Arts & Entertainment

Snapshots from the stage

Set of eight mini-plays explore black gay experience

Published

13 years ago

May 23, 2013

Actors Reginald Richard, left, and Tristan Phillip Hewitt in ‘New and/or Slightly Used,’ a reading slated for two performances Sunday. (Photo by Emile Benjamin; courtesy of ACT)

‘New and/or Slightly Used’
Sunday at 5 and 8 p.m.
Warehouse Theater
645 New York Ave., NW
202-745-3662
alansharpe.org

Two lives can be significantly changed — for better or worse — by one fleeting but momentous encounter. That’s the thematic thread running through “New and/or Slightly Used,” a collection of eight short plays about black gay, bi and questioning men here in Washington.

In celebration of D.C. Black Pride Weekend, the African-American Collective Theater (ACT) is presenting the work as a staged reading for one night only with two performances on Sunday.

Written and directed by ACT’s Artistic Director Alan Sharpe, the 10-minute-long mini-plays thoughtfully explore instances of love, lust and longing as experienced by a cross section of men ranging from hustlers to husbands.

“The plays run the gamut in terms of characters and situations,” Sharpe says. “Some characters are self-identified as gay, some are in relationships with both men and women and some are straight. It’s kind of a salad.”

“The cast is a mix too,” Sharpe says. “We have gay actors playing straight characters and vice versa. And because it’s a staged reading, there’s very little in terms of set, so I tried to pick a gorgeous cast so the audience will have a something to look at. We’re competing with a lot on gay pride day.”

In “Kickin’ It,” young out actor Tristan Phillip Hewitt plays Dante, a straight cocky high school jock who’s unaware that his buddy has feelings for him. When hot weather prompts the friends to trade basketball for a racier indoor game, it means something different to each boy.

“For me,” says Hewitt, a 21-year-old native Washingtonian who says he’s too tall to be confined to any closet, “this show gives me the experience to be someone else for 10 minutes. In reality I’m no good at basketball. I may have the body of an athlete, but I’m not one. I get to play a jock whose personality is nothing like mine.”

On the other hand, out actor Reginald Richard who plays 30-something Eric in “All Over Him,” says he is very similar to his gay character. “When I first read the play it was as if I was seeing my life story written on the page. Like Eric, I’ve been hurt by someone who wasn’t as much in love with me as I was with him. You have that awkward moment when you see them and you’re not sure what to do. As Eric, I have a chance to unload and achieve closure.”

“Sharpe’s writing is refreshingly realistic and natural,” Richard says. “It’s not stereotypical gay humor. He writes honestly about a very diverse community.”

Originally from Memphis, Tenn., Richard has been in D.C. for 10 years and has been acting for the last four. His experiences with ACT have led him to consider acting as a career. “If I want to be with the best I have to learn with the best, so I put myself in school [at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts]. It’s very challenging, but I’m always up for a challenge.”

With Sharpe at the helm, ACT has been commemorating Black Pride with LGBT-centric theater for 15 years. “When we first started, there were not a lot of vehicles where black and gay lesbians could see themselves on stage, and they were thirsty for that. The response was so great that it completely altered my artistic focus. I discovered a niche that no else was filling.”

ACT’s mission is to showcase contemporary black gay and lesbian life and culture, promote visibility and raise awareness of issues faced in the African-American community.

“By increasing visibility,” Sharpe says, “We strive to demonstrate to people that regardless of race class and gender we have similar experiences. Everyone has been disappointed. Everyone has fallen in love and had their heart broken. The human experience is very universal.”

Cast member Hewitt concurs: “Be prepared to find a piece of yourself in one of these plays.”

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Celebrity News

Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam

Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon

Published

4 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Kylie Minogue with Madonna at the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam on Aug. 2, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Cejlon Studio)

AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.

The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.

Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.

Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”

Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.

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A post shared by Kylie Minogue (@kylieminogue)

Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.

Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.

“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”

Theater

Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth

First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’

Published

13 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Reggie D. White (Photo by Ambe J. Williams)

Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.

A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.

White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”

Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.

“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”

WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?

REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.

BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?

WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.

I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.

These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.

Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.

BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?

WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.

I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].

BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?

WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.

BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?

WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.

Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.