With plenty of PG-13 rated Borscht Belt, burlesque-style “nudge nudge, wink wink” spinning humor, Arlington’s Signature Theatre is bringing a musical bauble, the premiere of Cloak and Dagger or the Case of the Golden Venus.

It is musical theater under the confident direction of Eric Schaeffer meant to bring a respite from the real world. And that is a very good thing, given the real world lately.

Cloak and Dagger has a full complement of hard-working purposeful groaners of jokes that Milton Berle may have written, some delightful hip-swinging ala Mae West by way of Harvey Feinstein, and mugs that Sheldon Leonard once played. If those names are fresh in your mind, along with Sunday nights with Ed Sullivan, or a trip to the Catskills, or perhaps the modern equivalent, a cruise ship meandering about. You can have a ball especially if you are in the mood for some anodyne bawdiness.

As the Signature marketing material notes, the storyline is this: “Third-rate detective Nick Cutter is down on his luck when a beautiful blonde bombshell tosses a very intriguing case (and herself) into his lap. For the next 90 minutes, Nick races through every New York neighborhood in this zany, mile-a-minute whodunit.” All in early 1950’s New York City. It isn’t Stacey Keach as Mike Hammer, but as a singing detective.

Four actors play the nearly 20 roles. Well make that two actors play nearly 18 roles. The cast includes Erin Driscoll as Jessica Rabbit, oops, I meant Helena Troy. Driscoll was most recently seen at Signature in The Three Penny Opera. Down-on-his-luck Detective Nick Cutter is played by Signature newcomer Doug Carpenter. The other 18 characters are under the amusing purview of Helen Hayes Awardees Christopher Bloch and Ed Dixon.

Oh, and one other small detail. Dixon also wrote the book, music and lyrics for this world premiere production of Cloak and Dagger. His score of about nineteen numbers, including several reprised songs, is a pastiche of lyrics and melody that mimics the spoofing nature of the production and its off-beat characters. There are plenty of percussion and sax-like notes that emanate from conductor Jenny Cartney and her jazzy four-piece band that includes keyboard, reeds and drums. Colorful orchestration by Jordon Ross Weinhold adds personality to each of the characters.

Some cute songs and their titles include “A Real Woman” with a vamping Mae West (Dixon) and an animated “Shake Your Maracas” (Bloch and Dixon). Driscoll gets to use her lovely, lovely voice in a torchy number entitled “Doors Close.” Carpenter’s beefy baritone opens the show with musical introductions of what the show is about: “The Worst of Times” and “The Best of Times.” Is the score memorable? Not really. But so what.

As for the dialogue; the quips can be witty shtick delivered with a knowing glance to make sure the audience is in on it. The broad pokes at the many different people who make up New York are not meant to harm.

The show is full of old-fashioned, New York City accented car-chase speed playful dialogue. The actors move about the minimally adorned stage (Daniel Conway) through three well-used doors, matching the dialogue delivery speed. There is also a large, sturdy-appearing marquee over the doors that provides a place for large black and white photos of New York City to be seen to set a New York state of mind.

The ever-changing costumes for Block and Dixon by way of Kathleen Geldard are a bright treat of flowing silks, or perhaps polyester, character defining hats, suits with wide lapels, and bemusing cross-dressing attire. And, there is also one very special neon yellow glowing image of the Lady in the New York harbor. Wig designer Anne Nesmith certainly enjoyed herself with her campy selections. As for Driscoll, she is wrapped in a form-hugging, cardinal red pencil dress.

Up for something with amusement, silliness, and banter propelled by a lively score and excellent voices? Then head off to Cloak and Dagger at Signature Theatre. It is a screwball musical to ice you down during this summer heat wave. Marvel at what tongue-in-cheek delivery whether straight dialogue or song can prove; a good time.

