Theater
Director Alan Paul enjoying frothy romp ‘The Comedy of Errors’
Theater bug bit Michael Kahn protege at young age
Alan Paul says a ‘60s Greek aesthetic has informed much of his work. (Photo courtesy STC)
‘The Comedy of Errors’
Through Oct. 28
Shakespeare Theatre Company
at Lansburgh Theatre
450 7th St., N.W.
$44-118
Director Alan Paul came out at just 15. He was the last of his group at performing arts camp to come clean on his sexuality. The rest had all come out at about 12, he says. Paul felt quite left behind. Certainly he’s never been behind professionally.
At 25, Paul was named Shakespeare Theatre Company associate artistic director under the auspices of legendary STC Artistic Director Michael Kahn. Now 34, Paul boasts an impressive CV crammed with work on classics, opera and musicals. He’s been nominated for several Helen Hayes Awards for directing and won for STC’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” His more recent production of “Camelot” has broken STC box office records.
Growing up in nearby Potomac, Md., Paul made frequent trips to New York to see Broadway musicals. He loved “Sunset Boulevard” with Glenn Close as Norma Desmond but was verily obsessed with the London cast recording featuring Patti LuPone as the reclusive silent film star. From an early age, Paul longed to be a part of the theater world and struck up correspondences with many Broadway professionals. After graduating from Northwestern University where he was in the musical theater program, Paul returned to his hometown to pursue a career in earnest. He splits his time between Washington and New York where he’s often called to meet with designers and audition actors.
Currently, Paul is staging STC’s production of Shakespeare’s early work “The Comedy of Errors,” a farce jam-packed with slapstick and mistaken identity revolving around two sets of identical twins. A twin himself, Paul felt instantly at home with the work’s situations and possibilities.
Recently he took a break from tech week to talk about his latest directorial effort and other things.
WASHINGTON BLADE: I read that you wanted to plumb the work for its romantic and elegant elements. True?
ALAN PAUL: Those were early words. When you see the fart jokes you won’t think elegance. It’s a difficult play because it has to be funny but it also has to be about real people. The characters are searching for lost loved ones. The premise is deep. The comedy of it is what happens in the course of this crazy 24 hours. But there is elegance in the physical production. I wanted a mostly black-and-white set and costumes. I’m inspired by films from the early ‘60s like the Greek romantic comedy “Never on a Sunday” starring Melina Mercouri.
BLADE: Is it wrong to associate you primarily with musicals?
PAUL: I’ve directed many plays but musicals have been the most visible thing I’ve done. I love both. It’s fun to jump back and forth. In addition to Michael (Kahn), my heroes include Jack O’Brien. He directed “Hairspray” and “Henry IV” on Broadway in the same year. And Michael Blakemore who on the same night won Tony Awards for directing a play and a musical, “Copenhagen” and a revival of “Kiss Me, Kate,” respectively. People mistakenly think a director of musicals can’t be serious or real. Or a play director can’t be fun. I try really hard to play both sides of that. For “The Comedy of Errors,” we’re including some original music. It’s about creating that ‘60s Greek feeling. Also, the cast includes Eleasha Gamble who plays the courtesan and owner of the Porcupine Club. How could I not give her a song?
BLADE: You’re a twin. Has that been your way into “The Comedy of Errors”?
PAUL: Yes, I have a twin sister. For me, I understand the bond with my sister. The bond is different from what I have with anyone else. We share a sense of humor. If you looked at our text messages you’d have no idea what it means but we think it’s hilarious. Twins figure into so many of Shakespeare’s plays. I think Shakespeare had twins and one of them died. This play, and “Twelfth Night” especially, is about needing to find your other half. Shakespeare had a fantasy of family coming back together that never happened. I believe it comes from an extraordinary sense of loss.
BLADE: How did you go about casting twins?
PAUL: I’ve cast two sets of twins who look nothing alike. Put the same hat on them and who cares? We get it.
BLADE: Tell me about how Michael Kahn hired you.
PAUL: It was over drinks at Playbill Café. I miss that place so much. Not a big deal for him, but life changing for me.
BLADE: This is Michael Kahn’s last season at STC. What has he taught you?
PAUL: He pushed me very hard when I was very young to run the department. He gave me a lot of responsibility and expected me to know what I was doing. I figured out how to do it and I think that he gave me a lot of confidence early on. Also, I will take away his incredibly high standards. He won’t let anything go that does meet a certain standard. And I have that myself. An internal GPS that says “not good enough.”
BLADE: Will you work under Kahn’s appointed successor, Simon Godwin?
PAUL: That’s an ongoing conversation. I like him and am excited to see what he’ll do.
