Theater
The path of Kahn
Keeper of the classics celebrates 25 years directing theater in D.C.
Michael Kahn has a long reputation of making classical theater accessible to contemporary audiences. He’s celebrating 25 years in town this month. A party is planned for October. (Blade photos by Michael Key)
When Michael Kahn came to Washington in 1986, he intended to stay for two years tops. The plan was to share his theater expertise for a while and then get back to his life in New York and continue teaching and staging plays and operas.
But luckily for local theatergoers, things played out very differently. Instead, Kahn remained in town as artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater Company (STC) where he’s currently gearing up for the classical troupe’s 25th anniversary season.
Seated at a long conference table in STC’s busy administration offices on Capitol Hill, Kahn explains how he initially came to D.C. to help save the then-failing Folger Theatre and stayed on when he was named artistic director of a newly created Shakespeare Theatre at the Folger. Later he orchestrated the Shakespeare Theatre’s move to the larger Landsburgh location, adopted the STC name and more recently helped to expand the company’s home with the grand 775-seat Sidney Harman Hall.
“I took the job happily but not for a moment along the way did I think I was in for the long haul,” says Kahn, who is gay. “I’d think about leaving but then something interesting would always come up — an expanded season, the educational program, the STC Free-For-All [a terrific Washington tradition that annually offers free performances of a Shakespearean classic to the general public] and, or course, I’m glad I stuck around.”
Over the years, Kahn has successfully pursued STC’s core mission of doing classic theater “in an accessible, skillful, imaginative, American style that honors playwrights’ language and intentions while viewing their plays through a 21st-century lens.” In doing so, he’s created arguably the nation’s premier classical company and emerged as one of America’s foremost directors of Shakespeare.
Kahn alone selects the STC’s titles and directors. For the upcoming milestone season that kicks off in late August, Kahn wants to make things a little special. In addition to seven plays (a mix of dramas and comedies), he plans to celebrate the Bard with a pair of musicals performed in concert-style staging: Rodgers and Hart’s “The Boys from Syracuse,” a late-1930s swing version of “The Comedy of Errors;” and John Guare’s rock opera “Two Gentlemen of Verona.”
As a special anniversary treat to himself, Kahn will direct Eugene O’Neil’s “Strange Interlude,” a famously difficult play about love and deception that he’s longed to stage for years. He also plans to work with some of his favorite actors (many of whom can’t be named until contracts are signed), as well as two former STC associate directors who’ve made good outside of the nest – P.J. Paparelli (artistic director of Chicago’s American Theater Company since 2007) and successful New York-based freelance director Ethan McSweeny — who’ll stage “The Two Gentlemen From Verona” (the original non-musical) and “Much Ado About Nothing,” respectively.
D.C. native McSweeny met Kahn while still a secondary student at St. Albans School. He invited the director to speak to his drama club and Kahn agreed. During college and after, he interned with Kahn at STC, and at just 22, he was named the company’s resident assistant director.
“My four years at STC were graduate school for me,” McSweeny says. “I think directing is a craft that’s learned from watching a master craftsman like Michael in action. He doesn’t dictate. He just does it.
“Michael is also a tough teacher. With him, you’ve got to bring your A game,” McSweeny adds. “We alums of Kahn all maintain high standards — we inherited that from Michael. But in addition to the stick there’s the carrot: Michael can be a torrent of creative passion and it’s thrilling to be in the vortex with him.”
The school of Kahn isn’t reserved exclusively for promising directors. Actors have benefited as well. Via phone from New York, Veanne Cox, a delightful, versatile actor who rapidly has become an STC regular, recounts how six or so years ago Kahn happened to catch her playing the very dramatic part of a woman dying from cancer, and afterward matter-of-factly commented that she was made for Restoration Comedy. The story still makes Cox laugh, and she is quick to add that soon after Kahn cast her in STC’s production of the classic comedy “The Beaux Stratagem” and changed her life.
“Prior to knowing Michael I’d done very little classical theater,” Cox — who memorably appeared as the heckler in a “Seinfeld” episode — says. “Because of him, my career is flourishing in new ways. My best work experiences have been at STC, better than Broadway and off-Broadway. [In the fall, Cox is slated to return to STC as Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing.”] The actors are exquisite to work with, and D.C. audiences are better educated than New York audiences about the works. Because of Michael, they understand language and themes. He has trained them how to appreciate and understand classical theater.”
