Performing Arts

How an opportunity at Woolly Mammoth to create a “new canon” became a celebration of inclusion.

By Jordan Ealey

This article was first published March 17, 2021 in DC Metro Theater Arts here.

Questions of “canon” have haunted me throughout my theatrical education and subsequent professional career. As a precocious young child obsessed with the performing arts, I searched and searched for Black girls’ and women’s presences in the theater I was being exposed to, always disappointed when I felt I could not find it. This constant search has followed me throughout my educational career in theater and performance, especially as I embarked on a search for Black woman–authored works in musical theater. Happening upon the work of Pauline Hopkins in scholar Daphne A. Brooks’s award-winning critical text, Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850–1910, was a crucial moment: I was exposed to Hopkins’s esteemed career not only as a writer, journalist, and archivist but as the first African American to have a musical produced in the United States. How, in all of my years of theater education, had I never heard of this brilliant and path-breaking woman? So when I had the opportunity to expose her historically significant work to the theatergoing public, I happily accepted the offer.

The opportunity came from Maria Goyanes, artistic director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, who sought to create a project that challenged and rethought public knowledge of particular artists. She had been struck by a collaboration that Woolly presented seasons ago with The Lab for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, which featured Woolly Company Members Jon Hudson Odom and Rick Foucheux portraying James Baldwin and Studs Turkel respectively in a scene that to Goyanes was “revelatory.” What particularly moved her, she wrote later, was “hearing Baldwin’s words embodied by a 21st century actor.” Inspired, Goyanes invited a group of theater artists to collaborate on a project that would rethink and reshape the concept of the “canon.” The project would be a “power-sharing model” in which both established and emerging theater artists would have an artistic voice in a large arts institution, buoyed by last summer’s We See You, White American Theater, a collective of theater artists of color that challenges the racial and ethnic exclusion within the American theater industry.

The group of invited curators — Nicole Brewer, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Kristen Jackson, Leticia Ridley, Nikkole Salter, and myself — embarked on generating an equally conscious and complex artistic intervention: a “new canon.” Goyanes’s charge for us was to curate a collection of pieces to challenge perceptions of people that we do not know, that we think we know, and that we have yet to know. The project, now known as Reset, was to begin an enriching conversation on how we celebrate and engage a diverse repertoire of cultural, social, political, and artistic works across time, space, location, and identity.

The five other curators and I brainstormed for a while on people and works that impacted our lives in meaningful and distinctive ways, relying not solely on a shared category of “Black womanhood,” but rather on elevating our relationships to the people and communities who have helped shape us on our personal, creative, and scholarly trajectories. Some of my favorite moments working on this project were from those early meetings with the other curators, where we would ruminate on the people whom we have thought alongside. As Nikkole Salter proclaimed, Reset is “a deeply personal project,” culled together from women, both ancestral and still living, who touched us all. “As we move forward as a human species, it’s important to acknowledge that we are all a part of the story, and allowing our focus to shift to the voices of those who have willfully been excluded is necessary for the restoration of truth and the understanding of life itself.”

Our selections spanned an extraordinary range of fields: playwrights and librettists Pauline Hopkins, Rita Dove, Zora Neale Hurston, and Vy Higginsen; director Dr. Barbara Ann Teer; poets Nikki Giovanni and Audre Lorde; actor Hattie McDaniel; activists Ida B. Wells and the Combahee River Collective; and lighting designer Kathy Perkins. Alongside videos of short selections from their work (either embodied by actors or in archival and documentary-style footage), the entire curatorial team also provided dramaturgical content about each of the women featured as well as recommendations for further exploration. We wanted the site to be not only a rigorous artistic project but also an educational tool.

