Theater
Studio’s Muse
New artistic director first to succeed founder Zinoman
David Muse, the new artistic director of the Studio Theatre. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
He has been labeled a “wunderkind,” but no one would mistake this young man who has taken the helm of the Studio Theatre as a “wild child,” a Rimbaud on the rampage, scary, impudent, a feral genius in a state of artistic nature.
For with David Muse, who became at age 36 Studio’s second artistic director when founder Joy Zinoman passed him the reins last September, the clearest impression is of a young man with artistic time and motion studies on his mind, with a bookkeeper’s talent for cutting costs or adding a new line to the budget — either way, it’s the temperament of a manager.
But that would be the wrong impression also.
The best explanation about what makes David Muse run — as an artist himself, Yale-educated twice over, as well as the new manager of Studio Theatre — may come from Zinoman, who says, “David’s story is the classic, American story of a smart, talented kid from a small town who finds his passion, pursues it with dedication and intensity, and manages to win friends and admirers by virtue of his charm, sensitivity and intelligence.”
She has also said of the preternaturally calm and highly cerebral Muse, a vegan, a cyclist and a fitness buff, that “he’s very seductive and charming,” and Susan Butler, Studio’s board chairman, told the Washington Post that “I hope he likes to raise money.” That’s a handy charm in that rarefied realm of courting wealthy patrons, coaxing those birds from their tall trees and out of their mansions, just another talent for Muse to demonstrate.
Muse must use persuasion to find new patrons just as he has also found old patrons, key sponsors like Zinoman of course but also Michael Kahn at the Shakespeare Theatre Company who plucked Muse from New York City to return to Washington in 2004 to become his artistic aide-de-camp. His talent is in having talent and in inspiring others more senior also with talent to appreciate and invest in his own talent. Which is sizable.
Consider that he has amassed a glittering resume as a director — including staging an all-male version of “Romeo and Juliet” — since arriving in D.C. in 1996 to teach calculus to kids at Eastern High School, when he was soon drawn to theater at Studio’s own acting conservatory, where first he was a student and then began to dabble part-time as a “juvenile,” the theatrical term for a male newcomer, enchanted by the stage, focusing on acting at the beginning, one time even dressing as an ostrich in size-13 high heels. He later tackled directing also.
Today he is filling even bigger shoes, succeeding the trail-blazing Zinoman in command of about 60 staff in four stages seating 900 in three buildings with about 60,000 square feet set in the heart of D.C.’s Logan Circle neighborhood, anchoring in a former auto showroom at 14th and P Streets. With its more than $5 million annual budget, Studio is a major force on the local theater scene, mounting major productions every year and with its new and impressive 2011-2012 season just announced. And of course he is also in charge, with Joy Zinoman still as its lead faculty member, of the Studio Theatre Acting Company, where his serious career in theater began.
Born in Appleton, Wis., he spent most of his childhood in Fulton, Mo., a small town (11,000). In high school he threw himself into theater and graduated valedictorian. In 1992 he left Fulton, the first student from his high school to attend an Ivy League school, for New Haven and Yale University where he studied ethics, politics and economics. Upon graduation, Muse joined Teach for America and headed for D.C., teaching math and also leading Outward Bound wilderness programs for troubled youths during the summer. But he also found his way to Studio’s acting school, to hone his passion for drama, and in 2000 he returned to Yale, this time to its drama school, to earn a master’s in directing.
Next he moved to New York City, but then he soon came back to D.C. when summoned by Kahn to become his second in command as associate artistic director at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he helped grow the company from its single theater at the Lansburgh with the addition of the new Harman Hall. He also was primary liaison for all the talent. He also began to direct plays at Studio’s smaller and edgier 2nd Stage.
The next year, 2006, also at Studio, he directed Bryony Lavery’s critically lauded “Frozen.” Then, last year, while also directing an electrifying version of Neil LaBute’s “Reasons To Be Pretty” there, he also threw his hat into the ring to replace Zinoman. After a scrupulous nationwide search lasting a year, he pulled that rabbit from out of that hat, emerging from half a dozen finalists to step into her shoes there officially last September.
