Arts & Entertainment
Setting the stage
Gay theater designer says less is more in his field
Local theater set designer Tony Cisek whose long career in Washington has garnered him four Helen Hayes Awards. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
A playwright sets the scene with words, but it’s up to the scenic designer to bring it to life visually.
As one of D.C.’s top set designers, Tony Cisek is a master at transporting audiences to places both foreign and familiar. In this year’s season alone, he’s taken us to an exotic Cypriot encampment, a steamy Florida cigar factory, an airport terminal and with his most recent work — “The Taming of the Shrew” currently running at the Folger Theatre — the Wild West.
Cisek (pronounced Chis-eck) explains that while sets can range anywhere from totally abstract to highly realistic, his typically lie someplace in between. For Ford’s Theatre fall production of “Parade” (the musical account of the 1913 murder of teenage factory work Mary Phagan in Atlanta in 1913 and the subsequent lynching of her accused murderer Leo Frank two years later), Cisek’s design was serviceable yet haunting: he imagined a newly industrialized red brick Atlanta with two towering columns, each in unchecked stages of decay, standing as fading remnants of a more glorious South.
“The ‘Parade’ set was the result of over 20 sketches,” he says. “My favorite way to design is to distill and distill, to edit down until you have just what you need. I’m not good at decorating or excessive dressing.”
“I’m not interested in a purely naturalistic representation of something that leaves nothing to the imagination,” says Cisek, who’s gay. “I feel the audiences come to theater because they’re interested in doing a little work, in having to lean forward and fill in, and they have the capacity to do this. I like using elements that evoke certain feelings, times and places by using textures and forms.”
Growing up in Queens, New York, Cisek was introduced to set design while working stage crew on high school plays, but it was as a pre-med major at Georgetown University that he began to get serious about it. “A friend dragged me to a Masque and Bauble production [Georgetown University’s student-run theater group],” he says. “And I was blown away that people my age could do something with such artistry. I got involved and learned a lot. If you had the aptitude and the inclination you could do almost anything.”
Soon, Sunday evening phone calls home focused on shows and sets rather than organic chemistry. By Cisek’s senior year it was obvious to both him and his parents that a future in medicine was out and a career as a professional set designer was taking shape. He went on to study scenic design at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. After receiving his master’s in 1994, he planned to stay on in Manhattan, but things worked out differently. Offers from the Washington theater scene came fast and frequently (and have continued uninterrupted), so he and his longtime partner, a scientist, make D.C. their home.
For the four-time Helen Hayes Award winner, inspiration comes in many ways.
“I like to say I never know when the muse will descend,” says Cisek, 47. “Sometimes it’s in the not-fully awake early hours when your brain is figuring things out without you or when you’re fiddling with the white model [a preliminary small scale model] or Skyping across country with a director. Often the indispensable lighting and costume designers will have a great suggestion.”
But Cisek’s favorite path to inspiration is brainstorming with the director in the theater. In the case of Folger Theatre’s “Othello” that ran earlier this season, he and director Robert Richmond did just that, spending several hours chasing down ideas and scribbling on napkins. In time, sketches and models were rendered and the technical director oversaw the execution of the design. Ultimately, the result was a dazzling set that morphed from a towering canopy bed elaborately crowned in carved wood to magistrate’s office to billowing ship sails to a fabulously appointed Bedouin-style tent.
Like many designers, Cisek enjoys working with simpatico directors. This season he collaborated with gay director José Carrasquillo three times: WSC Avant Bard’s “Happy Days” (memorably encasing actor Delia Taylor in a gigantic dress); GALA Theatre’s “Ana en el Tropico”; and Arthur Miller’s “After the Fall” at Theatre J, all well-received productions.
José Carrasquillo says, “Tony is fearless in expressing his feelings and opinions, but most importantly he enjoys making theater. It’s a gift to have a designer that despite the hard work that goes into doing a show, would not be anyplace else in the world, but right next to the director and the other team members inside a theater making a story three dimensional.”
