Performing Arts

By Daniella Ignacio

This article was first published April 13, 2020 in DC Theatre Scene here.

Although performances and the National Players tour have been canceled at Olney Theater Center, the artistic staff, education staff and the National Players have found a new way to stay engaged with the community — through eight hours of Zoom classes on Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. All classes are free of charge, ranging from master classes and courses, to business advice, seminar-style discussions and storytelling. The classes began as open to the public, but, as of April 8, require registration through a Google Form on the Olney website. As of today, Olney Theatre offers 22 classes.

“The reason why we wanted to start doing classes online was we wanted to stay connected to our community, from the very young to adults who are curious about how we do what we do,” said senior associate artistic director Jason King Jones, who teaches Directing Shakespeare For A New Era, Resume and Audition Tips, You Are Your Own Business and Storytime. “We’re offering them for free because we want to encourage as much participation as possible. Besides with so many people suddenly out of a job, the last thing we’d want to do is try to take money from people struggling right now. Of course, if people have a great experience and want to donate to us, they are certainly welcome to do so.”

With each instructor using Olney’s single Zoom account all day, they’ve developed a system of logging off at 55 minutes after the hour to make time for the other person to log on. Each instructor serves as the host of each Zoom meeting, and the new registration model gives more agency to the host, as Olney has encountered difficulties with intruders, a problem that other educational environments have faced. Jones himself has had to kick people out of Storytime classes that were being disruptive. In New York City, security issues led to Zoom being banned in public schools.

“Our initial plan was to kind of have an open door policy and allow people in but it only took about five days for some nefarious actors to decide it would be more fun to troll our Storytime site and our classes with trollish behavior,” he said. “So we deleted all of those open Zoom meetings and then created a registration system through Olney so people register with us.”

Olney asks parents to register their kids, and adults to register themselves. The company is able to monitor who is registering on an individual level, to ensure that everyone is being forthright with their identity, and already has been able to red flag an individual who they identified as not being entirely forthright in trying to register for Storytime. Once registered, participants receive a new link and password to the Zoom meetings.

“The downside of that is that access is more limited, so our participation numbers may skew a little bit smaller initially, but our hope is that the security measures we’ve put in place will then encourage parents to see that this is a safe opportunity for their kids, a safe and secure learning environment,” he said. “We re-launched everything and everything is already going so much better.”

A lot of the Zoom settings now allow for more host controls that are not provided in the default settings: participants can only chat with the hosts, not each other and only the host is given control over participants’ mics and cameras, annotating white board and generally the features that Zoom has. If the host chooses to then allow for participation, the host is in control of that.

“In order for us to effectively teach our classes, we had to make some more stringent restrictions on how people get access to class and what the host can allow in order to have a controlled learning environment,” he said. “You know, if you’re in a classroom, you have classroom management techniques that just aren’t available using a video conference software, other than muting people’s microphones or muting their cameras or just removing them from class.”

For Jones, Storytime is a family affair, and the class provides a function that is otherwise inaccessible right now.

“Storytime seems like an obvious one in some ways, because libraries are closed, preschools are closed, some parents may not have a lot of kids’ books lying around,” he said. “I happen to have quite a few having gone through two kids and collected a lot of stories, and knowing that I like to read stories to kids, why don’t I offer that as a thing for parents to be able to give that opportunity to their kids?”

His 11-year-old daughter Gwen and 5-year-old son Elliot often show up as “guest artists” who participate in the readings. Elliot models good behavior for being a good listener; Gwen sometimes reads the books. Every time, Jones welcomes everyone at the top of the hour and goes right into it, reading “basically what’s on the shelf” in his house: Eric Carle, Maurice Sendak, Marissa Meyer, Dr. Seuss or various books on animals and nature they have.

“I see my job as basically a person they could log on to and see some stories being read,” he said.

Using Zoom for Storytime has had its ups and downs beyond disruption, Jones said. He has to be more mindful of his posture while reading books to a laptop camera and change up the location in his house based on what activities his kids and wife are doing at the time.

“I take some time with each page, I look at their faces on the screen, I try to mute them because sometimes there’ll be other noise around and I watch their reactions,” Jones said. “If they’re reacting with the books, I make sure they have some time with it. So I’m following their faces on the screen and that’s the best that we can do right now.”

Jones runs a plethora of other classes for Olney that are online, including Directing Shakespeare for a New Era, which examines how directors can view Shakespeare’s works in the current climate.

“I’ve been directing a Shakespeare play for National Players every year for eight or nine years, so it’s very much on my mind of ‘how do we direct shows now in this world?’” he said. “It’s about understanding Shakespeare’s relationship to gender, to violence, to the technologically advanced society in which we live; it’s understanding how these plays speak to us differently. Rather than requiring artists to adhere to some kind of outdated mode of telling the story, it’s giving people permission to meet the plays where they are in this time and day.”

In just the first week of running the classes, the company has already amassed a far reach. The demographics collected from registration show that people are attending these classes from within D.C., Maryland, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, South Carolina and California.

“There certainly are other theatre companies that are offering some classes or some coaching, but I would say that at least in the D.C. area we are unique in the volume of classes we are offering,” Jones said.

By Daniella Ignacio

This article was first published April 8, 2020 in DC Theatre Scene here.

Zoom is a common mode of communication for the world affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools and colleges use it for online classes; companies are using it for meetings; friends and family use it to stay in touch during a time of social distancing. For theatre companies, Zoom has proven to be an innovative tool to push forward the communal spirit of art in new ways, from online classes that go beyond the norm for theatre companies to livestreaming performances to the public. Here is just some of the interesting work that is being done by DMV theatre artists to maintain community and creativity. 

Virtual Fitness at Synetic Theater

At Synetic Theater, Virtual Synetic Fitness classes are currently being offered over Zoom, which utilize Synetic physical theater techniques to give participants workouts. The class is taught by Synetic company member Alex Mills (he), who has been with the company since 2008. 

