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Out teen relishes understudy role in ‘Dear Evan Hansen’

Pierce Wheeler has played two roles in national tour of hit show

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Pierce Wheeler stars in ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ (Photo by Jenny Anderson)

‘Dear Evan Hansen’
Through September 25
The Kennedy Center
2700 F St., N.W.
$79.00 – $199.00
Kennedy-center.org

Throughout the pandemic, understudies have emerged as heroes of the stage. Always there, always ready at a moment’s notice, they cover roles when principal actors are sent home with a positive COVID test. Without them, the show doesn’t go on. 

Nineteen-year-old out actor Pierce Wheeler is one such hero. Since joining the national tour of “Dear Evan Hansen” two months ago, he’s been called on to understudy four times for Evan and twice for supporting character Jared Kleinman.  

“I played Evan my debut week in Boise, Idaho. The rehearsal process was quick. It happened and I was proud of it,” he says.  

And now through Sept. 25, Wheeler will be waiting in the wings of the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater in case he’s needed again. 

Long before landing his current gig, Wheeler had itemized theatrical goals on his phone’s notes app. Topping the list was playing Evan in “Dear Evan Hansen.” The winner of six Tony Awards including Best Musical, it’s the story of a shy, sensitive high schooler whose life dramatically changes when a fellow student dies by suicide. 

The show marks Wheeler’s professional debut. After graduating from high school in the spring of 2021, he started at New York University’s Musical Theatre program. When not in class, he was auditioning around town. On the last day of his first year, he received an email announcing he’d been hired for “Dear Evan Hansen,” and is currently on a gap year from NYU. 

“Teachers and peers say if you’re doing the thing you went to college for why go back? I’m very big on education and have lots to learn. Whether I continue working or one day go back to school is up in the air. I’d be happy with either outcome.”

Broadway lore is chock full of understudy stories. Perhaps the most legendary being Shirley MacLaine’s leap form the chorus to cover for an injured Carol Haney in “The Pajama Game.” Hollywood film producer Hal Wallis, who happened to be in the audience that night, noticed MacLaine’s sparkle and opened the doors to movie stardom. 

While Wheeler isn’t counting on a movie deal yet, he’s loving the understudy experience. “When you’re called to go on it’s a real adrenaline rush,” he says. “Learning more than one role isn’t always easy. But I’m glad it’s been a challenge. This sets me up to take on harder things in the future.

Whether or not he’s slated to perform, he warms up before every showtime. Sometimes during intermission, understudies are tapped to cover the second act. They never know. But inevitably most nights and matinees, he passes the time backstage with other understudies playing board games (Catan is a new obsession), talking, watching movies, or napping. 

A self-described community theater kid, Wheeler grew up in Amityville (village on New York’s Long Island, a place best known as the setting of the book “The Amityville Horror”) as the youngest of four children – all queer. “We were a little community who enjoyed a silent acceptance of breaking hetero normative standards,” he says. “I’m so thankful to have them in my life. They shaped me.”

He first saw “Dear Evan Hansen” off-Broadway at Second Stage with his siblings on Easter Sunday in 2015: “I was really young but I remember sitting and thinking this young man is singing and acting so magnificently and I’d like to do that.” 

Wheeler is a high tenor. He’s described as having a quick vibrato, and a youthful spirit and vocal energy. At 19, he’s closer in age to Evan than most actors who’ve played the part: “Evan is pretty much an anxious high schooler who makes mistakes. Because I stepped out of high school less than two years ago, I totally get the social hierarchy and worries that come with that and the show’s underlying theme of connecting via social media resonates.” 

“Having grown up gay helps me to play an emotionally charged teenager like Evan who is straight by the way,” he adds. “I think it allows me to better tap into where lie the dark and happy emotions. Being in touch with love, depression, and anxiety all at the same time.”

Despite his youth, Wheeler has the poise and confidence tempered by the humility of an older soul. Too busy for a relationship at the moment, he says, “Touring has me focusing on myself and I think I’m in love with that.”