Asked about his artistic vision, he demures at first, saying that he finds it “challenging to say the least” to define such an overview “when the work here is so purposefully eclectic, with so broad a range of theatrical offerings.” He also offers what he calls “another disclaimer” to having any “broad vision,” in that “you need to leave room,” he insists, for the thespian Holy Spirit, “for what feels right, this year, or at any other moment.”
Besides, Muse says, Studio “is not a place that needed someone to come in, to save or reinvent it.” But that said, he has even so his own vision of course, which is why in addition to his managerial mindset he was chosen for this job.
“The challenge,” he says, is “to balance all the historic strengths of this place with some new energy, and that’s what I aim to do.”
Those strengths, he says, include that it stages what he rightly boasts are “plays of real literary and theatrical merit.” He intends, he says, to build on that Studio strong deck of cards by pulling out some new ones — by “going in a little less familiar direction,” in part by bringing in more international productions but especially by “working with living writers, and working with them on the creation of new work,” not generally seen as a strong card at Studio in the past.
“We want to welcome these writers into the building as active collaborators,” he says, pointing to two world premieres slated for Studio in its just-announced 2011-2012 season.
This year, meanwhile, has included a season of superb performances in productions like the gay-themed “Marcus; or the Science of Sweet” (though Muse is straight and has a girlfriend), a season that has been the result of his collaboration with Zinoman, which will also later feature Anna K. Jacob’s “Pop!” a new musical about Andy Warhol. Muses also draws attention to “The History of Kisses,” set for this summer as an example of collaboration with its author, David Cale, someone Muse calls “an electrifying solo performer, returning to D.C. after a long history here, but having been away for about 10 years.”
But it is with next year’s slate of 11 offerings that Muse lets his own muse come to the fore. First out of the gate, Sept. 7-Oct. 16, comes a new play in its U.S. premiere, directed by Muse, “The Habit of Art,” by Alan Bennett, the English author of “The History Boys,” whose career began decades ago as a member of the Oxford-Cambridge troupe of performers, “Beyond The Fringe.”
Starring the great D.C. actor Ted van Griethuysen as the gay poet W.H. Auden, it is set deep in the bowels of London’s National Theatre as rehearsals for a new play go on and the famed composer Benjamin Britten, also gay, and Auden’s former lover, now troubled at work on a new opera, seeks out the poet after a 25-year separation, to collaborate again, this time artistically. Between visits by Auden’s rent-boy and a biographer — briefly mistaken for the rent-boy — these two aging artists must wrestle with long-buried desire and current jealousy and seek to understand all the reasons their erstwhile friendship fell apart.
Called both wistful and “filthily funny,” the play is what Muse calls “an imaginary meeting” between the two great artists, when after a quarter century Auden comes to talk about collaborating again, but the rent-boy keeps returning” as the play progresses.
David Muse (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Looking to the new season, Muse also points to two world premieres — one in the Lab Series Sept. 28-Oct. 16 — “Lungs,” by Duncan Macmillan,” the chamber drama of a couple trying to face their future in a time of global anxiety over terrorism and erratic weather. The other world premiere comes next February and March in Studio’s 2nd Stage, in a new play, “Astro Boy and the God of Comics,” by Georgetown University theater professor Natsu Onoda Power, who also directs.
Muse says she has been invited to come to Studio “to conceive of this new play” there. It takes on Japanese Manga in a highly visual performance that he calls “a retro and sci-fi, multi-media extravaganza” about the 1960s animation series “Astro Boy,” a crime-fighting boy robot, and the life of his creator Osamu Tezuka.
Another play, set for November-December, is written and performed by former “Daily Show” correspondent Lauren Weedman, who has been called “a female Robin Williams.” This one-woman show, “Bust” is based on her experiences working as a volunteer advocate in a Southern California prison for women. In her solo performance she plays dozens of characters, switching from prostitute to parole officer, addict to editor with what Muse calls “nuance and empathy.”
