Arts & Entertainment
Collaborating on Cole
Legendary gay composer celebrated with In Series production
Steven Mazzola and Greg Stevens, the creative team behind ‘The Cole Porter Project.’ (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
‘The Cole Porter Project: It’s All Right With Me’
Through March 9Source
1835 14th St. N.W.
$20-38
202-204-7763
When the In Series first asked director Steven Scott Mazzola to create a show about Cole Porter for its 2014 season, he was certain what he didn’t want: four singers seated on stools singing the legendary Broadway composer’s best known works, setting up each song with a bit of surfacey chitchat. And though unsure of exactly what direction to take, he was determined to celebrate the staggering breadth of Porter’s music and explore his many facets without getting bogged down in too much biography.
Mazzola tapped Greg Stevens as co-writer/director. The pair (both gay) had met working on Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” (Mazzola directed, Stevens designed) for the In Series last season, and hit it off. After setting to work on six months of rewrites and workshops, the pair’s efforts resulted in “The Cole Porter Project: It’s All Right With Me,” a Washington-set tale about a delegation from Peru, Ind., (Porter’s hometown) who lobby Congress to honor their musical native son with his own national holiday.
While “The Porter Project” is mostly an entertaining romp, it also comments on Porter’s complexity, Stevens says. Invariably, Porter whose songbook includes sophisticated favorites like ”Night and Day,” ”What Is This Thing Called Love?” and ”I Get a Kick Out of You,” is pegged as urbanity incarnate, but there’s more to him than that. He was a classically trained musician who wrote popular music crammed with topical references. He loved both lowbrow humor and sleek sophistication, and his songs overflow with witty innuendo and double meaning. Porter, who died in 1964 at 73, and his older wife Linda, were a well-loved couple on the café society scene, yet he was gay and had romantic relationships with other men (an open secret among their set). It’s all there.
“I think D.C. is the perfect setting,” Mazzola says. “Like Porter, the city demonstrates a duality, particularly with politicians and government. Here it’s not unusual for the mirror to have faces.”
In preparing the project, Mazzola and Stevens combed through 1,000 songs before narrowing it down to three dozen ranging from familiar hits like “It Was Just One of Those Things,” “Love For Sale” and “Miss Otis Regrets” to the lesser known tunes “In the Morning, No” and “Experiment.”
“We’d identified some favorites that we wanted to use,” says Stevens, who first encountered Porter’s music in high school when he heard a disco version of “Begin the Beguine” by Tuxedo Junction. “But part of the process included thinking about how Cole Porter was among the very first musical theater composers whose scores propelled the story along. That was revolutionary in the 1930s. We wanted to do the same, so we ended up repurposing songs from a dozen musicals from the ‘20s through the ‘50s, all very different stylistically, to tell our story. And like Porter who wrote songs for performers like Ethel Merman (his favorite) and friend Fred Astaire, we wanted to select songs that fit our singers and characters.”
The nine-person cast features In Series vets Randa Rouweyha, Joe Haughton and Tammy Roberts. “The parts,” explains Mazzola, “are ‘gender open.’ The five principles have purposely been named Nick, Sam, Chris, Pat and Courtney and can be played by anyone.”
A long-time Washington company, the In Series works with local artists to create innovative theatrical programming around a musical core of opera, cabaret, poetry and song. Its productions strive to embrace fresh approaches to the classics, blend the performing arts in unconventional ways, and include Latino programs each season. “The Cole Porter Project” falls most closely to the cabaret category.
Primarily a set designer, Stevens (who heads the professional development program at the American Alliance of Museums by day) considers “The Cole Porter Project” his first formal effort in directing. “I’m looking to Steven as much as a mentor as a colleague. He knows more about the craft of directing whereas I’m going on instinct a lot of the time.”
A longtime director, Mazzola first came to Washington to assist Michael Kahn at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. (Today, in addition to directing, he’s a grants manager at the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.) Yet, despite his ample staging experience, this is his first time co-directing. “It takes lot of negotiation. There are moments of frustration, but they don’t last. It’s interesting and you learn a lot watching how your co-director works.”
They like what they’ve come up with. But ultimately, Mazzola and Stevens agree: In the end, people will come to hear the music. It’s Cole Porter’s crowd-pleasing, enduring songs that are the draw, just as they have been for decades.
The 2026 Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather competition was held at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill on Sunday. Seven contestants vied for the title and Gage Ryder was named the winner.