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Signature’s fresh take on classic ‘Forum’

Actor Mike Millan says ‘it’s like a new work in many ways’

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‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’
Through Jan. 12
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave.
Arlington, Va.
$40-$126
sigtheatre.org

For out actor Mike Millan, Signature Theatre’s production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” couldn’t feel fresher. 

Set in ancient Rome, the 62-year-old Tony-winning hit (music with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart) borrows from Roman comedy, farce, and a dash of bawdy vaudeville to the tales of slaves, soldiers, courtesans, and a lovesick young man. 

Millan plays Hysterium, a nervous slave in the House of Senex, whose tagline reads “I live to grovel.”

“I’ve never done ‘Forum,’ so to me it’s like a new work in many ways,” he says. “And because it’s older and has a classic musical point of view and we’re doing it now, it’s as if we’ve been given a lovely opportunity to make it our own.” 

And indeed, they are doing just that. Directed and choreographed by Matthew Gardiner, the Signature production is introducing new bits and playing with gender: the central character Pseudolus, a sly slave role created by Zero Mostel, is played by Erin Weaver; Erronius is played by Sherri Edelen in drag; and two male actors and one nonbinary actor play courtesans.

Though Millan, 35, is based with his partner in Los Angeles, he regularly travels to New York and is pleased to make Signature in Shirlington an additional destination on his bicoastal work journey. Recently, the affable actor took time to talk about Signature and “Forum.” 

WASHINGTON BLADE: A little about the brilliantly named Hysterium, please. 

MIKE MILLAN: As a gay actor, I can say that Hysterium is one of the gayer characters I’ve ever played. He’s a sort of fop and he’s in drag most of the second act. How can you not see him as a queer character?” 

When the part was written it was sort of gay coded and now it’s just abundantly clear, you don’t think twice about it. 

BLADE: “Forum” is unapologetically fun. Is now the right time for a romp? 

MILLAN: The show comes with a level of escapism that is really infectious. During these tense times, it feels great to be doing a silly musical. We’re doing fart jokes in tunics, and the material and jokes really hold up. You’ll feel better leaving than when you came in.

BLADE: All that and a Sondheim score too? 

MILLAN: He’s the reason I’m here. In high school, I discovered his “Into the Woods” and remember locking myself in my room until I knew every word to “Giants in the Sky.” 

“Passion,” “Follies,” I love it all. He’s so singular because he writes from a perspective of acting and storytelling; Sondheim touches me in a way that feels quasi-religious. 

When I think about the number of times I sang “Last Midnight” alone in my car, it fills me with a joy that I’ve never gotten from any other composer or jukebox musical.

BLADE:  In 2022, you played Idina Menzel super fan Jeff in “Which Way to the Stage” at Signature. Are you glad to be back? 

MILLAN: Yes, I’m happy to be employed. It’s a tough business. Not only are we asked to be great singers, dancers, actors, and performers but we’re asked to have a social media presence and to be the most popular kid in school. 

Signature provides a safe environment to try something new and different, to experiment with a community that respects doing that. Also at Signature, it never feels like any audience members are being dragged by their partners to see a show. It’s a supportive community. 

BLADE: Speaking of partners, do you miss being away from home?

MILLAN: Sometime it’s nice to have that time away from each other; it builds a little mystery.

BLADE: Will your performance change between now and January?

MILLAN: In recent years, I’ve changed my acting approach from cracking the code on how to play a character to inviting the audience on a journey and making them part of the process. 

I was raised in musical theater, but by doing comedy, standup, and improv, I’ve come to find the joy of failure freeing. And I like being part of a changing show. I like the idea of somebody being able to say “I was there the night Patti LuPone yelled at the guy who took a picture.”

BLADE: An unexpected moment. 

MILLAN: Of course, I go in with certain things I have planned out, but I like the element of excitement that anything might happen. And I think the audience should feel that way too.

