Theater
Gay actor went after role in ‘Angels in America’ like a bloodhound
Nick Westrate on the importance of remembering AIDS in the ‘80s
‘Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches’
Through April 23
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
$56– $95
Arenastage.org
By playing Prior Walter in Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches” at Arena Stage, New York actor Nick Westrate is hitting a professional milestone. The part of Prior, a young gay New Yorker besieged by AIDS and abandonment, is a role he’s long wanted to do, and almost did several times, but somehow it never worked out until now with Arena’s staged-in-the-round production helmed by Hungarian director János Szász.
Set in mid-80s New York City, the 1993 Pulitzer and Tony and Pulitzer-winning epic is an American tragedy tempered by humor. After Prior is diagnosed with AIDS, his partner Louis leaves him for Joe, an ex-Mormon conservative whose wife Harper is having a Valium-fueled nervous breakdown. Thrown into the mix are – among others—loathsome lawyer Roy Cohn (a vicious, closeted conservative who died of AIDS in 1986), the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, and an angel who appears to Prior and decrees his role as a prophet, a mantle Prior struggles with donning.
For the out actor, saying the playwright’s words is both a thrill and responsibility: “Tony Kushner is the most remarkable living playwright we have. His words are poetry, and he makes poetry practical and the political personal. He’s second to none in that way.”
Westrate grew up on a Christmas tree farm in southern Michigan. At 17, he left his home state for New York to study acting at the Juilliard School. After a busy but rough start, an eclectic and successful career ensued.
His ample stage credits include originating roles for Harvey Fierstein’s “Casa Valentina” and Theresa Rebeck’s comedy “Bernhardt/Hamlet.” He toured in “The King’s Speech” as Bertie (the monarch who overcame a debilitating stutter to inspire a nation), played feckless young Leo in Ivo van Hove’s “The Little Foxes” and the depressed Donald in the 2010 off-Broadway revival of “The Boys in the Band.” On television, he was Robert Townsend for three seasons on AMC’s “Turn: Washington’s Spies,” and on film, he starred in William Sullivan’s “American Insurrection.”
When asked how the part of Prior came to him, Westrate replies without hesitation, “I sought after it like a bloodhound.” Short version is Westrate heard Szász was doing “Angels” at Arena. He liked his work but didn’t know how to contact him, so he reached out to an Eastern European contact who put them in touch. They met in New York in October and hit it off. After a few hours of reading sections of the play together, director and actor decided to join forces.
“It was a fit, and I knew that Arena had the resources and integrity to do it well,” he adds.
WASHINGTON BLADE: You’re too young to remember the early days of AIDS. How do you tap into the terror?
NICK WESTRATE: A lot of reading, things like Randy Shilts’ “And the Band Played On” and Paul Monette’s great memoir “Borrowed Time.” And the more you learn about people and how cases of the virus ravaged their bodies, the more terrifying it becomes. You can only take in so much at a time and luckily, I’ve had a long runway to prepare for this.
Terror is also knowing the joy and liberation before the fall. How free gay life was becoming and how much fun everyone was having. If this had never happened, we’d be so much further along. We would have discovered 400 genders by now and wouldn’t have Ron DeSantis braying about it. AIDS was such a huge missile into the soul of our community.
BLADE: And the physicality of the role? Prior becomes increasingly ill throughout the play.
WESTRATE: A lot of things. Again, there’s reading including media material and actual accounts – there’s a great book called “From A Burning House,” a nonliterary compilation of short letters from people living with the virus. There’s artistic preparation involving the movement director and costume and wig and makeup designers as well, and figuring out how to express all that.
Also, I lost 30 pounds to play the part. Because of the long run up to the play, I was able to do it gradually.
BLADE: Tell us about the cast.
WESTRATE: Half the cast are queer people. It’s so amazing to do this play with gay people — the references and understanding is there. You don’t have to apologize; the kissing isn’t weird. There’s an almost immediate intimacy of doing this play together that’s very beautiful.
I’ve worked with straight actors in gay plays who’ve asked “OK, why Judy Garland?” Or they tell me how they’ve researched to be gay. It’s borderline offensive. But when you’re with gorgeous queer people it just happens so naturally so easily. [Castmates] Billie Krishawn, Justin Weaks, Michael Kevin Darnall and I have such a shorthand with each other. We have a text chain and send it each other weird GIFs. It’s a lot of fun.
BLADE: You had an auspicious meeting with János Szász in October. How’s working with him?