“Because we are a physical theater, training has been an important part of our company since its birth,” education director Christopher Rushing (he) said. “We do training like three to four times a year with our company members, and then when we’re not doing training with our company members, we offer a fitness class where company members can attend for a reduced or free rate. But then we figured we’d also open it up to the community.” 

Rushing said they initially looked into YouTube Live because of its accessibility, but decided on Zoom because of the ability to have both privacy and participation options, since it’s easy to pull up those who are using their own camera and participating, so Mills can give feedback. 

“Obviously it’s different doing a fitness class online inherently because I’m by myself, I kind of get stimulated by having people in front of me, and you know, seeing the progress, how it’s going,” Mills said. “But using Zoom, I still actually feel like I’m with a class, because I can see people, I can still give technique notes or clarifications.” 

Typically, when the class is run in person, it takes place in Synetic’s rehearsal studio, The Factory, where Mills would lead across the floor work that used the entire large space. Now that the class is online, tests are conducted for lighting, sound with a snowball mic and the company’s EpicCam HD camera 20 minutes before class. But besides not having the space, there actually is not a huge change in what can be taught, because “a lot of things that we do or that we do in training can be done, quote on quote, ‘in place,’ so to speak,” Mills said. 

He also feels an extra layer of support, because people are actively like “I want to get up and move, you know, I want to do something,” he said. “It’s even more kind of that level of participation, it actually feels increased.”

Mills divides the class into four sections: cardio for about 15-20 minutes to keep participants’ heart rate going; stretching and technique work to slow it down, which is broken in various categories (isolation work, coordination exercises, pantomime, etc.); muscle work such as arms, shoulders or legs; and ending with a specific set of leg or core exercises. To explain movements, he demonstrates them from a few different angles, describes what muscle groups are activated and tries to put imagery in participants’ heads.“A lot of it is show and tell,” Mills said. “That’s the luxury of it being visual, is that I can go and do the movements with them, and then and say ‘Well, here’s what I need to correct, keep your head straight, lift your knees up, toes pointed,’ all those details. So I mean, it’s easy to communicate. Granted, I wish I was there to be able to give physical adjustments, to say isolate this or move this shoulder. But it’s still translating.” 

Rushing has been taking the class and said he enjoys learning Synetic physical theater techniques. The first time Synetic tried out using Zoom for the class before opening it up to the public, it was after the indefinite postponement of Life Is A Dream, for which Mills served as movement director, and when people were practicing social distancing but it hadn’t been officially requested yet. 

“Our company kind of all had gone home and they’d all been working with this common goal in mind and now that was gone,” Rushing said. 

But with Synetic Fitness coming back, it gave the company a new way of coming together. 

“It was cool to see how excited everyone was that it was coming back, and like, the energy, even though it was through virtual means, was like, palpable,” Rushing said. “It was really exciting and fun to be a part of. Even though I wasn’t teaching it, I was just producing it and making sure everything was running smoothly, it was still a really cool experience to see how excited everyone was and just how thankful people were to have that connection and that release again.” 

It’s that kind of release that Mills believes can help artists maintain a sense of sanity during this time. 

“We can get so stuck in our rooms, in our houses, and feeling like we can’t get anything done. I think just having that release, that physical release, is good for your own sanity, for real,” he said. “And feeling like you’re doing something — and a lot of us are, we’re still creating things, we’re still doing stuff — but physically doing something, moving our bodies, you know, makes it feel like, okay, I did that, I did that for an hour.”

Synetic offers a link to each class that’s available for a week afterwards for people who can’t attend it right at that time. It currently runs on a pay-what-you-can basis. Soon, Rushing said, Synetic will be expanding into school aged virtual options, during the school day as well as after school options. Synetic is currently working with Alexandria City Public Schools to deliver one of their family series shows as a streaming show. 

This Vessel Is A Fragile Thing at 4615 Theatre 

For 4615 Theatre, This Vessel Is A Fragile Thing  by Britt A. Willis (they) was the company’s first foray into online readthroughs, by streaming a Zoom meeting to Facebook Live on March 23. The script has been around for some time, and during the first video call between 4615 Theatre resident artist Ezra Tozian (they) and Willis since the beginning of social isolation, Willis said, “Oh, it would be really cool to do a live reading of this and stream it, would you want to do it?” 

Tozian had always been the first person Willis thought of to read for the role of The Body. This play’s messages spoke to Tozian. 

“Being a nonbinary performer, person, human, whatever, and also going through the whole body positivity thing, well, how does one come to terms with their body?” they said. “And then like, what does one do when the idea of your body or what you’re promised is taken away or changed without your consent? I definitely got that from the play and it meant a lot.”

Tozian asked artistic director Jordan Friend (he) if 4615 could produce the show as part of the EP program which allows resident artists to pursue side projects. Friend’s response? “Absolutely, let’s do it.”

For Willis, this play was written in one week, but it was a hard piece to write and make feel complete. Though it is not autobiographical, the play reflects their feelings and relationship with bodies and chronic illness and their issues with the current body positivity culture. 

“Often, I feel it still kind of puts the onus on people with bodies that are perceived as different or outside of the norm by our society,” they said. “It says you have to love yourself, and if you don’t, that’s a problem, when the truth is, it’s very hard to accept and love your body in every way possible, when that’s not how society functions, society hasn’t changed to do that as well and also I don’t always love my body, and that’s fine. It’s a body. And it’s okay that I don’t always love it. It’s a special play to me because it’s the first time that I very honestly engaged with those questions in my writing.”

Willis was the host for the Zoom meeting. Though they initially looked into the differences between Twitch and Zoom, they eventually decided on Zoom for its ease. According to Tozian, the cast all had at least basic experience with Zoom beforehand, so things like changing names were not hard to figure out. 