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Theater

Sexy, spooky werewolf tale comes to Congressional Cemetery

‘Lýkos Ánthrōpos’ explores story of men who live double lives

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Patrick Kilpatrick (left) and Nicholas Gerwitz in Lýkos Ánthrōpos at Congressional Cemetery

Lýkos Ánthrōpos
Oct. 31-Nov. 24
Thursday through Sunday at 8 p.m., 75 minutes without intermission
Congressional Cemetery
1801 E St., S.E.
Tickets: bob-bartlett.com

Just in time for Halloween, Bob Bartlett is reprising “Lýkos Ánthrōpos.” With his sexy, spooky werewolf tale, the gay playwright brings his passion for horror and site-specific productions to historic Congressional Cemetery on Capitol Hill.  

“Vampires are great and I love ghosts and kind of believe in the spirit world, but werewolves are my favorite,” he says. 

Bartlett is interested in the duality of men who turn into wolves and consequently live double lives. The character he’s written is on the queer spectrum but not particularly discriminating. However, one night a month when the moon is full, he reliably leaves his wife and kids and hooks up with a guy. The play’s conceit starts off with two men cruising in the dark outdoors. 

Before penning “Lýkos Ánthrōpos,” Bartlett believed “there isn’t a lot of horror theater, and what there is, isn’t particularly sophisticated. It’s kind of grand guignol, or tongue in cheek,” and he was — and remains — eager to expand on that. 

So, he spent a month in the summer of 2022 in Rhodes, Greece, immersed in lycanthropy. Based in an Airbnb far from any touristy hubbub, he explored the countryside and wrote his werewolf-themed play. 

“It was sunny, dry summertime, and I wrote a good deal of the play in ruins and ancient amphitheaters; I looked at classical texts, including Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,’ and included much of what I learned in my play.” 

His characters talk about rocky landscape, the heavens, and the effect of the moon on the Earth ranging from tides to our moods and, of course, its impact on werewolves. It’s all a bit more nuanced than the classic Hollywood take, i.e. Lon Chaney Jr’s 1941 horror hit “The Wolf Man.”  

In keeping with the playwright’s love for site specific locales, “Lýkos Ánthrōpos” premiered around Halloween in 2022 in a clearing in the woods on a farm near Bartlett’s home in Davidsonville, Md.  

The team that opened the two-hander in the woods, director Alex Levy and cast members Patrick Kilpatrick and Nicholas Gerwitz, remain on board for the Congressional Cemetery version. 

Moving the story from the farm to an urban cemetery in the Nation’s Capital presented some amusing challenges: “I definitely did some tweaking; rewrites include references to the city and all the dog walkers found in the cemetery. It’s been fun.”  

A horror fanatic since childhood, Bartlett cut his teeth on George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” when his aunt let him stay up past his bedtime and watch the scary classic on TV, and though he only made it through the first five minutes, and didn’t didn’t sleep for a week, he was hooked.  

Growing up in Accokeek, Md., Bartlett was introduced to theater through his high school pit band. Later he acted, and did some directing at the community theater level. After returning to school for a second master’s in playwrighting, he took up writing. 

With his current production, he says “The gods had my back. We open on Halloween and its first weekend will be performed under a full moon,” says Bartlett. “People (about 30 per performance) are asked to bring a fold up chair, blanket and lantern or flashlight. They will meet as a group and walk together, with a guide, to the performance site at the cemetery where the actors will be in place surrounded by a circle of eerie light. Death metal will be pounding from the woods.  

“Sometimes it’s more terrifying if the violence is offstage. I believe in the mantra don’t show the monster, so there are moments when the characters turn off the lights.”

Also, a longtime professor of theater at Bowie State University, Bartlett is a semester from retiring after which he intends on becoming “a full-time creepy writer.”

Upcoming projects include a play about the controversial and closeted FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and his longtime romantic partner Clyde Tolson, who not incidentally are buried just a few yards apart in Congressional Cemetery. Largely fictional, the play won’t be site specific, but, says Bartlett, will have its own monster in Hoover.

