Theater
‘This Is Who I Am’ explores generational, physical distance
Father, son connect and cook via Zoom in new play


‘This Is Who I Am’
Through Jan. 3, 2021
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
$15
woollymammoth.net
“Queer, Middle Eastern, American, immigrant, and theater artist: Fortunately, all those identities live together and work for me,” says Evren Odcikin, associate artistic director at the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF).
Best known for staging new works, Odcikin, 40, directs playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi’s “This Is Who I Am,” a world premiere two-hander newly commissioned by D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (streaming live at woollymammoth.net through Jan. 3).
Performed live in real time via Zoom, “This Is Who I Am” explores the generational and physical distance between an estranged father (Ramsey Faragallah) and son (Yousof Sultani). Connected by video chat from their respective kitchens in Ramallah, West Bank, and New York City, they discuss with equal parts humor, frustration, and sadness their past and present relationship while simultaneously baking (yes, actually) a beloved family recipe.
Born in Turkey, Odcikin came to the U.S. to attend Princeton University on full scholarship, majoring in computer science with a minor in theater. He then headed west to San Francisco where he became involved with Golden Thread Productions, a company dedicated to exploring Middle Eastern culture and identity worldwide. Founded by a queer Middle Eastern immigrant, it was a place where Odcikin could learn and grow comfortably. “I was welcomed and didn’t have to fight my identities to make a space for myself in the American theater,” he says.
He now lives close to OSF in Ashland, Ore., with his husband, an artmaker who does drag, and their dog Weasel.
WASHINGTON BLADE: How did you become a part of “This Is Who I Am”?
EVREN ODCIKIN: I’d met the playwright at Golden Thread, and I knew Woolly Mammoth’s artistic director Maria Manuela Goyanes. So, with this small, 70-minute-long play with two actors, we were going to figure out live theater making in a digital setting. It was a magic moment.
Ultimately, original producers PlayCo and Woolly Mammoth were joined by American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, the Guthrie Theater, and OSF. A beautiful play by a Palestinian writer got a national platform with some of the leading theaters in the country
BLADE: Is that unusual for a play like this?
ODCIKIN: Typically, with Palestinian works in the U.S., a lot of politics is imposed on the plays. Here, the occupation is the context, and the play specifically speaks to what it means to live and grow up in an occupied state, but does it from a lived experience rather than rhetoric.
If we can give a sense of what it’s like for Palestinians to live under those conditions first hand, that’s what theater can do better than other mediums.
BLADE: How does being queer factor into your work?
ODCIKIN: I’d say that for me, it’s in the style. While you won’t see it in this play, I’m obsessed with camp and gender bending, and interested in queer aesthetic that uses comedy and surprise as a political tool.
Any work that shakes up our heteronormative, cis-normative expectation as an audience to wake us up to politics of our given moment – and to me, the best drag does that – that’s what I’m really interested in.
BLADE: And how was your experience with virtual directing?
ODCIKIN: Wasn’t too sure when I started. Said yes to it as an experiment. No one is really doing this truly live, every night performance. We were the first out of the gate.
I soon discovered Zoom fatigue is real. The actors never met in person. We met the stage manager only virtually. But as an artist, I felt like I was making a play.
And while I won’t say there’s been a silver lining – pandemic is too awful – there were some positive things. I’m a bit of an optimist — you have to be in the job I have. My theater community has expanded to D.C. and internationally. And it’s the first time in 20 years that my family in Turkey will see a play I’ve directed.
BLADE: And your thoughts on reopening?
ODCIKIN: At OSF, we’ve faced a lot head on- pandemic, environmental crisis fires that went through Ashland. And the racial reckoning that came to a head after George Floyd’s death.
Change making is a central tenant of how to survive and thrive and not just withstand crisis. It’s exciting to focus on questioning our structure and figuring out how we’ll make excellent work when we get to the other side of this. I feel lucky and honored to be one of the folks who gets play a part.