(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Theater
Voiceless ‘Antony & Cleopatra’ a spectacle of operatic proportions
Synetic production pulls audience into grips of doomed lovers’ passion
‘Antony & Cleopatra’
Through Jan. 25
Synetic Theater at
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre
450 7th St., N.W.
Synetictheater.org
A spectacle of operatic proportions, Synetic Theater’s “Antony & Cleopatra” is performed entirely voiceless. An adaptation of the Bard’s original (a play bursting with wordplay, metaphors, and poetic language), the celebrated company’s production doesn’t flinch before the challenge.
Staged by Paata Tsikurishvili and choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili, this worthy remount is currently playing at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre, the same venue where it premiered 10 years ago. Much is changed, including players, but the usual inimitable Synectic energy and ingenuity remain intact.
As audiences file into the Klein, they’re met with a monumental pyramid bathed in mist on a dimly lit stage. As the lights rise, the struggle kicks off: Cleopatra (Irina Kavsadze) and brother Ptolemy (Natan-Maël Gray) are each vying for the crown of Egypt. Alas, he wins and she’s banished from Alexandria along with her ethereal black-clad sidekick Mardian (Stella Bunch); but as history tells us, Cleopatra soon makes a triumphant return rolled in a carpet.
Meanwhile, in the increasingly dangerous Rome, Caesar (memorably played by Tony Amante) is assassinated by a group of senators. Here, his legendary Ides of March murder is rather elegantly achieved by silver masked politicians, leaving the epic storytelling to focus on the titular lovers.
The fabled couple is intense. As the Roman general Antony, Vato Tsikurishvili comes across as equal parts warrior, careerist, and beguiled lover. And despite a dose of earthiness, it’s clear that Kavsadze’s Cleopatra was born to be queen.
Phil Charlwood’s scenic design along with Colin K. Bills’ lighting cleverly morph the huge pyramidic structure into the throne of Egypt, the Roman Senate, and most astonishingly as a battle galley crashing across the seas with Tsikurishvili’s Antony ferociously at the helm.
There are some less subtle suggestions of location and empire building in the form of outsized cardboard puzzle pieces depicting the Mediterranean and a royal throne broken into jagged halves, and the back-and-forth of missives.
Of course, going wordless has its challenges. Kindly, Synectic provides a compact synopsis of the story. I’d recommend coming early and studying that page. With changing locations, lots of who’s who, shifting alliances, numerous war skirmishes, and lack of dialogue, it helps to get a jump on plot and characters.
Erik Teague’s terrific costume design is not only inspired but also helpful. Crimson red, silver, and white say Rome; while all things Egyptian have a more exotic look with lots of gold and diaphanous veils, etc.
When Synetic’s voicelessness works, it’s masterful. Many hands create the magic: There’s the direction, choreography, design, and the outrageously committed, sinewy built players who bring it to life through movement, some acrobatics, and the remarkable sword dancing using (actual sparking sabers) while twirling to original music composed by Konstantine Lortkipanidze.
Amid the tumultuous relationships and frequent battling (fight choreography compliments of Ben Cunis), moments of whimsy and humor aren’t unwelcome. Ptolemy has a few clownish bits as Cleopatra’s lesser sibling. And Antony’s powerful rival Octavian (ageless out actor Philip Fletcher) engages in peppy propaganda featuring a faux Cleopatra (played by Maryam Najafzada) as a less than virtuous queen enthusiastically engaged in an all-out sex romp.
When Antony and Cleopatra reach their respective ends with sword and adder, it comes almost as a relief. They’ve been through so much. And from start to finish, without uttering a word, Kavsadze and Tsikurishvili share a chemistry that pulls the audience into the grips of the doomed lovers’ palpable passion.
Out & About
Love board games and looking for love?
Quirk Events will host “Board Game Speed Dating for Gay Men” on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. at KBird DC.
Searching for a partner can be challenging. But board games are always fun. So what if you combined board games and finding a partner?
Picture this: You sit down for a night of games. A gaming concierge walks you through several games over the course of the night. You play classics you love and discover brand new games you’ve never heard of, playing each with a different group of fun singles. All while in a great establishment.
At the end of the night, you give your gaming concierge a list of the folks you met that you’d like to date and a list of those you met that you’d like to just hang out with as friends. If any two people put down the same name as each other in either column, then your gaming concierge will make sure you get each other’s e-mail address and you can coordinate a time to hang out.
Tickets cost $31.80 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
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