STC is not Kahn’s first act, far from it. He began his career in New York in the ‘60s, directing for gay playwright Edward Albee and Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park. His Broadway successes include revivals of “Showboat,” “The Royal Family” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (starring a young and gorgeous Elizabeth Ashley). He’s also earned excellent reviews staging opera and regional theater. Before coming to Washington, he was artistic director for the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Conn.; producing director for the McCarter Theatre; and founder and head of The Chautauqua Conservatory Theater. In addition, Kahn maintained a parallel career as an educator, commuting to Manhattan as head of the Drama Division of New York’s prestigious Juilliard School until 2006. He has won multiple Helen Hayes Awards for his STC work, and is frequently honored by the LGBT community.
Repeatedly, Kahn’s skills and impressive vitae have and continue to lure well-known actors like Elizabeth Ashley, Stacy Keach, Kelly McGillis and the late Dixie Carter to STC. He enjoys working with big names. Usually, Kahn says, big names become famous because they’re good.
“Well, not always,” he backtracks. “Anyone who waits in line at a supermarket can’t help but know Kim Kardashian, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be working with her any time soon.”
Growing up in Brooklyn as an only child with “all the vices and problems that that entails,” Khan was just 5 when his Russian immigrant mother introduced him to the works of Shakespeare. He attended High School for the Performing Arts and went on to Columbia University where he directed plays for the French club (a pre-famous Andy Warhol designed the set for one of the productions). Kahn came out early. He never struggled with his sexual orientation, only unrequited love. As a young man he carried an unreciprocated torch for gay playwright Terrence McNally. He outed himself to the Washington Post in 1986 and believes a lot of conservative society’s problems with the arts is, in fact, subterranean homophobia. Lately he’s come to the conclusion that good direction requires sensitivity, and whether it comes from a gay or straight person makes little difference.
Kahn says it’s possible to have a relationship despite an all-consuming professional life, but you pay a price: “With me here and Frank [Donnelly, Kahn’s late, longtime partner] in New York, we were often apart. I wasn’t there when he died.” A psychotherapist, Donnelly died in his sleep shortly after 9-11. He’d spent his last days counseling those who had lost loved ones in the World Trade Center collapse.
When asked if he’s in a relationship now, Kahn replies playfully, “Yes, at least that’s what it says on Facebook.”
And does he miss working in New York?
“I could never do in New York what I do here,” he says. “I’d be in a 200-seat theater with a much smaller budget. They’re just not interested in lesser known shows like Musset’s ‘Lorenzaccio” from our [2005] season, or David Ives’ adaptation of Regnard’s 1706 masterpiece ‘The Heir Apparent’ that we’re doing in the fall.”
Highfalutin legacy talk isn’t Kahn’s style; however, he will say that he “really wants to make sure the theater is in a good financial position so anyone who wants to take over [his] job will also want to stay.” But for today, Kahn continues doing what he does best — thinking of ways to bring more high quality, classical theater to Washington.
Theater
Round House explores serious issues related to privilege
‘A Jumping-Off Point’ is absorbing, timely, and funny
‘A Jumping-Off Point’
Through May 5
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md.
$46-$83
Roundhousetheatre.org
In Inda Craig-Galván’s new play “A Jumping-Off Point,” protagonist Leslie Wallace, a rising Black dramatist, believes strongly in writing about what you know. Clearly, Craig-Galván, a real-life successful Black playwright and television writer, adheres to the same maxim. Whether further details from the play are drawn from her life, is up for speculation.
Absorbing, timely, and often funny, the current Round House Theatre offering explores some serious issues surrounding privilege and who gets to write about what. Nimbly staged and acted by a pitch perfect cast, the play moves swiftly across what feels like familiar territory without being the least bit predictable.
After a tense wait, Leslie (Nikkole Salter) learns she’s been hired to be showrunner and head writer for a new HBO MAX prestige series. What ought to be a heady time for the ambitious young woman quickly goes sour when a white man bearing accusations shows up at her door.
The uninvited visitor is Andrew (Danny Gavigan), a fellow student from Leslie’s graduate playwriting program. The pair were never friends. In fact, he pressed all of her buttons without even trying. She views him as a lazy, advantaged guy destined to fail up, and finds his choosing to dramatize the African American Mississippi Delta experience especially annoying.
Since grad school, Leslie has had a play successfully produced in New York and now she’s on the cusp of making it big in Los Angeles while Andrew is bagging groceries at Ralph’s. (In fact, we’ll discover that he’s a held a series of wide-ranging temporary jobs, picking up a lot of information from each, a habit that will serve him later on, but I digress.)
Their conversation is awkward as Andrew’s demeanor shifts back and forth from stiltedly polite to borderline threatening. Eventually, he makes his point: Andrew claims that Leslie’s current success is entirely built on her having plagiarized his script.