The night before the readthrough, Willis did a practice run on their personal Facebook page. The cast rehearsed the same day as the readthrough, doing a runthrough with director Jon Jon Johnson, who gave notes on how to make it feel more like a live performance and how to draw focus using Zoom.

“One very cool thing that we couldn’t tell in the meeting is Jon Jon suggested people turn off their cameras when they weren’t in a scene, and on our meeting screen, the person would still be there but their box would be black,” Willis said. “But in the Facebook video, the way streaming works, it just drops the person.”

The result of this was that there would be long stretches where the Facebook livestream would just show certain actors performing and Willis saying the stage directions on screen, even though everyone was still on the call. At some points, it would be Tozian alone on screen. According to Friend, it was lovely to watch. 

“It gives the feeling of someone being alone onstage, to have it just be our lead actor for a while and have sort of the company reappear,” he said. “It’s exciting because I think it lends a dynamic to the experience that can’t normally be there.”

For Tozian, this experience was a little bit like combining theatre and film acting together. 

“I’ve been in the theatre long enough that I just speak loud all the time, so that’s why I have a hard time with a lot of film stuff,” they said. “I had to have my headset half out, just to make sure I wasn’t blowing out the mic or getting super fuzzy. Most of the time it was actually okay, it was kinda just like doing a readthrough, frankly, that’s kind of what it was, but every now and then reactions would take an extra second.”

It was also hard, Tozian said, because over Zoom, it was difficult to talk over each other or cut each other off, which happens frequently in this play, without it getting super fuzzy. That aspect of the script dynamic got kind of lost, they said. But with this group of actors who just made it work, it didn’t prove to be a problem. 

They said that it still felt similar to performing live. 

“To me, it felt the same as doing a live staged reading,” Tozian said. “So I thought that it was really fun, I had the same endorphin rush that I get after performing, it was great. It felt very normal, I guess.” 

Willis has argued that Twitch is a form of theatre (“it can be affected by the audience, it is live, someone can mess up”), and having live functions similar to Twitch could make it a little closer to what they perceive as theatre. But they think this one worked incredibly well. 

“I love that we did it live, I love that we didn’t try to turn it into something more film-like,” they said. “It’s not meant to be, it really can’t be, so I appreciate that we just committed to a reading. I think as a reading, it functioned really well. I got to hear a group of outstanding actors read this play, so it was absolutely great.”

Friend said that in the long run, 4615 is not doing this because the company thinks it equals live theatre; they’re doing it to give voice and support to D.C. playwrights. 

“I don’t want us to pretend like we’re doing this instead of normal staged readings,” Friend said. “One of the things that we wanted to do was more work to help D.C. playwrights get their work displayed and trumpeted and workshopped. It’s so important for new plays to be heard out loud for the playwright and to raise awareness about these playwrights and their work. So I think the real benefit is there, not so much in 4615 creating content that substitutes live theatre because it just doesn’t.”

According to Friend, the company will probably do more play readings “to kind of keep the embers glowing, but mostly we’re in a phase of planning, just kind of figuring out what the next chunk of time is gonna look like,” he said. 

On The Wings of a Mariposa at Adventure Theatre MTC 

Similarly, at Adventure Theatre MTC, the company’s recent digital sneak peek presentation of next season’s On The Wings of a Mariposa by Alvaro Saar Rios also used a Zoom meeting that was streamed to Facebook. According to artistic director Chil Kong (he), the company was deciding between Bluejean and Zoom, and picked Zoom due to its ease of use. 

“We’re trying to be creative and fun, doing some interesting innovative things,” Kong said. “We’re soon to be the first to really attempt distance rehearsals and we’re figuring out all of the technical strengths and weaknesses and how do you tell a story within this medium that you can’t really control? You know, we’re used to teching a show. So we’re learning a lot and we’re flying the plane while we’re building it.”

During the livestream, Kong had four screens operating at all times: Zoom itself, showing the actors’ faces; the chat box that was on his second screen; the Facebook live stream that he had an on iPad (because he “can’t be on the same system because it pulls so much energy and bandwidth to have it on the same system, it would literally crash everything,” Kong said); and a fourth screen with Instagram, which is connected to the ATMTC website, to check people’s comments. 

“It’s not easy because what you see during Zoom isn’t necessarily what’s presented online,” Kong said. “Along with the marketing team, we’re all kind of tagging, checking each other so that if there are any glitches or faults, we are on it. And it’s not just one person, it’s like three of us who are on top of it, and I have one separate production stage manager who’s dealing with the Zoom itself. So it’s a lot of bandwidth, a lot of people power once we get it up.” 

He’s been speaking with Silicon Valley consultants to figure it out, as well. “There are a lot of specifics within Zoom that you can learn, but I think what I have faith in is that the smart people who will learn how to use this, and not just Zoom, like any other platforms, is that you’ll learn the idiosyncrasies of each of them, and then figure out how to use that to help you tell your story,” he said. 

Kong said that using Zoom with three young children from the ATMTC Academy and professional actors proved to be a lesson into how to connect without looking at someone’s eyes and learning what can be heightened using this platform, which proved to be acting that is more reliant on sounds because Zoom is sound-powered. For example, actors found that they needed to use gutturals before speaking in order for their videos to be highlighted on Zoom. 

“The weird thing about the way this works, is that I have to connect with a dot, and so what’s happening is a lot of the the acting has to be about connected to something that doesn’t exist, and hope that the expressions that you’re presenting in your voice – so it became a lot of auditory responses as opposed to connecting visually one on one,” Kong said. “In a weird way it’s like watching a lot of people who don’t know how to connect.” 

Kong connected this to his work with kids on the spectrum, who he said are amazing actors if they are told what the people are feeling; if you scripted it out for them, they can react in an interestingly natural way. 

“It’s actually not that different for what we’re doing online; we’re scripting the emotions that are being presented to you and then you have to react to those things that are scripted, and not as much on the total visual,” he said. “So it’s a whole other style of acting.”

