Arts & Entertainment
A lasting legacy
‘Poetry into Song’ at National Presbyterian Church on March 5
“Poetry into Song”
Washington Master Chorale
March 5 at 5 p.m.
National Presbyterian Church
4101 Nebraska Ave., N.W.
$40-60
washingtonmasterchorale.org
After 10 years as a singer and board member with Washington Master Chorale, Diane Kresh decided to end her tenure. But before leaving, she wanted to express her gratitude by gifting the group with something truly beautiful.
The result is composer David Conte’s “The Unknown Sea” a commissioned chorale piece based on the texts of famed American poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). Originally the piece was slated to end the chorale’s 10th season in 2020, but because the pandemic had other plans, it’s now debuting as part of WMC’s “Poetry into Song” on March 5 at the National Presbyterian Church.
The idea, Kresh explains, was to create a legacy project, a gift to the chorale from her for many years of making music with a special group of people including WMC artistic director and dear friend Thomas Colohan. Also, Kresh wanted to include a salute to Bishop, whose detailed yet non-confessional style she greatly admires.
Kresh’s affinity with Bishop is partly based on similarities, both gay and feminists. Also, Kresh, who enjoyed a long career at the Library of Congress, appreciates that Bishop spent a brief stint as a consultant of poetry at the library many in 1949. But mostly, Kresh loves the work of women writers, and that’s something she wants to celebrate.
Bishop knew great success, friendship and romantic love, but her early years were marked by tragedy. She was a baby when her father died, and just a few years later her mother was permanently institutionalized with mental illness. For a time, Bishop lived happily with her maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia and then her father’s wealthy parents spirited her off to New England. She graduated from Vassar in 1934.
Using inherited private income, Bishop travelled broadly and frequently. Evident from her life and work is a search for home and an interest in coasts. She lived in Brazil for some time.
When Kresh’s commission was still just a thought, she and Colohan reached out to Conte, a prolific San Francisco-based composer who has written 150 works of which 40 involved the words of poets, both living and dead. Kresh wanted twenty minutes of music based on Bishop’s words with a mezzo soprano solo built in.
Initially Conte, who is gay, wasn’t sure if he was the right man for the job. He knew of Bishop’s poetry but not well. But the deeper he dove the more excited he became. And he had no objections to Kresh’s requests, so they moved ahead.
For his new choral orchestral work, Conte draws on Bishop’s “One Art,” a widely admired poem that’s at once deeply personal yet a throwback to tradition and reserve.
“It’s about losing keys, a house, and finally losing a loved one. Increasingly, the losses become more intense,” he says. “The tone of the poem is so interesting, a quiet but confident acceptance of loss as a part of life, wry and humorous and brave all at the same time. It took me a while to penetrate the personality that’s in the poetry.”
The commissioned work is an amalgam of queer talent. When a gay composer sets the words of a gay poet, there’s no question of shared experience. Conte says “While we have more freedom than Bishop experienced, there’s still a shared oppression, feeling like an outsider, having to discover identity because yours is inexact.”
For both artistic and practical reasons, WMC is pairing “The Unknown Sea” with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cantata, “Dona Nobis Pacem,” based on work by gay poet Walt Whitman and texts from the Hebrew Bible and Latin Mass, re-orchestrated by British composer and conductor Jonathan Rathbone.
Both Kresh and Conte will be in attendance for this long-anticipated premiere.
“I’m excited, but a little sad I won’t be singing,” says Kresh. “It’s a sometimes bright, sometimes elegiac piece that has legs; I hope other groups and audiences will experience the same kind of joy that we’ve had making it.
Photos
PHOTOS: Capital Stonewall Democrats 50th anniversary
D.C. LGBTQ political group celebrates milestone at Pepco Edison Place Gallery
The Capital Stonewall Democrats held a 50th anniversary celebration at Pepco Edison Place Gallery on Friday. Rayceen Pendarvis served as the emcee.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Theater
‘Inherit the Wind’ isn’t about science vs. religion, but the right to think
Holly Twyford on new role and importance of listening to different opinions
‘Inherit the Wind’
Through April 5
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
Tickets start at $73
Arenastage.org
When “Inherit the Wind” premiered on Broadway in 1955 with a cast of 50, its fictional setting of Hillsboro, an obscure country town described as the buckle on the Bible Belt, was filled with townspeople. And now at Arena Stage, director Ryan Guzzo Purcell has somehow crowded Arena’s large Fichandler space with just 10 actors, five principals and a delightful ensemble of five playing multiple roles.