For instance, my research interests and passions are in excavating the history of Black women in musical theater and popular music history, so I knew that I wanted to include someone from that ongoing research in our new canon. I landed on Pauline Hopkins, a 19th- and early 20th-century novelist, journalist, and playwright. Many folks, particularly within the scholarly world, are familiar with Hopkins’s work as a novelist (she wrote romance novels and is speculated to have been one of the first to incorporate understandings around race into the genre) as well as her journalistic contributions (she was the longtime editor of Colored American Magazine), but she is rarely situated within theatrical contexts and certainly not known by the larger theatergoing public. It felt only right, then, to follow the impulse to reset public knowledge and history by featuring Hopkins’s musical comedy, Peculiar Sam, or, The Underground Railroad.

The musical follows a group of enslaved people as they plot to escape via The Underground Railroad to Canada to achieve their freedom. Collaborating with director Tyler Thomas, whose artistry and vision enriched this play in ways I could not have imagined, I selected an excerpt from the script where Sam, the titular character, and his comrades on their plantation are plotting their escape and eventually travel to their first “stop” on the Underground Railroad. As written, the excerpt also includes the song “Steal Away,” which is to be sung as they transition to their first stop. Knowing the limitations of synchronous singing on Zoom, Tyler and I devised a plan to incorporate the words “steal away” both in dialogue and to close the excerpt. The result is a creative interpretation of the song’s narrative function: an invitation to choose freedom.

Other curated pieces were inspired by our vastly different life experiences. Leticia Ridley, my creative collaborator on our podcast Daughters of Lorraine, selected Nikki Giovanni’s “Ego Tripping,” a poem dedicated to celebrating the strength and beauty of Black women. Leticia was inspired to include this piece by her love of “Black women talkin’ their shit.” Originally, she wanted to film actors Paige Hernandez and Natasha Ofili in a cypher-style video, like the ones originating in rap battles, but could not do so due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the work by Hernandez and Ofili is equal parts fun and poignant, featuring Giovanni’s unforgettable words and their fluid movement. One of Faedra Chatard Carpenter’s pieces is a diary entry from journalist-activist Ida B. Wells, who inspired Carpenter not simply because of Wells’s important work in bringing the anti-Black violence against African Americans to national attention, but also because of her position as a mother. Carpenter, a mother herself, looked up to Wells’s ability to juggle motherhood while also fighting for the Black community.

Anti-racist facilitator, professor, and performer Nicole Brewer’s curation of a monologue by Hattie McDaniel encourages audiences to rethink how we perceive the Oscar-winning actress, who portrayed “Mammy” in Gone With the Wind. Kristen Jackson, Woolly’s director of connectivity, infused Black feminism into the collection through her curated piece, the Combahee River Collective’s “A Black Feminist Statement,” delivered by actors Sisi Reid, Amiah McGinty, and Patience Sings. Reading and rereading that classic manifesto inspired me to claim Black feminism as my political, intellectual, and artistic ethos. Hearing its words aloud in Reset nearly brought me to tears and will undoubtedly inspire the next generation of Black feminists.

Nikkole Salter’s pieces — which include performances of both Phebe’s monologue (portrayed by DC-area actress Shannon Dorsey) from Rita Dove’s The Darker Face of the Earth and an excerpt from Vy Higginsen’s long-running off-Broadway musical, Mama, I Want to Sing (portrayed by Ahmaya Knoelle Higginson) — are also significant interlocutors in Black theater history. Her pieces on Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, founder of the National Black Theatre, and Kathy Perkins, professional lighting designer and editor of the first anthology of Black women playwrights, are more like short documentaries on the two women’s significant contributions, which call for even more study, engagement, and celebration. Of the authors whose work Nikkole curated, she mused, “They are people who found a way to use what existed to make room for those people and perspectives that were being ignored and excluded.”

The Reset digital collection reminds us that there is always more work to be done to sing the voices that remain, to some, unsung. Working on this project has clarified my interest in history and maintaining an intimate yet critical distance to it. I wholeheartedly believe that Black women and their work are worthy of intense scholarly and artistic engagement. When rehearsing Peculiar Sam we discussed the fact this musical comedy needs to be fully staged. Why run from this history when playwrights such as Shakespeare and Molière are consistently programmed even to this day? I want Reset to spark those conversations and potentials for future theatrical programming.