BLADE: Was directing The Comedy of Errors your choice?
PAUL: STC wasn’t doing a musical this season so I knew I’d do a play. I really wanted to do Shakespeare so Michael and I talked about a lot of different titles. Comedies to dramas. We hadn’t done this one in a long time. I thought it was a great way to open the season and I wanted to assemble a group of funny people that the audience would know. It’s always fun to have artists on stage together who have contributed to the success of STC. People like Tom Story, Nancy Robinette, Ted van Griethuysen, Sarah Marshall.
BLADE: And don’t forget Veanne Cox as Adriana.
PAUL: Yes, wait until you see her arguing with a parrot. She has a pet bird that talks to her.
BLADE: Last season you broke Shakespeare Theatre Company sales record with your production of “Camelot.” How do you explain that?
PAUL: The election. I’d been uncertain about doing “Camelot.” People love the music but not so much the book. But when Hillary Clinton lost the election, I couldn’t help but wonder what Obama was thinking about his legacy. That’s what King Arthur goes through at the end of the play. When the Round table is cracked he says that barbarism is the natural state of man. Then at the end of the scene he meets the kid and his spirit is revived. I thought that’s the story Washington needed to hear. And I was right.
BLADE: There are so many shows opening right about now. Why see “The Comedy of Errors”?
PAUL: Well, it’s short — 95 action-packed minutes. Nobody wants to see a really long play. With this production, you’re out in time to get drinks or supper. Also, it’s funny. In these times of the stressful news cycle, I want to give people some entertainment and joy.
BLADE: Tell me about your childhood letter writing.
PAUL: Yes, I have a whole book of correspondence, about one hundred letters. I started writing letter c/o the stage door when I was a kid. I wrote stage managers, a dance captain and actors like George Hearn. I have letters from Audra McDonald before she was famous. Bob Mackie wrote me. I wanted to know how things worked.
BLADE: How does being gay figure into your work?
PAUL: Freedom to have fun with sexuality. Someone in the show accused me of trying to make this into a John Waters’ movie. I said that’s a good thing. There’s lots of drag. Sarah Marshall plays a man, Dr. Pinch. Three men double as female characters.
BLADE Any directorial projects you’re itching to tackle?
PAUL Yes, two musical and a play. In keeping with my Greek ‘60s film thing, I’d like to do the musical “Zorba.” And another is “Golden Boy,” the musical based the Clifford Odets play about a young man from Harlem who pursues prizefighting despite his family’s objections. It needs a little doctoring, but I think that would make a wonderful Broadway revival. And the play is “Teenage Dick.” It’s got a provocative title but it’s actually a version of Shakespeare’s “Richard III” set in an American high school. It played at the Public Theater in New York this summer. Please someone in Washington let me do this. It will be a huge hit in this town, I’m certain.
The cast of ‘The Comedy of Errors,’ a brisk farce now on the boards at Shakespeare Theatre Co. (Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy STC)
Theater
Theatre Prometheus spreads queer joy with ‘Galatea’
Two girls dressed as boys who find love despite the odds
‘Galatea’
Through May 10
Theatre Prometheus
Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center
7995 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, Md.
$27
Theatreprometheus.org
In a timely move, Theatre Prometheus thought it would be a beneficial thing to spread a little queer joy. And since the company’s mission includes engaging audiences and artists in queer and feminist art, there was nothing to stop them.
Co-artistic directors Tracey Erbacher and Lauren Patton Villegas, both queer, agree they’ve found that joy in John Lyly’s “Galatea,” an Elizabethan-era comedy about Galatea and Phillida, two girls dressed as boys who find love despite some rather slim odds.
Now playing at Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center on the Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus, the upbeat offering is a mix of contemporary and period, and strives to make audiences happy. Galatea’s cast includes Amber Coleman and Cate Ginsberg as the besotted pair.
Erbacher, also the production’s director, adds “queer joy is something that I prioritized in casting actors and interviewing production people. I asked them what it means to them, and resoundingly the reply — from both them and the play — is that queer joy is the freedom to be yourself without having to think about it.
“Galatea” was first brought to Prometheus’s attention by Caitlin Partridge, the company’s literary director. Erbacher recalls, “she strongly suggested I read this very queer play. I read it and fell absolutely in love. And because it’s a comedy — I really like directing comedy — I knew that I could lean into that while not neglecting its universal themes of young love.”
Villegas, who’s not ordinarily drawn to the classics, was also instantly smitten with Galatea.
“Usually with classics, the language doesn’t jump out at me the way modern works do,” she says. “But not so with ‘Galatea.’ The first time I heard it read aloud, I found it easy to follow and entirely accessible in the best way.”
