Arts & Entertainment
Stage presence
With ‘Laramie,’ ‘Torch’ and ‘Gypsy,’ season rife with gay themes
‘The Laramie Project’ runs through Oct. 27 at Ford’s Theatre, part of a robust fall theater season in Washington. (Photo courtesy Ford’s)
This fall’s local theater offerings are a particularly promising blend of old and new, several of which have LGBT appeal. Here’s an overview.
Fifteen years after Matthew Shepard’s death, Ford’s Theatre (fordstheatre.org) is presenting an anniversary production of gay playwright Moisés Kaufman’s “The Laramie Project” (Sept. 27-Oct. 27). Kaufman’ powerfully affecting ensemble piece gives insight into the community’s response to the 1998 brutal murder of Shepard, a young gay man living in Laramie, Wyo. Matthew Gardiner (who is gay) directs. Local stalwart Holly Twyford (also gay) is in the cast.
Studio Theatre (studiotheatre.org) opens its season with the bittersweet comedy “Torch Song Trilogy” staged by Michael Kahn (Shakespeare Theatre Company’s gay artistic director) and starring the sensational Brandon Uranowitz as Arnold, a caustically funny drag queen who refuses to give up on his longings for love and commitment. Penned by gravelly voiced gay icon Harvey Fierstein (who created the show’s lead character Arnold on Broadway in 1981), “Torch Song” can feel a little dated around the edges, but its central issues of relationships, authenticity and family never go stale. The cast includes local actor Alex Mills, who is gay, as Arnold’s younger love interest.
At Rep Stage (repstage.org) in Columbia, Md., the season opens with Horton Foote’s “A Young Lady of Property” (Sept. 11-29), directed by Michael Stebbins, who’s gay. Set in a small Texas town, it deals with a young woman struggling to hold on to the house that her late mother left her. Following Foote’s sentimental drama is gay playwright Doug Wright’s powerful Pulitzer Prize winning “I am My Own Wife” (Oct. 30-Nov. 17), a compelling solo show about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transsexual who survives the Nazis and the East German secret police. Stebbins will swap out his director’s hat for an actor’s to play the demanding part of Charlotte.
Olney Theatre Center (olneytheatre.org) is presenting New York’s critically acclaimed BEDLAM Theatre in rotating repertory. Productions include Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (through Oct. 20) and George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan” (also through Oct. 20). Both directed by Eric Tucker.
After BEDLAM’s take on the classics, Olney’s gay artistic director Jason Loewith is staging Steven Dietz’s “Rancho Mirage” (Sept. 26-Oct. 20), a tale of three seemingly well-adjusted couples who at a dinner party decide to stop fronting and get honest. Dietz is best known for “Lonely Planet,” an intriguing exploration of the AIDS crisis as experienced by two gay men from within the confines of a quiet map shop set in an unnamed big city.
Taffety Punk Theatre Company (taffetypunk.com) presents the Riot Grrrls’ all-woman version of Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” (Sept. 27-Oct. 26), featuring Isabelle Anderson in the title role. Lisa Bruneau directs. In the past, the Riot Grrrls have successfully pulled off testosterone free takes on “Romeo and Juliet,” “Julius Caesar,” and more from the Bard’s canon. It’s the Grrrls’ credo that “a great actress can play a great role, regardless if it’s male or female.”
Longtime Washington favorite director John Vreeke is staging Round House Theatre’s (roundhousetheatre.org) area premiere production of “The Lyons” (Nov. 27-Dec. 22), a savagely funny family comedy by gay playwright Nicky Silver. At Woolly Mammoth (woollymammoth.net), Vreeke (who is gay) is also directing Lisa D’Amour’s “Detroit” (through Oct. 6), a comic takedown of the suburban dream. The cast of local favorites includes Emily Townley, Michael Willis, Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey, Tim Getman and Danny Gavigan.
Arena Stage (arenastage.org) opens its season with Eric Coble’s two-hander “Velocity of Autumn” (through Oct. 20) starring the great Estelle Parsons (“Bonnie and Clyde; she played gay on “Roseanne”) and gay actor Stephen Spinella who created the part of Prior Walter, a gay character with AIDS, in Tony Kushner’s seminal “Angels in America.” An intense 90 minutes, Coble’s play focuses on the relationship of a middle-aged son who returns to his mother’s home after a 20-year estrangement to help her deal with some potentially explosive old age issues.
Exciting things are happening at the National Theatre (thenationaldc.com). The season opens with the world premiere of “If/Then” (Nov. 11-Dec. 8), a romantic musical about a woman on the cusp of middle age, who returns to New York City where she deals with love and the unexpected. It stars Idina Menzel who famously created the part of the green witch Elphaba in Broadway’s “Wicked.”
“If/Then” reunites Menzel with Tom Kitt (music), Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics), and Michael Greif (director), the same creative team behind the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical “Next to Normal.”
Oscar winning Christine Lahti comes to Signature Theatre (signature-theatre.org) to star in “Pride in the Falls of Autry Mills” (Oct. 15-Dec. 8), young playwright Paul Downs Collaizo’s new play about what lurks behind the pristine façade of a seemingly perfect suburban existence. Michael Kahn directs.
Signature’s gay artistic director Eric Schaeffer is staging Matt Conner’s new musical “Crossing” (Oct. 29-Nov. 24) in which characters from different decades throughout the last century come together and share their experiences in song. Conner, who is gay, is both an actor (he’s performed in many Signature musicals) as well as composer. In the past, Signature produced his musical “Nevermore,” a dreamy tribute to the works of Edgar Allen Poe. In December, Signature is taking a crack at the legendary musical “Gypsy” (opens Dec. 17). Joe Calarco (who is gay) directs and Signature veteran Sherri L. Edelen plays the title character’s indomitable stage mother, Mama Rose.
