Arts & Entertainment
Journey to stardom
New MetroStage production follows a young Baker to early fame
‘Josephine Tonight’
Through March 18
MetroStage
1201 North Royal Street
Alexandria
$45-$50, $25 students
703-548-9044
From left: James Alexander, James T. Lane, Zurin Villanueva, Aisha de Haas and Debra Walton in ‘Josephine Tonight.’ (Photo by C. Stanley Photography; courtesy MetroStage)
Before she was Josephine Baker, the toast of Jazz Age Paris wowing audiences at the Follies Bergère, she was Josie McDonald, a skinny kid doing the chicken dance for spare change in front of the Piggly Wiggly back in St. Louis. It’s this metamorphosis from girl to ravishing young star that’s portrayed in the musical “Josephine Tonight,” currently premiering at MetroStage.
Broadway vets Sherman Yellen (book and lyrics) and the late Wally Harper (music) frame Baker’s bio as a Cinderella story. (Lyrics mention the would-be princess and her pink silk ball gowns more than once.) And though young Josephine derives support from her no-nonsense washerwoman mother, besotted young husband, and assorted showbiz folks, there is definitely no fairy godmother in this tale. As presented here, the magic that transforms our heroine from Josie to Josephine comes from within. She’s her own creation.
It’s tough to cast the role of a legendary figure like Baker, whom most people know as the almost naked dancer portrayed in the iconic posters from “Le Revue Nègre” (the 1925 Parisian show that shot her to stardom). Happily, Zurin Villanueva portrays the young Baker with a natural confidence and effervescent energy that feels just right. She looks the part too: Tall and lithe with an expressive beauty.
Villanueva’s Josephine subtly matures during the show (aging from 14 to early 20s). Along with Josephine, we learn that she’s too big for segregated Post World War I America. We watch approvingly as she nonchalantly trades her increasingly boring husband for a French lover and alludes to her sexual experiences with women. It’s a juicy part and Villanueva has fun with it.
The four remaining top-notch cast members definitely earn their paychecks playing multiple roles (mostly key figures in Josephine’s early life to which the show is fairly faithful). Talented triple threat James T. Lane is terrific as Josephine’s husband Eddie Baker and as her French lover Paul. James Alexander and Debra Walton are delightfully versatile as corny vaudevillians, racist whites and other parts.
At a recent matinee, Roz White stepped in for an absent Aisha De Haas as Josephine’s wry mother Carrie and her boozy, blues-singing mentor Big Bertha Smith — both great roles. White’s take on “Bertha’s Blues,” a song that segues from blues to gospel was among the show’s highlights. With arrangements and orchestrations by musical director David Alan Bun, the lively score is packed (probably too much) with ragtime, blues and Broadway-style tunes.
“Josephine Tonight” is directed and choreographed by Maurice Hines (openly gay) who first gained fame long ago tap dancing with his late brother Gregory. He successfully mines the backstory for humor and keeps things moving at a brisk pace. His choreography — including Baker’s famous jungle dance — harks back to the era. Reggie Ray’s costumes are wonderfully evocative of the time as well, but one can’t help but wonder what he might have done with a bigger budget. Scenery/projection designer Klyph Stanford supplies a discreet art deco proscenium arch. Underneath hangs a translucent scrim on which he projects images pertinent to Baker’s life: a laundry line, the Cotton Club sign, the Eiffel Tower. Behind the scrim, the hot five-piece band can be seen playing.
The show ends just when Josephine achieves celebrity. We see her dance in the iconic skimpy banana skirt and walk the stage as a sequined and plumed main attraction. Baker went on to scale more performance peaks, work undercover for the French Resistance during World War II, and assemble a rainbow family of adopted children. And though she returned to the U.S. for work until her death in 1975, she was a citizen of France and made her home there. But those are details for another musical.