WESTRATE: He’s a marvel. Not only does he direct without an agenda but he brings a unique perspective: János was driven out of Hungary by fascist leader Viktor Orbán for being Jewish and leftist. He and his wife and children are refugees in this country. An interesting viewpoint, especially at this time when refugees are streaming across borders in Europe, America, the Middle East, and Africa.
BLADE: In this moment of trans and drag persecution do you think about that?
WESTRATE: All the time. Prior and Belize [Prior’s best friend played by Justin Weaks] are former drag queens.
BLADE: Talk about the sand.
WESTRATE: Yes, there’s a lot of sand [28,000 pounds of sand to fill a 30-foot diameter circle at six inches deep]. János was very moved and inspired by footage from “How to Survive a Plague” that shows people throwing the ashes of loved ones over the fence and on to the White House lawn. It’s important for János that we’re doing this play in the ashes of the dead.
BLADE: For some gay theatergoers “Angels” is a tough show. They’re hesitant to revisit that time.
WESTRATE: I understand if you don’t want to see it on a specific day but gird your loins and put on your grownup panties and come to the theater, it needs to be witnessed and attention must be paid.
The crisis filled the tanks of the bigoted and the hateful and shifted us politically and personally in ways we still can’t fathom. And that’s why it’s so important why we’re doing this play and keep doing this play and never stop talking about it.
I have my aunts (gay men who’ve survived the crisis) coming to see the show, and I’m here for those who aren’t here. I get emotional just talking about it. It’s a huge responsibility that none of us are taking lightly.
BLADE: It’s timely?
WESTRATE: Not long ago we had a president who was barking “bring me my Roy Cohn.” Looking around America, you might wonder how the fuck did we get here. Why are we persecuting our most vulnerable people? Why are so many so greedy, specious, and blind? Come see this play. This is where so much of it started.
BLADE: Clearly it means a lot to you.
WESTRATE: I’ve loved the play since I started to love plays. And I’ve seen many productions: the most recent Broadway version, Michael Greif’s on Broadway, Ivo van Hove’s at BAM. Mike Nichols’ film. Doing a full production is very important to me.
I’ve worked with a lot of the great gay writers like Mart Crowley and Harvey Fierstein and Edmund White and now my friend Tony Kushner. It’s meaningful for me to do these pieces from not only the American theatrical canon but also the gay canon.
BLADE: Thanks for taking time.
WESTRATE: Nothing makes me happier than talking about this play and this production.
Theater
‘Andy Warhol in Iran’ a charming look at intersection of art, politics
Mosaic production plumbs kidnapping plot of iconic artist for humor
‘Andy Warhol in Iran’
Through July 6
Mosaic Theater Company at Atlas Performing Arts Center
1333 H St., N.E., WDC
$70
Mosaictheater.org
Behind the blasé veneer, Andy Warhol was more curious than people knew. Particularly when it came to money. He kept a close eye on how the ultra-rich lived, what fellow artists were being paid and who was paying them, and, of course, all the new and more saleable ways of making and selling art.
In playwright Brent Askari’s “Andy Warhol in Iran,” now playing at Mosaic Theater Company, Warhol (Alex Mills) is brought outside of his usual area of interest when he lands face to face with a young revolutionary. While Warhol could be artistically revolutionary, he didn’t connect with the idea of forgoing the pursuit of money and fame for the infinitely more difficult task of achieving social justice.
The 90-minute play is not fully factual, but rather inspired by Warhol’s real life 1976 trip to Tehran to make portraits of the royal Pahlavi family in the waning days of their reign, with a focus on Farah Diba, the Shah’s elegant wife and Iran’s last empress.
The action unfolds in a Tehran hotel suite boasting a glorious view of the snowcapped Alborz Mountains not far from Iran’s vibrant and bustling capital. It’s here, disguised as room service, that Farhad (played by Nathan Mohebbi) gains entrance to Warhol’s rooms, seeking to kidnap the pop art star to garner attention for the university students’ movement.
Warhol meets the armed intruder with a sort of wide-eyed wonderment, flummoxed why he has been selected for abduction. Warhol can’t understand why a young man like Farhad wouldn’t prefer to be paid a big ransom on the spot, or be cast as a star in one of the Warhol Factory flicks.
When Farhad replies it’s because Warhol is the most decadent artist in the world, Warhol mistakenly takes it for the ultimate compliment. After all, his biggest successes had been connected to celebrity and consumerism (think Campbell’s Soup Cans. 1962).
For Warhol, decadence is aspirational. He made portraits of financiers, movie stars, and jet setters. In fact, he’d been obsessed with the lives of the rich and famous since he was a small kid in Pittsburgh thumbing through Photoplay Magazine while bed bound with Saint Vitus Dance.
