Fringe is back!

Egads! It's The Shape of Water returning to DC in living color! Actually, no, it's Arma Dura, one of the acts at  2023 Capital Fringe as he showed up at the preview party.  Arma's costumes are well worth the price of admission.  More, below/By Patricia Leslie

 

Arma Dura, one of the acts at 2023 Capital Fringe, descends into the Fringe preview party/By Patricia Leslie

Come one!  Come all to any of the 49 plays which sport outrageous, hilarious, serious, entertaining, provoking and sometimes difficult scripts plus music and dance when Capital Fringe starts up again July 12 through July 23 with 275 cast and crew members in "almost entirely original theatre, dance, and unclassifiable productions." 

 Arma Dura at  the 2023 Capital Fringe preview party/By Patricia Leslie

Arma Dura, one of the acts at 2023 Capital Fringe, at the preview party/By Patricia Leslie

Many current topics are natural themes this year, from skin cancer (Onion Skin) to Charlottesville to abortion (My Name is Norma), and some celebs from yesteryear (Watergate's Martha Mitchell in Shut Up, Martha) and comedian Gilda Radner show up, too. 

Sarah Marie Hughes at the 2023 Capital Fringe preview party/By Patricia Leslie

Finding Home: Dance Journeys, one of the acts presented at the 2023 Capital Fringe preview party/By Patricia Leslie

Finding Home: Dance Journeys at the 2023 Capital Fringe preview party/By Patricia Leslie

At the preview party, Samuel A. Simon delivered a few lines from his Dementia Man, An Existential Journey, one of the acts at 2023 Capital Fringe/By Patricia Leslie

This year's Capital Fringe theme is based on lemons:  "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade"/By Patricia Leslie

Maybe you can find yourself in Who is my authentic self? Can it change?, but you'll surely want  to eavesdrop on an evening with Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in Tender. 

Share love in a new Shakespeare version (Only Love) or, anyone for puppets?  Try Attack on Tunggorono (for adults only). 

Enjoy magic and comedy with Charlie Ross Comedy & Magic. 

See dance (A Moment in Time and Finding Home).  Hear original music (TBD: A Devised Theatrical Celebration, Bell Wringer).

Explore memory and hope in Between Raindrops, based on  the 1922 collapse of DC's Knickerbocker Theatre which killed 98. 

The audience participates in several shows like the comedy and murder mystery, Who Did It? and help a young woman to route herself to the nunnery in The Holy One.

Of course, nudity and profanity are not to be forgotten: Brunch with the Boys, Dildos and Body Parts, Mutu Sakata and Rivershe Collective Arts are some titles.

Plus, on July 19 at 8 p.m., the Alliance for New Music-Theatre will present a free reading in English of six short-plays by Ukrainian artists, commissioned by the Center for International Theatre Development since the Russian Invasion. The shows include Ukrainian folksongs and although free, donations will help support Ukrainian artists. July 19, 8 p.m. at the Rind, 1025 Thomas Jefferson; enter on 30th.

The Fringe website lists choices of genre, dates, creators, and venues (many shows with profanity; for mature children.) 

Julianne Brienza, Fringe's founding director and programmer, chose this year's theme:  "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” which will be available for purchase at all venues. 

Short skits of 20 of the shows entertained guests at the free preview party at Georgetown's Powerhouse ("grand central" for festival-goers and crews) last weekend. 

Fringe is fun; the shows are different, original, and some, delightful!  Some, so naughty!  And they run 50 to 75 minutes each Wednesday through Friday, 6 - 11 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. - 11 p.m at venues in Georgetown and at the Jewish Community Center and Theater J at 1529 16th Street, NW.

Artists will keep 70% of the $15 tickets which will have a handling fee of $2.51 added.  There are no cash sales.

Major sponsors are the Georgetown Business Improvement District, the DCJCC, Theater J, JLL, JBG Smith, Powerhouse, and Brick and Mortar.

According to its website, "Capital Fringe’s annual festival is the only unjuried, self-producing live performance festival in the Washington, DC area. Since 2006, we have presented 14 festivals featuring over 52,000 artists to an audience of 380,000 ticket buyers. The festival has generated $2.37 million in artist revenue. At our most recent festival in July 2022, 87% of available tickets were sold."

The awards ceremony (including, for the first time, audience awards) and the free closing party will be July 23, 7 - 11 p.m. at the Powerhouse.