According to Kong, this is not a replacement for live theatre. 

“At the end of the day, we will never be able to replace one-on-one human interaction, but we did want to at least tell the story so you can see it,” Kong said. “I think what was great was that everybody understood that this was a digital presentation, that this was a sneak peek into the theatre piece, and a great way to get excited about it, but it wasn’t the actual thing and our marketing team was really good about explaining that.” 

For Kong, Zoom also exemplifies the beauty of one-on-one human interaction outside performance. He is on several leadership panels that deal with the API racism that is happening right now, and is in a group of artistic directors of color who are all new leaders in the DMV. Some other members of that group include Maria Manuela Goyanes from Woolly Mammoth and Raymond Caldwell from Theater Alliance, and they’ve been holding live panel conferences every week using Zoom to discuss how COVID-19 is affecting them and their work. They generally keep the topics loose, but they have that space to discuss and share with each other. 

“We were the first one out of the gate to do a digital gala, so I talked about what we learned from that, and the only way that we can make things better is all of us talk to each other to figure out what’s working, what doesn’t work,” Kong said. “The dissemination of information is really, really exhilarating because of Zoom and these public panels in a way that hasn’t happened before.” 

Before, he said, it used to be just people putting Facebook posts up and hoping for enough critical mass. But now it’s creating one-on-one connections that you can create on a conference call. 

“You know, it’s weird, this is one step above the old days of ‘on the phone,’” he said. “And so you can see people’s interactions and though you can’t truly trust your gut instincts about what you feel on a video call, you have a closer connect than just a phone call.” 

The future of Zoom and theatre: how long can theatre last like this? 

According to several of these artists, for live streaming performances and staged readings, this form is something that needs to be assessed if it were to be used for an extended period of time. 

“I think it would be a really different case if we were looking at converting our entire audience to a virtual audience,” Friend said. “In a way, it’s more akin to pop-up theatre in that it’s about “Where are the places where we can put something up where we know that people are already congregating?’”

Kong said that it will take certain people to truly make this platform work for them. “Here’s the thing, the innovators, the ones who figure this out, they’re the ones who are really gonna succeed beyond this, I think,” Kong said. “‘Cause they’ll figure out ways to generate revenue easier for themselves. But it’s really tough for us, in an art that is completely reliant on personal one-on-one interaction. So it is harder for us to make money this way, but there are ancillary ways to make money.”

But for people who are learning to take advantage of online options like Zoom and receive income from it, it can be the only way to receive income right now. That’s the case for Mills right now.

“That’s what’s hard right now, theatre artists in particular, is that we were doing stuff, or we should be doing something or working on something and we can’t,” Mills said. “And actually what I found is that this could be a totally viable option even when this whole thing is over. Just because I have people from New York taking the class, or people who couldn’t be here in person to do it, so I think it’s something that we could still offer once we’re back up and running.” 

For many struggling artists right now, one staged reading is not enough to survive. As Friend said, it was the first time they did it (This Vessel Is A Fragile Thing)  and people are not going to donate every time they do it. 

“There’s a novelty to the process that gets everyone excited, but I think there’s a law of diminishing returns,” he said. “I don’t think this is a sustainable way for us to support our artists, I think we need to support our artists through emergency funds, and, you know, better unemployment laws. I think there are much bigger forces at play that need to happen for how we support our artists. I’m deeply grateful to everybody who gave, and deeply glad that we were able to compensate our artists, in a way that’s not insubstantial, but we’re not taking care of anybody’s rent on a staged reading, you know.”

By Daniella Ignacio

This article was first published February 25, 2020 in DC Theatre Scene here.

Head Over Heels made a splash on Broadway in 2016, notably starring the first transgender actor playing an out nonbinary character in a Broadway musical  — Peppermint as Phythio. Now, the DMV is about to experience a whole new “Beat,” as Monumental Theatre Company produces the first regional production of this musical, which is based on The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. It’s about people fighting to save their kingdom from extinction and going on a quest for self-discovery and love – all while singing the lively music of the Go-Go’s.

I got the chance to talk with Monumental’s artistic director Jimmy Mavrikes (directing his first big musical for Monumental), managing director Beth Amann and actor Topher Williams (who plays Phythio) to discuss how Head Over Heels examines gender and sexuality.

Why did you want to produce Head Over Heels at this particular moment in time?

JIMMY MAVRIKES (he/him/his): I saw it on Broadway closing weekend, and I didn’t want to see it, I hadn’t really heard much about it, but my friend was like “we’re going, we have to see it, it’ll be like my third time seeing it, I absolutely adore it, and I think it would be up your alley.” And she was right. I was immediately drawn in by the script, and as the story went on, I loved the inclusiveness, the body positivity, the feminism, just everything that it was. And it was such a fun musical, and I fell in love with it, and obviously I knew it was closing weekend so I figured rights would be opening up soon. So I reached out to the rights company and we are the lucky ones who get to be the first ones to do it in the DMV.BETH AMANN (she/her/hers): It’s definitely a show that celebrates the myriad types of people that there are, relationships you can have and gender expressions. Especially in this political climate where sometimes it feels that those things are being threatened, the best thing we could do is throw our support behind everyone getting to be exactly who they are and who they want to be. It’s also just a bopping show and it fits really in line with the types of shows that we produce. It’s a mission we believe in — getting to put diverse people onstage and show off all their talents is very important to us.

TOPHER WILLIAMS (she/her/hers): It’s FUN. It’s music, that if you don’t know it yourself, you kind of know it on the periphery, and it has this sort of infectiousness, and it’s a really, really fun way to come back and start doing what I want to do again, which is storytelling. If you find me at a party, I’m the person telling you an anecdote about one time a year ago, or this one time that I got to watch my best friend fall over laughing. I love stories, I love the way you get to pass them on and watch someone’s face as the twists and turns are happening.