By Kelly McDonnell

This article was first published February 3, 2021 in Tagg Magazine here.

Actress and activist Josephine Baker found the stage when she was barely a teenager, struggling with homelessness and poverty in St. Louis, but her enchanting presence on stages across the world would make her a memorable queer and Black icon.

In 1922, Baker performed in Shuffle Along, one of the first popular American Broadway musicals written and composed and performed by Black artists and Black actors. After this debut, she quickly became a star on stages both in the theatrical and political worlds.

Baker was celebrated during the Harlem Renaissance in New York City, a time of artistic and personal growth that championed Black identity and creativity in America. She eventually moved to Paris and performed on iconic stages and became one of the first popular Black silver screen stars in 1930.

During World War II, she assisted French operations to resist Nazi’s occupation of France. She reported Nazi secrets she overheard when performing for French rebels.

Baker returned to the United States in 1951, as the Civil Rights Movement began taking hold of politics and society. In 1963, she was one of the only women who spoke during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She toured with the NAACP and raised funds for France’s International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism.

Baker was forthright about her sensuality and beauty as a Black woman. She did many photoshoots dressed in revealing clothing as well as in men’s tuxedos. Baker had four marriages throughout her lifetime and intimate relationships with women like Maude Russell, Clara Smith and Colette.

Baker died in 1975 in Paris, a few days after her final, sold-out performance.

When she spoke at the March on Washington, she expressed her power and resilience as a Black woman: “When I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, ’cause when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world.”

An incisive and visceral exploration of American race relations, policing, and the criminal justice system.

By Jordan Ealey

This article was first published January 31, 2021 in DC Metro Theater Arts here.

“It’s not what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts.” This quote by musician Oscar Levant is what opens the film Spook. Based on a solo stage piece by the same name, written and performed by DC theater artist Meshaun Labrone, Spook follows the final hour in the life of Darryl “Spook” Spokane, a Black former police officer. He is awaiting lethal injection for committing what is described as one of the biggest mass shootings in American history. His story has attracted significant media attention. It is in this set-up that Spook explains what was behind his violent crimes, resulting in an incisive, haunting, and visceral exploration of American race relations, policing, and the criminal justice system.

Meshaun Labrone in ‘Spook.’ Photo courtesy of Justin Featherstone.

Unlike many plays that are transformed into films, Spook (produced by Flying Scoop Productions) enhances its theatrical qualities rather than attempting to diminish or get rid of them. For instance, a common device in scriptwriting is “raising the stakes” to infuse a narrative with tension. Labrone skillfully and cleverly accomplishes this with the countdown timer, ever looming in the upper left corner of the film. We, as the audience, get to experience this man’s life slowly ticking away, literally running out of time. The narrative frame additionally includes a live televising of the lethal injection, the first one to be done in American history. Though Spook himself never touches upon this fact explicitly, one cannot help but think about what it means to see a Black man die as a part of a live broadcast, what it means for this to be the first of its kind. There were many horrific murderers in history who were still granted privacy at their deaths. Though at the film’s beginning, we learn that there is a chance for him to be granted a pardon by the Governor, it becomes clear through Spook’s story that he is not going to receive one. Spook shows no regret for the crime that he has committed; like the Levant quote that opens the film, he only mourns what he could not and did not do.

Spook’s dubious and ambiguous morality is a part of what makes the film a strong one. There are moments throughout Spook where it is both easy and difficult to “root” for him, wondering whether he is an anti-hero or a villain. The film’s darkly comic moments come unexpectedly, such as Spook’s joke about 1-800-HEP-A-NIGA, a short interlude of a “commercial” for a fictional hotline to help incarcerated Black people. Another rootable moment comes when Spook discusses his heartbreaking reason for joining the police force: to help Black people due to the injustices he both experienced and witnessed. It seems that while he does not regret the crimes he committed, he regrets that he could not be the change he wanted to see in the police force.

