Arts & Entertainment

Helming ‘Chorus’

Broadway vet directing current Olney production

Published

11 years ago

August 1, 2013

Theater veteran Stephen Nachamie says A Chorus Line calls on ‘great dancers to really act.’ (Photo courtesy of Olney Theatre)

‘A Chorus Line’
Through Sept. 1
Olney Theatre Center
2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD
$32.50-$65
301-924-3400
olneytheatre.org

Director and choreographer Stephen Nachamie’s connection to the groundbreaking musical “A Chorus Line” is long and heartfelt. Not only has he played several of the characters in tours and regional productions over the years, but he’s also staged a couple versions too.

So when Olney Theatre Center’s Artistic Director Jason Loewith called last December asking him to helm their own peek into the joys and struggles of Broadway’s “gypsies,” Nachamie had to give the offer some extra consideration before accepting.

In past Olney seasons, the New York-based Nachamie, who is gay, has had successes with musicals “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” “Camelot” and “1776,” but to direct “A Chorus Line,” he says he felt an obligation to set the bar extra high.

“To do this right I knew that I needed strong dancers, daring actors and singers who could convincingly move from speech to song. I’d heard D.C. might not have the skill set, but we found a lot of well-trained hardworking honest actors here. We brought some people from New York like Nancy Lemenager and Bryan Knowlton, but three-fourths of the cast are local [including Parker Drown and Sam Edgerly]. ‘A Chorus Line’ calls on great dancers to really act. This is an amazing opportunity for them to show what they can do.”

Crafted from a series of recorded informal talks among working Broadway dancers, “A Chorus Line” tells the story of 17 dancers auditioning for limited spots in a new musical. Standing on a bare stage, the anxious aspirants are asked by an unseen director to talk about themselves. Their compelling stories — told in words by librettists James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante and song from Marvin Hamlish and Edward Kleban’s Tony Award-winning score — range from amusingly raw to wistfully poignant.

Originally directed and choreographed by the brilliant Michael Bennett, the multiple Tony-winning musical opened on Broadway in the summer of 1975, proving a huge success with critics and theatergoers alike and later won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (not a common feat for a musical).

Nachamie, a native New Yorker who grew up seeing a lot of Broadway musicals (his first was “Grease” at age 4), recalls his introduction to “A Chorus Line”: “I remember first seeing it with my brother and sister. I think I was 12. There were these characters on stage who matter-of-factly said they were gay. It was simply part of their stories. They didn’t slink offstage in shame. I’d never seen anything like that before. It made a big impression.

“With this show, I really want to tell the story of a dancers’ life,” he says. “I’m inspired by Michael Bennett [who died from AIDS-related lymphoma in 1987 at just 44]. His work focused on the characters. The original ‘A Chorus Line’ was all about the actors. The set was a black box with a mirror. Bennett’s original ‘Dreamgirls’ was a black box with some light towers.”

This production is set in 1975. Somehow a saucy dancer singing about how her career blossomed after the scalpel-wielding “wizard on Park and 73^rd” inflated her breasts and booty doesn’t pack the same wallop in cosmetic surgery-jaded 2013, but it’s still a cute number.

Nachamie, 40, looks back on his career to date. As an actor from late adolescence and now a director and writer, he describes the New York theater world as a place where he found acceptance. It’s where he comfortably came out and came of age surrounded by positive role models.

“Some pretty great things and some not so great things are happening for the LGBT community today,” Nachamie says. “It’s important to take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re going. ‘A Chorus Line’ is about people staking a claim for a dream and putting their hearts and soul on the line for what they want. It reminds us that we’re owed nothing. We have to work for it.”

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Team DC President Miguel Ayala speaks at the 2024 Night of Champions Awards on Saturday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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3 days ago

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Theater

‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith

A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor

Published

4 days ago

April 20, 2024

Patrick Folliard

Adil Mansoor in ‘Amm(i)gone’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. (Photo by Kitoko Chargois)

‘Amm(i)gone’
Thorough May 12
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D St., N.W.
$60-$70
Woollymammoth.net

“Fully and utterly autobiographical.” That’s how Adil Mansoor describes “Amm(i)gone,” his one-man work currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.

Both created and performed by out artist Mansoor, it’s his story about inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Sophocles’s Greek tragedy “Antigone” into Urdu. Throughout the journey, there’s an exploration of family, queerness, and faith,as well as references to teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his Muslim mother.

Mansoor, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is now based in Pittsburgh where he’s a busy theater maker. He’s also the founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former artistic director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQ youth arts organization.

WASHINGTON BLADE: What spurred you to create “Amm(i)gone”?

ADIL MANSOOR: I was reading a translation of “Antigone” a few years back and found myself emotionally overwhelmed. A Theban princess buries her brother knowing it will cost her, her own life. It’s about a person for whom all aspirations are in the afterlife. And what does that do to the living when all of your hopes and dreams have to be reserved for the afterlife?

I found grant funding to pay my mom to do the translation. I wanted to engage in learning. I wanted to share theater but especially this ancient tragedy. My mother appreciated the characters were struggling between loving one another and their beliefs.

BLADE: Are you more director than actor?

MANSOOR: I’m primarily a director with an MFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon. I wrote, directed, and performed in this show, and had been working on it for four years. I’ve done different versions including Zoom. Woolly’s is a new production with the same team who’ve been involved since the beginning.

I love solo performance. I’ve produced and now teach solo performance and believe in its power. And I definitely lean toward “performance” and I haven’t “acted” since I was in college. I feel good on stage. I was a tour guide and do a lot of public speaking. I enjoy the attention.

BLADE: Describe your mom.

MANSOOR: My mom is a wonderfully devout Muslim, single mother, social worker who discovered my queerness on Google. And she prays for me.

She and I are similar, the way we look at things, the way we laugh. But different too. And those are among the questions I ask in this show. Our relationship is both beautiful and complicated.

BLADE: So, you weren’t exactly hiding your sexuality?

MANSOOR: In my mid-20s, I took time to talk with friends about our being queer with relation to our careers. My sexuality is essential to the work. As the artistic director at Dreams of Hope, part of the work was to model what it means to be public. If I’m in a room with queer and trans teenagers, part of what I’m doing is modeling queer adulthood. The way they see me in the world is part of what I’m putting out there. And I want that to be expansive and full.

So much of my work involves fundraising and being a face in schools. Being out is about making safe space for queer young folks.

BLADE: Have you encountered much Islamophobia?

MANSOOR: When 9/11 happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so yes. I faced a lot then and now. I’ve been egged on the street in the last four months. I see it in the classroom. It shows up in all sorts of ways.

BLADE: What prompted you to lead your creative life in Pittsburgh?

MANSOOR: I’ve been here for 14 years. I breathe with ease in Pittsburgh. The hills and the valleys and the rust of the city do something to me. It’s beautiful, it’ affordable, and there is support for local artists. There’s a lot of opportunity.

Still, the plan was to move to New York in September of 2020 but that was cancelled. Then the pandemic showed me that I could live in Pittsburgh and still have a nationally viable career.

BLADE: What are you trying to achieve with “Amm(i)gone”?

MANSOOR: What I’m sharing in the show is so very specific but I hear people from other backgrounds say I totally see my mom in that. My partner is Catholic and we share so much in relation to this.

I hope the work is embracing the fullness of queerness and how means so many things. And I hope the show makes audiences want to call their parents or squeeze their partners.