BETH: And theatre is storytelling. And it’s a two-way conversation. So getting to share this type of stuff with our audience and see them absorb it, understand it and then perhaps go have a conversation they might not have had otherwise, is really exciting.

What’s the importance of young artists telling this story?

JIMMY: We work with mostly young professional artists and I feel as though we’re the generation who are really fighting for this inclusiveness in the world, as well as in the theatre, and so there’s just a real passion behind the work we do in all aspects — not just in the theatre, but in the good work that we should be doing in this climate that we have today.

BETH: Young people are the ones pushing this into the forefront of conversations at your family holiday, at parties with friends. It’s not important that we’re the only ones telling it; it’s important that we see our responsibility to take up the charge to do it. I think for me, Jimmy and Michael [Windsor, co-artistic director] as producers, we recognize that there’s stories that should be told, that we cannot tell as white people and cisgender people. So giving an opportunity for those who have had a different experience than us to tell the story is incredibly important to us. We’re just giving them the stage.

TOPHER: For young people, a lot of times there’s this idea that maybe you haven’t gotten there yet, and sometimes you put a lot of pressure on yourself like, “I’m not all together yet.” The truth is everybody has an inner life, right? Everybody has a story, and a narrative, and a force that they’ve been walking through, and they’ve picked fruit, and they’ve seen flowers, and allowing them to talk about that can be so informative in a lot of different ways. When it comes to a lot of industries, there’s this idea that you can only do it if you have a certain pedigree or hegemony. Allowing younger people to do it, especially in the climate that we are in…a lot of us have an understanding of kindness. Saying, “okay, I got to talk, but what do you have to say? And what do you have to say? And what do you have to say?” Making space for everybody in a way that is so desperately needed.

Topher, how does it feel to have the responsibility of being the first person to play Phythio in this regional premiere?

TOPHER: I think that it’s important to set a standard. A standard of what this person should look like, who this person should be and a sort of understanding of what that life and body of work is. Because there are certain roles where it’s like, you’ve never been a green witch, but you can pretend, because anyone can pretend. You can pretend to be a lawyer, you can do research, you can kind of shift it. But not everyone is in certain positions where they know certain life stories intimately, particularly when you talk about groups of people who have traditionally not been allowed to speak up for themselves: not been given a voice, not been given a time and a platform. I’m grateful that it was a choice that was thought out and properly made, because I’m grateful it was me (because ya girl likes to work), but also, even if it wasn’t me, I trust in the people that are in charge here that they would make that right choice. Because when you tote yourself as having a role that’s supposed to be outright queer or positive or these very specific things, and then you cast it in a way that it’s not that, especially the way that people like to play act in “tradition,” it’s blatantly disrespectful in a way that’s saying “you don’t exist,” or “this is what we prefer to see.” And it’s a good thing that’s not what happened here.

What’s the importance of LGBTQIA+ artists telling stories about your own identities?

TOPHER: So, history is important, right? If it’s not your history, it’s probably not your story to tell. And there’s places in which those lines get kind of gray. But I’m a black person. I can read poetry from Korea. I have very intimate relationships with people from Korea. There is nothing I can ever do that gives me the right to try and tell a story about and for Korean people, because that’s not my history. I can learn about it, I can love it, I can respect it, I can support it, I can give it a platform, but I cannot take that in my hands and say “look at my shiny baby,” because it is not mine. And particularly in this industry where it’s hard enough to tell your own stories and they certainly won’t let you tell anyone else’s, the ones that are supposed to be so universal and that everybody kind of gets to hop on, it’s so important to give people with specific histories the chance to revel in it and stand in it and be proud of it.

During the casting process, did Monumental make any effort to reach out to LGBTQIA+ artists specifically or did they naturally come to you?

JIMMY: I knew when I saw this show and when I wanted to do it, that I wanted Topher to play this role, because I knew that she’d be a great person like Peppermint was on Broadway. So she was a precast. We knew that if I was doing this show, that I wanted to do it with her. And we lucked out, and she wanted to do it with us, as well, so that was really welcoming. Otherwise, we had so many people come out to our open call of all facets of the LGBTQ+ community and we were just really lucky that we had so many to choose from and we got really cool people who might have reached out and said “I’m interested in this piece because of this,” and we took an extra look at those people.

ell us about the rehearsal space and how you’re creating a supportive environment for everybody.

JIMMY: Day one: as soon as we introduced everybody, everybody used the pronouns that they wanted to use in the space. We had a handout on how to use gender in the space so we were all on the same page with how we were going to handle it. And honesty, it’s like second nature, and it’s really beautiful. I’m really proud of the space that we’ve created. Just thinking about some of the things that some other theaters might not even think about, like dressing room assignments and stuff like that. Or vocal parts in an ensemble, shoe sizes, you know. We’re taking the time to make sure that everybody is comfortable. The world is so binary and we have to deconstruct that. We may be making some mistakes, but I think it’s super important that we learn and we grow and hopefully people who come to see our show will ask us questions to break down the binary and create a more inclusive environment in the theater and elsewhere.

Has it made for a better experience?

TOPHER: Yes. Because here’s the thing. So often in our society at large, particularly in workspaces, there’s a lot of division of who’s capable of what, and who can do P, Q and X. It makes a difference when someone asks you what you like. It makes a difference when you can say “this group of people, you, you, you and you, come over here,” instead of being like, almost, I don’t know if reductive is the right word?

BETH: Simplistic?

TOPHER: Simplistic, but also, like, reductive feels right, reducing it down to the ways you are associated with what a doctor said when he was holding something covered in fluid. It definitely feels better.

What new awareness do you think people will have of nonbinary people after seeing Head Over Heels?

JIMMY: I hope that somebody who may not know the basics about gender can learn something. I know I have people in my life who’ve never met an out nonbinary person, and I’m just very excited for them to experience the real world. And I think the representation of this character is super important and the fact that it’s the first out nonbinary character in a Broadway musical is great for us, but also I can’t believe it’s taken this long and it’s really exciting.