Accompanying Warhol to Tehran (unseen) are his business manager Fred Hughes, and Bob Colacello, editor of Interview magazine. Together, they make a merry trio of gay social climbers. These kinds of trips were a boon to the artist. Not only did they solidify a new strata of high society contacts, but were also superbly lucrative, thickly padding the painter’s pockets.
While in Iran, Warhol wanted only to view Farah’s vast world-class collection of jewels, sample the caviar on tap, and get his Polaroids. Then he’d fly first class back to New York and transfer the images to silk screen and sell the portraits to the Persian royals at a hefty price. He didn’t foresee any obstacles along the way.
Serge Seiden’s direction is spot on. He’s rendered a wonderfully even two-hander with a pair of terrifically cast actors. And Seiden plumbs the piece for humor mostly drawn from the absurdity of the situation without missing any of the serious bits.
As Warhol, out actor Mills is instantly recognizable as the eccentric artist. He’s wearing the button-down shirt, jeans, blazer, glasses, and, of course the famed shock of white hair wig (here a little more Karen than Andy). His portrayal is better than an imitation. He gives a bit of the fey and confused, but has also infuses him with a certain dynamism.
The energy works well with the intensity of Mohebbi’s would-be kidnapper Farhad. And while it isn’t a romance, it’s not impossible to think that Warhol might fall for a handsome male captor.
The connection between art and politics is almost always interesting; and though not a super deep dive into the era or the life of an artist, “Andy Warhol in Iran” is a compelling, charming, and sometimes funny glimpse into that intersection.
Theater
‘Hunter S. Thompson’ an unlikely but rewarding choice for musical theater
‘Speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country’
‘The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical’
Through July 13
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, Va.
$47 to $98
Sigtheatre.org
The raucous world of the counterculture journalist may not seem the obvious choice for musical theater, but the positive buzz surrounding Signature Theatre’s production of Joe Iconis’s “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical” suggests otherwise.
As the titular, drug addled and gun-toting writer, Eric William Morris memorably moves toward his character’s suicide in 2005 at 67. He’s accompanied by an ensemble cast playing multiple roles including out actor George Salazar as Thompson’s sidekick Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, a bigger than life Mexican American attorney, author, and activist in the Chicano Movement who follows closely behind.
Salazar performs a show-stopping number — “The Song of the Brown Buffalo,” a rowdy and unforgettable musical dive into a man’s psyche.
“Playing the part of Oscar, I’m living my Dom daddy activist dreams. For years, I was cast as the best friend with a heart of gold. Quite differently, here, I’m tasked with embodying all the toxic masculinity of the late ‘60s, and a rampant homophobia, almost folded into the culture.”
He continues, “My sexuality aside, I like to think that Oscar would be thrilled by my interpretation of him in that song.
“Our upbringings are similar. I’m mixed race – Filipino and Ecuadorian and we grew up similarly,” says Salazar, 39. “He didn’t fit in as white or Mexican American, and fell somewhere in the middle. Playing Oscar [who also at 39 in 1974 forever disappeared in Mexico], I pulled out a lot of experience about having to code switch before finally finding myself and being confident just doing my own thing.
“As we meet Oscar in the show we find exactly where’s he’s at. Take me or leave me, I couldn’t care less.”
In 2011, just three years after earning his BFA in musical theater from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Salazar fortuitously met Iconis at a bar in New York. The pair became fast friends and collaborators: “This is our third production,” says George. “So, when Joe comes to me with an idea, there hasn’t been a moment that I don’t trust him.”
In “Be More Chill,” one of Iconis’s earlier works, Salazar originated the role of Michael Mell, a part that he counts as one of the greatest joys of artistic life.
With the character, a loyal and caring friend who isn’t explicitly queer but appeals to queer audiences, Salazar developed a fervent following. And for an actor who didn’t come out to his father until he was 30, being in a place to support the community, especially younger queer people, has proved incredibly special.
“When you hear Hunter and Oscar, you might think ‘dude musical,’ but I encourage all people to come see it.” Salazar continues, “Queer audiences should give the show a shot. As a musical, it’s entertaining, funny, serious, affecting, and beautiful. As a gay man stepping into this show, it’s so hetero and I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I took it upon myself that any of the multiple characters I play outside of Oscar, were going to be queer.
Queer friends have seen it and love it, says Salazar. His friend, Tony Award-winning director Sam Pinkleton (“Oh, Mary!”) saw Hunter S. Thompson at the La Jolla Playhouse during its run in California, and said it was the best musical he’d seen in a very long time.