Synetic Theater (synetic.org) kicks off its season in Crystal City with “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” (Sept. 26-Nov. 3), promising to put its inimitable movement-based stamp on Oscar Wilde’s classic novel. Included in the cast is Helen Hayes Award-winning gay actor Philip Fletcher who plays Gray’s actual portrait. Synetic’s celebrated adaptions are consistently innovative, accomplished and sexy.
Photos
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(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Theater
‘Inherit the Wind’ isn’t about science vs. religion, but the right to think
Holly Twyford on new role and importance of listening to different opinions
‘Inherit the Wind’
Through April 5
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
Tickets start at $73
Arenastage.org
When “Inherit the Wind” premiered on Broadway in 1955 with a cast of 50, its fictional setting of Hillsboro, an obscure country town described as the buckle on the Bible Belt, was filled with townspeople. And now at Arena Stage, director Ryan Guzzo Purcell has somehow crowded Arena’s large Fichandler space with just 10 actors, five principals and a delightful ensemble of five playing multiple roles.
Inspired by the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s fictionalized work pits intellectual freedom against McCarthyism via the imagined trial of Bertram Cates (Noah Plomgren), a Tennessee educator charged with teaching evolution. Drawn into the fracas are big shot lawyers, defense attorney Henry Drummond (Billy Eugene Jones), and conservative prosecutor, Matthew Harrison Brady (Dakin Matthew). On hand to cover the closely watched story is wisecracking city slicker and Baltimore reporter E.K. Horneck (played by nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan).
Out actor Holly Twyford, a four-time Helen Hayes Award winner who has appeared in more than 80 Washington area plays, is part of the ensemble. In jeans and boots, she memorably plays Meeker, the bailiff at the Hillsboro courthouse and the jailer responsible for holding Cates in the days leading to his trial.
Twyford also plays Sillers, a slack jawed earnest employee at the local feed store who’s called to serve on the jury. And more importantly she plays Brady’s quietly strong wife Sarah whom he affectionately calls “Mother.”
When Twyford makes her memorable first entrance as Meeker, she’s wiping shaving cream from her face with a hand towel. With shades of Mayberry R.F.D., the jail is run casually. Meeker says Cates isn’t the criminal type, and he’s not.
“There’s a joke among actors,” says Twyford. “When an actor gets his shoes, they know who their character is. And it’s sort of true. When you put on boots, heels, or flip flops, there’s a different feeling, and you walk differently.”
Similarly, shares Twyford, it goes for clothes too: “When Mother slips a pink coat dress over her cowboy boots, dons a little hat and ties her scarf, or Meeker puts on his work shirt, I know where I am. And all of that is thanks to a remarkable wardrobe crew.
“Additionally, some of the ensemble characters are played broadly which is helpful to the actors and super identifying for the audience too.”
During intermission, an audience member loudly described the production as “a proper play” filled with beautifully written passages. And it’s true. Twyford agrees, adding “That’s all true, and it’s also been was fun for us to be a part of the Arena legacy as well. Arena took ‘Inherit the Wind’ to the Soviet Union in the early ‘70s when the respective governments did a cultural exchange. At the time, the iron curtain was very much in place, and they traveled with a play about a man with his own thoughts.”
When the ensemble was cast, actors didn’t know which tracts exactly they were going to play. “What came together was a cast, diverse in different ways. Some directors, including myself when I direct, are interested in assembling a cast that’s a good group. No time for egos. It’s more about who will make the best group to help me tell this story.”
At one point during rehearsal, ensemble members began to help one another with minor onstage costume changes, like jackets and hats: “We just started doing it and Ryan [Guzzo Purcell] picked up on it, saying things really began to come alive when we helped each other, so we went with that.”
“For me, it was reminiscent of ‘The Laramie Project’ [Ford’s Theatre in 2013] when we played five different parts and we’d help each other with a vest or jacket in a similar way. It worked so well then too,” says Twyford.
“Inherit the Wind” isn’t about science versus religion. It’s about the right to think, playwright Jerome Lawrrence has been quoted as saying. And it’s a quote that makes the play that much more relevant today.
Twford remembers a chat in a hair salon: “I was getting my hair cut and the woman next to me shared that she was tired of message plays. Understandably there are theater makers who believe that message plays are the point, while others think it’s all about entertainment. I feel like ‘Inherit the Wind’ sits in a nice place in the middle.”
She adds “the work is a creative way of showing different opinions and that, I think, is what we should be paying attention to right now. Clearly, it’s not right or wrong to express what you think.”
Out & About
‘How We Survived’ panel set for March 25
‘Living History’ discussion to be held at Spark Social
Friends of Dorothy Cafe will host “Part One, Living History: How We Survived,” will take place on Wednesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Spark Social House.
This event will be moderated by Abby Stuckrath, host of the “Queering the District” podcast. Panelists include: Earline Budd, activist, trans rights advocate; TJ Flavell of Go Gay DC; DC LGBTQ+ Center Board Member David Bissette; and Alexa Rodriguez, founder and executive director, Trans-Latinx DMV.
This event is part of a four-part storytelling series called “Living History,” which centers LGBTQ elders, activists, artists, and icons sharing their lived experiences and reflections with younger generations. The conversations explore themes like resilience, community organizing, chosen family, and the lessons earlier generations hope today’s LGBTQ+ and ally communities will carry forward.
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