Better get tickets while you can!  Some shows will certainly sell out.  For more information: capitalfringe.org.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Free online classes and 'Amateurs' online at the Olney

Michael Russotto, left, and Evan Casey in The Amateurs at Olney Theatre Center
/Photo, Teresa Castracane Photography

The Amateurs were anything but at the Olney Theatre Center before coronavirus shut them down early.

But, the show will go on! Via streaming online beginning March 28 at noon through April 5 at Vimeo-On-Demand ($20 for a 24-hour rental with a free trailer).

This is just part of the Olney's digital public offerings to keep theatre alive in this turbulent era. Beginning Monday, March 30 the Olney will host free online classes daily for all ages via Zoom which staff members, National Players, and apprentices will teach.

Story times, playwriting, acting, movement and monologue coaching, play reading, and more will be offered over eight hours of daily classes, arranged by age. It's a fun schedule and welcome diversion for weary parents and children. Check the listings here. No pre-registration is required.

But, back to what brought us here in the first place, The Amateurs: Noah's wife is mad because she doesn't have a name.

The Amateurs was a production for the sophisticated theatregoer, a play within a play or maybe, within another play, too. It's not a "happy ending" play, but an existentialist provocation haunted by the Black Death ravaging the world in the 14th century, somewhat like coronavirus ensnares the world today, and AIDS did.

Searching for the meaning in this medieval setting with several themes left me confused beginning with the Seven Deadly Sins (can you name them?)* presented in ghoulish costumes.

The characters seem lost, without clear direction, much like we are. Jumping from then to now, the playwright, Jordan Harrison, presents an explanation before the play returns to the original setting. The issues are the same: Disaster, ever present.

The wife of Noah (as in Ark) lacks a first name and refuses to board her husband's boat. Actors unroll animal likenesses from a long scroll, and the big, versatile prop, a wagon cart, effectively serves as the ark, a setting for lovers, a birthing place, a speaker's platform, and more, as the actors roll it back and forth from one side of the stage to another, like a slow-motion tennis ball on a court with the audience on two sides facing one another, moving heads to follow the action.

It wasn't all negative; some comedic moments lightened the fare.

Michael Russotto was the screechy God, a conceited and narcissistic image aided in his mission to deliver a production, which the remaining cast members did. They were John Keabler, Noah; Emily Townley, Noah's wife; Evan Casey, Gregory; James Konicek, the physic; and Rachel Zampelli, Rona.

Lighting by Colin K. Bills never missed a moment, whether it was an actor delivering a solo speech or words for a moonlight.sonata.

Sound by Karin Graybash and folk music between scenes flavored the show.

*Pei Lee's Old World costumes captured the times beginning with gluttony (including drunkenness); lust, sloth (acedia?), wrath (anger), greed (avarice), envy, and pride (vanity, vainglory) all dressed head to toe in black, all on stage together.

More members of the creative team were Jason King Jones, director; Misha Kachman, scenic designer; Ben Walsh, production stage manager; and Josiane M. Jones, production director.

Leave it to Olney's talented staff of Jason Loewith, artistic director, and Debbie Ellinghaus, managing director, to keenly forecast the future and choose Amateurs for this season which keeps going.

About 90 minutes without intermission.

Coming April 4 at 11 a.m. is announcement of next season's selections at the Olney and also on April 4 at 5 p.m. is a panel discussion: "What's Next for D.C. Theatres," both presentations to be live-streamed on Facebook and YouTube.

Where: Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832

Next up: Read all about it here.

For more information: 301-924-3400 for the box office or 301-924-4485

patricialesli@gmail.com

Olney's 'Miss You' embraces all

Valeria Morales, left, and Karmine Alers in Miss You Like Hell at Olney Theatre Center
Photo: Stan Barouh



For a show that's only 90 or so minutes without an intermission, Olney Theatre Center's Miss You Like Hell covers a lot of territory, racing through so many hot button issues, it's a fast socio-psychological study in what ails the nation and what ails you (but not me).

Illegal immigration, discrimination, suicide, mental health, sexism, family matters (including, but not limited to mother-daughter relationships), are all here. What have I overlooked? 

A lot to grasp in one show, but all is not totally droll since it's got humor. 