Movies
‘Things Like This’ embraces formula and plus-size visibility
Enjoyable queer romcom challenges conventions of the genre
There’s a strange feeling of irony about a spring movie season stacked with queer romcoms – a genre that has felt conspicuously absent on the big screen since the disappointing reception met by the much-hyped “Bros” in 2022 – at a time when pushback against LGBTQ visibility is stronger than it’s been for 40 years.
Sure, part of the reason is the extended timeline required for filmmaking, which tells us, logically, that the numerous queer love stories hitting theaters this year – including the latest, the Manhattan-set indie “Things Like This,” which opened in limited theaters last weekend – began production long before the rapid cultural shift that has taken place in America since a certain convicted fraudster’s return to the White House.
That does not, however, make them any less welcome; on the contrary, they’re a refreshing assertion of queer existence that serves to counter-balance the hateful, politicized rhetoric that continues to bombard our community every day. In fact, the word “refreshing” is an apt description of “Things Like This,” which not only celebrates the validity – and joy – of queer love but does so in a story that disregards “Hollywood” convention in favor of a more authentic form of inclusion than we’re ever likely to see in a mainstream film
Written, starring, and directed by Max Talisman and set against the vibrant backdrop of New York City, it’s the story of two gay men named Zack – Zack #1 (Talisman) is a plus-sized hopeful fantasy author with a plus-sized personality and a promising-but-unpublished first novel, and Zack #2 (Joey Pollari) an aspiring talent agent dead-ended as an assistant to his exploitative “queen-bee” boss (Cara Buono) – who meet at an event and are immediately attracted to each other. Though Zack #2 is resigned to his unsatisfying relationship with longtime partner Eric (Taylor Trensch), he impulsively agrees to a date the following night, beginning an on-again/off-again entanglement that causes both Zacks to re-examine the trajectories of their respective lives – and a lot of other heavy baggage – even as their tentative and unlikely romance feels more and more like the workings of fate.
Like most romcoms, it relies heavily on familiar tropes – adjusted for queerness, of course – and tends to balance its witty banter and starry-eyed sentiment with heart-tugging setbacks and crossed-wire conflicts, just to raise the stakes. The Zacks’ attempts at getting together are a series of “meet-cutes” that could almost be described as fractal, yet each of them seems to go painfully awry – mostly due to the very insecurities and self-doubts which make them perfect for each other. The main obstacle to their couplehood, however, doesn’t spring from these mishaps; it’s their own struggles with self-worth that stand in the way, somehow making theirs more of a quintessentially queer love story than the fact that both of them are men.
All that introspection – relatable as it may be – can be a downer without active energy to stir things up, but fortunately for “Things Like This,” there are the inevitable BFFs and extended circle of friends and family that can help to get the fun back on track. Each Zack has his own support team backing him up, from a feisty “work wife” (Jackie Cruz, “Orange is the New Black”) to a straight best friend (Charlie Tahan, “Ozark”) to a wise and loving grandma (veteran scene-stealer Barbara Barrie, “Breaking Away” and countless vintage TV shows) – that fuels the story throughout, providing the necessary catalysts to prod its two neurotic protagonists into taking action when they can’t quite get there themselves.
To be sure, Talisman’s movie – his feature film debut as a writer and director – doesn’t escape the usual pitfalls of the romcom genre. There’s an overall sense of “wish fulfillment fantasy” that makes some of its biggest moments seem a bit too good to be true, and there are probably two or three complications too many as it approaches its presumed happy ending; in addition, while it helps to drive the inner conflict for Zack #2’s character arc, throwing a homophobic and unsupportive dad (Eric Roberts) into the mix feels a bit tired, though it’s hard to deny that such family relationships continue to create dysfunction for queer people no matter how many times they’re called out in the movies – which means that it’s still necessary, regrettably, to include them in our stories.
And in truth, “calling out” toxic tropes – the ones that reflect society’s negative assumptions and perpetuate them through imitation – is part of Talisman’s agenda in “Things Like This,” which devotes its very first scene to shutting down any objections from “fat shamers” who might decry the movie’s “opposites attract” scenario as unbelievable. Indeed, he has revealed in interviews that he developed the movie for himself because of the scarcity of meaningful roles for plus-sized actors, and his desire to erase such conventional prejudices extends in every direction within his big-hearted final product.
