This article was first published in DC Theater Arts here.
What to do on a cold, overcast, snowy Saturday afternoon? Well, I had the good fortune of having a ticket to the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington Brand New Day concert at the Lincoln Theatre.
GMCW has been a cultural fixture in Washington, DC, for over 40 years and is one of the oldest and largest LGBT choral organizations in the United States, with over 300 members. It has a history of entertaining performances and has a large multidimensional following. I have enjoyed many of those past shows.
Brand New Day has moved the group a step up the ladder of socially conscious, inspirational, and diversity-focused quality entertainment. The GMCW ensembles (Potomac Fever, Rock Creek Singers, Seasons of Love, 17th Street Dance, and the GenOUT Youth Chorus) delivered a program that from beginning to end was razor-focused on the issue of inclusivity, equality, and the basic idea of recognizing the worth of all human beings in their infinite variety.
The songs and musical numbers were a delightful potpourri from different genres: Paul Negron singing “Human Heart,” the theme song from the Caribbean musical Once on This Island, about enduring and persevering life’s hardships; “We Are,” lushly underscoring the text of Maya Angelou’s poem “Human Family” (“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike”); soloists Matt Holland and Cooper Westbrook’ rendition of, “Perfect/Just the Way You Are”; Native American Linthicum Blackhorse’s arrangement of a traditional Lakota Sioux American Indian spiritual; the rendering of a Korean folk song, “Arirang,” about finding one’s way; and the Spanish folk song “Luz y Sombra,” about appreciating the simple things in life. Arresting arrangements of classics like “Through the Fire,” ” Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and “Purple Rain” were newly imagined and invigorating.
The finale was a rip-roaring, Las Vegas–style choreographic sequence from the movie The Wiz, after which the concert was named: “A Brand New Day (Everybody Rejoice).” Magical and thoroughly entertaining, it was a great way to convey the idea of living in a world free of bigotry, hatred, and lack of understanding.
This was an afternoon well spent, and the joy of it swept the dreary day away.
Running Time: Approximately 75 minutes with no intermission.
Brand New Day was presented by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, on Saturday, March 12, 2022, at the Lincoln Theatre – 1215 U Street, in Washington, DC. For future GMCW concerts and events go to their website.
The program for Brand New Day is available online here.
This article was first published in DC Theater Arts here.
ArtsCentric has streamed their first feature-length film production, Jason Robert Brown’s musical The Last Five Years, starring Ryan Burke and Awa Sal Secka in transformative performances that subvert and surpass expectations. Director Kevin S. McAllister takes an unconventional cinematic look at the story with the help of Musical Director Cedric D. Lyles and dynamic choreography from Shalyce Hemby. The plot follows a young couple through their five-year relationship in specific moments that jump through time and eventually come full circle in a heartbreaking conclusion. To anyone who has ever fallen in love, stayed in love, and learned the sacrifices it takes to make love last, this one’s for you.
The show opens on a distraught Cathy played by Secka, in her gut-wrenching rendition of “Still Hurting.” The song follows her, alone in her darkened apartment, as she mourns the loss of her relationship with her husband, Jamie. Throughout the scene are swift cutaways to clips of the couple from memories past, then the film jumps into the next big number, “Shiksa Goddess.” Here audiences are introduced to the other main character, Jamie, through the animated vocal stylings of Ryan Burke. This quick shift in tone is a thrilling wake-up call to a happier time, sweeping audiences into different scenes as a true live musical would. Through masterful casting and direction, ArtsCentric has achieved a compelling theater experience with all the depth, diversity, and raw talent that could be expected of a Hollywood production.
The story is shot in a way that gives audiences multiple insights into the characters’ love story every step of the way as we view both sides through the perspectives sung by Jamie and Cathy in each of their respective songs. Cathy’s perspective is reflective, traveling backward in time, while Jamie’s moves forward, to a future Cathy already knows. Their monologues are delivered through lively musical numbers that carry the plot along at a steady pace with stellar performances from both actors, showcasing Secka’s wide range and belting abilities along with Burke’s impressive vocals, which bear an uncanny resemblance to Jeremy Jordan’s in the original cast recording. The talent and magnetic chemistry these two actors bring to their characters on screen is a hypnotizing thrill to watch.