TOPHER: I think not just this performance, but in general, what I always want people to take away is I’m human. And you’re human. So walk. There’s so many things that are always kind of flying around and stressing everybody out, and you get to watch [these characters’] lives explode and fly and sing and cry and fall down in the rain so quickly. And I want people to take that from the theater and hold space for the people that they might never have even heard of until they got the stage, but also, for the people they have heard of. Take it. Love the people around you, love yourself and walk. Just get one foot in front of the other.

Anything else?

JIMMY: Things change. Nothing’s changed, but that things should change, and change should be good, and change should be okay. There’s this whole thing about the “Beat” in Head Over Heels. They are really wary of losing their “Beat” and Phythio has a scene where they’re like, you’re gonna lose your beat, but also that might be okay and a new beat might arrive. And spoiler alert: the old beat dies and a new beat comes alive, and that new beat introduces a queen instead of a king, [who] realizes that he might not have known anybody in the entirety of Arcadia the whole time because he was suppressing their true selves from coming out. And this all happens in the last five minutes of the show! But I think this all shows the main message of the show.

TOPHER: This show has a big neon-colored flashing heart, and it’s just beating right on the center of that stage.

BETH: You can see it in the floor color right now!

TOPHER: Look. (laughs) And it’s about the love that we have for people. Because a lot of the decisions that are made in this piece are made out of love. Learning to love people in the way that they specifically need it is important. And I think that might be what it is. Like, love people but love them in the way they need to be loved. It’s kind of that thing, “Don’t go out and buy me diamonds ‘cause you messed up, when all I want you to do is wash dishes.” Like, just wash the dishes. Oh! And listen when somebody tells you who they are! Listen!

JIMMY: I really just want everybody to have a good time. No matter what your thoughts or beliefs are, I want you to come to this show and have a great time because everybody deserves that. I think that if you come, you’ll have a pretty damn good time getting to know this “Beat.”

TOPHER: And though we discourage getting up and dancing during the show, Topher said she will dance with you after the show!

By Ilena Peng

This article was first published February 25, 2020 in DC Line here. 

In Balanchine + Ashton, which wrapped up a five-day run at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, The Washington Ballet took on the hefty task of capturing the essence of the 20th century’s most monumental choreographers — and it succeeded quite spectacularly.

George Balanchine pioneered American ballet as the New York City Ballet’s founder, creating, beginning in the 1930s, a repertoire of over 90 ballets and a distinct “Balanchine technique.” Sir Frederick Ashton served a similar role in England as the Royal Ballet’s founding choreographer and later as the company’s director, choreographing more than 100 ballets.

“The fact that their works are still relevant, engaging and entertaining to audiences today is a reflection of their true genius,” The Washington Ballet (TWB) artistic director Julie Kent wrote in an online blurb about the production, which featured four works from the two choreographers.

TWB’s company is smaller than the likes of the New York City Ballet and the Royal Ballet — so much so that several of the dancers last week performed in multiple ballets. Fittingly, Balanchine and Ashton might recognize the challenge, having built small companies into balletic monoliths. 

The TWB production also favored pared-back scenery — three of the works were staged with no decorations save for a few lamps in Ashton’s Birthday Offering. In the company’s first time performing that and two other works — Ashton’s Méditation from Thaïs and Balanchine’s Slaughter on Tenth Avenue — the TWB dancers commanded the Eisenhower Theater stage without visual distractions. The company last performed the fourth piece, Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante, three years ago at the Warner Theatre.

Balanchine and Ashton often favored stripped-down set designs, focusing solely on the dancers and the music. But they both strove to maintain the traditional grandeur of the Romantic-era story ballet, often choosing to fill the stage with faster jumps, bigger kicks and extended arm movements.

In the first of the production’s four ballets, Ashton’s Birthday Offering, the TWB dancers leaned into their steps and used their upper bodies in a more exaggerated way than usually seen in classical works. The ballet, which was created to celebrate the Royal Ballet’s 25th anniversary in 1956, is both whimsical and elegant.

Birthday Offering juxtaposed quick staccato variations and much slower waltzes. Dancer Ashley Murphy-Wilson’s variation fit into the former category, as she flitted across the stage dressed in red. In contrast, purple-clad dancer Brittany Stone’s movements showed classical roots.

Featuring music by Alexander Glazunov and arrangements by Robert Irving, the ballet opened in a grand celebration as the couples circled around the stage in tandem. In one memorable moment, the dancers formed a diagonal — as soon as a couple reached the end, they ran back to the front, creating a carousel of turns.

In the ballet’s main duet or pas de deux, dancers Eun Won Lee and Gian Carlo Perez evoked a calmer, more gracious mood. Won Lee directed her gaze at the rafters as she entered the stage with bourrées — quick steps that create the impression of gliding. She did the same in arabesques throughout the pas de deux, creating the touching impression that she was thanking someone — perhaps an audience member — for this celebration. Then, in her curtsies, Won Lee looked instead into the theater’s upper tiers.

Maki Onuki and Andile Ndlovu danced Ashton’s Méditation from Thaïs, a pas de deux set to music originally composed by Jules Massenet for the opera Thaïs. The opera tells the tale of a monk who falls in love with a priestess of Venus, the goddess of love. 

Onuki, entering the stage with a translucent scarf masking her face, had an ethereal presence, and Ndlovu managed throughout the pas de deux to maintain that dynamic during numerous prolonged lifts. In one, Ndlovu carried Onuki in a seated position, her arms up and palms pressed together — and her silhouette visible on the stage’s backdrop. The ballet left many in the Eisenhower Theater holding their breath until its last moments, when Onuki and Ndlovu embraced with a kiss before Onuki glided off stage en pointe.

“It’s a bit of a fantasy pas de deux, a romantic otherworldliness you don’t get a lot of these days,” said Grant Coyle, a Royal Ballet répétiteur who staged the ballet with TWB.