Photo Gallery

Helena Troy (Erin Driscoll) sings ‘Doors Close’	Helena Troy (Erin Driscoll) tosses an intriguing case to Nick Cutter (Doug Carpenter)
The Irish Landlady (Ed Dixon) sings ‘A Real Woman’	Manny (Christopher Bloch) sings ‘An Agent’
Helena Troy (Erin Driscoll) sings ‘Chinatown Blues’	Fat Tony (Ed Dixon), Nick Cutter (Doug Carpenter) and Gino (Christopher Bloch) sing ‘Who Put the Mob In’
Stanley (Christopher Bloch) and Helena Troy (Erin Driscoll)	Nick Cutter (Doug Carpenter, center) and Pinsky’s Chorus Girls sing ‘Shake Your Maracas’

Photos by Margot Schulman

Cast

• Nick Cutter: Doug Carpenter
• Helena Troy: Erin Driscoll
• Character Man Two: Christopher Bloch 
• Character Man One: Ed Dixon

Artistic and Design Team

• Book, Music & Lyrics by Ed Dixon
• Directed by Eric Schaeffer
• Orchestrations: Jordon Ross Weinhold
• Music Director: Jenny Cartney
• Scenic Design: Daniel Conway
• Costume Design: Kathleen Geldard
• Lighting Design: Collin K. Bills
• Sound Design: Lane Elms
• Wig Design: Anne Nesmith
• Stage Manager: Julie Meyer

Disclaimer: Signature Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Some reviews can be a struggle. What new can be written about Nobel Prize winning playwright Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) and his masterworks about the human condition? As for Beckett’s allusive, yet curiously poetic, Happy Days what might it say for contemporary audiences in these current times. Does the “old style” of existentialism still set the mind aflutter?

Let’s be clear, the 1961 Happy Days is theater with deeply drawn substance to chew on especially for those with an affinity for post-WW II “Theatre of the Absurd” chops. As Scena Literary Manager Anne Nottage wrote in program notes, the “Theater of the Absurd” was hell-bent “to shake audience from their conventional viewing habits.”

As Nottage wrote, playwrights like Beckett wanted to force audiences “to think about the absurdity and unresolved issues in their own lives.” For Beckett’s Happy Days Scena Theatre Artistic Director Robert McNamara wrote in his program notes that the play “presents us as audience with an astonishing central image…a veritable earth goddess.” She is living in “a kind of post-nuclear” world, hungering for with “mutual need and dependency.”

For your reviewer, recent new events brought images to mind of a genderless central protagonist as a POW or a prisoner of the state locked away in some hole of a maximum security prison, with sleep deprivation the main tool of control by an unseen force. The prisoner must find a way to survive until, well just until. So the ritual of talking, with words pouring forth gives a semblance of living.

Legendary DC actor and multi-Helen Hayes recipient, Nancy Robinette is a confident actor to behold in her role Winnie in Happy Days. She takes on her character who is entombed in the earth up to her chest in Act I and in Act II finds herself swallowed by sand up to her neck. Robinette spends her time before us as a sad eyed prophet with long bursts of optimism and a bright smile to carry her through her sun-lit, yet dreary day. No matter the nature of her miserable day, it is a happy day that she conjures in her mind even as tears are so close.

We are drawn to Robinette’s simple humanity as Winnie; the naturalness of her presentation. It is as if being stuck in a mound of sand is to be expected. Vocally her tone is a paint brush of words, with diction tight. Some words are drawn out in a hissing long breath as she often pronounces the phrase “the old style.” And yes there are little jokes, some about sexuality, that bring her and the laughter.

Visually the lines on Robinette’s face are the lines of a life lived. Her eyes, oh her eyes! They are matched and move to the words she speaks so smoothly. Her eyes are heavily covered with a thick cobalt blue eye shadow which can make her eyes small and sorrowful and then burst into being large moons of happiness. And she is just stuck in place at the center of the audience’s attention.

Between a piercing bell for waking and a bell to announce time for rest, the character Winnie struggles to pace her day. She tries to stay alert and even has a routine to brush her teeth and put on make-up. Well, at least while she can move her arms to reach her close-by leather hand bag.

