Arts & Entertainment

Differing directions

MCC music program adjusting to new leadership, styles

Published

14 years ago

April 5, 2012

WBadmin

Darius Smith, one of the new choir directors at MCC-DC. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

By MALI KRANTZ

The two Sunday morning services held each week at Metropolitan Community Church of Washington have always had slightly different styles, but the distinction has become more pronounced as each has its own choir director now.

In December, Shirli Hughes resigned from her position as minister of music there. After a decade of service at the District’s largest predominantly LGBT church, the lesbian music minister left big shoes to be filled in the church’s music department.

“She had a big job,” says Jeff Herrell who sang in her choir for about 10 years.

Hughes led both Sunday services at 9 and 11 a.m. as well as occasional performances for holidays and special events. She was also a full-time employee.

Her succession came in the form of two interim music ministers, Justin Ritchie, who leads the 9 a.m. Sunday service, and Darius Smith, who leads a more contemporary service at 11. They’ll both be on board for this Sunday’s Easter services, the highest holy day in Christendom. A Good Friday service is tonight at 7. Visit mccdc.com for details.

“It has worked out well to have two of us,” Ritchie says. “Because each service is very different and they play to each of our strengths … the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. service have always had their own personality.”

Ritchie, whose service is more traditional, came from the MCC choir. In addition to his musical success at MCC, he’s also a featured vocalist with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and a member its 14-person a cappella group, Potomac Fever.

Smith, a graduate of Howard University’s Music Department and New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program is an assistant professor of musical theater at Howard. He has also written original music for a number of plays in the D.C. area including “U.G.L.Y.,” a new musical.

Smith’s service leans toward pop and contemporary styles.

“It’s interesting. It’s fun,” says Herrell of the new musical content.

Both Herrell and Ritchie estimate that the choruses have grown over the past few months.

“I think people are really receptive to Justin’s style of music … and new people want to be a part of Darius’ ministry,” Herrell says. “Yeah it’s cool. It’s different.”

While Rev. Dwayne Johnson, the church’s senior pastor, recognizes that Hughes brought an extraordinary talent to MCC’s music ministry, he’s enthusiastic about the church’s new direction.

“We have a long tradition of excellent music,” Johnson says. “And Justin and Darius are continuing that tradition. It’s an exciting time to see what gifts they have to bring to the table.”

While much of the music is changing, a few traditions remain such as having drums and bass accompany services. Each choir director does his own accompanying.

During the transition period after Hughes left, Acoustic Praise, a subgroup of MCC’s music ministry, stepped up to fill in while they looked for new staff members. Though the church has an organ, it’s rarely used.

“They’ve really worked hard during this transition filling in on Sundays,” says Tommie Adams, Herrell’s partner and an Acoustic Praise member. “It’s still a transitional period. Both people have great musical backgrounds and Darius brings kind of a youthful mood to music too, so it’s a nice variety.”

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Theater

‘Feeling Afraid’ explores life of a neurotic stand-up comic

Navigating sex, work, and possibly love in London

Published

1 day ago

June 20, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Steven Webb in ‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen’ (Photo by DJ Corey)

‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’
Through July 12
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$55-$102
Studiotheatre.org

Wordily yet rightly titled, solo show “Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen” dives deeply into the world of a neurotic stand-up comic as he navigates sex, work, and possibly love in London.

Busy arranging hookups and dates on “The App,” the 36-year-old gay funnyman juggles a full dance card; still he’s never been in a romantic relationship. While he’s willing to give love a shot, he’s not pressed about it. As he says, he harbors no fear of dying alone.

Currently making its American premiere at Studio Theatre, this darkly humorous Edinburgh Fringe import features terrific out English actor Steven Webb as The Comedian who’s about to explore what it means to spend all his time with one man.

At Studio’s intimate Mead Theatre, Kat Heath’s minimal set says standard comedy club (fluorescent tube lighting, the mic with a long cord, a single stool backed by a rose-colored curtain), but gay playwright Marcelo Dos Santos has conjured something much more than a live comedy set.

Yes, The Comedian bounces onstage in his red Converse high tops, jeans, and pink shirt with a huge mouth emblazoned on the back, but he delivers more than jokes. At times hilariously self-deprecating, then dark, and occasionally a lesson on what makes standup work, this is a layered, well-acted piece.

With Webb (a keen caricaturist of types and voices) playing all the parts while conducting The Comedian’s hilariously frenetic interior monologue, “Feeling Afraid” takes us through a summer of love. It seems after six chaste dates with The American, our nervous hero has found Mr. Right. The American is earnest, smart, hesitant to initiate sex. He’s also well built with a beautiful smile. And strangely, he’s been medically advised not to laugh aloud.

The Comedian delights in the joys of new love: dates, first kisses, sex, and then suddenly spending all of his time with the adored. Visits to art galleries become fun. Eating home cooked meals followed by grim documentaries is a thing. The Comedian is beguiled as his own boyish figure fills out, but something isn’t right. He can’t entirely relax.

Along the way we meet the Aussie doctor, our protagonist’s longtime hookup; a young runner with some exceptional body parts; the random third in a failed threesome; grumpy working comics, male and female; and an ineffectual counselor.

Webb gives a lightning-fast performance that boggles the mind (in terms velocity and virtuosity). He can be impish, very impish. He’s nervous energy incarnate, flashing jazz hands, grimacing but handsome when still. He’s likeable, a necessity when delivering a hilariously rude joke just feet away from two stone-faced audience members. (Perhaps they were laughing on the inside? At any rate, they stayed through the end the show.)

Produced by the team behind Fringe hits “Fleabag” and “Baby Reindeer,” small stage works that were developed into major TV screen successes, “Feeling Afraid” is funny for sure, and it’s also highly confessional, sexually explicit, and raw.

Written by Dos Santos during COVID lockdown, the piece was a smash hit in the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe before finding further success in London. Its depiction of a youngish queer guy navigating the big city rings entirely true. Like so much Fringe stuff, the one-man show is delightfully lewd and standup inspired.

One little moan: the show closes cleverly but too abruptly with its star dashing offstage without sufficiently basking in the admiration and applause of his thoroughly chuffed audience.

They say third time’s a charm, and regarding “Feeling Afraid,” I’d agree. After two performance cancellations (first for laryngitis and the second involving faulty air conditioning on an especially muggy June evening), I made my third trek to Studio where I found both the actor and AC in very fine fettle. And truly, Webb’s work was more than worth the wait.