Expressed in their story is the age-old battle between romance and career: How long can a partnership that’s supposed to be equal thrive when one person is flying high and the other is down on their luck? And what sacrifices are necessary to create our own version of happiness? Cathy is a struggling actress and Jamie is a successful author. As enticing as it is to watch these characters fall in love, we witness the harsh realities of the balancing act between managing a career, whether successful or failing, over your relationship. Feeling as though you should shrink yourself down, or that you will never reach up to the level your partner is at, remains the overarching conflict between them.
Both Cathy and Jamie are unfulfilled in some aspect of their lives. Their story of trying to make their marriage work, while in the midst of a major power imbalance, is a valid portrayal of why some things just aren’t meant to be. They both require the other to be something they are not. Jamie expects Cathy to play the “supporting wife” to his overwhelming success as a published young author while her own career hangs by a thread. Jamie has more expectations, obligations, and people relying on him than ever before, and yet he feels he is never able to truly enjoy his speedy rise to the top due to his wife’s struggle to flourish and overcome the constant setbacks in her own career.
Meanwhile, we witness Cathy feel constantly overlooked, brushed aside, and forgotten. She brings Jamie down by her own self-doubt, insecurities, and jealousy sprung from living in his shadow. Jamie brings her down by becoming so engrossed in his newfound fame and fortune that he is no longer able to be the attentive, faithful man she married. Both characters are similarly pursuing their artistic dreams, but at varying stages, showing a clear picture of what it means to be in different places at different times, and how this can affect those who come into our lives..
Director Kevin McAllister makes conscious efforts throughout to put his own spin on the piece with diverse casting and cinematography that pulls viewers in and keeps its audience thoroughly invested. An example is the creative visuals added to “The Schmuel Song.” Sung by Ryan Burke, it shows Jamie’s attempt to cheer up Cathy with a lighthearted holiday story. Here McAllister adds his own unique interpretation of the number by including in the scene cartoon footage of the characters Jamie is singing about. McAllister’s bold choice to have audiences not only hear the story but see it unfold on screen adds an entirely new element to the number and allows audiences to experience the story of Schmuel along with the characters telling it.
McAllister skillfully utilizes meticulous camera work as a lens to show the inner thoughts of the main characters in their quiet moments, revealing a level of depth in their psyche beyond what they tell us in song. A key moment of this is when Cathy comes home from her audition, having just performed “Climbing Uphill.” In one of the few moments of spoken dialogue in the show, Jamie recites to Cathy some of the story he is currently writing, and although she remains silent, we are able to get into the pain and hurt in her mind. We are jolted back and forth through quick flashbacks of her previous performance, where she sings about trying to make it as an actress and the grueling process of constant rejection, struggling to support herself while living in Jamie’s shadow. In between these flashbacks are frequent cuts to closeups of her face in the present scene, showing only the expression in her eyes. It is telling in this moment that there is no closeup on her mouth, because she feels voiceless, only sharing her deepest thoughts with us through a look in her eyes, and the imagery running circles in her mind.
ArtsCentric’s adaptation of The Last Five Years meets the challenge of converting a musical into film, beautifully transforming the story using the fundamentals of cinema, and proves that with a clear vision and team of dedicated talent, true art can be made.
ArtsCentric’s filmed production of The Last Five Years streamed on-demand from February 18 to March 3, 2022.
This article was first published in Tagg Magazine here.
Lisa Friday takes the stage in Trans Am with nothing more than her acoustic guitar and her story. Told through songs fresh from the vault of original music she’s written over the last 20 years, Friday invites viewers to join her on a rock and roll trip down memory lane. The live, one-woman musical depicts her own transgender experience, raw and real.
Friday’s decision to create and star in her own life story arose as a product of her own self-reflection in the wake of COVID-19. After the cancellation of Keegan Theatre’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, in which she was asked to play Hedwig, Friday took time to reflect on current events and injustices taking place. She believed that what was important to show at this time wasn’t flashy outward spectacles, but honest depictions of the realities people face in life. Thus, Trans Am was born.