Winnie’s only human contact is Willie (a loud, annoyed, very precise Stephen Lorne Williams), her husband or partner. He is largely unseen to the audience and not seen at all by Winnie until a few short critical moments as the play reaches its end. He lives in a small cave out of Winnie’s view from her high mound of earth. One trait that Winnie admires about her Willie is his ability to sleep which she cannot. She calls it a “marvelous gift.”

In Act I, actor Williams is seen a few times, but only from the rear. From what the audience sees, he is dressed in quite informal attire, with a straw hat covering his bald pate. In the final moments of the play the audience finally sees Williams as he crawls up the mound toward Robinette in full formal attire including spats. As he reaches up toward Robinette, he becomes frozen almost touching her hand. Or is he reaching for the gun that is also near-by? With his last word; “win” he brings a final outburst of words and humming of a waltz from Robinette. And darkness falls.

Scenic designer Michael C. Stepowany has given the audience a desolate, dun-colored waste land; a dry desert of a landscape barren of life. There is a mound in the center for Robinette and a backdrop of a blue sky with one fair weather puffy cloud, which a photographers would relish. Multiple Helen Hayes nominated lighting designer Marianne Meadows provides halogen white-hot lighting worthy of a New Mexico desert, with a hint of amber to highlight the set’s sand and pebbles surrounding Robinette.

The costume design by Alisa Mandel gives Robinette a matronly look. She is in a dark blue dress along with a strand of large pearls around her neck. Robinette is topped-off with a little pill of a hat with some eye-blinking ostrich feathers shooting up from the front. Filled to the brim is a black leather hand bag, just in Robinette’s reach during Act I. Inside is a bevy of items by way of props designer Joyce Milford.

Denise R. Rose’s sound design has a most piercing buzzer bell to wake character Winnie as well as to inform her when it is time for a moment of rest. It certainly startled the audience at the performance.

“So little to say, so little to do, and the fear so great,” says the character Winnie. Yet she finds a way to go on looking ever forward to other Happy Days. That is, should tomorrow come for her.

Your reviewer is brought back to Bob Dylan’s “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” with its final refrain, “who do they think could bury you?” For Robinette’s Winnie as created by Beckett, sorrow is always breaking in, just as she finds a reason to be optimistic even as she is buried ever so slowly.

Photo Gallery

Nancy Robinette in the lead role of Winnie	Stephen Lorne Williams as Willie and Nancy Robinette as Winnie

Photos by Don Summers, Jr.

Cast

• Winnie: Nancy Robinette
• Willie: Stephen Lorne Williams

Artistic and Design

• Director: Robert McNamara
• Scenic Designer: Michael C. Stepowany
• Costume Designer: Alisa Mandel
• Lighting Designer: Marianne Meadows
• Dramturg: Gabriele Jakobi
• Sound Designer: Denise R. Rose
• Stage Manager: Lena Salinas
• Production Manager: Michael Sperber
• Properties: Joyce Milford

Disclaimer: Scena Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Occasionally a production of a familiar show can completely change how that it is perceived and performed. Such was Joseph Papp’s 1980 Central Park production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, in which Kevin Kline reinvented the role of the Pirate King as an athletic, comic swashbuckler. Coming at a time when the venerable D’Oyly Carte company was on its last legs, artistically as well as financially (having seen some of their touring productions here in 1976 and 1978, I can testify to the former), Papp’s production reinvigorated Pirates for late 20th century audiences.

Like any innovation, however, a groundbreaking production of a show can evolve into old hat. For most of 30 years, directors of Pirates productions seemed to feel compelled to replicate the Papp production, even those parts of it — like its hyper-vaudevillian approach to the Sergeant and his policemen — that never worked well. Fortunately, with the passage of time, productions have begun to find their own footing once again. I saw a very competent traditional take on Pirates by the Madison (Wisconsin) Savoyards two summers ago, and the current Victorian Lyric Opera Company (VLOC) production in Rockville is a very lively effort both the musical and staging aspects of which succeed delightfully.