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A contemporary take on ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Folger

Creating a world that appeals to young audiences

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Fran Tapia as Lady Capulet, Caro Reyes Rivera as Juliet, and Luz Nicolas as Nurse in William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ directed by Raymond O. Caldwell at the Folger Theatre through Nov. 10. (Photo by Erika Nizborski)

‘Romeo and Juliet
Through November 10
Folger Theatre
201 East Capitol St. S.E., Washington, D.C.
$20-$84
Folger.edu

In out director Raymond O. Caldwell’s production of “Romeo and Juliet” currently playing at Folger Theatre, the Capulet family are Puerto Rican except for Lord Capulet (Todd Scoffield) who is white with a Southern accent. 

Fran Tapia (Lady Capulet), Luz Nicolas (Nurse), and Caro Reyes Rivera (Juliet) all speak Spanish when they are together. Rosa Garay López (Translator and Interpreter) translated certain scenes into Spanish. The Montagues are played by a cast of multiracial and multiethnic actors.

Tapia, a Helen Hayes Award-winning actor, identifies as part of the LGBTQ community. She says, “I am Chilean, Latina, queer and a proud immigrant.”  

After receiving her acting degree in Santiago de Chile, Catholic University, Tapia started working professionally as an actor and a dancer with contemporary dance companies.

The newly single actor has been living in D.C. since 2019 and plans to remain based here. Recently, she shared her experiences playing Juliet’s mother in Shakespeare’s story of the star-crossed lovers, a play she first read as a girl in Santiago. 

WASHINGTON BLADE:  Typically, Lady Capulet is portrayed as detached, a woman who can’t even remember her daughter’s age. What’s your spin on the Capulet matriarch?

FRAN TAPIA:  From what I’ve read and seen, including productions and films, she’s a woman who has distanced herself from her daughter.

I see the part differently. I want to make it special, to get away from the hard mother. She does care about her husband and daughter. Her expectations are shaped by society more than anything, she has conservative goals, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love her daughter.

BLADE: What else about your Lady Capulet is unique?

TAPIA: First of all, she’s Puerto Rican. She speaks in Spanish and English. She loves to sing. She’s a party girl. She’s a devoted wife and partner in crime with Lord Capulet, sharing both his ambition and devotion to family. 

Lady Capulet wants to look pretty and she loves money. And she wants to be blonde, of course. I wear 26-inch blonde extensions for the part. I’m giving so much drama to it. It’s fun and dramatic and over the top.

She can share secrets with the Nurse played by Luz [Nicolas]. There are nuances with how she speaks to her. Lady Capulet speaks English when she wants to be formal. Luz brings the comedy. She’s also, a very good dramatic actress.

BLADE: It’s a contemporary take on the Bard’s masterpiece. 

TAPIA: It’s super contemporary. Raymond [Caldwell] is looking to create a world that appeals to young audiences. He’s working with so many designers doing projection, lighting, and sound. There are so many surprises for you. 

BLADE: Am I right in guessing it’s not set in Verona.

TAPIA: It’s set in a fictionalized Washington, D.C., inspired by the election year. The Capulets are a conservative political family based on nobody in particular. They’re struggling for power through the marriage of their daughter. Unlike the source material, they’re not trying to marry off a teenager. It’s more about preserving a legacy. That’s scary to lose when you’re used to having it.

BLADE: How is working with Raymond? I’ve heard so many good things about him. 

TAPIA: Prior to joining the cast, I’d heard from friends that he was good, but I had no idea how good. When I got this part, I gave myself the opportunity to offer my resources like singing. And he’s been super receptive. 

Raymond is very clear and bold. Lady Capulet has problems with addiction more intense than I imagined. I won’t specify but we’re diving into all of that. There are so many kinds of addiction including social media for instance. In real life, I’m addicted to Diet Coke as anyone in the cast can tell you. 

BLADE: Is Lady Capulet a part you’ve longed to play? 

TAPIA: Not really, but under the direction of Raymond I’m loving every second of it. His view of things has given me a lot of freedom that I didn’t expect.

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