Other plays will also startle and stir audiences, he predicts, including “The Golden Dragon” by German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig, in its U.S. premiere in November-December. Called both “poetic” and “brutal,” it is set in the cramped kitchen of an Asian restaurant where four cooks pull the tooth of a Chinese co-worker. His tooth ends up in the Thai soup of a flight attendant, and that’s just the beginning of unexpected linkages connected to the young Chinese man sans tooth. Muse calls it “fierce and vicious” but also “a kaleidoscopic look at a globalized world,” where five actors “cross age, race and gender” to play 15 characters showing “how intertwined our lives really are.”
Also certain to draw attention, Muse predicts, will be another of the 2nd Stage productions, coming in the summer of 2012, “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” by Alex Timbers, with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman.
“American history has never been this sexy,” Muse says, “in this rowdy and irreverent musical,” a scathing satire that re-imagines President Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson as a rock star.
Theater
D.C.’s fall theater season is already well underway
‘Ma Rainey,’ ‘Mama Mia,’ ‘Rocky Horror,’ and much more on tap
Leaves have scarcely turned, but throughout the DMV, the fall theater season is well underway.
In Arlington, Signature Theatre got a jump on the season with Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Merrily We Roll Along” (through Nov. 1). Told entirely in reverse chronological order, this story of three longtime friends spans the years 1957 to 1976 moving from the trio’s cynical middle-aged present back to their happy and hopeful salad days.
Filled with great promise when it opened in 1981, the original production closed after just 16 official performances despite a terrific score glutted with great tunes like “Our Time,” “Good Thing Going,” and “Not a Day Goes By.” Over the years, the show was tweaked and reimagined, ultimately redeeming itself as a massive Broadway hit revival in 2023.
Signature’s production, directed and choreographed by Matthew Gardiner, features out actors Jason Gotay (Rafa from the “Gossip Girl” reboot) and Signature vet Jake Loewenthal playing, respectively, sellout composer Franklin Shepard and loyal lyricist Charley Kringas. Melanie Field plays witty and increasingly alcoholic Mary Flynn, the third prong of the complex little friend group. Sigtheatre.org
Woolly Mammoth Company has opened with playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (through Oct. 4), a tragicomedy about two women whose first date goes terribly wrong. The lesbian daters are played by Kimberly Gilbert and queer-identified actor Regina Aquino. Woolly’s new artistic director Reggie D. White directs. Woollymammoth.net
At Round House Theatre in Bethesda, August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” continues its compelling exploration of racism, exploitation, and artistic integrity. Helmed by director Lili-Anne Brown, the production runs through Oct. 11. The 10-actor cast includes Yao Dogbe as Levee, a young firebrand trumpeter, and out actor Nicole Michelle Haskins as the queer titular blues legend. Roundhousetheatre.org
Broadway at the National (National Theatre) is ushering in a spate of hit Broadway shows this fall. The musicals include “Dirty Dancing” (Sept. 29–Oct. 4), “Maybe Happy Ending” (Oct. 6–11), and ABBA’s “Mama Mia!” (Oct. 27–Nov. 15) featuring charming out actor Victor Wallace as successful architect and divorced father of two Sam Carmichael. Broadwayatthenational.com
First introduced to theatergoers by MetroStage at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival in 2019, Sherman Yellen’s “Cousin Bella–The Whore of Minsk” is the riveting story of Bella, who as a young Jewish woman living in Czarist Russia was sold into prostitution by her stepmother. Later rescued, she immigrated to America, where she lived out the rest of her life in New York.
Now with a shortened title, “Cousin Bella” is going to MetroStage at The Lyceum (Alexandria’s History Museum) as a staged reading for one night only on Sept. 22. Again, Adrienne Nelson plays Bella, but this time, she’s joined by out DMV favorite Michael Russotto as Sherman. MetroStage.org
Hard to believe, but this year marks four decades since the film release of “Little Shop of Horrors.”
To celebrate the anniversary, Ellen Greene (the actor who created Audrey, the show’s sweet and sexy florist, both on stage and screen) is doing a nationwide tour that includes a night at D.C.’s historic Lincoln Theatre (Friday, Sept. 25).