Theater
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with one of these three plays
‘Waitress,’ ‘Love Birds,’ ‘Fuenteovejuna’ offer differing takes on love

For theatergoers seeking to mark Valentine’s Day with live music, love, and friendship, the DMV offers some new spins on traditional themes.
Poised to make its regional debut at Olney Theatre Center, Sara Bareilles’s hit musical “Waitress” (Feb.13-March 30) may not seem like a usual love story, but it’s a love story nonetheless.
“It’s about learning to love and value yourself,” says MALINDA who plays Jenna, the show’s titular server/baker with aspirations to bake prize-winning pies and change her life. “It’s also about sisterhood. From the start, the women involved in the show decided to be there for each other onstage and off, and it shows. For anyone with girl group love in their lives, this is an especially good show to see.
“Jenna doesn’t get a lot of satisfaction out of her primary partnership. Along with self-love she explores the antithesis of that — partner violence. Our director [Marcia Milgrom Dodge] took the lesson of community support and community love to heart.”
Prior to coming out as bisexual in 2022, MALINDA considered herself more of a “quiet queer.” However, the inspiration derived from Irish music (“music of the oppressed”), which she’s famed for singing on TikTok, compelled her to go public.
She didn’t always believe her queerness to be special: “For me,” MALINDA says, “it was like saying my eyes are hazel. There wasn’t much to celebrate. But then I realized there were missing voices in my community. Felt like the right thing to do, and it’s been one of the great blessings of my life.”
Six years ago, after her Helen Hayes Award-winning turn in “Once,” MALINDA took a break from musical theater. She needed time to age into dream parts, and one of those roles was Jenna. She recalls, “Going back to theater was prominently featured on my vision board, so when Marcia asked me to commit to ‘Waitress,’ I happily agreed.”
For her, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to reach out and tell friends, family, and, of course, romantic partners, just how much you love them.
And she adds “that’s exactly how I plan to celebrate.”
D.C.’s delightful Holly Twyford is spending Valentine’s Day working at the Folger on Capitol Hill. She’ll be on stage, her wife will be in the audience, and depending on the length of the program, they’ll go out to dinner afterward.
For four performances, the multi-Helen Hayes award-winning actor is serving as narrator for “The Love Birds” (Feb. 14-16), a new Folger Consort work that blends medieval music with a world-premiere composition by acclaimed composer Juri Seo and readings from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “A Parlement of Foules” by Twyford.
Standing behind a podium, she’ll read Chaucer’s words (translated from Middle English and backed by projected slides in the original language), alternating with music played on old and new instruments.
“The new music is kind of dissonant with the sounds of birdcalls and nature sounds, painting a picture of what’s going on in Chaucer’s poem that’s beautiful and funny. Chaucer describes the male eagles pleading for the hand of the female eagle. Chaucer seems almost unwittingly feminist when he has the female eagle ask her eagle suitors to give her a year to think about it.”
GALA Hispanic Theatre in Columbia Heights presents “Fuenteovejuna” (through March 2), a timely production staged by out director José Luis Arelleno. Penned in 1613, this work from the Spanish Golden Age ranks among playwright Lope de Vega’s most performed plays.
It’s about tyranny and love, Arellano explains. Within Lope de Vega’s timely tale of brutish power lies an intense love story. In fact, at the top of the show, four characters, two males and two females play a game. What is love? One of the players asserts that love doesn’t exist, while the others disagree. It’s a charming way to kick off the play.
The celebrated director isn’t one to telegraph messages, preferring audiences think for themselves. That said, he does, of course, make strong directorial choices: “If I have to choose between love or war, it’s more important to talk about love. For me, it’s a revolution.”
And apropos of a Valentine’s Day date, GALA’s production of “Fuenteovejuna” (performed in Spanish with English surtitles) is imbued with live music and verse, an important part of any romantic experience, adds David Peralto, the production’s poetry and verse consultant as well as Arellano’s longtime partner.