Certainly, moving from a stage to a screen can present problems for many productions; however, Spook skillfully navigated the adaptation. A haunting, eerie image of Spook early in the film of his darkened face gradually becoming darkened so that only his eyes remained was striking. Direction by Nate Starck leaned into the script’s dark thematic moments, retaining its theatricality in its one-room setting with focus only on the character of Spook. Labrone’s performance as Spook was captivating; though he was the sole person on screen for most of the film, he infuses the narrative with such conviction that my attention was rapt the entire time. A particularly virtuosic moment where all of the production elements coalesced beautifully was where Spook was criticizing the Black church and an organ scored his speech. The original music by Devin Spear, which could faintly be heard through the duration of the film, enhanced the dark visuals and haunting themes.

Labrone’s past as a police officer in the Washington, DC, area undoubtedly seeped into his stunning indictment of American policing. John Stoltenberg notes a similar sentiment in his 2018 review of the stage version, which debuted and ran at the Capital Fringe Festival, linking the commentary of the play to Labrone’s own lived experiences. The narrative unfolds in a way that audiences will be constantly questioning their personal biases and baggage, forced to confront realities about race in this country. But it was exactly this question of “audience” that I sat with as I viewed the film: for whom and to whom is Spook speaking?

Lawrence Glover (Prison Officer), Meshaun Labrone (Spook) and Jennifer Knight (Reporter) in ‘Spook.’ Photo courtesy of Justin Featherstone.

I could not help but cringe when the film opened and a dead Black female body covered in pools of blood flooded my screen. I viscerally reacted when Spook discussed how hard “niggas” made his job as a police officer. Yet I appreciate the ways that Spook broaches some intracommunal issues. One of Spook’s victims, a Haitian immigrant, was blatantly discriminatory toward Black Americans. Often, online spaces such as Black Twitter discuss what is referred to as the “diaspora wars,” where Black communities outside of the United States will air their grievances with the so-called monopoly on Black culture held by Black Americans. As the U.S. is a colonial force with far-reaching control of countries in the Global South, it is easy to see where the disdain comes from. My discomfort, as a Black American viewer, comes from this sentiment from Spook as an “explanation” for his crime. Though Spook is ambiguous as to whether its central character is supposed to come off as a sympathetic protagonist, I do worry about the perpetuation of certain narratives in the film.But ultimately, I found Spook, even in its violence, to be compelling, well-done, and sharp. Perhaps its strength lies in its resistance to ease and comfort, in its place critique and challenge. It was difficult for me to believe that a Black man, who grew up surrounded by the effects of anti-Blackness, would place faith in this violent and anti-Black system, but that in and of itself could be Labrone’s own critique of Black neoliberals. At the film’s conclusion, after Spook’s execution, the screen was black for a long time. I stayed there, along with the blackened screen, deep in contemplation about what I had just witnessed. Spook is a whirlwind hour of complex and uncomfortable narratives around race in America, but it will leave you plenty of time to reflect.

By Clare Mulroy

This article was first published December 28, 2020 in Tagg Magazine here.

For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, Jo McDaniel will be bartending without a mask on.

McDaniel, the manager of Washington, D.C. queer bar A League of Her Own (ALOHO) will host a virtual New Year’s Eve bash. ALOHO’s virtual party will feature live music from DJ MIM and special guests throughout the night.

“Our bartenders are going to be dancing and making cocktails. We’re going to have a good time,”  McDaniel says. “Everybody can feel connected and we can be safe in our homes.”

Like many bars and restaurants, ALOHO has been working to maintain some sense of normalcy amid pandemic restrictions. The bar opened a “streatery” from June to October but was unable to accommodate space heaters for outdoor dining as the weather got colder. Now, McDaniel is trying to take advantage of virtual community events.

“When we brought things inside and it got really slow and less busy, that was when I was able to focus more on how we can still serve our community, still stay afloat, and really keep people connected, which is absolutely the mission of ALOHO,” she explains.