Greene’s appearance offers fans the opportunity to experience the 1986 cult horror/comedy/musical classic alongside its iconic star. Before the screening, Greene will take part in a live Q&A and perform Audrey’s signature song – what else — “Somewhere That’s Green.” Thelincolndc.com
At Olney Theatre Center, the season opens with the regional premiere staging of “Some Like It Hot” (Sept. 18–Nov. 8) directed by Jason Loewith with choreography by Karla Puno Garcia.
Adapted from the classic 1959 Billy Wilder film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon, the Tony Award-winning musical by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (the guys who gave us “Hairspray”) brings the jokes, music, more dance and adds gender identity, self-discovery, and racial representation.
Like the film, the action kicks off in Prohibition-era Chicago when Joe (Jacob Tischler) and Jerry (Tavis Corderll), two straight musicians, witness a mob hit. Averse to being bumped off, they leave town as the newly hired members of an “all-girl band” fronted by the irresistible Sugar Kane (Mot Walker). Laughs and drag ensue. Olneytheatre.org
Spooky Action Theater in association Solas Nua present “Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights” (Sept. 24 – Oct. 18). In this re-imagining, Irish Palestinian playwright Hannah Khalil reclaims the classic “Arabian Nights” through a new feminist lens replete with compelling storytelling by its all women cast of five. Spookyaction.org
The Shakespeare Theatre Company presents “Frida…A Self Portrait” (Oct. 8 – Nov. 8), a stage portrait of Mexican painter and queer icon Frida Kahlo. Written and performed by Brazilian actor Vanessa Severo, the play is set on the eve of Kahlo’s death, exploring her pain, passion, and extraordinary life through a powerful, intimate lens. Shakespearetheatre.org
At 1st Stage in Tysons, the season opens with British playwright Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” (Oct. 8-25), a play sophisticated in subject and structure. Pinter uses a non-linear timeline spanning the years 1968 to 1977, moving mostly backward from the end of a seven-year affair to its beginning. The adulterous love triangle involves Emma (Katrina Clark), Robert (Shawn Sebastian Naar), and Jerry (played by excellent out actor Jaysen Wright). Alex Levy directs. 1ststage.org
In time for Halloween, Creative Caudron Stage in Falls Church presents “Monsters of the Villa Diodati” (Oct. 8 – Nov. 1), a Gothic-style musical created by local married collaborators Matt Conner (composer) and Stephen Gregory Smith (playwright/lyricist).
The applauded work dramatizes the stormy Geneva summer of 1816 when poet Lord Byron challenged his guests to come up with their best scary tales. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” were among the better results. Creativecauldron.org
In Rehoboth Beach, Del., Clear Space Theatre Company’s anticipated annual production of “The Rocky Horror Show” (directed by Wes Drummond and choreographed by Shondelle Graulich) is returning to the stage for the Halloween season. (Oct. 9–31). Clear Space invites theatergoers to “revel in a deliciously decadent rock ‘n’ roll party where nothing is sacred, everything is extra, and liberation is the main event.” (Late night audience participation performances every Saturday night.) Clearspacetheatre.org
The first of Arena Stage’s autumn offerings is the Step Afrika! premiere of “The Fruits of Our Labor” (though Nov. 1), a powerful, celebratory production focused on resilience and the unfinished American experience expertly performed by the company’s tremendous step dancers.
Later at Arena, it’s playwright Eric Bentley’s extremely time “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been” (Oct. 17– Dec. 6), directed by Tony Award-winner Anna D. Shapiro. “This docudrama drops you into the tense world of the 1940s House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings, where fame offered no protection and political pressure could end a career.” Arenastage.org
For a bit of Strathmore family fun, AMP presents Disney Pixar’s “Coco Live-to-Film Concert” (matinees on Oct. 31, Nov. 1), a special event for Día de los Muertos where the full animated film Coco is screened on the big screen while its culturally rich score by Michael Giacchino is performed live by the 20-member Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México. Strathmore.org
In an amusing essay about microaggressions, David Sedaris shares that whenever he and his partner Hugh browse antique stores in England, the shop owners invariably look them over and ask, “Are you dealers?” His usual retort: “No, just homosexuals.”