Team DC, the umbrella organization for LGBTQ-friendly sports teams and leagues in the D.C. area, held its annual Night of Champions Awards Gala on Saturday, April 20 at the Hilton National Mall. The organization gave out scholarships to area LGBTQ student athletes as well as awards to the Different Drummers, Kelly Laczko of Duplex Diner, Stacy Smith of the Edmund Burke School, Bryan Frank of Triout, JC Adams of DCG Basketball and the DC Gay Flag Football League.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2024 National Cannabis Festival was held at the Fields at RFK Stadium on April 19-20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Covering the @NatlCannaFest at RFK Stadium for @WashBlade . Stop by the LGBTQ+ booth and pick up a paper if you are here. pic.twitter.com/is7hnsaPns
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) April 20, 2024
Theater
‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor
‘Amm(i)gone’
Thorough May 12
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D St., N.W.
$60-$70
Woollymammoth.net
“Fully and utterly autobiographical.” That’s how Adil Mansoor describes “Amm(i)gone,” his one-man work currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Both created and performed by out artist Mansoor, it’s his story about inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Sophocles’s Greek tragedy “Antigone” into Urdu. Throughout the journey, there’s an exploration of family, queerness, and faith,as well as references to teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his Muslim mother.
Mansoor, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is now based in Pittsburgh where he’s a busy theater maker. He’s also the founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former artistic director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQ youth arts organization.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What spurred you to create “Amm(i)gone”?
ADIL MANSOOR: I was reading a translation of “Antigone” a few years back and found myself emotionally overwhelmed. A Theban princess buries her brother knowing it will cost her, her own life. It’s about a person for whom all aspirations are in the afterlife. And what does that do to the living when all of your hopes and dreams have to be reserved for the afterlife?
I found grant funding to pay my mom to do the translation. I wanted to engage in learning. I wanted to share theater but especially this ancient tragedy. My mother appreciated the characters were struggling between loving one another and their beliefs.
BLADE: Are you more director than actor?
MANSOOR: I’m primarily a director with an MFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon. I wrote, directed, and performed in this show, and had been working on it for four years. I’ve done different versions including Zoom. Woolly’s is a new production with the same team who’ve been involved since the beginning.
I love solo performance. I’ve produced and now teach solo performance and believe in its power. And I definitely lean toward “performance” and I haven’t “acted” since I was in college. I feel good on stage. I was a tour guide and do a lot of public speaking. I enjoy the attention.
BLADE: Describe your mom.
MANSOOR: My mom is a wonderfully devout Muslim, single mother, social worker who discovered my queerness on Google. And she prays for me.
She and I are similar, the way we look at things, the way we laugh. But different too. And those are among the questions I ask in this show. Our relationship is both beautiful and complicated.
BLADE: So, you weren’t exactly hiding your sexuality?
MANSOOR: In my mid-20s, I took time to talk with friends about our being queer with relation to our careers. My sexuality is essential to the work. As the artistic director at Dreams of Hope, part of the work was to model what it means to be public. If I’m in a room with queer and trans teenagers, part of what I’m doing is modeling queer adulthood. The way they see me in the world is part of what I’m putting out there. And I want that to be expansive and full.
So much of my work involves fundraising and being a face in schools. Being out is about making safe space for queer young folks.
BLADE: Have you encountered much Islamophobia?
MANSOOR: When 9/11 happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so yes. I faced a lot then and now. I’ve been egged on the street in the last four months. I see it in the classroom. It shows up in all sorts of ways.
BLADE: What prompted you to lead your creative life in Pittsburgh?
MANSOOR: I’ve been here for 14 years. I breathe with ease in Pittsburgh. The hills and the valleys and the rust of the city do something to me. It’s beautiful, it’ affordable, and there is support for local artists. There’s a lot of opportunity.
Still, the plan was to move to New York in September of 2020 but that was cancelled. Then the pandemic showed me that I could live in Pittsburgh and still have a nationally viable career.
BLADE: What are you trying to achieve with “Amm(i)gone”?
MANSOOR: What I’m sharing in the show is so very specific but I hear people from other backgrounds say I totally see my mom in that. My partner is Catholic and we share so much in relation to this.
I hope the work is embracing the fullness of queerness and how means so many things. And I hope the show makes audiences want to call their parents or squeeze their partners.
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‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
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