Whether Lyly deliberately wrote a queer play isn’t known. What’s definitely known is the play was written with an all-boy performing troupe in mind; that’s partly why there are so many young female roles, the parts 10-year-old boys were playing at the time.
There’s not a lot known about Lyly’s personal life, mostly because he wasn’t wildly famous. What’s known about the times is that there wasn’t a concept of “gay,” but there were sodomy laws regarding homosexual activity in England geared toward men having sex with men; it was all very phallocentric, Erbacher says.
She categorically adds, “Women’s sexuality wasn’t considered in the equation. In fact, it was often asked whether women were even capable of having sex with other women. It just was not part of the conversation. If there wasn’t a dick involved it didn’t count.
“Perhaps that’s how the playwright got around it. If there were two male characters in the play he could not have done it.”
Prometheus has done adaptations of ancient myths and some classics, but in this case it’s very faithful to the original text. Other than some cuts winnowing the work down to 90 minutes, “Galatea” is pretty much exactly as Lyly wrote it.
And that includes, “girls dressed as boys who fall in love thinking girls are boys,” says Erbacher. “And then they start to clock things: ‘I think he is as I am.’ And then they don’t care if the object of their affection is a boy or a girl, the quintessential bisexual iconic line.”
And without spoiling a thing, the director teases, “the ending is even queerer than the rest of the play.”
Erbacher and Villegas have worked together since Prometheus’s inception 11 years ago. More recently, they became co-artistic directors, splitting the work in myriad ways. It’s a good fit: They share values but not identical artistic sensibilities allow them to exchange objective feedback.
In past seasons, the collaborative pair have produced an all-women production of “Macbeth” and a queered take on [gay] “Cymbeline,” recreating it as a lesbian love story. And when roles aren’t specifically defined male or female, they take the best actor for the part.
With Galatea, Prometheus lightens the current mood. Erbacher says, “the hard stuff is important but exhausting. We deserve a queer rom-com, a romantic sweeping story that’s not focused on how hard it is to be queer, but rather the joy of it.”
Theater
Timely comedy ‘Fake It’ focuses on Native American themes
Arena Stage production features two out actors
‘Fake It Until You Make It’
Through May 4
Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St., S.W.
Tickets start at $59
Arenastage.org
A farce requires teamwork. And Larissa FastHorse’s “Fake It Until You Make It” now at Arena Stage is no exception.
The timely comedy focuses on Native American nonprofits fractiously housed in a shared space. Friction rises when rivals River (Amy Brenneman), a white woman operating in the Indigenous world, goes up against the more authentic Wynona (Shyla Lefner) to win a lucrative Native-funded grant.
While Brenneman (best known for TV’s Judging Amy) is undeniably a big draw, it takes a group collaboration to hit marks, land jokes, and pull off the well-executed physical comedy including all those carefully timed door slams.
As members of the six-person “Fake It” cast, Brandon Delsid and Eric Stanton Betts, both out actors of partly indigenous ancestry, contribute to the mayhem. Respectively, Delsid and Betts play Krys and Mark, a pair of two-spirited Native Americans who meet farcically cute and enjoy one of the play’s more satisfying arcs.
For Krys, every attractive man is a potential next fling, but when Mark, handsome and relatively reserved, arrives on the scene, it’s something entirely different.
Both onstage and sometimes off, Betts plays the straight man to Delsid’s waggishness. But when it comes down to real life business, the friends are on the same page: not only are the L.A.-based, up-and-coming actors intensely serious about their film and stage careers, but they’re also particularly engaged in the themes of Indigenous People found in “Fake It.”
On a recent Wednesday following a matinee and an audience talkback, they were ready for a phone interview.
In establishing whose voice was whose, Delsid clarified with “I’m the one who sounds a little like a Valley girl.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Brandon, you’ve been with the show since its early work-shopping days in 2022 and through its debut in Los Angeles and now Washington. Have things evolved?
BRANDON DELSID: Definitely. I’ve grown up in the last couple of years and so has my character; it’s hard to know where I end and Kry begins. There’s been a real melding.
Eric and I are both queer, and to get to play these roles that are so human, imperfect, sexy, and interesting is really joyful.
As queer artists you don’t always get the chance to do work like this. So many stories are queer trauma, which is incredibly important, but it’s liberating to feel joy and ride it off into the sunset, which, without revealing too much, is kind of what we get to do.
BLADE: There’s some race shifting in “Fake It” particularly with regard to “pretendian” (a pejorative term describing a person who has falsely claimed Indigenous status).
