Arts & Entertainment
The new adventures of Lynda Carter
Singer/actress returns to Kennedy Center for latest show
Lynda Carter
‘Body & Soul Tour’
March 30
7:30 p.m.
90 mins.
Kennedy Center
Terrace Theater
$30-65
Actress/singer Lynda Carter returns to the Kennedy Center next weekend. (Photo by Karl Simone; courtesy JS2 Communications)
Lynda Carter has been singing her whole life, but her audiences haven’t always been so receptive.
Carter, who returns to the Kennedy Center next week with her “Body & Soul” show (her most recent album “Crazy Little Things” dropped last spring), says she “of course,” sang to her two children when they were babies. It didn’t last long, though.
“My daughter, as soon as she was old enough to sing herself, she’d put her hand over my mouth,” she says. “She didn’t want to hear me.”
Carter is most famous, of course, for “Wonder Woman,” the ‘70s TV show that despite a relatively short run (three seasons), linked her indelibly with the character — “as lovely as Aphrodite, as wise as Athena!” Last time we talked to Carter when she did the AIDS Walk Washington event for Whitman-Walker Health, we hammered her with “Wonder Woman” questions (it’s here if you missed it), so this time we focused solely on the music. “Crazy Little Things,” a mostly covers album, is her third release. “Portrait” came out in 1978; she returned from a long hiatus with “At Last,” another standards-heavy release that made the Billboard jazz chart in 2009.
“It sounds kind of silly but I remember our little record players and the one new single was all you could afford,” Carter, 60, says between coughs (she’s battling a cold the day we talk). “Now we’ve kinda gone back to that in some ways with all the digital downloads. But we listened to whatever was on the radio. My mom had a lot of blues, old juke joint things. We listened to music all the time.”
Carter was a little too young for the Motown heyday but remembers loving the Beatles and the Stones like everyone else in the later ‘60s.
“When I started singing professionally, I wanted to sound like Linda Ronstadt, Grace Slick, people like that,” she says. “Then on the other side of Linda Ronstadt, you had the Stone Poneys. So you had, well, it kind of shifted away from that ‘50s sound, with Paul Anka and that kind of thing. So even though we listened to that, I kinda missed it a little bit. It wasn’t as much in my mind anyway. It wasn’t as full an experience for me as, you know, the Doors and the Animals. That was my teenybopper era. … And then I was still a young adult when the ‘80s came around, so you end up falling in love with all that too. It’s all that.”
Actress/singer Lynda Carter at the 2010 AIDS Walk Washington, a Whitman-Walker benefit. The Potomac, Md., resident returns to D.C. next weekend for a Kennedy Center performance. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Carter, who cut her last album in Nashville for her own imprint Potomac Productions, says she enjoys recording and performing live. It’s still work — she likens making an album to climbing a hill or facing a blank sheet of paper — but says the payoff is rich. She especially enjoys playing the Kennedy Center and says, “it’s really the nation’s stage.”
The longtime Potomac, Md., resident says she and her family “have been going there for years.”
“I sometimes am envious of the people who live in town. It’s such an easy cab ride over to there and they have all kinds of stuff going on all the time … it’s a really special place and there are only a couple rooms like that, like the Jazz at Lincoln Center, that have that kind of prestige in the whole country.”
Carter will perform with six musicians and three singers. She has a horn section, a percussionist and some players who shift instrumentation depending on the song at hand. Most of them also played on the album and are veteran Nashville session players. The album was recorded over the course of about a year off and on. Carter, who co-produced, credits Kyle Lehning with helping her find fresh interpretations on classics like Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” Martha and the Vandella’s “Heat Wave,” the Carole King/Gerry Goffin classic “Locomotion” and others.
Carter says she works hard to make her stage presence connect with audience members. For years, she’s acknowledged and embraced her strong LGBT fan base.
“We seem to be pulling standing ovations every time we play, knock on wood,” she says, pausing for another cough. “I really try to work for the audience. I think a lot of performers kind of put a veil between themselves and it’s like they’re just jamming along with the band and it makes you feel almost like a voyeur and other shows you see it’s like the veil is lifted and the people are really with you. I like to see when people perform and really reach out and it’s really cool. The champion of that, of course, is Mick Jagger. He’s got the all-time stage presence.”
