that soon after Kahn cast her in STC’s production of the classic comedy “The Beaux Stratagem” and changed her life.
“Prior to knowing Michael I’d done very little classical theater,” Cox — who memorably appeared as the heckler in a “Seinfeld” episode — says. “Because of him, my career is flourishing in new ways. My best work experiences have been at STC, better than Broadway and off-Broadway. [In the fall, Cox is slated to return to STC as Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing.”] The actors are exquisite to work with, and D.C. audiences are better educated than New York audiences about the works. Because of Michael, they understand language and themes. He has trained them how to appreciate and understand classical theater.”
STC is not Kahn’s first act, far from it. He began his career in New York in the ‘60s, directing for gay playwright Edward Albee and Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park. His Broadway successes include revivals of “Showboat,” “The Royal Family” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (starring a young and gorgeous Elizabeth Ashley). He’s also earned excellent reviews staging opera and regional theater. Before coming to Washington, he was artistic director for the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Conn.; producing director for the McCarter Theatre; and founder and head of The Chautauqua Conservatory Theater. In addition, Kahn maintained a parallel career as an educator, commuting to Manhattan as head of the Drama Division of New York’s prestigious Juilliard School until 2006. He has won multiple Helen Hayes Awards for his STC work, and is frequently honored by the LGBT community.
Repeatedly, Kahn’s skills and impressive vitae have and continue to lure well-known actors like Elizabeth Ashley, Stacy Keach, Kelly McGillis and the late Dixie Carter to STC. He enjoys working with big names. Usually, Kahn says, big names become famous because they’re good.
“Well, not always,” he backtracks. “Anyone who waits in line at a supermarket can’t help but know Kim Kardashian, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be working with her any time soon.”
Growing up in Brooklyn as an only child with “all the vices and problems that that entails,” Khan was just 5 when his Russian immigrant mother introduced him to the works of Shakespeare. He attended High School for the Performing Arts and went on to Columbia University where he directed plays for the French club (a pre-famous Andy Warhol designed the set for one of the productions). Kahn came out early. He never struggled with his sexual orientation, only unrequited love. As a young man he carried an unreciprocated torch for gay playwright Terrence McNally. He outed himself to the Washington Post in 1986 and believes a lot of conservative society’s problems with the arts is, in fact, subterranean homophobia. Lately he’s come to the conclusion that good direction requires sensitivity, and whether it comes from a gay or straight person makes little difference.
Kahn says it’s possible to have a relationship despite an all-consuming professional life, but you pay a price: “With me here and Frank [Donnelly, Kahn’s late, longtime partner] in New York, we were often apart. I wasn’t there when he died.” A psychotherapist, Donnelly died in his sleep shortly after 9-11. He’d spent his last days counseling those who had lost loved ones in the World Trade Center collapse.
When asked if he’s in a relationship now, Kahn replies playfully, “Yes, at least that’s what it says on Facebook.”
And does he miss working in New York?
“I could never do in New York what I do here,” he says. “I’d be in a 200-seat theater with a much smaller budget. They’re just not interested in lesser known shows like Musset’s ‘Lorenzaccio” from our [2005] season, or David Ives’ adaptation of Regnard’s 1706 masterpiece ‘The Heir Apparent’ that we’re doing in the fall.”
Highfalutin legacy talk isn’t Kahn’s style; however, he will say that he “really wants to make sure the theater is in a good financial position so anyone who wants to take over [his] job will also want to stay.” But for today, Kahn continues doing what he does best — thinking of ways to bring more high quality, classical theater to Washington.
Theater
D.C. summer theater offers something for every taste
From family fare to ‘Brontë Sister House Party’
Staycation doesn’t preclude time travel.
For instance, Happenstance Theater’s production of “Adrift: A Medieval Wayward Folly” now playing at Round House Theatre in Bethesda invites audiences to go somewhere familiar but far from home.
A timely piece of theater, “Adrift” takes place shortly after an apocalypse, prompting a group of seafaring fools to ask “What do we do now?”
What ensues is a gorgeously lit glimpse into the dark ages bursting with slapstick comedy and high art. Characters and mise-en-scène are inspired by the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, and archetypes from the Tarot. Bosch’s surreal heaven and hellscapes are brought to life with music, devised and existing text, puppetry, and movement.
Sabrina Mandell, Happenstance’s charming co-artistic director and bona fide “visionary tornado” describes Happenstance, now marking its twentieth anniversary season, as small and agile, more interested in sustainability than growth. “It’s served us well. Our goal has never been to own a building,” she adds.
