Arts & Entertainment
‘Ordinary’ yet charming
Low-key musical delights with its minimalism
Janine Divita as Claire and Will Gartshore as Jason in ‘Ordinary Days.’ (Photo courtesy Round House Theatre)
‘Ordinary Days’
Through June 22
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda
$25-50
240-644-1100
In the program notes for Round House Theatre’s delightful area premiere of “Ordinary Days,” out composer/lyricist Adam Gwon says the show’s gay character is most like him.
Warren is an optimist. He isn’t terribly put off by rude behavior. For him, a calamity is an opportunity. In jaded Manhattan he might seem an anomaly, yet in Gwon’s charming chamber musical about young people carving out lives for themselves, it’s Warren who embodies the promise and possibilities of Gotham.
“Ordinary Days” is two stories — one about friendship the other love. The first involves nervous Deb (Erin Weaver), a humorless grad student who is unsure what she wants; and Warren (Samuel Edgerly), a happy cat sitter and aspiring artist who canvasses the street handing out flyers with inspiring messages. Two complete strangers. Deb and Warren come together after she loses her thesis notes and he finds them. A hand-over rendezvous is arranged. Warren, ever the romantic, suggests the two meet on Saturday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in front a Monet painting in one of the museum’s myriad galleries. Deb reluctantly agrees. The meeting is amusingly played out in the duet “Sort-of Fairy Tale.”
On parting, uptight Deb feels she owes Warren a thank you. After affirming he’s gay, she suggests a quick 20 minutes at Starbucks, her treat. They sip and chat. Her initial distaste for Warren softens.
That same Saturday, Jason (Will Gartshore) and Claire (Janine Divita) are also at the museum. An afternoon taking in art is part of Jason’s plan to get the couple closer. Though Jason recently moved into Claire’s place, the relationship feels stalled. A painful secret prevents reserved Claire from taking things to the next level.
Almost entirely sung through, Gwon’s 19-song melodic score is filled with the yearning of youth and some more clearheaded thinking prompted by a little maturity. His lyrics are sharp, clever and often funny. Through his songs, Gwon deftly introduces and rounds out complex characters and smartly moves an engaging but hardly groundbreaking plot, which is part of its charm.
Out director Matthew Gardiner’s staging is masterful. Under his sure hand, the perfectly cast, four-person ensemble make it all look so easy, which of course it isn’t. As Jason, Will Gartshore is in gorgeous voice, especially with “Favorite Places,” a sentimental tune in which Jason lists his most prized spots in the city including one he’s yet to visit, Claire’s heart. Janine Divita’s Claire hides her hurt with a hardened veneer. Finally she comes clean with her feelings and reveals the show’s secret with a touching rendition of “I’ll Be Here.”
The eminently watchable Erin Weaver is terrific as Deb, displaying some serious comic and vocal talent with songs like “Don’t Wanna Be Here” and “Calm” (which Deb isn’t). Samuel Edgerly is delightful as the preternaturally sunny and sometimes oblivious Warren. Like his fellow cast members, Edgerly more than does justice to the score. Sole musical accompaniment comes from the excellent musical director/pianist William Yanesh who is seated on stage at a baby grand.
A relatively modest musical, “Ordinary Days” is fun and affecting. Gardiner’s production exudes New York’s energy. There’s the sense of a big city teeming with people in which near misses and accidental meetings can change fates. Misha Kachman’s set is open. A table and chairs, benches and newspaper boxes suggest locations where the characters meet. High above there’s a high balcony from which falls a colorful flurry of inspiring messages.
During his ordinary days as a college student at New York University, Gwon, 34, enjoyed listening to Broadway star Audra McDonald’s first solo album, imagining that one day he would compose for musical theater. Last year McDonald recorded “I’ll Be Here” from “Ordinary Days” on her most recent album, “Go Back Home.”
Gwon’s “Ordinary Days” makes for something special.