Originally performed for a virtual audience, widespread success of her remote production prompted her to bring the show to life on stage. “The Keegan asked me to be part of their 25th anniversary season and we all decided we weren’t going to change a thing. We were just going to go with it exactly how it is,” Friday explains.
She describes her story as a means of understanding our common human desire for self-actualization. When discussing where this self-actualization comes from, Friday explains that “to go through a gender transition can be a very isolating experience. It takes so much self-examination and so much clarity about who you are to get through that.” Through this process, she realized that “everything in our world is informing us that there are binary laws to gender norms, that we have to fit in to certain categories and certain places. And as you transition, you’re going to have to walk through every single one of those places. To get through that and survive, that takes a level of self-actualization that a lot of people are never forced to go through.”
Friday shares that despite her happy childhood, there was no room for her to truly find this in the conservative environment she was raised in. She admits, “we may not realize our authentic selves are probably not welcome in.” Throughout her show, Friday details how her connection to music allowed her to find new places to express herself.
Through Trans Am, Friday hopes that audiences resonate with the realities of this human experience. “Being trans doesn’t make me something other, it actually makes me very human.” Her goal is that people get to see transitioning as a real-world human experience and adds for anyone struggling with their own personal journey, “We need love and support in our lives, we need to receive and give that in order to fully realize who we are.
This article was first published The DC Line here.
At a time when the world has been preoccupied with the health of seniors, dancer and choreographer Nancy Havlik has continued teaching an unlikely approach to the physical and mental well-being of people over the age of 65 — dance.
“We were meant to move. It’s part of our DNA,” said Havlik, who has led Quicksilver, a group of improvisational senior dancers, for the past 25 years.
The program is sponsored by Arts for the Aging, a Rockville, Maryland-based nonprofit founded in 1988 by scientist, arts patron and sculptor Lolo Sarnoff that offers multidisciplinary arts programs for seniors with a wide range of physical and cognitive abilities. In addition to Quicksilver’s dance classes, Arts for the Aging also offers storytelling, singing, drawing, painting and photography classes. The organization also employs 25 “teaching artists,” including visual artists who exhibit nationally, opera singers who perform at the Kennedy Center, and professional dancers such as Havlik.
“Everyone has a different entry point to art, and if we can cover a lot of those areas and ways of reaching people, you’re more likely to spark that connection,” program director Sarah House said in a recent interview.
Seniors throughout the Washington area can participate in Arts for the Aging programs — primarily online until a full in-person schedule resumes — through partnering community and residential care settings, including adult day centers, community centers, assisted living communities, nursing homes and senior villages.
Quicksilver dancers lead a pre-pandemic workshop with participants at Long Branch Community Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Photo by Stephanie Williams Images courtesy of Arts for the Aging)
Havlik says she happened to launch Quicksilver just as DC-based choreographer Liz Lerman was disbanding Dancers of the Third Age. A number of older dancers from that company joined her group, whose members typically have a weekly rehearsal in addition to their work with seniors. When the pandemic kept participants out of rehearsal spaces and senior centers, a core collection of members continued to meet online.
“[Improvisational dance] is a skill set,” Havlik said. “And you learn it by practicing it together.”
Beginning in March 2021, the members of Quicksilver — vaccinated and wearing masks for the first few sessions — bundled up for outdoor in-person rehearsals on a basketball court at the Chevy Chase Community Center. Occasionally the sessions were displaced by a pickleball group. But Havlik said it was still great to see fellow dancers and share space with them again.
On July 19, Arts for the Aging held its first in-person activity since the start of the pandemic. House, who attended the event at the Genevieve Johnson Senior Center on Blagden Avenue NW, said visual artist Marcie Wolf-Hubbard showed seniors and staff how to use drawing materials to replicate nature-inspired stained glass.