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes's main characters are a mother, Beatriz (Karmine Alers) who convinces her estranged 16-year-old daughter, Olivia (Valeria Morales) to go with her on a coast-to-coast journey and try and iron out some of their interpersonal difficulties and "find themselves."

While Beatrix, an illegal immigrant, suffers the silent anxiety of being discovered by ICE, Olivia endures suicidal tendencies. What better time to work it all out? Which they attempt with the help of convincing characters they meet on the road, who befriend them and provide sustenance to help overcome life's "evils," and find everybody. They become family of more than blood lines.

Dialogue between mother and daughter is ageless, the same (with some variation) likely to be found on parchment in the Middle Ages (sans the X-rated words.  What were X-rated words in the Middle Ages? But that's another script!)

Two of the most delightful new friends are a gay couple, Mo (Bradley Mott) and Higgins (Lawrence Redmond) whose humorous lines and duet "My Bell's Been Rung" contrast with dour first impressions.
 
Later, Pearl (Kayla Gross) is another stranger-now-friend whose strong and beautiful voice threatens to overtake the stars' and Yellowstone National Park.

Director Lisa Portes places nonspeaking cast members in scattered positions on a mostly shadowy stage until they start to emerge like butterflies, slowly gathering energy to float and soar, sing and dance.  (The harmonies are magnificent.) They use chairs as props, and sometimes they sit or stand on elevated levels which sounds hokey, but once I figured out what was happening, the effect was all right. 

While Matt Rowe's automotive and road sounds hum in the background, unobtrusive landscapes are projected up as moving backdrop (by Thomas Ontiveros). (Videos are so ubiquitous in theatre nowadays, it's an unusual production which doesn't have them. I guess the performing artists must try any and all additions to keep the audience, and especially younger members, in check.  Try the Symphony, for another.)
  
Walter “Bobby” McCoy directs the onstage seven-member orchestra which provides excellent accompaniment (per standard Olney fare).

Other cast members are Jyline Carranza, Carlos L. Encinias
Jay Frisby, Olivia Ashley Reed (also dance captain), Kara-Tameika Watkins, and Michael Wood.

The creative team also include Milagros Ponce de Leon, scenics; Ivania Stack, costumes; Pablo Santiago, lighting; Richard Lundy, production stage manager; Josiane M. Jones, director of production; Christopher Youstra, associate artistic director and director of music theatre; Breon Arzell, choreography.

Congratulations to Ms. Morales, a freshman at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, making her Olney debut!

What: Miss You Like Hell with music and lyrics by Erin McKeown

Where:  Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832.

When: Through March 1, 2020, Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees on Saturday, Sunday and one Wednesday, Feb. 19, at 2 p.m. An audio-described performance for the blind and visually impaired on Wednesday, Feb.12, at 8 p.m. and a sign-interpreted performance Thursday, Feb. 20, at 8 p.m. (Contact Julia Via at jvia@olneytheatre.org to confirm.)

Tickets: Begin at $42 with discounts for groups, seniors, military, and students

Ages: Olney rates this as "PG-13" but I rate it "R." Olney recommends a parent attend with children aged 13 and older; no parent necessary for those aged 16 and more. 

Language:  X


"Afterwords": Matinee post-show discussions on all Saturdays in February.


Free tickets with pre-registration for Erin McKeown's concert at the Olney Feb. 15 at 5 p.m.  She wrote the music and lyrics for Miss You Like Hell.
 
Refreshments: Available and may be taken to seats

Parking: Free, lighted and plentiful on-site

For more information: 301-924-3400 for the box office or 301-924-4485
 

patricialesli@gmail.com

'Theory' debuts at Mosaic

The Theory classroom ensemble at Mosaic Theater/Photo by Christopher Banks

A lady at the Smithsonian reception* the other night told me she liked provocative theatre, the kind which makes you think. She paused: "As long as it's got good acting." 

"You're going to love Theory," I said, the newest show at Mosaic Theater which presents the American premiere of an award-winning Canadian production.

It will set your mind ablaze, I told her, while you ponder the meaning. For progressive theatre lovers, it's must see.  

Ari Roth, the much beloved founding artistic director at the much beloved Mosaic Theater on H Street, writes in program notes that he finds hope in this show.  I am happy he found it; I am still searching.

The protagonist (Musa Gurnis is Isabelle) challenges "the heteronormative, white-male-dominated film canon she is charged to teach," Ari writes. Pity white males.