Photos
PHOTOS: Capital Pride Festival and Concert
Annual LGBTQ celebration held on Pennsylvania Ave.
The 2026 Capital Pride Festival was held on Pennsylvania Ave. on Sunday, June 21.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key and Landon Shackelford)
The 2026 Capital Pride Parade was held in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, June 20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key, Robert Rapanut and Landon Shackelford)
Theater
‘Feeling Afraid’ explores life of a neurotic stand-up comic
Navigating sex, work, and possibly love in London
‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’
Through July 12
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$55-$102
Studiotheatre.org
Wordily yet rightly titled, solo show “Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen” dives deeply into the world of a neurotic stand-up comic as he navigates sex, work, and possibly love in London.
Busy arranging hookups and dates on “The App,” the 36-year-old gay funnyman juggles a full dance card; still he’s never been in a romantic relationship. While he’s willing to give love a shot, he’s not pressed about it. As he says, he harbors no fear of dying alone.
Currently making its American premiere at Studio Theatre, this darkly humorous Edinburgh Fringe import features terrific out English actor Steven Webb as The Comedian who’s about to explore what it means to spend all his time with one man.
At Studio’s intimate Mead Theatre, Kat Heath’s minimal set says standard comedy club (fluorescent tube lighting, the mic with a long cord, a single stool backed by a rose-colored curtain), but gay playwright Marcelo Dos Santos has conjured something much more than a live comedy set.
Yes, The Comedian bounces onstage in his red Converse high tops, jeans, and pink shirt with a huge mouth emblazoned on the back, but he delivers more than jokes. At times hilariously self-deprecating, then dark, and occasionally a lesson on what makes standup work, this is a layered, well-acted piece.
With Webb (a keen caricaturist of types and voices) playing all the parts while conducting The Comedian’s hilariously frenetic interior monologue, “Feeling Afraid” takes us through a summer of love. It seems after six chaste dates with The American, our nervous hero has found Mr. Right. The American is earnest, smart, hesitant to initiate sex. He’s also well built with a beautiful smile. And strangely, he’s been medically advised not to laugh aloud.
The Comedian delights in the joys of new love: dates, first kisses, sex, and then suddenly spending all of his time with the adored. Visits to art galleries become fun. Eating home cooked meals followed by grim documentaries is a thing. The Comedian is beguiled as his own boyish figure fills out, but something isn’t right. He can’t entirely relax.
Along the way we meet the Aussie doctor, our protagonist’s longtime hookup; a young runner with some exceptional body parts; the random third in a failed threesome; grumpy working comics, male and female; and an ineffectual counselor.
Webb gives a lightning-fast performance that boggles the mind (in terms velocity and virtuosity). He can be impish, very impish. He’s nervous energy incarnate, flashing jazz hands, grimacing but handsome when still. He’s likeable, a necessity when delivering a hilariously rude joke just feet away from two stone-faced audience members. (Perhaps they were laughing on the inside? At any rate, they stayed through the end the show.)
Produced by the team behind Fringe hits “Fleabag” and “Baby Reindeer,” small stage works that were developed into major TV screen successes, “Feeling Afraid” is funny for sure, and it’s also highly confessional, sexually explicit, and raw.
Written by Dos Santos during COVID lockdown, the piece was a smash hit in the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe before finding further success in London. Its depiction of a youngish queer guy navigating the big city rings entirely true. Like so much Fringe stuff, the one-man show is delightfully lewd and standup inspired.
One little moan: the show closes cleverly but too abruptly with its star dashing offstage without sufficiently basking in the admiration and applause of his thoroughly chuffed audience.
They say third time’s a charm, and regarding “Feeling Afraid,” I’d agree. After two performance cancellations (first for laryngitis and the second involving faulty air conditioning on an especially muggy June evening), I made my third trek to Studio where I found both the actor and AC in very fine fettle. And truly, Webb’s work was more than worth the wait.
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