This increasingly uncomfortable set-to is interrupted by Leslie’s wisecracking best friend and roommate Miriam who has a knack for making things worse before making them better. Deliciously played by Cristina Pitter (whose program bio describes them as “a queer multi-spirit Afro-indigenous artist, abolitionist, and alchemist”), Miriam is the perfect third character in Craig-Galván’s deftly balanced three-hander.
Cast members’ performances are layered. Salter’s Leslie is all charm, practicality, and controlled ambition, and Gavigan’s Andrew is an organic amalgam of vulnerable, goofy, and menacing. He’s terrific.
The 90-minute dramedy isn’t without some improbable narrative turns, but fortunately they lead to some interesting places where provoking questions are representation, entitlement, what constitutes plagiarism, etc. It’s all discussion-worthy topics, here pleasingly tempered with humor.
New York-based director Jade King Carroll skillfully helms the production. Scenes transition smoothly in large part due to a top-notch design team. Scenic designer Meghan Raham’s revolving set seamlessly goes from Leslie’s attractive apartment to smart cafes to an HBO writers’ room with the requisite long table and essential white board. Adding to the graceful storytelling are sound and lighting design by Michael Keck and Amith Chandrashaker, respectively.
The passage of time and circumstances are perceptively reflected in costume designer Moyenda Kulemeka’s sartorial choices: heels rise higher, baseball caps are doffed and jackets donned.
“A Jumping-Off Point” is the centerpiece of the third National Capital New Play Festival, an annual event celebrating new work by some of the country’s leading playwrights and newer voices.
Theater
‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor
‘Amm(i)gone’
Thorough May 12
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D St., N.W.
$60-$70
Woollymammoth.net
“Fully and utterly autobiographical.” That’s how Adil Mansoor describes “Amm(i)gone,” his one-man work currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Both created and performed by out artist Mansoor, it’s his story about inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Sophocles’s Greek tragedy “Antigone” into Urdu. Throughout the journey, there’s an exploration of family, queerness, and faith,as well as references to teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his Muslim mother.
Mansoor, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is now based in Pittsburgh where he’s a busy theater maker. He’s also the founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former artistic director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQ youth arts organization.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What spurred you to create “Amm(i)gone”?
ADIL MANSOOR: I was reading a translation of “Antigone” a few years back and found myself emotionally overwhelmed. A Theban princess buries her brother knowing it will cost her, her own life. It’s about a person for whom all aspirations are in the afterlife. And what does that do to the living when all of your hopes and dreams have to be reserved for the afterlife?
I found grant funding to pay my mom to do the translation. I wanted to engage in learning. I wanted to share theater but especially this ancient tragedy. My mother appreciated the characters were struggling between loving one another and their beliefs.
BLADE: Are you more director than actor?
MANSOOR: I’m primarily a director with an MFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon. I wrote, directed, and performed in this show, and had been working on it for four years. I’ve done different versions including Zoom. Woolly’s is a new production with the same team who’ve been involved since the beginning.
I love solo performance. I’ve produced and now teach solo performance and believe in its power. And I definitely lean toward “performance” and I haven’t “acted” since I was in college. I feel good on stage. I was a tour guide and do a lot of public speaking. I enjoy the attention.
BLADE: Describe your mom.
MANSOOR: My mom is a wonderfully devout Muslim, single mother, social worker who discovered my queerness on Google. And she prays for me.
She and I are similar, the way we look at things, the way we laugh. But different too. And those are among the questions I ask in this show. Our relationship is both beautiful and complicated.
BLADE: So, you weren’t exactly hiding your sexuality?
MANSOOR: In my mid-20s, I took time to talk with friends about our being queer with relation to our careers. My sexuality is essential to the work. As the artistic director at Dreams of Hope, part of the work was to model what it means to be public. If I’m in a room with queer and trans teenagers, part of what I’m doing is modeling queer adulthood. The way they see me in the world is part of what I’m putting out there. And I want that to be expansive and full.
So much of my work involves fundraising and being a face in schools. Being out is about making safe space for queer young folks.
BLADE: Have you encountered much Islamophobia?
MANSOOR: When 9/11 happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so yes. I faced a lot then and now. I’ve been egged on the street in the last four months. I see it in the classroom. It shows up in all sorts of ways.
BLADE: What prompted you to lead your creative life in Pittsburgh?
MANSOOR: I’ve been here for 14 years. I breathe with ease in Pittsburgh. The hills and the valleys and the rust of the city do something to me. It’s beautiful, it’ affordable, and there is support for local artists. There’s a lot of opportunity.
