Theater
‘Gigi’ director speaks out
Broadway-bound production balances old and new
Mounting ‘Gigi’ presented unexpected challenges for director Eric Schaeffer. (Photo courtesy Signature)
‘Gigi’
Through Feb. 12
The Kennedy Center
$45-150
800-444-1324
At first the idea of remounting the musical “Gigi” might sound a little dusty. But director Eric Schaeffer guarantees that his reimagined production featuring Hollywood starlet Vanessa Hudgens in the title role is anything but.
“It doesn’t feel like a revival and that’s exactly what we wanted,” says the out director. “We want it to feel fresh and alive, a new musical inhabited by familiar characters that the audience knows and loves.”
Collette’s “Gigi” began as a novella about a Parisian girl whose grandmother and aunt are grooming her to become a career courtesan; but when she and rich playboy Gaston fall in love, things work out differently than planned. The story was first adapted as a play for the Broadway stage in 1951 starring then-unknown Audrey Hepburn. Later the famed team of lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe morphed the source material into a hugely successful MGM 1958 musical directed by Vincente Minnelli. In 1973, a less-popular musical version using the Lerner and Loewe score ran for just a few months on Broadway.
Today, the revamped production playing at the Kennedy Center is written by British screenwriter Heidi Thomas best known for the BBC’s popular post-World War II drama “Call the Midwife.” This “Gigi” is new in many ways, yet features memorable tunes from the movie and stage score including “Paris Is Paris Again,” “She’s Not Thinking of Me” and “The Night They Invented Champagne.”
Thomas’ script puts the focus back on Gigi, says Schaeffer. When not changing costumes, Hudgens is on stage throughout the entire show. Even the scenes when Gaston (here played by handsome Corey Cott) is making the rounds of Paris balls, a jealous Gigi can be seen off to the side scanning the society columns for news of her beloved.
Also, the rewrite eliminates what Schaeffer refers to as “the perv factor.” No longer is Gaston twice Gigi’s age. Now she and he are about 18 and 25 respectively. Also, the play’s “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” a salute to girls’ burgeoning sexuality traditionally sung as an elderly roué, now go to Gigi’s grandmother Mamita (Broadway’s Victoria Clark) and Aunt Alicia (Dee Hoty).
“Heidi is a great collaborator,” he says. “She praises my transitions, and is amazed how I can make a musical flow. And I love her writing. As anyone who has seen Thomas’ television work knows. She is able to write in a way that feels period and contemporary at once, not an easy feat.”
Initially, Schaeffer and the “Gigi” producers wanted to cast an unknown in the leading role and make a star. But it didn’t work out that way.
Toward the end of two weeks of intense auditioning in New York, Amanda Hudgens (famous for Disney’s “High School Musical”) came in, Schaeffer recalls.
“We were impressed from the start because she had learned lines and the songs. Sometimes Hollywood people refuse to audition, much less come so prepared. By the end of the audition I said, ‘That’s our Gigi. Let’s hire her now.’ Vanessa has a certain undefinable quality that makes her perfect for the role.”
Romance and scandal were Collette’s stock and trade. Married several times, she had affairs with men and women. Her early books shocked readers. In her youth she performed a music hall act that included a same sex kiss. But when she wrote “Gigi” at the close of World War II, Collette was aging and things were bleak in France. Perhaps for these reasons, she sets the story in happier a time, the Belle Epoque Paris of her youth.
It’s Schaeffer’s first foray in the era and he strived to totally immerse himself. He and his partner spent some time in the city of light investigating Collette’s haunts. But he credits the production’s design team — Derek McLane (scenic), Natasha Katz (lighting) and Catherine Zuber (costumes) — with creating an exquisite, transporting experience.
“It feels like you’re in Paris. During previews when the curtain went up, audiences instantly applauded. That’s a good feeling. You know they want to go there.”
While Schaeffer is a big fan of the Hollywood musical (he counts “Meet Me in St. Louis” starring Judy Garland and also directed by Minnelli as his favorite), he had never seen “Gigi” when producers asked him to direct the revival two years ago. Once watching, he was immediately charmed by its intimacy and pageantry. He was inspired to bring both quiet and big splashy scenes to the project.