Even so, there’s no chip-on-the-shoulder attitude to sour the movie’s spirit; what helps us get over its sometimes excessive flourishes of idealized positivity is that it’s genuinely funny. The dialogue is loaded with zingers that keep the mood light, and even the tensest scenes are laced with humor, none of which feels forced. For this, kudos go to Talisman’s screenplay, of course, but also to the acting – including his own. He’s eminently likable onscreen, with wisecracks that land every time and an underlying good cheer that makes his appeal even more visible; crucially, his chemistry with Pollari – who also manages to maintain a lightness of being at his core no matter how far his Zack descends into uncertainty – isn’t just convincing; it’s enviable.
Cruz is the movie’s “ace in the hole” MVP as Zack #2’s under-appreciated but fiercely loyal bestie, and Buono’s hilariously icy turn as his “boss from hell” makes for some of the film’s most memorable scenes. Likewise, Tahan, along with Margaret Berkowitz and Danny Chavarriaga, flesh out Zack #1’s friend group with a real sense of camaraderie that should be recognizable to anyone who’s ever been part of an eclectic crew of misfits. Trensch’s comedic “ickiness” as Zack #2’s soon-to-be-ex makes his scenes a standout; and besides bigger-name “ringers” Roberts and Barrie (whose single scene is the emotional climax of the movie), there’s also a spotlight-grabbing turn by Diane Salinger (iconic as Francophile dreamer Simone in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”) as the owner of a queer bar where the Zacks go on one of their dates.
With all that enthusiasm and a momentum driven by a sense of DIY empowerment, it’s hard to be anything but appreciative of “Things Like This,” no matter how much some of us might cringe at its more unbelievable romcom devices. After all, it’s as much a “feel-good” movie as it is a love story, and the fact that we actually do feel good when the final credits role is more than enough to earn it our hearty recommendation.
Friday, May 23
“Center Aging Monthly Luncheon and Yoga” will be at 12 p.m. in person at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. For more details, email [email protected].
Trans Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group is intended to provide an emotionally and physically safe space for trans people and those who may be questioning their gender identity and/or expression. For more details, email [email protected].
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Happy Hour” at 7 p.m. at DIK Bar. This event is ideal for making new friends, professional networking, idea-sharing, and community building. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Saturday, May 24
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ community, including Allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Black Lesbian Mixer will be at 11 a.m. on Zoom. This is a support group dedicated to the joys of being a Black lesbian. For more details, email [email protected].
Sunday, May 25
“The Queen’s Table: A Women’s Empowerment Brunch” will be at 11 a.m. at Zooz. This event will celebrate queer women’s strength. For more details visit Eventbrite.
Monday, May 26
“Center Aging Monday Coffee and Conversation” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email [email protected].
Tuesday, May 27
Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary. Whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know you’re not 100 percent cis — this is your group. For more details, visit genderqueerdc.org or Facebook.
Coming Out Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This support group is a safe space to share experiences about coming out and discuss topics as it relates to doing so. For more details, visit the group’s Facebook.
Wednesday, May 28
Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.
Thursday, May 29
The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. To be fairer with who is receiving boxes, the program is moving to a lottery system. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245.
Virtual Yoga with Charles M. will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a free weekly class focusing on yoga, breathwork, and meditation. For more details, visit the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s website.
Photos
PHOTOS: Helen Hayes Awards
Gay Men’s Chorus, local drag artists have featured performance at ceremony
The 41st Helen Hayes Awards were held at The Anthem on Monday, May 19. Felicia Curry and Mike Millan served as the hosts.
A performance featuring members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and local drag artists was held at the end of the first act of the program to celebrate WorldPride 2025.
The annual awards ceremony honors achievement in D.C.-area theater productions and is produced by Theatre Washington.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Adams Morgan queer bar broken into and vandalized
‘Things Like This’ embraces formula and plus-size visibility
Calendar: May 23-29
Comings & Goings
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Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
WorldPride events round-up
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