Inspired by the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s fictionalized work pits intellectual freedom against McCarthyism via the imagined trial of Bertram Cates (Noah Plomgren), a Tennessee educator charged with teaching evolution. Drawn into the fracas are big shot lawyers, defense attorney Henry Drummond (Billy Eugene Jones), and conservative prosecutor, Matthew Harrison Brady (Dakin Matthew). On hand to cover the closely watched story is wisecracking city slicker and Baltimore reporter E.K. Horneck (played by nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan).
Out actor Holly Twyford, a four-time Helen Hayes Award winner who has appeared in more than 80 Washington area plays, is part of the ensemble. In jeans and boots, she memorably plays Meeker, the bailiff at the Hillsboro courthouse and the jailer responsible for holding Cates in the days leading to his trial.
Twyford also plays Sillers, a slack jawed earnest employee at the local feed store who’s called to serve on the jury. And more importantly she plays Brady’s quietly strong wife Sarah whom he affectionately calls “Mother.”
When Twyford makes her memorable first entrance as Meeker, she’s wiping shaving cream from her face with a hand towel. With shades of Mayberry R.F.D., the jail is run casually. Meeker says Cates isn’t the criminal type, and he’s not.
“There’s a joke among actors,” says Twyford. “When an actor gets his shoes, they know who their character is. And it’s sort of true. When you put on boots, heels, or flip flops, there’s a different feeling, and you walk differently.”
Similarly, shares Twyford, it goes for clothes too: “When Mother slips a pink coat dress over her cowboy boots, dons a little hat and ties her scarf, or Meeker puts on his work shirt, I know where I am. And all of that is thanks to a remarkable wardrobe crew.
“Additionally, some of the ensemble characters are played broadly which is helpful to the actors and super identifying for the audience too.”
During intermission, an audience member loudly described the production as “a proper play” filled with beautifully written passages. And it’s true. Twyford agrees, adding “That’s all true, and it’s also been was fun for us to be a part of the Arena legacy as well. Arena took ‘Inherit the Wind’ to the Soviet Union in the early ‘70s when the respective governments did a cultural exchange. At the time, the iron curtain was very much in place, and they traveled with a play about a man with his own thoughts.”
When the ensemble was cast, actors didn’t know which tracts exactly they were going to play. “What came together was a cast, diverse in different ways. Some directors, including myself when I direct, are interested in assembling a cast that’s a good group. No time for egos. It’s more about who will make the best group to help me tell this story.”
At one point during rehearsal, ensemble members began to help one another with minor onstage costume changes, like jackets and hats: “We just started doing it and Ryan [Guzzo Purcell] picked up on it, saying things really began to come alive when we helped each other, so we went with that.”
“For me, it was reminiscent of ‘The Laramie Project’ [Ford’s Theatre in 2013] when we played five different parts and we’d help each other with a vest or jacket in a similar way. It worked so well then too,” says Twyford.
“Inherit the Wind” isn’t about science versus religion. It’s about the right to think, playwright Jerome Lawrrence has been quoted as saying. And it’s a quote that makes the play that much more relevant today.
Twford remembers a chat in a hair salon: “I was getting my hair cut and the woman next to me shared that she was tired of message plays. Understandably there are theater makers who believe that message plays are the point, while others think it’s all about entertainment. I feel like ‘Inherit the Wind’ sits in a nice place in the middle.”
She adds “the work is a creative way of showing different opinions and that, I think, is what we should be paying attention to right now. Clearly, it’s not right or wrong to express what you think.”
Out & About
‘How We Survived’ panel set for March 25
‘Living History’ discussion to be held at Spark Social
Friends of Dorothy Cafe will host “Part One, Living History: How We Survived,” will take place on Wednesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Spark Social House.
This event will be moderated by Abby Stuckrath, host of the “Queering the District” podcast. Panelists include: Earline Budd, activist, trans rights advocate; TJ Flavell of Go Gay DC; DC LGBTQ+ Center Board Member David Bissette; and Alexa Rodriguez, founder and executive director, Trans-Latinx DMV.
This event is part of a four-part storytelling series called “Living History,” which centers LGBTQ elders, activists, artists, and icons sharing their lived experiences and reflections with younger generations. The conversations explore themes like resilience, community organizing, chosen family, and the lessons earlier generations hope today’s LGBTQ+ and ally communities will carry forward.
Polish court rules country must recognize same-sex marriages from EU states
Capital Stonewall Democrats 50th anniversary gala draws ‘sold out’ crowd
PHOTOS: Capital Stonewall Democrats 50th anniversary
Small is beautiful: subcompact SUVs
‘Inherit the Wind’ isn’t about science vs. religion, but the right to think
SAVE Act could silence millions of trans voters
The frightening rise of antisemitism, Islamophobia
‘It’s Dorothy’ traces lasting influence of a cultural icon
Protesters say SAVE Act targets voters, transgender youth