Following the Washington run, “Gigi” moves to Broadway’s Neil Simon Theater. Schaeffer’s extensive directing resume mostly lists Signature Theatre in Arlington where he is artistic director, but also includes the Great White Way (“Follies,” “Million Dollar Quartet”). Does knowing the production is New York-bound raise the stakes?
“Wherever you’re working, you do the best job you can,” he says. “That said, knowing the run show doesn’t end here adds pressure but makes it more exciting. We’ll make changes during the D.C. run. You learn a lot in front of audiences — what works and what doesn’t.”
Theater
Swing actor Thomas Netter covers five principal parts in ‘Clue’
Unique role in National Theatre production requires lots of memorization
‘Clue: On Stage’
Jan. 27-Feb. 1
The National Theatre
1321 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
thenationaldc.com
Out actor Thomas Netter has been touring with “Clue” since it opened in Rochester, New York, in late October, and he’s soon settling into a week-long run at D.C.’s National Theatre.
Adapted by Sandy Rustin from the same-titled 1985 campy cult film, which in turn took its inspiration from the popular board game, “Clue” brings all the murder mystery mayhem to stage.
It’s 1954, the height of the Red Scare, and a half dozen shady characters are summoned to an isolated mansion by a blackmailer named Mr. Boddy where things go awry fairly fast. A fast-moving homage to the drawing room whodunit genre with lots of wordplay, slapstick, and farce, “Clue” gives the comedic actors a lot to do and the audience much to laugh at.
When Netter tells friends that he’s touring in “Clue,” they inevitably ask “Who are you playing and when can we see you in it?” His reply isn’t straightforward.
The New York-based actor explains, “In this production, I’m a swing. I never know who’ll I play or when I’ll go on. Almost at any time I can be called on to play a different part. I cover five roles, almost all of the men in the show.”
Unlike an understudy who typically learns one principal or supporting role and performs in the ensemble nightly, a swing learns any number of parts and waits quietly offstage throughout every performance just in case.
With 80 minutes of uninterrupted quick, clipped talk “Clue” can be tough for a swing. Still, Netter, 28, adds, “I’m loving it, and I’m working with a great cast. There’s no sort of “All About Eve” dynamic going on here.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Learning multiple tracks has got to be terrifying.
THOMAS NETTER: Well, there certainly was a learning curve for me. I’ve understudied roles in musicals but I’ve never covered five principal parts in a play, and the sheer amount of memorization was daunting.
As soon as I got the script, I started learning lines character by character. I transformed my living room into the mansion’s study and hallway, and got on my feet as much as I could and began to get the parts into my body.
BLADE: During the tour, have you been called on to perform much?
NETTER: Luckily, everyone has been healthy. But I was called on in Pittsburgh where I did Wadsworth, the butler, and the following day did the cop speaking to the character that I was playing the day before.
BLADE: Do you dread getting that call?
NETTER: Can’t say I dread it, but there is that little bit of stage fright involved. Coming in, my goal was to know the tracks. After I’d done my homework and released myself from nervous energy, I could go out and perform and have fun. After all, I love to act.
“Clue” is an opportunity for me to live in the heads of five totally different archetype characters. As an actor that part is very exciting. In this comedy, depending on the part, some nights it’s kill and other nights be killed.
BLADE: Aside from the occasional nerves, would you swing again?
NETTER: Oh yeah, I feel I’m living out the dream of the little gay boy I once was. Traveling around getting a beat on different communities. If there’s a gay bar, I’m stopping by and meeting interesting and cool people.
BLADE: Speaking of that little gay boy, what drew him to theater?
NETTER: Grandma and mom were big movie musical fans, show likes “Singing in the Rain,” “Meet Me in St. Louis.” I have memories of my grandma dancing me around the house to “Shall We Dance?” from the “King and I” She put me in tap class at age four.
BLADE: What are your career highlights to date?
NETTER: Studying the Meisner techniqueat New York’sNeighborhood Playhouse for two years was definitely a highlight. Favorite parts would include the D’Ysquith family [all eight murder victims] in “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder,” and the monstrous Miss Trunchbull in “Matilda.”
BLADE: And looking forward?
NETTER: I’d really like the chance to play Finch or Frump in Frank Loesser’s musical comedy “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
BLADE: In the meantime, you can find Netter backstage at the National waiting to hear those exhilarating words “You’re on!”