Theater
A hilarious ‘Twelfth Night’ at Folger full of ‘elegant kink’
Nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan stars as Duke Orsino
‘Twelfth Night’
Through June 22
Folger Theatre
201 East Capitol St., S.E.
$20-$84
Folger.edu
Nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan (they/them)loves tapping into the multitudes within.
Currently Keegan plays the melancholic Duke Orsino in Folger Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Twelfth Night.” Director Mei Ann Teo describes the production as “sexy, hilarious, and devastating” and full of “elegant kink.”
Washington-based, Keegan enjoys a busy and celebrated career. Her vast biography includes Come From Away at Ford’s Theatre; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Helen Hayes Award, Best Actress) and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, both at Round House Theatre; Diana Son’s Stop Kiss directedby Holly Twyford for No Rules Theatre Company; and Contractions at Studio Theatre, to name just a few.
In addition to acting, Keegan works as a polyamory and ethical non-monogamy life and relationship coach, an area of interest that grew out of personal exploration. For them, coaching seems to work hand in hand with acting.
WASHINGTON BLADE: You’re playing the lovesick Orsino in Twelfth Night. How did that come about?
ALYSSA KEEGAN: The director was looking to cast a group of actors with diverse identities; throughout auditions, there were no constraints regarding anyone’s assigned sex at birth. It was really a free for all.
BLADE: What’s your approach to the fetching, cod-piece clad nobleman?
KEEGAN: Offstage I identify as completely nonbinary; I love riding in this neutral middle space. But I also love cosplay. The ability to do that in the play gives me permission to dive completely into maleness.
So, when I made that decision to play Orsino as a bio male, suddenly the part really cracked open for me. I began looking for clues about his thoughts and opinions about things like his past relationships and his decision not to date older women.
Underneath his mask of bravura and sexuality, and his firmness of feelings, he’s quite lonely and has never really felt loved. It makes sense to me why his love for Olivia is so misguided and why he might fall in love with the Cesario/Viola character.
BLADE: As an actor, do you ever risk taking on the feelings of your characters?
KEEGAN: Prior to my mental health education, yes, and that could be toxic for me. I’ve since learned that the nervous system can’t tell the difference between real emotional distress and a that of a fully embodied character.
So, I created and share the Empowered Performer Project. [a holistic approach to performance that emphasizes the mental and emotional well-being of performing artists]. It utilizes somatic tools that help enormously when stepping into a character.
BLADE: Has changing the way you work affected your performances?
KEEGAN: I think I’m much better now. I used to have nearly debilitating stage fright. I’d spend all day dreading going onstage. I thought that was just part of the job. Now, I’ve learned to talk to my body. Prior to a performance, I can now spend my offstage time calmly gardening, working with my mental health clients, or playing with my kid. I’m just present in my life in a different way.
BLADE: Is Orsino your first time playing a male role?
KEEGAN: No. In fact, the very first time I played a male role was at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va. I played Hipolito in Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy.
As Hipolito, I felt utterly male in the moment, so much so that I had audience members see me later after the show and they were surprised that I was female. They thought I was a young guy in the role. There’s something very powerful in that.
BLADE: Do you have a favorite part? Male or female?
KEEGAN: That’s tough but I think it’s Maggie the Cat. I played the hyper-female Maggie in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Round House. In the first act she didn’t stop talking for 51 minutes opposite Gregory Wooddell as Brick who barely had to speak. That lift was probably the heaviest I’ve ever been asked to do in acting.
BLADE: What about Folger’s Twelfth Night might be especially appealing to queer audiences?
KEEGAN: First and foremost is presentation. 99% of the cast identify as queer in some way.
The approach to Shakespeare’s text is one of the most bold and playful that I have ever seen. It’s unabashedly queer. The actors are here to celebrate and be loud and colorful and to advocate. It’s a powerful production, especially to do so close to the Capitol building, and that’s not lost on any of us.
The Washington Blade hosted the inaugural WorldPride Boat Parade at The Wharf DC on Friday, June 6. NBC4’s Tommy McFly served as the emcee.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2025 Capital Pride Honors awards ceremony and gala reception was held at the National Building Museum on Thursday, June 5. Honorees included Cathy Renna, Jerry St. Louis, Ernest Hopkins, Lamar Braithwaite, Rev. Dr. Donna Claycomb Sokol, Kriston Pumphrey, Gia Martinez, Kraig Williams and SMYAL. Presenters and speakers included U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Amber Ruffin, Raven-Symoné and Paul Wharton.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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