Over the years, the company has fostered an ensemble (Mandell, co-artistic director Mark Jaster, Gwen Grastorf, Sarah Olmsted Thomas, and Alex Vernon), an immensely creative team. In addition to performing, each member contributes in various ways: puppet making, social media, props, etc.
They play off each other endlessly. (“Sort of like the Carol Burnett Show only different?” I ask. “Exactly.” she agrees. They’ve been through a lot and have formed common vocabulary. Nostalgia buffs, they enjoy old films, art movements, and historical eras. The vibe is eccentric and there’s a bit of queer sensibility.
The two-time Helen Hayes Award winner for costume design, does it all — props and costumes and marketing. In “Adrift,” she plays both the oracle and a crone.
Mandell was born on the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, the daughter of artists, and later lived in Montreal. As a young woman, she worked on schooners. For Mandell, it’s been a magical life filled with visuals marvels, she says.
When Happenstance begins rehearsal, there’s no fixed script: “We choose a territory and everyone does a deep dive. I’m interested in alchemy, the Tarot, mortality, and the Shaministic roots of theater. All of which are well represented in this production.”
The experience is also immersive. Audiences are encouraged to pose questions to the oracle. Much is whimsical, and in true Medieval fashion the 85-minute show is not without a hellmouth (the jaws of hell) and plenty of demons. Happenstancetheater.org
For staycationing kids, there’s “Pete the Cat: A Live Rock Musical” (through Aug. 2) at Imagination Stage in Bethesda. Follow Pete (played by Michael Perrie Jr.) and the Biddle family as they rock out in a fast-paced, globe-trotting musical based on the massively popular children’s book series. Imaginationstage.org.
There’s more family theater at Glen Echo Park in Maryland. Adventure Theatre MTC puts a spin on beloved fairytale with “Sleeping Beauty: The Time Traveler” (through Aug. 9). A humdrum summer changes when a young Rolly (Carl L. Williams) is whisked back in time to the Age of Charlemagne where he meets Aurora (Chelsea Majors), a bold 12-year-old princess with dreams of knighthood and adventure beyond her castle walls. (Chelsea Majors). Adventuretheatre-mtc.org.
Also at Glen Echo Park, The Puppet Co. presents “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” (through Aug. 23), ideal for kids 4+ and puppet aficionados of all ages. Thepuppetco.org
Broadway at the National on Pennsylvania Avenue presents “The Notebook” (through Aug. 30). Based on Nicholas Sparks’s best-selling novel that inspired the successful film, this romantic musical tells the story of unlikely couple Allie and Noah, who against all odds (hardship, separation, and Alzheimer’s disease) share a lifetime of love. Broadwayatthenational.com
In Vienna, Va., Wolf Trap takes you to Rome circa 1800 with Puccini’s “Tosca” (Aug. 4) presented by Wolf Trap Opera, in collaboration with the Washington National Opera Orchestra.
Following Puccini it’s a magical summer night with Diana Ross (Aug. 19). Expect to hear the superstar and two-time Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner perform many of her iconic hits including “I’m Coming Out,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Stop in the Name of Love” and more. Wolftrap.org
Nu Sass, a company that promotes marginalized genders in all aspects of theater, presents Courtney Bailey’s “Brontë Sister House Party” (Aug. 14-Sept. 12) at Van Ness on Main Street (4340 Connecticut Ave., NW). In life, the Brontë Sisters, Emily, Charlotte, and Anne, wrote their 19th century English lit classics in the virtual isolation of their father’s remote York parsonage. Now, stuck in purgatory, they’re suffering through party after party in an endless time loop. For them, hosting is truly hell, until they finally find a way to make it tolerable. Nusass.com
At Olney Theatre Center it’s “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” (through Aug. 23), a Tony Award–winning musical farce about murder, manners, and money starring out actor Tom Story as all seven members of the rich, ill-fated D’Ysquith family. This fast-paced comedy promises to be a good time.