The busy Spain-based couple will celebrate Valentine’s Day in Seville and couldn’t be happier. Arellano describes Seville as the most romantic city in the world.
Theater
Broadway vet Ashley Blanchet tackles ‘Bedwetter’ at Arena
Sarah Silverman memoir a funny, poignant story of struggling with depression

‘The Bedwetter’
Feb. 4-March 16
Arena Stage
1101 6th St., S.W.
$69-$119
Arenastage.org
Skilled and experienced at comedy and drama, Broadway vet Ashley Blanchet says there’s a big difference between the two. She explains, “Comedy is right or wrong, you nail it or you don’t; whereas with drama there’s room for subjectivity. Because I started out as a dancer, being able to hit the mark makes a lot of sense to me. There’s a lot of rhythm to comedy.”
Currently Blanchet is eliciting laughs as Miss New Hampshire in “The Bedwetter” at Arena Stage. A musical based on comedian Sarah Silverman’s bestselling memoir, it’s the funny yet poignant story of a hairy 10-year-old girl’s struggle with clinical depression and bedwetting.
Blanchet’s Miss New Hampshire is a kind of fairy godmother character.
“Most of the time I’m in Sarah’s head. She first sees me on TV in Miss America, and soon I start talking to her.”
By the end of the piece, Sarah learns that Miss New Hampshire is also a bedwetter. Subsequently, the future comedian turns her weaknesses into strengths, taking her depression and bedwetting and using it to fuel her creativity and eventual career.
This isn’t Blanchet’s first time as Miss New Hampshire. She initially auditioned in 2019 and eventually created the role off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company in 2022.
She recalls going into the audition mostly cold. Only knowing that Miss New Hampshire is a pageant girl who unwittingly says some funny things, she partly fashioned her on Kristin Chenoweth’s ditzy Glinda in “Wicked.”
“Sarah [Silverman] and the show’s director Anne Kauffman, were laughing. I thought they were just being polite. Turns out, they really liked what I did.”
Although Blanchet, 37, doesn’t claim a personal connection to bedwetting, she can relate to the depression described in the show. Like Sarah, she had a difficult time transitioning into her teenage years. In fact, she credits theater with saving her life.
At 14, Blanchet left home to attend Walnut Hill School, a private performing arts high school in Massachusetts. From there, she moved on to University of Michigan, a great preparatory place for theater, she says. After graduating with a BFA, she went straight to New York where she made her Broadway debut as part of the ensemble in “Memphis.” Soon she began progressing to parts with words and songs.
Because so many musicals thematically touch on being different, Blanchet says bisexuality helps in her work.
“I’ve always felt a little bit of an outsider, so the concept of acceptance and learning to love yourself found in ‘The Bedwetter’ is something I can relate to from both a queer perspective and from being Black. As I get older, I’m increasingly grateful to be who I am.”
Going into college, Blanchet assumed she was straight, but after becoming exceptionally fond of a female friend, growing excited whenever they made plans to hang out, it became clear to her that her feelings were romantic. They were together for three years.
“Being bisexual, there wasn’t like a community waiting for me despite there being many bi people. I didn’t have what my gay guy friends seemed to find. For me, sexual attraction is more about energy than body parts. Coming to own that and be proud of it was a journey and is relatable to different situations including acting.”
Blanchet has played Elsa in “Frozen” on Broadway. She was the also the first Black actor to play the title role in “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella” at Paper Mill Playhouse, a well-known regional theater in New Jersey. And Blanchet very happily led the cast as Maria in “The Sound of Music,” also at Paper Mill.
“These are parts that I never knew I’d do it. That’s kind of what it’s like to be Black in this business,” she says.
Scheduled to be in D.C. at Arena this winter, “The Bedwetter” cast assumed they’d be in for a wild time no matter how the election played out. They weren’t wrong. Fortunately for Blanchet, she’s immersed in her work and comfortably sharing digs with her big, beloved mixed-breed dog Cosmo.