Director Felicity Ann Brown (who is also part of the choreography team, along with Helen Aberger and Amanda Jones) makes the show move fluidly. Not for this Pirates the dreaded “G&S two-step,” which has passed for movement in too many productions. The choreographic highlight is a production number version of the Pirates’ “Come friends who plow the sea” in the second act, which with its two planned encores — including brief Fiddler and Chorus Line moments and a variety of kick lines — earned the loud approval of the near-capacity Saturday night crowd.

Brown made other creative choices that worked beautifully. Among the female chorus members were four older ladies, who played chaperones to the younger women. When Frederic is singing “Oh is there not one maiden breast…,” the chaperones do their best to contain their charges’ enthusiasm, causing the maidens’ “Oh no, not one” to make the most theatrical sense that I have ever seen.

Even by standards of Gilbert’s topsy-turvy world, the Major-General’s second act number “Sighing softly to the river” makes remarkably little sense. Brown wisely upstaged the Major-General’s gyrations and uber-silly lyrics by having two tree set pieces moved about by Pirates, while befuddled policemen tried to keep pace with them. Shortly afterward, Brown tops this with a smoothly executed rope trick, in which the Pirates’ capture of the girls morphs into their capture of the police.

Musically, music director Joseph Sorge’s full orchestra performed with excellent attention to tone, dynamics, and tempi: Gwen Earle on oboe and percussionist George Hutlin had particularly nice moments. Sorge conducted a lovely rendition of the a capella “Hail poetry,” with the cast in an appropriately choral formation. The quality of the choral singing, by both the men’s and women’s ensembles, was high throughout, even in those numbers involving substantial movement.

Jeffrey Gates, as the Pirate King, was far and away the outstanding soloist. With a robust, yet subtle, baritone voice, as well as a dynamic stage presence, Gates commanded his scenes, whether in a solo number like “I am a pirate king” or playing well with others in “A paradox.” For “Poor wandering one,” a Mabel needs to have the same sort of coloratura chops as Cunegonde in Candide’s Glitter and Be Gay. Keely Borland passed that test. (Courtney Kalbacker plays this role in alternate performances.) Stevie Miller, Amanda Jones, and Rachel Ackerman nicely supported Mabel as the three female chorus leads.

In any Pirates, an important challenge faces Mabel and Frederic in the second act. Having been typically silly G&S characters throughout, their exaggerated romantic and duty-bound natures, respectively, driving their comic excess, they must suddenly and credibly handle the score’s sweetest moment, the touching duet “Ah leave me not to pine.” Borland was able to generate the requisite emotion, physically as well as vocally. As Frederic, Timothy Ziese was as fresh-faced, enthusiastic, and guilelessly dutiful as one could ask for, also contributing a pleasant tenor voice to the proceedings. He might have connected more solidly with scene partners at times. In “Ah leave me not to pine,” though, while Mabel focused on him and her relationship with him, Ziese was oriented straight out to the audience, diminishing some of the feeling the song can convey.

Wendy Stengel as Ruth and George Willis as Major General Stanley were not as strong vocally as the other principals. Stengel had a rather thin sound. G&S patter baritones are not expected to be pure singers, of course, but Willis struggled noticeably with pitch at times. While not the most graceful actor ever to assay the role, Willis had great fun with an encore to the “I am the very model of a modern major-general” that spoofed current pop music. Stengel had excellent energy and moved well in the “A paradox” scene.

Ruth is Exhibit A for Gilbert’s chronic disdain for middle-aged women (47 years old: the horror). Sometime it would be fun for a director to reimagine her as a relatively hot, toned 40-something in pursuit of a cute young thing. Think “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” visits Penzance. But that would be a different production.

Samuel is a supporting role that can often disappear. To his credit, Rick DuPuy made his character’s presence felt, and he handled his solos in “Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry” and “Come friends who plow the sea” creditably. As the Sergeant of Police, Tom Goode was vocally adequate and brought an appropriately schlumpy presence as the hapless leader of as decrepit a bunch of bobbies as one could imagine.