“Since the work’s inception almost 10 years ago, I was the first Oscar to read the script. In the interim, the characters’ relationships have grown but otherwise there have been no major changes. Still, it feels more impactful in different ways: It’s exciting to come here to do the show especially since Hunter S. Thompson was very political.”
Salazar, who lives in Los Angeles with his partner, a criminal justice reporter for The Guardian, is enjoying his time here in D.C. “In a time when there are so many bans – books, drag queens, and travel — all I see is division. This is an escape from that.”
He describes the Hunter Thompson musical as Iconis’s masterpiece, adding that it’s the performance that he’s most proud of to date and that feels there a lot of maturity in the work.
“In the play, Thompson talks to Nixon about being a crook and a liar,” says Salazar. “The work speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country: We seem to take them one step forward and two steps back; the performance is almost art as protest.”
Theater
A hilarious ‘Twelfth Night’ at Folger full of ‘elegant kink’
Nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan stars as Duke Orsino
‘Twelfth Night’
Through June 22
Folger Theatre
201 East Capitol St., S.E.
$20-$84
Folger.edu
Nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan (they/them)loves tapping into the multitudes within.
Currently Keegan plays the melancholic Duke Orsino in Folger Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Twelfth Night.” Director Mei Ann Teo describes the production as “sexy, hilarious, and devastating” and full of “elegant kink.”
Washington-based, Keegan enjoys a busy and celebrated career. Her vast biography includes Come From Away at Ford’s Theatre; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Helen Hayes Award, Best Actress) and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, both at Round House Theatre; Diana Son’s Stop Kiss directedby Holly Twyford for No Rules Theatre Company; and Contractions at Studio Theatre, to name just a few.
In addition to acting, Keegan works as a polyamory and ethical non-monogamy life and relationship coach, an area of interest that grew out of personal exploration. For them, coaching seems to work hand in hand with acting.
WASHINGTON BLADE: You’re playing the lovesick Orsino in Twelfth Night. How did that come about?
ALYSSA KEEGAN: The director was looking to cast a group of actors with diverse identities; throughout auditions, there were no constraints regarding anyone’s assigned sex at birth. It was really a free for all.
BLADE: What’s your approach to the fetching, cod-piece clad nobleman?
KEEGAN: Offstage I identify as completely nonbinary; I love riding in this neutral middle space. But I also love cosplay. The ability to do that in the play gives me permission to dive completely into maleness.
So, when I made that decision to play Orsino as a bio male, suddenly the part really cracked open for me. I began looking for clues about his thoughts and opinions about things like his past relationships and his decision not to date older women.
Underneath his mask of bravura and sexuality, and his firmness of feelings, he’s quite lonely and has never really felt loved. It makes sense to me why his love for Olivia is so misguided and why he might fall in love with the Cesario/Viola character.
BLADE: As an actor, do you ever risk taking on the feelings of your characters?
KEEGAN: Prior to my mental health education, yes, and that could be toxic for me. I’ve since learned that the nervous system can’t tell the difference between real emotional distress and a that of a fully embodied character.
So, I created and share the Empowered Performer Project. [a holistic approach to performance that emphasizes the mental and emotional well-being of performing artists]. It utilizes somatic tools that help enormously when stepping into a character.
BLADE: Has changing the way you work affected your performances?
KEEGAN: I think I’m much better now. I used to have nearly debilitating stage fright. I’d spend all day dreading going onstage. I thought that was just part of the job. Now, I’ve learned to talk to my body. Prior to a performance, I can now spend my offstage time calmly gardening, working with my mental health clients, or playing with my kid. I’m just present in my life in a different way.
BLADE: Is Orsino your first time playing a male role?
KEEGAN: No. In fact, the very first time I played a male role was at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va. I played Hipolito in Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy.
As Hipolito, I felt utterly male in the moment, so much so that I had audience members see me later after the show and they were surprised that I was female. They thought I was a young guy in the role. There’s something very powerful in that.
BLADE: Do you have a favorite part? Male or female?
KEEGAN: That’s tough but I think it’s Maggie the Cat. I played the hyper-female Maggie in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Round House. In the first act she didn’t stop talking for 51 minutes opposite Gregory Wooddell as Brick who barely had to speak. That lift was probably the heaviest I’ve ever been asked to do in acting.
BLADE: What about Folger’s Twelfth Night might be especially appealing to queer audiences?
KEEGAN: First and foremost is presentation. 99% of the cast identify as queer in some way.
The approach to Shakespeare’s text is one of the most bold and playful that I have ever seen. It’s unabashedly queer. The actors are here to celebrate and be loud and colorful and to advocate. It’s a powerful production, especially to do so close to the Capitol building, and that’s not lost on any of us.
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