TWB then performed Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante, a work the choreographer once said “contains everything I know about the classical ballet in 13 minutes.” In truth, it does that and more. In an element made challenging by its length and the need for exquisite timing, carefully designed sequences had each dancer begin a step just as another was completing it. The ballet also played with angles, as the five male dancers jumped and landed in lunges facing alternating corners of the stage.

Unlike the two earlier works,  Allegro Brillante was accompanied not only by the Washington Ballet Orchestra but also by solo piano. TWB music supervisor Glenn Sales provided the only soundtrack as the ballet’s main couple — Katherine Barkman and Alex Kramer — danced. The orchestra joined the piano as the ballet’s other eight dancers joined Barkman and Kramer on stage.

The four-part performance ended with Balanchine’s Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, an upbeat and sultry Jazz Age work originally created for the 1936 musical On Your Toes. In the musical, the ballet’s premiere becomes the backdrop for an attempted murder when a jealous Russian dancer hires a mobster to kill a rival. 

Dancer Corey Landolt kicked off the ballet in a pink bathrobe, peering from behind the curtains and handing money for the assassination to the Gangster, played by Harry Warshaw. Prancing theatrically across the stage, Landolt drew laughs from the get-go. Warshaw took a seat in the audience, waiting for the moment when he had been instructed to kill Hoofer, danced by Gilles Dellelio.

Dellelio, an apprentice in the company, astonished with his charisma in a prolonged, almost frantic tap solo. And dancer Victoria Arrea stunned as the “Striptease Girl,” flirtatious at first in a pink corset and fringe skirt, and then sultry in a black outfit. In one of the ballet’s most famous moments, Arrea performed a series of high kicks while arched into a deep backbend over Dellelio’s arm. In this madcap show, music by Richard Rodgers accentuates the jazz hands and shimmies incorporated into Balanchine’s choreography.

It marked a contrast for a show that began with audiences oohing and aahing as the Washington School of Ballet’s youngest students adorably performed Kent’s Défilé to celebrate the school’s 75th anniversary. With Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, the end came with a strong dose of humor and bravado from the company. 

TWB, while smaller in numbers than some ballet companies, captured the genius of these choreographers in a performance that ran the gamut — intimate in Méditation From Thaïs’ love and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue’s humor, yet palatial and larger than life in Birthday Offering and Allegro Brillante.

By Julian Oquendo

This article was first published February 24, 2020 in DC Theatre Scene here.

Marcus Kyd has two résumés (acting and directing) and a music catalogue. This may not sound special until you realize that both résumés, filled to the margins with production credits, do not contain overlapping credits. As a co-founder for Taffety Punk, Kyd keeps himself busy, and consistently in a state of creation with the other company members. The year 2020 is no exception, as Kyd has demonstrated that he’s not slowing down any time soon.

The Taffety Punk troupe has been described by the Washington Post as the “most vital of the city,” as the members act, dance and make music. They operate more as a band, according to Kyd, their productions coming together from collective jam sessions rather than the typical structure of building off a script.

Which brings us to suicide.chat.room, a play Taffety Punk first produced a decade ago, and is bringing back for its ten-year anniversary. This is one of those times where the cast is working from a script, building a new production and making new discoveries from a work they produced before. Now a fully formed script, suicide.chat.room was built by the Taffety Punk team from the words and writings of people who posted in chat rooms, message boards, and early internet forums where the subject matter dealt with suicide and the people who struggled with suicide.

“To me it was a scary idea. A lot of of us in the original ensemble had lost someone to suicide,” Kyd says. “We wanted to shine a light in this super dark place. Or let someone else know they were not alone.”

Kyd remarks how working with this script now feels like working with a period piece, as the internet of ten years (or before, since some of the comments used for the play were posted well before 2010) has changed over the course of a decade.

He describes how they would search the different forums, chat rooms and message boards of the pre-Facebook, Reddit and Twitter days for the conversations and pieces that make up the text of the production. They built the production from laying out pieces of those text on separate sheets on the floor and building the choreography from there.

“Even in that first rehearsal, we had a ten to twelve year period of internet time represented on the floor. All of the text is from literal chat rooms, some as far back from the 90’s. We didn’t even have to log in,” Kyd says.

Kyd and the current cast debated whether one character’s text may be interpreted as trolling today, or the intention behind another character’s description of coming up with multiple means of committing suicide. Through technical and artistic choices, ”We play with how the message comes across. You heard what we wanted to hear, but the internet is a crowded place, there’s a lot of gobbledygook going on all the time, but we wanted the audience to hear that.”

For the tenth anniversary, Kyd and Beauty Pill, the DC-area band that composed original music for suicide.chat.room are releasing an LP named “Sorry You’re Here,” in honor of the welcoming phrase the creative team would see from posters when someone new joined the group. There would be a cascade [from the posters of the online groups to the new members] of saying ‘We understand you, welcome, and sorry you’re here.’”

Another set of changes audiences can expect is in the choreography, devised by Paulina Guerrero.

“Every time this piece is re-mounted, it changes because it is a collaboration with the actors and the whole cast. The movement is so highly individualized, and based on the creativity of the individuals who are performing the piece,” Guerrero says. “There are core, group phrases and some key important solos that have remained the same, but even these always change with each new cast because each group brings a different and new raw energy.”

As a company, Kyd explains, Taffety Punk does not shy away from performing highly unusual, high stakes productions. They try to approach these stories with a poetic and honest eye. For both Kyd and Guerrero, there’s a sense that the stories are important to share openly and without fear.

“We pathologize and stigmatize suicide so much, that we push people into hiding. They don’t communicate or try to connect with anyone. Having suicidal thoughts is actually a part of being human-but we don’t say these thoughts out loud because we fear that people will jump out and institutionalize us.” Guerrero says, sharing studies on suicide attempts. “We need to take a long hard look of how our culture and society in the U.S. has created a toxic and unsustainable existence for many folks.” “When I lost my best friend there were no signs,” Kyd shares. “He was on his way to pick me up and didn’t show up. I saw [suicide.chat.room] as an opportunity to listen to the truly suicidal in their own words.”

