Arts & Entertainment
Wide open spaces
Local gay actor plans ambitious Riverfront performance
‘The Nautical Yards’
April 26-29
The Yards Park, 10 Water Street SE
$30 premium seating; free general admission (lawn/standing)
Force-collision.org
John Moletress, right, and company. (Photo courtesy force/collision)
For its upcoming production, force/collision has shunned details like securing rights to a play or leasing a theater. Instead, the new interdisciplinary company has opted to devise its own material — “The Nautical Yards” — and will premiere it outdoors at the Yards Park in the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood located just south of Capitol Hill.
Inspired by the history and architecture of the adjacent Navy Yard, the hour-long performance blends movement, music and text to tell the story of two lovers separated by war and sea. And because it’s truly site specific, the production calls on its 30-person ensemble cast to make wide use of the open space, including its shallow canal, fountains, ultra-modern bridge and boardwalk.
“While [the performance] does draw on documented accounts of the Navy Yard civilian work force, personal war correspondence and letters and the mythology of water, it’s not a true narrative,” says John Moletress, director and force/collision founder. “I wanted to take all findings and source material and use it to respond to the architecture and the history. It’s a collage and layering of different images, musings and texts.”
Moletress, who’s gay, lives just two blocks from the park. He says when he first moved to the neighborhood four years ago, he instantly saw potential for drama. “The area was much less developed then — a lot of the big old buildings that have since repurposed were standing empty and abandoned. I asked the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District about doing a performance in one of the buildings then, but was told it was too dangerous. The structures were in bad shape and there was still a lot of scrap metal lying around from the 1950s.”
More recently, when Moletress approached the District about the Yards Park project, they were much more receptive, expressing eagerness to bring in varying kinds of arts to supplement their summer concert and movies series. Also, the late April performance dates coincide with a new residential building opening in the area as well as more restaurants and retail.
“The Nautical Yards” is the result of ongoing collaboration among director Moletress, composer Daniel Paul Lawson, choreographer Erica Rebollar, dance captain/assistant choreographer Ilana Faye Silverstein, costume designer Collin Ranney and talented force/collision company performers Karin Rosnizeck; Dane Figueroa Edidi, who typically performs by the name Lady Dane; Sue Jin Song; and Ranney, and busy local actor Frank Britton. (About 20 or so additional actors have been cast for the performance.) Britton, who’s bi, is thoroughly enjoying the entire site-specific performance experience. He describes dipping into the fountains as fun but chilly, and hopes for warm evenings during the show’s short run.
This is Moletress’ first foray into directing al fresco. Fortunately he has a loud outside voice, so giving directions to 30 performers in a well-trafficked park hasn’t been a problem. “It’s a wonderful way to engage in the arts and with your community in the outdoors, but it’s not without challenges. Because the process is very open,” he says. “You have to throw your ego out the window. All of your direction is on display. From the start, you’re getting feedback from all the locals who pass by. It’s interesting to see who chooses to be curious and engage and who runs away.”
“We have no rain dates. We’re playing it by ear,” Moletress says. “But if a performance is interrupted by bad weather, we can all wait it out in a nearby lumber shed. There’s room for everyone.”
Celebrity News
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Uncloseted Media published this interview on July 7.
By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON, ISABEL STOKES, and BELLA SAYEGH | After appearing on the 11th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the first season of “Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World,” the sixth season of “RuPaul’s All Stars” and now the 11th season of “All Stars,” Silky Nutmeg Ganache, known by many as the Reverend, is undoubtedly a legend.
Born and raised in Moss Point, Miss., Ganache bears all in this episode of “UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton.” She speaks about her relationship with gender, her 100-pound weight loss, what it’s like living as a queer person of color in a red state and why she’s calling on allies to stand up for the trans community.
Patrons enjoyed a night out at the popular LGBTQ venue Crush Dance Bar on Friday, July 3.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
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.
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