Janine Tursini, Arts for the Aging’s director and CEO, said the organization will continue offering virtual and hybrid options for the time being. Quicksilver began in-person rehearsals (masked and socially distanced) in September, but for safety reasons has not yet facilitated dance workshops with Arts for the Aging’s client sites. Overall, four of the organization’s 24 clients are currently able to host in-person programs.
Research in the field of creative aging suggests regular participation in the arts can have health benefits, according to Tursini. But she is careful to point out that, while the creative activities her artists facilitate can be therapeutic, they should not be considered therapy. Nor are they entertainment, although some may find them entertaining.
“They’re all about participation,” Tursini said. Teaching artists often stand at the center of a circle, encouraging group members “to dance with one another, talk to each other, imagine with each other.”
Arts for the Aging also trains other artists to use their model when working with seniors. When The Washington Chorus contacted Tursini, its singers were already performing in nursing homes and assisted living communities, but the group contracted with Arts for the Aging to help develop performers’ participatory skills.
During the training, Quicksilver dancers divided chorus members into small groups and taught them “movement phrases” that they could do along with their songs. For example, Havlik noticed that the singers were already rocking from side to side while they performed. “You can get your group of frail seniors to rock with you,” she recalled telling the trainees.
The Washington Chorus training was cut short by the pandemic, but the nonprofit plans to continue training artists who wish to work with seniors, in part through a collaboration with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Havlik says the trainings help artists feel more confident about working with seniors. “We kind of take what they already have, and just affirm it,” she said.
Improvisational dance is an example of a multidisciplinary art form in which virtually anyone can participate. Focused movement isn’t just for trained dancers or trained athletes, says Havlik. Inviting people who may be inactive — whether due to illness or limited mobility — to move can appear to wake them up. “You see their essence come out,” Havlik said
She recalls seeing the simple gestures of a man taking a class at the Downtown Cluster’s Geriatric Day Care Center before the pandemic. His health had been deteriorating, and he could hardly move. During a dance with Quicksilver, the man began tapping his knee with his fingers.
“And then he had a little shake of his arm. And then his shoulder on the other side would wiggle a little bit,” Havlik said. “It was close to the end of his life, but he was still in the group.”
This article was first published in Tagg Magazine here.
In their much-anticipated return to the stage, BETTY recently announced their holiday concert tour. The iconic queer band is back with live performances this holiday season for their “Holly Jollypocalypse.” Trio, Alyson Palmer and sisters Amy & Elizabeth Ziff will be kicking off their performances in Washington, D.C. and closing out their rockin’ festivities in New Hope, PA.
Over the last 35 years, BETTY has released a total of ten albums along with prominent features of their music on radio, film, and tv. Including their iconic tune, “The Way That We Live,” which featured as the running theme song for Showtime’s The L Word. After three decades together, this strong-willed trio has only grown stronger. They credit their long running success with years of lasting friendship and commitment to one another, and the LGBTQ community. She also adds that their loyal fanbase provided them the drive and engagement to keep at it. “We really keep going because of the fans.” The story of how they met can be found on episode one of their podcast BETTY: Girlband, the Podcast.
In the wake of Covid-19—no longer able to do live performances—the unparalleled dedication these women have for one another and their music shined through. While writing individually, the group remained in touch every day. Elizabeth even admitting to walking miles in the snow to just to get to her sister in upstate New York. It was during this time, that the group was able to transition from sharing their songs with live crowds, to reaching audiences online, with the release of several music videos and taking part in live benefits via Zoom.
Now, live and in-person, the group is thrilled to get back to their fans, aiming to bring together all walks of life and inspire fun-filled comradery throughout the tour. Audiences can expect to hear some great music and hopefully, meet some great people this holiday season.
This article was first published in The DC Line here.
A new initiative for local artists that has community members pay in advance for nine different original works of art distributed its first round of art to 33 participating patrons last Saturday.
The program was formed by Rhizome DC, a community arts nonprofit in the Takoma neighborhood of DC, and Guilded, a freelance worker cooperative and a chapter of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Its Community Supported Art initiative draws from the concept of Community Supported Agriculture, where community members pay upfront at the beginning of the season and receive fresh produce throughout the harvest.