Norman Yeung, a man of many artistic persuasions (playwright, filmmaker, artist, actor) won a 2015 Canadian national playwriting contest for Theory which is billed as a “techno-thriller,” but the action doesn’t really get going until the last scene.

Then (finally!) Isabelle suddenly develops strength of character and a new person emerges, stronger and better possessed of her faculties in contrast to the mousy do-gooder she acts in most of the drama, trying to be all things to all students, unleashing the class to become
whatever it wants to be.

In Yeung's play, the roles reverse: The students teach, and the dull teacher/student learns the hard way that students need structure, after all.

Suspense gradually builds but not enough to introduce the sudden departure from its gait to the pace presented at the end.

The weak link in this chain of events is the main character, Isabelle.

She is married to a lesbian, of course. (Andrea Harris Smith  is Lee, her wife.)  This is modern-day stuff.

Isabelle's syllabus says nothing is off-limits to post for the class, including murder, mayhem, and violent sex. 

That is, until certain words becomes too much for her wife to bear, and the original deal is scraped by Teacher Isabelle who changes the rules of this game.

Dynamic performances by all the students  (Josh Adams, Benairen Kane, Camilo Linares) lift the show, especially Tyasia Velines whose animation, arms, and exclamations earn her standout status.

Also in the cast is Tony K. Nam in a realistic and concerning portrayal as Isabelle's department head.

The stage and lighting are segregated by scene in a well-executed design by Daniel Ettinger with lighting by Brittany Shemuga. The classroom and desks sit in the upper left corner with stage center reserved for the living quarters of Isabelle and Lee. 

The far right transitions from a school to home office and back again, complete with a plant merry-go-round which, after the third movement or so, becomes a distraction and you are left wondering if it's the home or the school office that's up next. 

And "devices."  Sigh. They are omnipresent. What's a show without them?  Not a contemporary show.

Director Victoria Murray Baatin, the theater's associate artistic director, makes her Mosaic theater debut with Theory which she discovered on the last night of a travel grant to Canada. 

Dylan Uremovich does a nice job with simultaneous projections on different-sized screens.

Other members of the crew are Danielle Preston, costumes;

David Lamont Wilson, sound; Willow Watson, properties; April Sizemore-Barber, dramaturg; April E. Carter and Laurel VanLandingham, stage managers; Ashara Crutchfield, assistant director; and Paul Gallagher, fight choreographer.

What: Theory

When: Now through Nov. 17 at 8 p.m. from Wednesday through Saturday; 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday; and 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 10. 

Where: Mosaic Theater Company, Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20002

Getting there: Riding public transportation from Union Station on the streetcar is easy and free, if you can find the streetcar behind Union Station where signage to the streetcar is poor. Valet and parking options are available. Move. (For late-night streetcar rides, the show may go on.)

Tickets start at $20.

Language: Adult

Duration: 85 minutes without intermission. 

Post-show discussions:  Saturday, Nov. 9, 3 p.m.;
Sunday, Nov. 10, 3 p.m.;  Thursday, Nov. 14, 11 a.m. (cast talkback); and Saturday, Nov. 16, 3 p.m.

Open-captioned performances: Friday, Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 16 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. 

For more information: Please call the box office and leave a message: 202-399-7993, ext. 2.


*by Mary Louise Schumacher, art critic, at the American Art Museum

patricialesli@gmail.com

CATF's 'North of the Boulevard' is a hit north of the Rio Grande

From left, Brit Whittle is "Trip," Jamil A.C. Mangan, "Bear," Michael Goodwin, "Zee," and Jason Babinsky is "Larry" in North of the Boulevard by Bruce Graham. CATF 2014. Photo by Seth Freeman.

The next station for North of the Boulevard at the Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University might be, New York?  The script is drop dead funny, the audience howls throughout, but it's got a serious side, too.  

The dialogue is fast, clipped, and delivered just like you'd expect, if you've ever visited an auto repair shop.  At Trip's, four blue-collared men sift through life's pieces, trying to make sense of them all. They strive to be North of the Boulevard, a safer and richer world since theirs is falling apart.
 
They examine choices. Where do we go from here?  One route suddenly presents itself which may quickly solve everything.  Or most everything.

Or can it?