Still, the plan was to move to New York in September of 2020 but that was cancelled. Then the pandemic showed me that I could live in Pittsburgh and still have a nationally viable career.
BLADE: What are you trying to achieve with “Amm(i)gone”?
MANSOOR: What I’m sharing in the show is so very specific but I hear people from other backgrounds say I totally see my mom in that. My partner is Catholic and we share so much in relation to this.
I hope the work is embracing the fullness of queerness and how means so many things. And I hope the show makes audiences want to call their parents or squeeze their partners.
Theater
Jessica Phillips shines in ‘Penelope,’ a ‘pandemic parable’
Alex Bechtel was inspired to write about loneliness, waiting, separation
‘Penelope’
Thorough April 28
Signature Theatre, the Ark
4200 Campbell Ave, Arlington
$40-$99
Sigtheatre.org
In the new musical “Penelope,” Broadway’s Jessica Phillips gives an unforgettable take on the title role torn from the pages of Homer’s “Odyssey” — more or less. Fortified by bourbon and backed by a Greek chorus of musicians, the character uncharacteristically steps out from the background to share her story surrounding two decades waiting on the island kingdom of Ithica for the return of her absent husband Odysseus.
Sometimes described as a “pandemic parable,” the 70-minute work is based on composer/playwright Alex Bechtel’s personal experience. While separated from his partner during COVID, he was inspired to write about loneliness, waiting, and separation, a subject Phillips was eager to tackle.
An accomplished Broadway actor and mother of two, Phillips, 52, is best known for memorable turns in “Dear Evan Hansen,” “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” “Next to Normal,” and “Priscilla Queen of the Desert.”
Two years ago, she made news for coming out as queer after having long been identified as straight. Parts of the theater scene were caught a bit off guard, but only momentarily. Now, she lives in New York with her partner Chelsea Nachman, a theatrical publicist.“We share the same professional community but in very different roles. I think that makes life easier for us.”
Currently enjoying an extended run at Signature in Arlington where the trees are in bloom, she spares time for a phone interview, starting off with“Perfect timing. I’ve just finished the last song on Beyonce’s ‘Cowboy Carter.’ Let’s talk.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Increasingly, I hear artists report having been deeply changed by the pandemic. Did that have anything to do with your coming out in 2022?
PHILLIPS: Definitely. During the pandemic, those of us in the arts were in deep crisis, because our industry had collapsed in almost every way. At the same time, that space allowed us to be contemplative about where we were. For me, that period of time gave me the space to both come to terms with and confront those fears about saying who I was, out loud and publicly.
BLADE: Did you have professional concerns?
PHILLIPS: Oh yeah, I was specifically worried about perception. Not so much about being queer but more what it meant to have come out relatively late in life. I had some fear around whether people would take me less seriously.
At the same time, I was nervous about being fully transparent and worried about my privacy and being vulnerable. Like other women I knew, I was more comfortable dealing with traditional societal expectations in America. I grew up with those cultural expectations and thought of myself in those terms for a long time.
BLADE: What changed?
PHILLIPS: What’s been so freeing for me, I can confront how I took on those expectations and say I’m not going to let those determine how I live my life. I get to decide.
BLADE: There’s a lot of wonderful storytelling in “Penelope.” What’s been your way into that?
PHILLIPS: My way of moving through the show is allowing this character to experience all five stages of grief. Humor, slapstick comedy, bargaining, denial. And ultimately acceptance and deep grief.
When an audience is alive and invested, it’s palpable and elevates the storytelling. When an audience is having a thinking rather feeling experience that changes the tone of my storytelling and not in a bad way.
It’s interesting how much they’re a part of everything. It’s really intimate. The audience is just six feet away. It’s a unique experience and we’re on this ride together. And I find this to be a really beautiful and satisfying experience that I’ve not had before.
BLADE: After Signature, what’s next for “Penelope”?
PHILLIPS: That’s the million-dollar question. Hopefully we’ll take it forward to New York or tour it, but that requires willingness and money. I do think there’s a broad audience for this. It’s beautiful, unique, artistic, really emotional, and at the same time possesses an intellectual quality that’s missing from a lot of commercial theater these days.
BLADE: And what’s next for theater?
Phillips: I think one good thing that came out of the pandemic is that people like Alex Bechtel had an opportunity to create. In the next decade we’re going to see the results of that. I think we have some extraordinary things to look forward to. If a work like “Penelope” is any indication, we’re all in for something really good.
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PHOTOS: Capital Pride Pageant