With Rhizome’s collaboration, up to 50 art patrons can choose to pay between $200 and $500 to fund nine local artists. Each patron will subsequently receive nine pieces of art covering a variety of mediums and topics — one from each artist — during three pickup dates between August and November. The next distribution date is Sept. 18, and new patrons who invest before then will receive art from both the August and September pickups.
Through “The Time Travel Agency,” artist Xena Ni works with viewers to transport and draw moments in their future life. This image is a glimpse of Ni and Ward 1 Mutual Aid organizer Gabrielle Newell in May 21, 2120. (Photo courtesy of Xena Ni)
Driven by their shared experiences working with Community Supported Agriculture, Rhizome DC program director Layne Garrett and Guilded program manager Ajoke Williams joined forces to establish a mechanism to fund the artistic process — not just the sale of the final product — and incorporate social benefits in addition to payment.
“Artists are workers just like employees, and they deserve benefits and security,” Williams said. “I hope this model sheds light on a new framework that shifts the paradigm from just financial contribution to also helping social welfare.”
The partnership between the two organizations provides nine artists with $1,500 stipends, as well as Guilded memberships, which include benefits like health, vision and dental insurance.
The initiative also serves as a different means of fostering interaction between artists and audiences, Williams noted. Prior to the pandemic, she said access to experiencing or creating art was generally tied to a physical location, such as a theater or a community art center like Rhizome DC.
“COVID really highlighted how important it is to have more than just one entryway to art, to have mechanisms that don’t always rely so heavily on the real estate of a particular physical building,” she said.
Garrett said he sees in community-supported art “the same kind of potential” that has been realized for Community Supported Agriculture, which has seen a particular surge in popularity during the pandemic. Paying farmers at the beginning of the season is a “win-win situation,” he said, because it allows them to cover the costs required to start planting, while also reducing the financial risk of having their entire profit be dependent on their crop — and the same could be true for artists.
“One would hope that society would do a better job of valuing the people who make life worth living — people like farmers and artists,” Garrett said.
While he hopes the community-supported art model will continue to expand, Garrett said he believes even now in its nascent stages it can help artists in the absence of stronger government support for the arts.
“In the absence of that, something like this can maybe fill the gaps for at least a few people,” he said.
Writer and actor Julia Marks, one of the participating artists, said she previously believed the “starving artist” stereotype — that choosing to be an artist meant that she would have to struggle. But Rhizome’s Community Supported Art initiative and the benefits it offers have led her to realize otherwise.
“Artists deserve to be workers, too,” Marks said. “Just because you’re doing something that you’re passionate about doesn’t mean your life has to be really hard.”
Julia Marks’ play “State of Stagnation Manifesto” was created as part of iiiSTATES, a theater collective she co-founded with Kevin Keogh. (Photo courtesy of Julia Marks)
In addition to providing benefits for artists, the model also offers financial stability and artistic flexibility by getting them part of their stipends upfront to cover material costs, rather than waiting to be paid for a finished product.
Participant Xena Ni, a multimedia artist who also works as a full-time designer, makes this comparison: As a designer, she is paid for the time she puts into her work, not the number of widgets she designed that are ultimately sold. Yet for artists, pay typically comes only from the sale of already created works. In this way, Ni describes a community-supported arts model as artistically “freeing.”
Being “compensated by sales for specific work [is] so much harder to predict, and suddenly you’re incentivized to make work that a particular audience wants versus being compensated for the time you spent making creative stuff,” Ni said.
Performance artist and writer Fargo Nissim Tbakhi added that community-supported arts benefit both artists and communities by shifting away from the “wealthy collector model.” Such initiatives expand access to collecting quality art by mitigated the pressure artists feel to find wealthy individuals or institutions to purchase their art, he said.
“This offers a way into an arts ecosystem that feels less complicated, less rooted in sort of these ideas of prestige, of respectability,” Tbakhi explained. “But [it] is instead just really boiling it down to how we can make this sustainable for artists and connect them with community members.”
I could not help but root for these two lost and lonely souls to find solace in each other.