Playwright JB Miller treads similar terrain with “The Last Victorian,” his new play that kicks off the fall season at Washington Stage Guild with a world premiere production (Nov. 19- Dec. 13) directed by Laura Giannarelli.
In this dark comedy, two failed British antique dealers, same-sex partners in both business and in life, unbelievably inherit the world’s oldest person. When issues of price and provenance come to the fore, the pair turn on each other, and soon it seems the old lady might take charge. Stageguild.org
And to help make the much of the above markedly more affordable, there’s Theater Week. Organized by Theatre Washington, the more than seven days of deals and entertainment is a multi-week regional celebration launching the local fall theater season that runs from Sept. 24 to Oct. 11, featuring discounted tickets priced at $25, $45, and $65 for more than 25 productions alongside a lineup of free community events. For details and participating companies go to Theatrewashington.org.
Theater
Actress takes on bisexual ‘Ma’ Rainey in new Round House production
Haskins relishes playing ‘impassioned Black woman who sticks to her guns’
‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’
Sept. 9-Oct. 11
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway
Bethesda, MD 20814
$50 and up
Roundhousetheatre.org
Among the Black blues women of the 1920s and 1930s, being “in the life” wasn’t uncommon. Self-supporting and often on the road, they followed the Great Northern Migration to places like Chicago and Harlem, where they lived independent lives, made music, enjoyed same-sex relationships, and partied with like-minded ladies.
Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, best known as the “mother of the blues,” fit the bill. A big star, Ma toured the country and sold hit records nationwide. She lived an openly bisexual life.
In 1925, hosting an “indecent” all-female party at a Chicago apartment, landed Ma in jail, but blues singer Bessie Smith, Ma’s protégée and erstwhile girlfriend, promptly bailed her out. Three years later, Ma released a popular track whose lyrics included “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends / They must’ve been women, ’cause I don’t like no men.”
She was also a woman who knew her value. Ma’s voice was a powerful passport.
Ma Rainey is the ultimate force of strength and resistance in August Wilson’s 1982 play, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” the first of the late playwright’s brilliant Century Cyle, a collection of mostly Pittsburgh-set plays that chronicle the 20th century African-American experience.
Poised to kick off a month-long run at Round House (Sept. 9-Oct. 11), the production (co-produced with Olney Theatre Center) is directed by Lili-Anne Brown and features out actor and powerhouse vocalist Nicole Michelle Haskins making her Round House debut as Ma Rainey.
Set in a Chicago recording studio in 1927, the drama follows Ma, her Black band members and white producers as they try to record a new album of her sons. Tensions over artistic control, racial exploitation, and personal ambitions come to the fore. Amid the difficulties and a fair bit of humor, arises a serious clash involving hotheaded young trumpet player Levee (Yao Dogbe) who wants to alter musical arrangements on the titular song.
Playing blues icon Ma Rainey wasn’t on Haskins’s radar. Because the bulk of her work is in musical theater, Haskins never foresaw being tapped to do a Wilson play.
“It’s kind of like Shakespeare. Not restrictive but respected; not everyone gets a ticket to the party. So, I figured that I just wouldn’t pursue that,” she says matter-of-factly.
However, fate would dictate differently. Haskins and director Brown are longtime friends and collaborators. They recently worked together on “The Color Purple” at Chicago’s prestigious Goodman Theatre where Haskins played Sofia, another powerful Black woman who, not unlike Ma, is navigating life in a patriarchal white world.
When the opportunity came up to play Ma at Round House, Brown encouraged Haskins to audition. She did and got the part. “I’m so grateful to be working with a wonderful director like Lili-Anne, especially during my introduction to Wilson’s work. He is a theater god, and I’m swept every day.”
And is it special to be queer and playing queer? “For me, it’s special to play any role where there is an impassioned Black woman who sticks to her guns and fights for the things she deserves. Her sexuality is the icing on the cake.”
The production adheres to Wilson’s text and the text describes a woman who is in a relationship with another woman. Though her sexuality is provocative, it’s not the only thing about her that’s compelling. She’s also portrayed as an artist, businesswoman, and a loving aunt.