ERIC STANTON BETTS: The last few years I’ve been on a journey with my cultural identity and place in the world. I’m a mixed BIPOC artist, my dad is Black and Native American by way of the Cherokee tribe and my mom is white.
Since 2020, I’ve tried to figure out where I belong in this cultural history that I haven’t had a tie to throughout my life; it’s gratifying to find my way back to my indigeneity and be welcomed.
In the play, race shifting is introduced through farce. But it’s never in a disrespectful way; it’s never mocked or done in a way to take away from others. The playwright parallels race shifting with gender fluidity.
DELSID: But in life, there are people posing as Indigenous, actively taking grants, and the play goes there, we don’t hold back. Larissa, our playwright, has made it clear that she’s not trying to figure it out for us. With that in mind, we hope people leave the theater interested and curious to learn more.
BLADE: Mark arrives kind of the middle of some crazy drama, bringing along a jolt of romance.
BETTS: Yeah, when I show up, we’re all sort of shot out of a cannon, struggling to keep up with the initial lie.
DESLID: A very gay cannon.
BLADE: What’s up next for you two?
BETTS: Both Brandon and I are up for the same part in a TV pilot, so one of us may be getting some very good news. I also have a Tyler Perry film coming out soon [he plays a model, not an unfamiliar gig for Betts].
DELSID: Coming up, I have a recurring part on HBO’s “The Rehearsal,” and a supporting part in “June and John,” a John Besson film. But doing “Fake It Until You Make It” in L.A. and now D.C. has been a special time in our lives. It’s 23/7 togetherness. There’s that hour for sleep.
Theater
‘Bad Books’ a timely look at censorship in local library
Influencer vs. conservative parent in Round House production
‘Bad Books’
Through May 4
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway
Bethesda, Md.
Tickets start at $43
Roundhousetheatre.org
While a library might seem an unlikely place for a heated contretemps, it’s exactly the spot where adults go when they’re itching to battle out what books minors might be allowed to read.
In Sharyn Rothstein’s “Bad Books,” two women, The Mother (out actor Holly Twyford) and The Librarian (Kate Eastwood Norris), swiftly become mired in a quarrel that comes with some weighty repercussions.
The Mother is a popular conservative influencer on a mission. She’s furious that the local library has overstepped its bounds and she blames The Librarian, a woman who adheres to the “it takes a village” method of child rearing and is dedicated to the young people who approach her reference desk.
There’s some background. It seems The Librarian who dresses young (tight jackets and Doc Martens) and curses a blue streak, forged a friendship with Jeremy, a teenage library regular.
While the details are a bit hazy, it seems the troubled Jeremy confided in The Librarian regarding some personal issues. In return, she suggested a helpful book – Boob Juice.
Unsurprisingly, based solely on its title, the book has thrown The Mother into a pique of outrage. After finding Boob Juice in her son’s bedroom, she made a beeline to the library; and not incidentally, The Mother hasn’t read the recommended work and has no plans to do so.
Set in a suburb with lax gun laws, the story explores facets of division and conciliation. The Mother insists she isn’t so much about banning books as she is keeping some books away from young people until they’ve obtained parental approval.
“Bad Books” is performed in the round. Built on a rotating stage, Meghan Raham’s set is simple, pleasingly serviceable, and easily transforms from the library into a small corporate office, and later the assembly room of a church. Overhead floats a circular glass shelf filled with a cache of banned books. Things like a rolling book cart and a goldfish bowl add some flavor to the different locations.
The Mother wasn’t always a popular conservative warrior with an enthusiastic horde of followers.
Her past includes penning a book that later filled her with guilt and regret. She refers to that early questionable literary accomplishment as her bad book. And while over the years, she has persevered to find and destroy each and every printed copy, she hasn’t entirely succeeded.
Norris plays three women who figure meaningfully into the arc of Twyford’s mother character. In addition to The Librarian, Norris is The Manager, a broadly played piece of comic relief, and The Editor, a warm woman who reveals things about Jeremy that his own mother never knew.
Smartly staged by Ryan Rilette, the production is part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. While Rothstein’s script offers two strong roles (skillfully performed by celebrated actors Twyford and Norris), its ending feels too neatly resolved.
In the past, Twyford and Norris have successfully joined forces for numerous DMV productions including Studio Theatre’s production of David Auburn’s two-hander “Summer, 1976,” the story of a longtime and unlikely friendship between two women who meet as young mothers during the Bicentennial summer.
Though different, both The Librarian and The Mother share a strong and ultimately hopeful relationship with words.
There’s a quote from E.B. White’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” that pops up a couple of times in the briskly paced 80-minute play. Charlotte, the wise spider, says, “with just the right words you can change the world.”
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