Denise Young’s costume deigns for the women accented the director’s contrast between the younger and older chorus women, with the younger women in variously colored pastels while the chaperones were in uniform, subdued grayish dresses with thin stripes. As the lead, Mabel wore white. Generally, the ladies’ and pirates’ costumes were colorful and flattering to the actors, with the Pirate King and Major General being in different sorts of striking red uniforms. The combination of the Major General’s 50s sitcom-style pajamas and his plumed military hat in the second act was humorously effective. Only Ruth’s costume was ill-conceived, giving her an unnecessarily awkward look. The costumes for the policemen were baggy, which, intentionally or not, suited the way they were played.

The production sported some nice prop moments. Carl and Jane Mayott provided dolls and teddy bears for the young women in the opening scene of act two and newspapers with a period look for the young women to appear to read during “How beautifully blue the sky.” My favorite, however, was a large, multi-hued parrot hand puppet that one of the pirates carried throughout, manipulated to look as if it were joining the singing. My only regret is that the bird did not get an individual bow in the curtain call.

Director Brown also designed the set, which, despite some quirks, functioned well in facilitating interesting and balanced stage pictures and movement. Among the quirks was, in act two, a model house the style of which was more Virginia colonial than Cornwall. On the stage left side of the cyc was a drawing of a large 18th century-style man-o-war, hardly the sort of ship that Victorian-era pirates (had there been such) would have chosen. The second act set included grave markers for “Porter” and “Murgatroyd.” Brown correctly gauged that G&S fans — especially of a show the libretto of which cites “that infernal nonsense Pinafore” — would find a cross-reference or two irresistible.

VLOC was the area’s second G&S-centered group to be formed, starting life in the late 1970s as a splinter group of the older Montgomery (later Washington) Savoyards. With the apparent demise of the Savoyards — a casualty not only of economic troubles but also of considerable muddle concerning its niche in the local theater scene — VLOC stands as the only local company specializing in operetta. The success of this Pirates, both artistically and in terms of drawing an audience, is a hopeful sign that VLOC can continue to prosper by maintaining its focus and quality.

Director’s Note

Earlier this year, I heard actor John Lithgow speak at The University of Maryland. He told a story of an orchestra that had been playing a particular piece in rep all season, and was getting bored with it, and it showed in their rehearsal. Just before a performance, the conductor addressed the orchestra, and told him that he understood their frustration, but he wanted them to go out and play for two specific people in the audience: The person who is hearing the piece for the very first time, and the person who is hearing it for the very last.

In directing this show, I’ve tried to keep that perspective in mind. There are those of you who were probably brought here by a friend or a parent or grandparent and are hearing Sullivan’s music and Gilbert’s jokes for the very first time today, and then those of you who have seen countless productions of Pirates in your lifetime and are bound to make comparisons between this and all of the other productions you’ve seen. My hope is that we will provide something for everyone in this audience, providing entertainment for you no matter what your level of Pirates expertise.

Pirates is the first Gilbert &Sullivan show I ever saw. I was a student at Westtown School, a Friends school in Pennsylvania, and our class was taken to see the middle school’s production. I thought it was a very fun and silly show, but I did not retain much of the plot. Still, my grandmother, upon hearing I had seen the show, impressed upon me that this was something very important. She herself had played Ruth in a production at the very same Quaker school in the 1930’s. A family legend stands that my great-grandfather had started the G&S tradition when he came there as a teacher in the 1920’s, as a way to sneak some music into the rigid curriculum at a time when Quakers were not quite sure if music and theatre were appropriate uses of student time. I’m sure that Gilbert’s cleverness with words, Sullivan’s history of writing music for the church, and the rigidness of Victorian values displayed in the G&S canon helped to grease the wheels needed for approval.