Returning to the show, a Broadway-bound production, is proving an exciting challenge. “I’m like, ‘what did a I do last time? What made this joke work?’ I can’t remember,” she says laughing. “But it’s always good to return to the show, making tweaks and changes. I’m always trying to do anything I can to improve my performance.”
Theater
‘Downstate’ follows plight of four registered sex offenders
What happens after prison when you can’t escape taint of wrongdoing

‘Downstate’
Through Feb. 16
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$50-$102
Studiotheatre.org
Crime and punishment are up for discussion at Studio Theatre. In Bruce Norris’s challenging work “Downstate,” the provocative playwright explores the circumstances of those who’ve done their time but can’t seem to escape the taint of the wrongdoing.
Set in a tidy, no-frills group house somewhere south of the Chicago metropolitan area, “Downstate” gives us four disparate housemates with one thing in common: they’re all registered sex offenders.
Here, the men live. They wear ankle monitors and follow proscribed and increasingly stringent rules about where they can buy groceries and catch buses. What’s more, there’s the serious harassment from belligerent neighbors who are privy to their pasts.
We’re first introduced to Fred (Dan Daily), a former piano instructor. The snowy haired, avuncular resident who uses a mobility scooter and peppers sentences with “golly gee” and “gosh,” couldn’t seem more harmless. But Fred has a past.
And today, Fred also has guests. Andy (Tim Getman), a polite, fortyish financial planner, and his wife Em (Emily Kester), a not particularly Zen yoga instructor, who have traveled from Chicago.
It’s not a social call. Andy has come with a well-thought strategy on how to calmly confront the man who sexually assaulted him on a piano bench when he was 12. Since that day, Andy’s life has been plagued with anxiety and depression; he hopes to put some closure on the past.
Interruptions ensue. There are calls from the couple’s son at a nearby hotel who’s eagerly awaiting a promised trip to a water park. At the house, other residents mill about, sometimes queuing up to use the modest home’s one bathroom. Soon, Fred’s visitors leave, wholly dissatisfied.
Each of the ex-convicts’ stories are imbued with denial. Gio (Jaysen Wright) is an angry guy who quotes scripture, works out, and relies on cringy Eddie Haskell manners. Because Gio did time for statutory rape with an underage female he feels less deviant than his housemates Fred; withdrawn Felix (Richard Ruiz Henry), who sexually assaulted his very young daughter; and Diana Ross-adoring, comfortably queer Dee (Stephen Conrad Moore) who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy when he was 37 and after serving 15 years in prison continues to describe their connection as a loving relationship.
Eventually, Andy returns without his wife and engages with Fred. Emotions run hot. (Here, fight choreographer Robb Hunter’s knowhow goes on full display.)
Playwright Norris, whose other works include “Clybourne Park,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2011), cunningly delves into revenge, guilt, and mercy through both the residents themselves and other characters including visiting probation officer Ivy (Kelli Blackwell) who shows an unyielding toughness with the occasional flash of sympathy, and Effie (Irene Hamiliton), Gio’s lively young co-worker at Staples.
“Downstate” moves swiftly and is never dull. The dialogue rings true, and Norris is master of the shifting tone.
Perceptively helmed by director David Muse, the design team creates the perfect place for this difficult story to unfold. Set designer Alexander Woodward serves up a house with several mostly unseen bedrooms, a dated paneled common area, and smallish galley kitchen, all with furnishings culled mostly from thrift stores and yard sales. There are necessary details like a busy group bulletin board, Gio’s weight bench, and Fred’s keyboard, a scarily broken front window, and an ominous baseball bat leaning near the front door.
The space is persuasively lit by lighting designer Stacey Derosier, creating different moods, atmospheres, and, most memorably, an early morning light flooding in from the surrounding outside world.
In his director’s note, Muse writes “I hope this is the kind of play that stays with you after you leave.” In this, he certainly succeeds.
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