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.
Theater
Ford’s ‘First Look’ festival showcases three new productions
A chance to enjoy historical dramas for free before they’re completed
The Ford’s Theatre Legacy Commissions: A First Look – 2026
Jan. 16 & 17
Ford’s Theatre
511 Tenth St., N.W.
FREE
Fords.org
When Ford’s Theatre debuted its new plays festival, “A First Look,” in 2023, it was unclear whether people would come for the staged readings.
“Before the pandemic if you announced the reading of a play, 12 people might show up,” says José Carrasquillo, director of artistic programming at Ford’s Theatre. “Since then, we’ve experienced comparatively massive turnout. Maybe because it’s cheap, or because of the very newness of the works.”
This year’s fourth edition showcases readings of three pieces currently in varied stages of development. The free, two-day festival offers audiences a chance to encounter historical dramas long before they’re completed and fully produced. None are finished, nor have they been read publicly. And befitting the venue’s provenance, the works are steeped in history.
The festival kicks off with “Springs” by playwright Jeanne Sakata and directed by Jessica Kubzansky. Commissioned by The Ford’s Theatre Legacy Commissions, it’s the both epic and personal story of Sakata’s Japanese American family including her grandfather’s experience in an internment camp.
“Sakata’s immigrant grandfather was an exceptionally skilled farmer who helped to stave off starvation in the camp. Still, he never gave up on the idea that he belonged in America. It’s very much a story of today,” says Carrasquillo.
Unlike “Springs,” the festival’s two other works weren’t commissioned by Ford’s. But they both fit the history brief and likely will benefit from the exposure and workshopping.
“Providence Spring,” by California based playwright Richard Helesen and directed by Holly Twyford, portrays Clara Barton (played by local favorite Erin Weaver) as a hero beyond the Red Cross whose then-radical initiatives included cataloguing the Civil War dead, many pulled from mass graves.
Directed by Reginald L. Douglas, “Young John Lewis: Prodigy of Protest” explores a slice from the life of the legendary civil rights activist and longtime congressman. With book and lyrics by Psalmayene 24 and music by Kokayi this collaboratively staged reading between Ford’s and Mosaic Theater is slated to premiere fully produced at Mosaic as a 90-minute musical in the spring of 2026.
“When I was hired at Ford’s in 2018, we began discussing hiring writers who do historical drama,” says Carrasquillo. “Our intention was resolute, but we didn’t do it right away. It took getting through the pandemic to revisit the idea.”
At the same time, the racial reckoning spurred Ford’s to hire playwrights of color to tell stories that had previously been forgotten or ignored.
For Carrasquillo, who is gay, the impulse to commission was crystalized when he saw the film “Hidden Figures,” a true story about “three brilliant African-American women — at NASA during the Space Race, overcoming racial and gender discrimination to make crucial contributions to America’s spaceflight success.” He says, “the film floored me. How many stories like this are there that we don’t know about?”
One of the festival’s happiest experiences, he adds, was the commission of playwright Chess Jakobs’s “The American Five” and its subsequent success. It’s the story of Martin Luther King Jr. and his inner circle, including Bayard Rustin (MLK’s brilliant, unsung gay adviser) leading up to the 1963 March on Washington. The play later premiered fully produced in Ford’s 2025 season.
Increasingly, the readings at Ford’s have become popular with both artists and audiences.
At Ford’s, Carrasquillo wears many hats. In addition to selecting plays and organizing workshops, he serves as an in-house dramaturg for some of the nascent works. But he’s not alone. Also helming the festival are senior artistic advisor Sheldon Epps, and The Ford’s Theatre Legacy Commissions advisor Sydné Mahone.
Because the plays are in development, comments from directors, dramaturgs, and the audience are considered and may become part of the playwrights’ rewrites and changes. If and when the play resurfaces fully produced, audience members might find their suggestion in the completed work.
Is this year’s festival queer influenced? Yes, both by those involved and the topics explored.
Carrasquillo explains, “While Sakata’s “Springs” is primarily about immigration, its message is relevant to the queer community. Civil rights are being taken away from us. We need this playwright’s story to know what has happened and what can happen to any of us.
“Many of Ford’s legacy commissions underscore the importance of civil rights in our country and that’s important to all of us. Queer and not queer.”
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