Arts & Entertainment
‘Art must lead’
Olney, Md.-based company plans diverse stage repertoire
Jason Loewith, right, with Bobby Smith in rehearsal for ‘Avenue Q.’ Photo by Sonie Mathew; courtesy Olney Theatre Center)
‘Avenue Q’
Through July 13
2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road
Olney, MD
$32.50-65.00
301-924-3400
A year and a half after taking the helm as artistic director of the Olney Theatre Center, Jason Loewith is still figuring out his audience.
“We rely on a particular audience to keep us going and those are the folks who love Agatha Christie’s ‘Mousetrap,’” he says. “But all of Montgomery County and including the area around Olney have become increasingly vibrant and younger. We want to keep the Christie crowd, but I’ve been finding that there’s a lot more we can do.”
For Olney’s summer musical, Loewith has selected and staged “Avenue Q,” the funny 2004 Tony Award-winning musical send up of “Sesame Street.” But unlike with the kid’s show, these Muppet-like puppets (manned by seen actors) and humans sing side-by-side about more grownup stuff including prolonged adolescence (“I Wish I Could Go Back to College”), porn (“The Internet Is for Porn”), political correctness (“Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”), being in the closet (“My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Canada”), and their own inadequacies ( “It Sucks to be Me”).
“The show is such a machine,” says Loewith, who is gay. “You just need to find the right funny people. Get out of the way and not fuck it up.”
For his production he’s assembled a cast that includes Sam Ludwig, Rachel Zampelli, and the reliably excellent Stephen Gregory Smith. He’s tapped popular out actor Bobby Smith for associate director/choreography, and the talented Christopher Youstra for musical director and onstage accompanist.
But not everything that does well in New York is an automatic hit on the leafy campus of Olney Theatre. A director’s point of view is important.
“My approach is to not let the heart imbedded in the show get lost in its snarky humor and satire. In the suburbs, a play must have a way into the heart as well as the mind. ‘Avenue Q’ has that,” says Loewith who lives with his partner on Capitol Hill. “It’s about why you need to love people. Ambition and success mean nothing if you can’t share it with those you love. And that’s a path that I follow and believe in.”
When Loewith lived in New York, he worked at the Classic Stage Company just two blocks from the Vineyard Theatre where “Avenue Q” was created.
“It really spoke to me at that moment. I’m the same generation as its creators (author Jeff Whitty and composers-lyricists Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx.).Ten years ago I was 35 and, like the characters in ‘Avenue Q,’ was still trying to figure out my place in the world. I also happen to be very snarky myself, though not as snarky as some in show biz.”
He believes it’s the perfect follow-up to last summer’s “A Chorus Line,” another smart with heart, which won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Resident Musical, Olney’s first such award since “Lucky Stiff” won in 1990.
In September, Loewith plans to open Olney’s fall season opens with “Colossal,” a new play that he expects to resonate with LGBT theatergoers. Penned by Andrew Hinderaker, “Colossal” is the story of Mike, a disabled man who became paralyzed after taking a bad hit for his co-team captain and first lover Marcus in a college football game. Seated in his wheelchair, Mike (to be played by Patrick Thornton, who is disabled) repeatedly watches the video of the bad hit. On stage, the hit is recreated by actors through movement and dance.
“Colossal” is slated to be staged by Will Davis, a transgender director. “When I hired Will he was a she. Now he’s a he and it’s upsetting my male-female ratio of directors. But that’s OK.”
Loewith brings energy and innovation to the job. He meets his challenges with a sense of humor. And perhaps most importantly, he holds the company to a high standard: “I don’t care if we’re doing ‘The Little Mermaid’ (which Olney is mounting for the holidays), we’ll attack the project with artistic rigor and that means working with the best directors, designers and actors in town.
He cites Broadway director David Esbjornson, best known for directing Edward Albee’s “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” on Broadway, as an influence, especially his mantra that “art must lead.”
“That means if it takes another thousand dollars to bring the right person to make the cast work, you have to do it,” Loewith says. “A theater will not stay alive by sending out another appeal letter or making a cut in the marketing budget. A theater survives by putting excellent work on the stage.”
Team DC, the umbrella organization for LGBTQ-friendly sports teams and leagues in the D.C. area, held its annual Night of Champions Awards Gala on Saturday, April 20 at the Hilton National Mall. The organization gave out scholarships to area LGBTQ student athletes as well as awards to the Different Drummers, Kelly Laczko of Duplex Diner, Stacy Smith of the Edmund Burke School, Bryan Frank of Triout, JC Adams of DCG Basketball and the DC Gay Flag Football League.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2024 National Cannabis Festival was held at the Fields at RFK Stadium on April 19-20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Covering the @NatlCannaFest at RFK Stadium for @WashBlade . Stop by the LGBTQ+ booth and pick up a paper if you are here. pic.twitter.com/is7hnsaPns
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) April 20, 2024
Theater
‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor
‘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.
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‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
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