This family tradition carried on to me when I first graced the stage as a sailor, complete with stipple-brushed beard, in H.M.S. Pinafore at age twelve. I got involved with building sets for the first time, helping to hoist a giant mast and rigging on stage, I climbed up into the catwalk to focus lights, I cut off pants and glued ribbons on hats to make sailor costumes, and was fully enveloped by full range of the magic of theatre for the first time. To this day, I remain that involved, even when my primary duty is as director, because I love that feeling of creation of every little piece of the magic.

After that first production of Pinafore, the music and words were permanently engraved into my mind. I didn’t realize the significance of this until a few months later, when I was watching the cartoon Animaniacs and the segment “H.M.S. Yakko” came on and I realized I had been let in on this incredible extended inside-joke specifically for Gilbert & Sullivan fans. Sure the cartoon was goofy and full of slapstick that any child would be amused by, but I could identify all of the score as pieces of H.M.S. Pinafore and Pirates, and I understood that “I am the very model of a cartoon individual” wasn’t just something from a kids show…this was an exclusive club I had been allowed into…a shared culture of the performing arts. This membership lets people in on the G&S allusions that are seen in The Simpsons, Pretty Woman, West Wing, Family Guy, Star Trek: Insurrection, and far too many more to list. Gilbert & Sullivan is part of our cultural literacy that warrants passing on to future generations. Thank you for being here today, and keep passing it on.

Cast

• Frederic: Timothy Ziese
• The Pirate King: Jeffrey Gates
• Samuel: Rick DuPuy
• Ruth: Wendy Stengel
• Major General Stanley: George Willis
• Mabel: Keely Borland (Courtney Kalbacker in alternate performances)
• Edith: Rachel Ackerman
• Kate: Amanda Jones
• Isabel: Stevie Miller
• Sergeant of Police: Tom Goode
• Young Frederic: Gabriella Jones
• Chorus of Pirates, Police, and General Stanley’s Wards and their governesses:
• Helen Aberger, Brian Beard, Densie Cross, Kayla Cummings, Kris Devine, Tara Hockensmith, Chuck Howell, Rand Huntzinger, Ralph Johnson, Joanna Jones, Josh Katz, Erik Kreil, Lauren Lentini, Carl Maryott, Jane Maryott, Josh Milton, Rowyn Peel, Brian Polk, Bill Rogers, Kevin Schellhase, Sarah Seider, Barbara Semiatin, Ed Vilade, Maria Wilson, Kent Woods

Orchestra

• Violin 1: Steve Natrella (CM), Bonnie Barrows, Peter Mignerey, Irv Berner
• Violin 2: Martin Brown, Edwin Schneider, Cassie Conley
• Viola: Amanda Laudwein, Stephanie Cross
• Percussion: George Hutlin
• Bass: Pete Gallanis
• Flute: Jackie Miller, Louise Hill
• Oboe: Gwen Earle
• Clarinet: Laura Langbein, Laura Bornhoeft
• Bassoon: Steve Weschler, Betsy Haanes
• Horn: Joe Cross, Lora Katz, Gail Hixenbaugh
• Trumpet: Curt Anstine, Rick Pasciuto, Tom Gleason
• Trombone: Steve Ward, Frank Eliot, Al Potter
• Cello: Michael Stein, Sheryl Friedlander, Andrew Nixon