This paved the way for ALOHO to experiment with more online events. McDaniel says she was inspired by the Lesbian Bar Project comedy show hosted by podcast Dyking Out, which she appeared on as a guest in November.

When D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a shutdown of bars and restaurants at 10 p.m., McDaniel knew it wasn’t realistic to try to host an in-person NYE event.

With the help of Boiscouts DC, a marketing group aiming to create community awareness of local events for queer women, McDaniel began putting together the “Bring On 2021” event. The party will stream live on YouTube and feature commercials from local organizations and businesses. McDaniel says the planning process is exciting because she gets to collaborate with bartenders she hasn’t seen in a while. She’s also excited to see the community’s reaction.

“I’m just excited to give everybody a highlight of the D.C. community as well as our staff,” she says, “And just have a good time that feels reminiscent of the ALOHO we all miss so much.”

The ALOHO virtual NYE bash takes place on December 31 from 9 p.m. to 12:30 a.m on January 1. Tickets are for sale on Eventbrite. General admission is $20. The $50 ticket level gets you a cocktail kit swag bag from Republic Restoratives and ALOHO. The “Plus Swag for the Party Pod” tickets are $100 and include enough supplies for 10 cocktails.

By Kelly McDonnell

This article was first published December 16, 2020 in Tagg Magazine here.

The holiday season is going to be different this year. It might not feel as festive with loved ones at a distance or favorite businesses closed down. But a joyful, musical remedy during this time is the new holiday film, I Hate New Year’s, directed by Christin Baker of Tello Films.

When up-and-coming pop singer, Layne Price (Dia Frampton), hits a writer’s blocker for songwriting, a psychic named Zelena (Candis Cayne) advises her to travel back home to Nashville. Layne stays with her oldest and best friend Cassie, played by the charming Ashley Argota, most known for her roles on Disney Channel. Zelena advises Layne to go back to “a place where you need to learn to love again.” And these days, we could all use a reminder on how to love.

The conflict isn’t just Layne’s simple writer’s block. Cassie wants to tell Layne that she’s in love with her, even though they’re best friends. Layne is completely one-track-minded about fixing her writer’s block and doesn’t see the love she needs standing right beside her.

The film’s antics unfold throughout Nashville, with bubbly, if not typical rom-com scenes including a karaoke scene, a shopping montage and an impromptu musical number. The music in the film, which was written by Billy Steinberg and Josh Alexander, is heartfelt and perfectly bedroom pop. Steinberg’s repertoire features #1 hits for Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, explaining the film’s upbeat and pining soundtrack.

Argota is a force throughout this film. Not only does her voice enchant as she sings a melodic piano tune called “Hours of the Night,” she’s also the film’s emotional crutch. From the beginning of the film, we know her one desire: to express her love for her friend, no matter the cost. It’s a daring feat, and we want her to succeed. Argota’s eyes show the most emotion, and they’re glittering and enthralling to watch.

We watch Cassie struggle, loyally and dotingly following Layne through Nashville as she chases after an ex-girfriend. We see how painful it is for Cassie, but her persistence to be the best friend that Layne needs is heart-warming. It’s the perfect remedy for any cold feelings during this winter season.

The film’s other success is its familiarity. Unlike many other mainstream LGBTQ romances, there’s no coming-out drama. The characters’ sexuality just exists. It needs no explanation to any other character or to the audience, it has its history and its own realism. The normalized emotional connections between all the characters—many of whom are LGBTQ themselves—is refreshing to see on screen.

Like any cheesy holiday rom-com, there’s the opposition between the cheery friend, Cassie, and the Scrooge, Layne. These two characters clearly have a history, and though it’s not fully established or emoted just how well the two know each other, Frampton’s and Argota’s connection on screen feels authentic.

It’s joyful to watch these two friends do what we hopefully will be able to do again soon: go out without masks on, grab drinks in a crowded bar, sing karaoke into a shared microphone, and wander the streets with our hands intertwined.

By Jordan Ealey

This article was first published December 18, 2020 in DC Theatre Scene here.