The Olney Outdoors summer series (Aug. 9-Sept. 12) also at the Olney Theatre Center features tribute bands, cabaret-style performances, comedy, drag, and family sing-alongs on the open-air Root Family Stage. Among the transportive tribute bands are “Space Oddity – The Ultimate David Brighton Bowie Experience” (Aug. 28) and for Labor Day weekend, it’s “Almost Queen” (Sept. 5) with Joseph Russo playing the band’s front man and queer icon Freddie Mercury. Olneytheatre.org
Signature Theatre in Arlington presents “Respect: Aretha Franklin” (Aug. 11-30), a musical tribute celebrating the Queen of Soul starring powerhouse performer Nova Y. Payton. Not to be missed. Sigtheatre.org
Theater
‘My Favorite Sociopath’ debuts at Shepherdstown’s CATF
Gay playwright Aurin Squire’s take on D.C. journalism in the ‘90s
‘My Favorite Sociopath’
Contemporary American Theater Festival
July 10-Aug. 2
Shepherdstown, W.Va.
Catf.org
Discernment. It’s a thing some people have, explains playwright Aurin Squire, especially when you’re gay or Black in America (Squire is both).
“You instinctively know when the mob is teaming up for the best interests of the powers that be. You can feel it in the air.”
In his sharp new satire “My Favorite Sociopath,” Squire writes about life experiences but set in a different time and place: It’s the 1990s, early days of the 24-hour news cycle, and three ambitious journalism students are pursuing success in D.C.
And now, Squire’s play, along with other new works, are making their world premieres at the annual Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) at Shepherd University in historic, queer-friendly Shepherdstown, W.Va. (just a 90-minute drive from D.C.).
“All of my plays are queer in some way,” says Squire, 46. “This one touches on harmless and dangerous lies. The characters are on the spectrum sexually, and it’s interesting how all that falls out.”
And he’s given it a lot of thought.
“Already as a kid, it seemed to me that the rage against rap music and sex was coming from closeted people resisting their own urges and temptations. For me, it was interesting to see a witch hunt led by witches. Queer people can always call out a lie.”
Since September, Squire has also been working with a TV show about the tech industry set in Silicon Valley. He says, “It seems the general flow of the tech industry is that humanity and civilization is finished and it’s just about accumulating as many goods as possible before everything collapses. In fact, those who are profiting actually agree. But for those who disagree, they believe the solution is to build bigger gates, but activists believe we can stop this”
Yet, he’s learned from folks associated with the show. “Many say the quickest way to divorce yourself from any responsibility or regulations — smash and grab. Otherwise, you have to stop and think and regulate your desires for greed and power”
Squire possesses a penchant for pithy titles. He laughs, explaining the first thing he wrote as a student at Juilliard was “Obama-ology,” the comedy with contemporary message. While a lot of people liked the name, it didn’t necessarily vibe with the author. He concedes that he chooses names based on “easy to remember” and titles that won’t be easy to lose as a file.
Another is “Defacing Michael Jackson,” a coming-of-age dramedy set in rural Florida in 1984, specifically Squire’s native town Opa-locka, Miami, a fantastical place famed for its fanciful Moorish revival architecture.
Living in the shadow of exotic structures, he wasn’t particularly fazed. Squire says “It wasn’t until returning to visit after my freshman year at Northwestern University in Chicago that I realized how weird it was: When you grow up in a place, you take surroundings for granted no matter how over the top.”
Now based in New York (where for two happy years, 2017-2019, he shared digs with drag king Murry Hill), Squire returns frequently to Miami to be with family, but this summer has been filled with both work and travel.
Currently, he’s in Shepherdstown with CATF shaping up “My Favorite Sociopath.” Later this summer he will travel to South Africa for research, followed by a silent writing retreat in Santa Fe, N.M.
Much of Squire’s work reflects the Latino, African, Caribbean, African-American, and Jewish cultures he grew up around in South Florida.
When asked if today’s winds of anti-multiculturalism worry him, he replies, “No, because that’s going to pass. Most people don’t like, people are seeing the negative results of it, and the young people coming up despise it. White male gamers were tricked momentarily through the algorithms into voting against their own interests and they’re now seeing how it’s not working out for them.
“Conservatives always try to stop progress and eventually they always lose. It’s just a question of where we’ll be in the middle of the end of civilization before that happens. I’d like to hope we can turn the ship around before then.”
In addition to “My Favorite Sociopath,” CATF summer season features three other world premieres (Lisa D’Amour’s comedy “The Smoker,” “Refugee Rhapsody” by Yussef El Guindi, “Best Line Wins: A Play Inspired by the Improvised Lives of Elaine May & Mike Nichols” by Beth Kander) and “¡VOS!” by Christina Pumariega.
CATF runs from July 10-Aug. 2 in three venues on the Shepherd University campus: Frank Center, Marinoff Theater, and Studio 112.