It's a December afternoon in 2008 at Trip's shop where the owner (Brit Whittle) is tormented by the recent bullying and beating his son, Kevin, took at the hands of area black youths.  Trip agonizes about his old, decaying neighborhood which is slowly draining his family of its wellbeing and safety, a deterioration matched by the people's.

Zee (Michael Goodwin) pops up.  This stereotypical nasty, elderly, negative mouthpiece criticizes everybody and thing which enters his mind or sight, including his offspring. Perhaps he is too old to hope any more since all he really has going is a red bandana.  He frequently naps in the back seat of a car on stage. 

Soon another boyhood pal, Bear (Jamil A.C. Mangan) arrives, followed by Zee's son, Larry (Jason Babinsky who also stars in repertory in another 2014 CATF production, One Night). 

Larry is a middle-aged loser, and despite Trip's warnings to Zee to stop his bullying, Larry is a target of his father's mean remarks.  You yearn to smack Zee and shake some sense into his final days.  

One of the funniest scenes occurs when Larry spews his pent-up wrath at his father and "gets it off his chest." Let it all out, Larry! The sincere and passionate hate is likely shared by many present.  With his mannerisms, delivery, and lines, he almost steals the show.  

Larry's costuming (by Therese Bruck) includes a woolen cap and ear covers which he never removes. The others are dressed in contemporary flop, except for Bear who wears his work uniform. 

The set is realistically and meticulously crafted by David M. Barber, based on the shop of playwright Bruce Graham 's cousin. High opaque windows line the back of the space, giving it an "industrial feel" with old tires, hanging lights, grease, bottles, car parts, and another junked car's back seat used for a couch.

The set shop hints at so much dust, you almost cough. Or sneeze.

On the wall is a campaign poster of Barack Obama so you can guess the comments Zee makes, proudly claiming membership in the "politically incorrect" club. (Time out for a message about art:  The poster is a copy of the artwork most associated with President Obama's first presidential campaign, the one which makes you think Andy Warhol was still living in 2008, a gift to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery where the portrait is "not currently on view." Shame.)

Shepard Fairey, b. 1970. National {Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection in honor of Mary K. Podesta. Copyright: ©  Shepard Fairey/ObeyGiant.com

 

On the right side of the stage is a glass-enclosed office with door which Trip frequently uses for private phone conversations about his injured son (who never appears).  When Trip is in the office, he is visible to the audience who only hears portions of his speech, usually the shouts as he becomes increasingly agitated by the unpleasantness he hears on the phone.  

North of the Boulevard is superbly directed by Ed Herendeen, the festival's founder and producing director.  All the actors delivered impressively, just like those I saw in Dead and Breathing, another of this year's presentations, and like that ending, North's finish was unexpected. 

In both I found myself at the end crying out silently to those on stage: Don't do it!  We witness the human need to seize temptation which can upend lives and send participants right out the door.

In a playwrights' roundtable on opening weekend, Mr. Graham said "I've killed so many people I hate in my plays." Hmmmmmm, does that mean...?

Mr. Graham called himself "an audience whore," who, he said, inserts "things in plays just to get a reaction." At the roundtable, he thanked the audience for showing up and "investing in plays you've never heard of....our hats are off to you."

The production fulfills CATF's goals to be a daring story of diversity which embraces innovation and links to the audience. All five new productions on this year's festival playbill have been written in the last year or two and, to mention the obvious, contain contemporary, harsh and coarse language like you hear on the street nowadays. (We ain't got no class either.)

Shepherd University is just a little over an hour's beautiful drive from D.C. in the delightfully "quaint" town of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, founded in 1762, where free lectures, discussions, late-night salons, workshops, and much more are part of the festival.

For more reviews of North of the Boulevard and other CATF productions and area performances, click DC Metro Theater Arts.

What:  North of the Boulevard by Bruce Graham

When: The five new plays in the Contemporary American Theater Festival are staged in repertory, Wednesday through Sunday afternoons and evenings through August 3, 2014.  See them all!

Where:   Shepherd University, Shepardstown, WVA

Tickets: $59 for single seats with discounts for military, students, seniors, families, those under age 30, and West Virginia residents, plus four and five-show discount packages starting at $100. The 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday shows are $30.  Use Code CATF20 to save 20% on single ticket purchases.

For more information: 800-999-2283 or 304-876-3473

patricialesli@gmail.com