Introducing the real Ma Rainey. Ahead of the premiere on December 18, 2020 of August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, it is important for audiences to realize that Ma Rainey is not a fictional character born of Wilson’s imagination, but rather a massively popular singer who crossed musical boundaries.

Wilson himself was influenced by what he referred to as “the four B’s”: novelist Jorge Luis Borges, playwright and poet Amiri Baraka, visual artist Romare Bearden, and the blues. Using the blues as inspiration offers an incredible opportunity to engage one of its most important contributors: Gertude “Ma” Rainey. In her book, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Black feminist scholar and activist Angela Y. Davis writes that Rainey was “the person responsible for shaping women’s blues for many generations of blues women.”

Born Gertrude Pridgett, there is a dispute among historians over exactly when and where she was born (she herself claimed April 27, 1886 in Columbus, Georgia while other historians have claimed September 1882 in Russell County, Alabama). Nonetheless, it seems to be confirmed that she was born some time in the late nineteenth century in the Deep South. Rainey began her performance career in minstrel shows and vaudeville, like many of her fellow Black performers were forced to, due to the limited opportunities. Rainey recorded her first song “Back Luck Blues” in 1923. Though there are no definitive answers as to how Rainey was exposed to the blues (she both claimed that she was introduced to the style by someone else and that she herself created the term), she clearly amassed a huge following and advanced the genre forward.

Through Rainey was not the first Black woman to be recorded (that designation belongs to Mamie Smith and her song, “Crazy Blues” in 1920), her success as a performer earned her the title of ‘Mother of the Blues.’ After being “discovered” by music executive J. Mayo Williams in Chicago, Rainey signed with Paramount Records and went on to record over 100 songs. This proliferation of recordings catapulted her into unparalleled financial and critical success. Ma Rainey also toured with the Theater Owners Booking Association (knicknamed by those who toured, TOBA – “tough on black asses”). As demand to see this ‘Mother of the Blues’ grew, she performed before integrated audiences.

The blues provided Black women with the space, not available in other music, to express themselves freely. One of the most important (and sometimes overlooked) facts about Rainey as well as many blues women singers of the early twentieth century is their unapologetic expressions of queerness and sexuality in general. A lot of the performers, Rainey included, did not try to hide their sexual expressions. In fact, Ma Rainey’s “Prove It On Me” has lyrics that underscore queer sexuality: “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends/They must’ve been women, ‘cause I don’t like no men.”

Though Ma Rainey passed in 1939, her legacy remains. Rainey was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1983 as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Her song, “See See Rider Blues” (1924) is in the National Recording Registry as well as the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Her life has also been dramatized in various cultural products; she has been portrayed by Academy Award-winning actresses such as Mo’Nique in HBO’s Bessie and now Viola Davis in Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom premieres on Netflix on December 18, produced by Denzel Washington. Tony-Award winner George C. Wolfe directs an all-star cast, starring Viola Davis as Ma Rainey and Chadwick Boseman as a member of Rainey’s band.

By Kelly McDonnell

This article was first published December 14, 2020 in The DC Line here.

The pandemic halted live performances in March, but there’s still music and holiday cheer on tap this week.

This Tuesday at 9 p.m., WETA Arts will premiere Washington Voices: Songs of the Season, a medley of pre-recorded holiday choral performances by 12 area choirs.

The special is mainly showcasing archival footage from the choirs’ previous holiday performances since 2006. One new performance by the Children’s Chorus of Washington will also be presented, despite the difficulties of gathering and singing due to the pandemic. The group’s members individually recorded themselves singing, and the recordings were then edited together for a full ensemble performance. And while the group ceased in-person vocal rehearsals and performances in March, the members recently filmed a socially distanced American Sign Language performance in front of the Washington National Cathedral, to accompany the recorded music. 

WETA Arts producer Judy Meschel and Children’s Chorus of Washington artistic director Margaret Nomura Clark collaborated to broadcast the sounds of the season even in a year where that’s technically difficult.

“Holidays are not complete without the choral concerts throughout our region,” Nomura Clark told The DC Line.