By Jordan Ealey
This article was first published June 10, 2021 in DC Metro Theater Arts here.
Every 17 years, cicadas emerge from underground and swarm the earth, searching for their mates. Their long incubation leads to a relatively short — yet loud — existence aboveground. Though they are here only a short while, they make their presence known. In mythology, the cicada is known for themes such as immortality, resurrection, and ecstasy. As we attempt to heal from a pandemic that has shaken the global center, the cicadas are here to remind us of the inevitability of life and death, shouting a promise that no matter what, the world still turns.
This thematic underpinning undergirds Angelica Chéri’s Berta, Berta, currently running at Everyman Theatre. The play is a two-hander following the entangled lives of Leroy (portrayed by Gabriel D. Lawrence) and Berta (portrayed by Myxolydia Taylor) as they try to heal their broken selves through each other. After being estranged for three years, Leroy arrives at Berta’s door, bloodied and scared, having committed murder against someone claiming to have “had” Berta. What follows is a story of mysticism, passion, and love all over the backdrop of the early-20th-century American South.
Gabrielle D. Lawrence as Leroy and Myxolydia Tyler as Berta in ‘Berta, Berta.’ Photo by Teresa Castracane.
I first became acquainted with Chéri’s work through her and Ross Baum’s musical, Gun and Powder, which had its world premiere at Signature Theatre Company after enjoying development through the new-musical laboratory SigWorks. Like Gun and Powder, Berta Berta is a period drama — perhaps indicative of Chéri’s artistic oeuvre. Set in Mississippi in 1920, the play feels like an eternal flame; that is, the passion is palpable throughout the production. Both Lawrence and Taylor give tenacious, laborious performances, and by laborious, I mean it admirably. In their impassioned deliveries of Chéri’s poetically written script, one could literally feel the two actors working. Even streamed virtually, their chemistry is felt from the very first moment they are together on stage right until their very last moments holding each other.
Under Reginald L. Douglas’s careful direction, what could end up strained and forced was, instead, lyrical and heartfelt. Coming in at just over 80 minutes, Berta Berta is well-paced, stacked with just enough moments of humor and lightness to balance out its dark subject matter. Ironically, while viewing the play, I found myself both consciously and unconsciously reminded of August Wilson and his signature blend of realism and mythology — only to read an interview where Chéri cites The Piano Lesson as influencing this play, particularly in hearing the prison work song, “Berta Berta.” Chéri notes that this song currently has no known originary moments; despite its being a love song, no one knows who the man and woman were. “I had to write an origin story,” Chéri says.
As enthralling as the script, performances, and direction were, these choices were further framed gorgeously through light and sound. Where we were forced to step in and out of reality (sometimes in Berta’s head, other times in Leroy’s), the aesthetic devices supported it dramaturgically and helped to communicate these moments to the audience. The collaboration of Sarah Tunderman’s lighting design and Lawrence E. Moten’s set design staged the moments of mysticism in ways that differentiated them throughout. I was particularly drawn to the strategic and skillful employment of sound. Knowing that the play serves as an origin point for a song, it seems intentional from Chéri that sound would play an operative role in the production. Chéri contends that “sound has a reverberation,” and those reverberations rang throughout Berta, Berta. It wasn’t simply songs or music that provided the critical sonic moments, but the screams of the cicadas, the rustling of the trees, the banging of steel when Leroy would be reminded of his trauma from his crimes.
Gabrielle D. Lawrence as Leroy and Myxolydia Tyler as Berta in ‘Berta, Berta.’ Photo by Teresa Castracane.
Berta, Berta, ultimately, does an incredible job with a lot of heavy subject matter. Yet, in the hands of Chéri and Douglas, the narrative seems even. Though the tension begins and remains palpable throughout and the audience knows the inevitable is going to happen (they can never be together), I still could not help but root for these two lost and lonely souls to find solace in each other. The play is yet another gorgeous entry into a genealogy of Black Southern gothic. The cicadas may be here for a short while, but after watching this production, I am looking forward to Berta, Berta’s long life.