Haskins, a New York-based actor who made her name on the Chicago theater scene, grew up in Detroit. At 12, she became involved with the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit; after high school she went on to earn a BFA at Detroit’s Wayne State University. Detroit is also where Haskins learned storytelling: “It’s very natural for a Detroit native to greet people on the street. There’s an expectation to be open to someone else’s story and to share your own. I’ve done this many times.”
Queer characters are famously underrepresented in Wilson’s work. “I see that, but do we really know for sure? After the first day’s read through of the play, some of the actors, for different reasons, wondered if in addition to Ma, perhaps one or two of the other characters might be queer too. Now wouldn’t that be interesting? That’s something I’d like to see.”
Theater
Immersive ‘Nation-State’ imagines a society free of authoritarianism
Queer duo brings unique theater experience to Dupont Underground
‘Nation-State: A Live Experiment’
Sept. 2-13
La Pluma Theatre
Dupont Underground
19 Dupont Circle, N.W.
$25-40
Dupontunderground.org
Industry Night: September 7. Free for all theater makers
A relevant piece replete with borders and passports, La Pluma Theatre’s “Nation-State: A Live Experiment”is immersive, site-specific, and testimonial.
With the production, the company’s queer co-founders Victor Salinas and Gabriel de la Cruz pose unique situations and experiences. In lieu of tickets, audience members get passports. What follows are questions and tests, and whether they gain entrance into a nation built to protect its citizens from authoritarianism, resource theft, and colonization remains to be seen.
Originally from Mexico and Peru, respectively, Salinas and de la Cruz met at a birthday party in D.C. and instantly clicked as theater makers, sharing outlook and ambition. Reluctant to go it alone, both had been searching for artistic and producing collaboration. That all changed.
And while their enterprise is primarily Latino and queer, these professional partners refused to be confined to a box, choosing rather to amplify the voices of all of D.C.’s diverse communities. In line with their plans, “Nation-State” is open to serving many points of view.
As director of “Nation-State,” de la Cruz mostly guides the questioning. He’s the right man for the job. Since arriving in the U.S. six years ago, he has been consistently curious about certain things. Who belongs here? How do you make this your home? And who is creating the rules?
“But the writing process is shared,” de la Cruz corrects. “I come up with questions. I provide Victor the topic and he goes from there. We’re both writing what happens next.”
He adds, “the most exciting moment for people is when they share something unique. As a questioner, you need to find the confidence and the right moment to ask the question. If you provide the space for that, the actor or audience member will give you something singular.”
Since before La Pluma opened in November 2025, its creators have agreed that “the most beautiful thing is when you use theater to fashion something innovative. Theater is the place where you can create new frameworks and rehearse new ways to live.”
At just an hour, “Nation-State” is performed in English at Dupont Underground – the company’s historic residence, a once subterranean street car barn located beneath Dupont Circle. For the production, the tunnels serve as boundaries, and its different curved spaces make up a micro nation and welcome different guest actors who will come to share their stories.
At certain times, Salinas plays Officer Salinas, Director of N.I.C.E. (Non-Discriminatory, Inclusive Customs Enforcement), a humorous social critic of the system and border patrol. Other times, it’s Salinas as himself telling his real-life stories. He says, “it’s a level of vulnerability that I’ve never experienced. The script is my personal life with zero censorship. But I think, if not now in a play that we are pouring our souls into, then when?
“As a kid I dreamed of being TV show host and now I am. I will sing and tell my stories. I feel comfortable and ready to do it.”
In Spanish, “pluma” means both pen and feather. For the company, it’s the latter, and comes with lively associations. Salinas explains. In mysticism, feathers serve as a portal between the real and spiritual worlds, like that between fact and fiction. And in Spanish and Latin American slang “showing feathers” (in other words, showing queerness). La Pluma encourages a good display of authenticity.
And specifically for Salinas, there’s a personal story involving his beloved grandmother with whom he was extremely close. After she died, he has regularly found feathers as if she’s making contact. “A bit romantic, I know. But I think if you’re open you can see these things,” he says.
“Nation-State” is challenging but fun. It’s unmistakably La Pluma. In the end, the company wants to build a world where everyone feels safe to tell their own stories, as individuals and performers.
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