Washingtonians looking to attend a seasonal show normally have as many as seven or eight options every night throughout December, said Gretchen Kuhrmann, artistic director for Choralis, a Falls Church choir with two performances being showcased during the television event. Washington Voices will let viewers watch their favorite choirs and discover new choirs all on one night, Kuhrmann said.

The Washington area is truly the nation’s capital for choirs: for every town in the DMV, there’s one to six choirs, according to a 2003 study by Chorus America. This special includes more than 1,000 local chorus singers, the organizers said.

Kuhrmann, Nomura Clark and Thea Kano, artistic director for the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, all said the holiday special shows that despite the pandemic’s devastation, the arts are still thriving in the region.

From the comfort of their couches, area residents can watch their neighbors performing beloved holiday music, including Christian hymns, Jewish songs, classical arrangements and pop radio classics. Kano said GMCW chose to perform the comedic “Hanukkah Rhapsody” to represent the Jewish community and to provide variety in the type of holiday music being featured.

Meschel and Nomura Clark both said they wanted the program to reflect the diverse DMV community. An independent committee from WETA Arts reviewed more than 30 submissions from local choirs and chose groups that were representative and visually interesting for the program.

The program includes children’s choirs, senior choirs, symphonic groups like Choralis, and massive ones like GMCW, which has 200 members. 

In addition to GMCW, 11 choirs will be featured in the one-hour program: 

• Alfred Street Baptist Church Music Ministry Choir
• The Thirteen
• Washington Performing Arts’ Men and Women of the Gospel Choir and Children of the Gospel Choir
• Alexandria Harmonizers
• Zemer Chai
• Cathedral Choral Society
• Children’s Chorus of Washington’s Bel Canto Chorus and Concert Chorus
• Choral Arts Society of Washington
• Choralis
• Encore Chorale
• Fairfax Choral Society Vocal Arts Ensemble

The different groups represent talent from throughout the DMV and “as diverse as they are… it brings us all together,” Nomura Clark said. “We are presenting ourselves to us,” Meschel added.

A special like this seemed impossible months ago. When the pandemic began, singing became one of the most dangerous activities possible, Kano said. Taking deep breaths in and releasing aerosols while vocalizing made singers both spreaders and vulnerable catchers of the novel coronavirus. Choral singing, in the traditional sense, was quickly abandoned for safety.

But Choralis’ Kuhrmann wanted to keep the choir community connected. She contacted a few local choir directors for weekly virtual meetings to discuss tips for online rehearsals and programming. The group expanded to include directors, conductors and composers across the region.

The group was a “brain dump” for sharing ideas on how to adjust to choir directing over Zoom, Kuhrmann said. “We all needed each other.”

Some groups with the same rehearsal times teamed up to host guest speakers who lectured on vocalization, music theory and composing. Nomura Clark said that one benefit of this virtual space was her ability to invite a composer from London to talk with her group.

Artistic directors began sharing arrangements that were created to accommodate the audio shortcomings of Zoom, which has presented challenges for group singing, Kuhrmann said. Zoom only highlights the single loudest sound, so when Choralis rehearses over the online platform, members have to remain muted and learn on their own, Kuhrmann said.

The Gay Men’s Chorus has had similar challenges. Kano said she doesn’t know what the entire choir sounds like until members’ individual recordings are edited together. Kano said that her group provides safety for LGBTQ+ people who are marginalized, so while virtual rehearsals may not be musically fulfilling, it still unites members with their “chosen family.”

Meschel and Nomura Clark said they hope the WETA special will encourage viewers to support local choruses and attend in-person concerts when choirs perform live again.

Kuhrmann said the artistic directors have already discussed plans for when live performances resume. Ideas include a summer festival to showcase choruses or a massive, multi-group performance at an arena where everyone can finally meet face-to-face after months of virtual bonding.

“We all have a lot of energy and passion, and none of us want to sit on our hands and go back to business as usual once this is all over,” Kuhrmann said.