Theater
Carla Hall goes from ‘Top Chef’ to the stage
Solo show ‘Please Underestimate Me’ premieres at Olney
‘Please Underestimate Me’
Through July 12
Olney Theatre Center
at Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab
2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd.
Olney, Md.
$47-$101
Olneytheatre.org
Carla Hall gained celebrity status from Bravo TV’s “Top Chef.” She was funny and fun, and with her kooky signature catch phrase “Hooty hoo” and the southern-inspired recipes she lovingly cooked, Hall stood out in a kitchen crammed with contestants.
Now the D.C.-based Hall is taking revisiting her earliest love with the world premiere of her solo show “Please Underestimate Me,” currently running at Olney Theatre Center’s intimate and revamped Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab.
In the 90-minute piece (written by Hall, Lori Kaye, and Kaye’s partner Leslie Thomas; and directed by Lili-Anne Brown), Hall leads with food but quickly swerves into her personal and other aspects of her professional life. Built around an immersive fictional TV cooking show, her new play draws on experiences from her seven seasons (2011-2019) co-hosting cooking/chat show “The Chew”an ABC daytime proving ground, and her heady years on “Top Chef.” (2008, 2010).
Born and raised in Nashville, Hall wanted to attend Boston University to major in theater, but was rejected. Instead, she went to Howard University at her mother’s urging, where she ultimately majored in accounting. After graduating in 1986, she donned a bespoke business suit and briefly worked as a CPA for Price Waterhouse.
Business wasn’t for Hall. Tall and slender, she walked the runways in Paris for a while before ultimately finding her niche as a chef. Cooking seemed to come from her heart, something she learned from her grandmother who not incidentally bankrolled Hall’s way through culinary school.
Now she’s bringing the vibrancy and good humor that made her a “Top Chef” fan favorite and a popular TV host to the stage with “Please Underestimate Me.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: You seem a natural live performer. Were at all you nervous about doing this?
CARLA HALL: Anytime you step outside of what you’re known for you have to take a risk and make it happen. I’d been working on this the idea for seven years. I decided that I really wanted to do a variety show and really wanted to step back into my original love of theater.
I didn’t know what that looked like so I was asking a lot of people, actors and friends, about how to break into it. Can they see me as more than a chef? So, I told my agency to book me for voice overs, cameo roles. I got an acting coach and I was seeing a lot of single person shows. I literally embodied the thing that I wanted.
BLADE: Have you always been a vocal and public ally of the queer community?
HALL: For me, it’s natural. I came from the theater and dance world. I have a lot of gay and queer friends.
There’s something about people being gay and queer that goes with a need to be authentic to yourself. I think that’s why you find a lot of queer people in the arts. Dare to be you. Dare to be different, right? I like that.
BLADE: Long ago, I remember stopping by a Safeway in Wheaton to grab a sheet cake for a party. Your second or first episode of “Top Chef” had just aired. I wanted to yell “Hooty hoo” across the aisles, but was too shy.
CARLA HALL: My catering kitchen was near that Safeway.You should have yelled. I’d have given you a hug. I’ll hug almost anyone.
BLADE: Thanks. I think. You hear actors saying there’s nothing quite like TV fame because you’re invited into people’s living rooms. What were those days like when you started being recognized?
HALL: I like people. I tell Matthew [Matthew Lyons, Hall’s husband of 20 years], when fans say hello it’s my chance to get to learn about them. I owe them a lot; without them I wouldn’t be working.
BLADE: At Olney, Lauren M. Nichols’ surprise-filled set and Kelly Colburn’s projections of your personal snapshots from over the years are really wonderful.
HALL: It becomes really emotional. At the end of the show, I see 12-year-old me. I’m looking at that girl, and they did a put a little crown on my head, and I’m living her dream 50 years later.
BLADE: Is the pace hard?
HALL: Seven shows a week isn’t easy. I used to say “Top Chef” was my most grueling experience…well, that was before I did this.
BLADE: And is it gratifying?
HALL: At the end of the day, yes. Look, this play is filled with personal highs and lows and emotionally it’s exhausting. It’s also rewarding. Two weeks before the show started, I wasn’t sure I could do this.
BLADE: But of course, you are doing it. And you’re doing it so well.
HALL: A while back, I reached out to the executive producer of “The Chew” and thanked him for being the messenger of my lessons. Without those experiences I wouldn’t be here now doing “Please Underestimate Me.” My confidence has definitely grown. I’m a firm believer that everything that happens to you is for you.
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