By Ilena Peng

This article was first published February 19, 2020 in The DC Line here.

Pianist Glenn Sales is experienced enough — and French composer Jules Massenet’s music is simple enough — that Sales can sneak bites of his sandwich as he plays for The Washington Ballet’s rehearsal of British choreographer Frederick Ashton’s pas de deux Méditation for Thaïs.

Sales, a veteran musician who debuted with the National Symphony Orchestra at age 14 and has played at the White House, is the music supervisor of The Washington Ballet (TWB). He plays live music for the dance company’s performances — and for classes and rehearsals at its Wisconsin Avenue NW school, filling a role that in smaller educational programs has been replaced with CDs and phones. Sales concedes that the presence of more ballet schools means more students learn the art, but he explains that widespread use of recordings favors consistency and predictability over nuanced shifts in a song’s mood or speed.

“This is why we have live everything. It never becomes routine,” Sales said. “I think that’s the death of things, when it becomes routine, an arid routine. Because then your performances can become that — just an arid routine — and I think the No. 1 sin is to bore the audience, and I think that’s what would happen.”

Sales grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, enrolling at The Juilliard School in New York at the age of 17 on a full scholarship. After the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Northeast DC opened in 1990, Sales played at the school for a decade. More recently, he and cellist Yo-Yo Ma held music workshops in 2012 with DC elementary school students. Sales later performed at the White House in collaboration with Juilliard president and former New York City Ballet principal dancer Damian Woetzel.

The crossroads of ballet and piano isn’t well-known as a career path, with only a few programs tailored to providing pianists with the specific training needed to accompany dancers. Like many of his colleagues, Sales stumbled into the field. At Juilliard, dance teacher Hector Zaraspe knocked on Sales’ practice room door, telling him that dancers could use someone who played piano with “so much color and so much verve.” Soon after, Sales began learning more about dance and spending more time with Juilliard’s dance students. 

TWB has 22 accompanists in all, and several have similar stories. Michael Parker got his start accompanying opera singers, and Kelly Lenahan flourished as a graduate student in London under the mentorship of a ballet accompanist for England’s famed Royal Opera House and the English National Ballet.

Lenahan, who joined TWB last July, says she had “no idea” until four years ago that being a ballet accompanist was a potential career path. The career had never been mentioned in her undergraduate or graduate piano studies, but then she met Nicki Williamson, a pianist who has worked with most of London’s major ballet schools. After attending Williamson’s weeklong workshop, Lenahan returned to the United States and began playing for ballet classes at a high school in Boston and for Harvard University’s student-run ballet company. 

Lenahan studied and performed Irish dance for many years, and she says her background has helped her recognize just how much her musical approach and energy at the piano can affect the dancers. Lenahan recalls enthusiastic performances of live fiddle or accordion music boosting her confidence as a dancer. She describes playing for dance as a “beautiful collaborative process” easily distinguishable from the more passive dancing likely to occur when listening to a recording.

“Sometimes the dancers to me are almost like a mirror into what I’m playing,” she said. “I see the ways that they interpret things, or I see in their movements responses to the music that I didn’t necessarily hear or anticipate. So there’s always this kind of inspiration in that for me.”

For his part, Parker — who has played at TWB for 13 years — says accompaniment demands more than just the virtuosity required of a solo concert pianist. He carries a trove of music with him to classes, labeled and organized so he can work with the teacher to select and rearrange appropriate pieces.

“It’s not about the pianist capturing the spotlight,” Parker said. “It’s about the pianist in some serious way melding with the dancers or the singers.”

Parker says he sets his personal musical preferences aside and aims to play pieces he knows a teacher or dancer will like. 

“The happy dancer is probably a better dancer than an unhappy dancer,” he said.

The most gratifying part of the job, Parker says, are the moments when he feels that he has contributed to the dancers’ “artistic experiments” — particularly the ballet school’s teenage students as they mature and develop their artistry. Moments like these, Parker said, bring tears to his eyes.

“The ideal is that [the music] helps the dancers do what they have been instructed to do and, in a certain sense, leads them — and, in another way, follows them,” he said.

Based on his years of experience, Parker says that dancers and singers use their bodies to express emotion in the same way musicians use their instruments to do so.

Other similarities arise as well. Just as dancers learn to pace themselves to avoid injury, Sales knows to avoid playing with his fingers splayed out whenever possible, keeping his fingers together to preserve his muscles during long six- to seven-hour workdays. The music for Méditation for Thaïs, for instance, is “relaxed” — without the “gazillions of notes” in pieces like Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which is used in choreographer and New York City Ballet founder George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante. With pieces like Piano Concerto No. 3, Sales says he omits certain notes that make little noticeable difference to conserve energy in rehearsal. Sales played both pieces for weeks as the company rehearsed for Balanchine + Ashton, which opens Wednesday and continues with seven performances over five days.

Over the years, Sales has watched from the piano as young dancers matured, seeing some join other companies, retire or become teachers. Sales first joined TWB as a pianist in 1987, where he stayed until 1990 when he joined the newly founded Kirov Academy. After a decade at Kirov and then 15 years at Maryland’s American Dance Institute, he returned to TWB as the company’s music supervisor in 2016.

The structure of a ballet class remains the same, almost always starting with the slow warmup pliés. But the atmosphere is new each day, and Sales says the job stays fresh as he pursues a higher level of artistry.

“I’ve been blessed in that what I do does not feel like a job at all,” Sales said. “It doesn’t … feel like work for me because it’s all in pursuit of something — something much, much higher.

“I know it’s elusive,” he said. “There’s a certain truth, a certain beauty that I’m always trying to reach higher and higher to get to — but never quite getting it.”