Production Staff

• Producer: Denise Young
• Director: Felicity Ann Brown
• Music Director: Joseph Sorge
• Assistant Music Director: Jenny Craley Bland
• Assistant to the Director: Helen Aberger
• Stage Manager: Douglas Maryott
• Choreography: Amanda Jones, Felicity Ann Brown, Helen Aberger
• Scenic Designer: Felicity Ann Brown
• Costume Designer: Denise Young
• Lighting Designer: Noam Lautman
• Rehearsal Pianists: Jenny Craley Bland, Joanna Jones
• Light Board Operator: Noam Lautman
• Makeup/Hair Designer: Renee Silverstone
• Master Carpenter: Devin Work
• Set Crew/Painters: Helen Aberger, Felicity Ann Brown, Rober Dennis, Kris Devine,
• Ben Dransfield, Alice Drew, Tony Dwyer, Blair Eig, Dean Fiala, Rand
• Huntzinger, William Kolodrubetz, Sarah Martin, Douglas Maryott, Anna Polk, Brian Polk, Bill Rogers, Sarah Seider, Scott Tennent, Ed Vilade, Kent Wood, Timothy Ziese
• Costume Construction: Denise Cross, Stephanie Cross, Rebecca Meyerson, Stevie
• Miller, Felicity Brown, Sarah Martin, Maria Wilson, Lauren Lentini, Kathie
• Rogers, Barbara Miller
• Props: Carl & Jane Maryott
• Photography: Harvey Lavine
• Audition Pianist: Jenny Craley Bland
• Program: Courtney Kalbacker, Denise Young
• Surtitles: Douglas Maryott, Annie Gribben
• Cover & Poster Art: Erika White Abrams
• Publicity: Courtney Kalbacker, Ed Vilade, Felicity Ann Brown
• House Management: Denise Young, Cassandra Stevens
• Set and Costume Storage: Rockville Civic Center

Disclaimer: Victorian Lyric Opera Company provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

In the “chair force” world depicted in George Brandt’s Grounded we witness the slow grinding boredom of the new way to wage war, punctuated by moments when a pilot feels a God-like rush to take action against the bad guys. The warrior is, at first, a strutting “gung-ho lifer” who initially has no compunctions about wasting a bad guy’s life until more personal issues find their way into the warrior’s mind.

But then the warrior is no longer piloting a high-flying, fancy, F-16, doing unseen damage from high in the blue sky. This warrior is piloting a high technology drone which endlessly surveils and then can destroy someone in the time it takes a signal to transmit half way around the world into the air above Afghanistan…in this case, a bit over one second. Then a silent poof as a missile is launched, destruction happens seen from grey images on a screen.

To some this particular warrior may be an unlikely one. She is an unnamed, grounded pilot. She was grounded after she unexpectedly became pregnant and then became a mother and wife. No longer flying high into the wild blue yonder, she is a drone pilot in a barcolounger an hour’s drive from Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. A desert not unlike what is in Afghanistan.

Grounded is a fairly taut portrayal of this unnamed Air Force Major’s life as she unravels into a break-down into a lock-up awaiting a court-martial. Grounded is not so much a drama about the morality of new warfare methods, nor is it a flashy production full of visual pyrotechnics. In its own way, it is very old-fashioned; a one actor monologue with the pilot (Lucy Ellinson) trying to get inside the audience’s head and stir things up.

Grounded is to be appreciated for Ellinson’s acting prowess over its 60 intermission-free, claustrophobic minutes. The audience comes to know Ellinson’s character as her mind opens up even as she is “locked” away in the transparent box that is her mind. It is her mind-box we peer into as her crack-up slowly begins, taking away her pride, her sense of self and much more.

Now before I go too much further into this review, let me say this, I was once in the Air Force, as an intelligence officer in a war long ago. I was stationed in the Far East and worked in a large windowless box, with some of my unit in a trailer not unlike what is depicted in Grounded miles farther from my own main windowless box. It was a different war, Vietnam, and I was not a “gung-ho lifer.” I recall utter monotony, until events happened which set all into a highly stressed mode. I was often enough the only officer on duty in the world of around the clock shift work. Decisions had to be made. Actions had to be taken. So, Grounded is a show that brought my own memories flooding back.

Under Christopher Haydon’s straight forward direction of Grounded, we first come in contact with the Pilot as she is in a transparent box, by way of set designer Oliver Townsend. She is actively surveilling the audience. AC-DC like rock music (sound designer Tom Gibbons) is blaring. The Pilot is not passive as she stands in her at-ease position even moving into a more swagger laden pose with hands in front, always watching. And the words begin to flow. The grinding down of her pride, her personhood, and the unnerving juxtaposition of killing from a distance only to drive home and be with her husband and daughter.

We see her descent into her own private Hell as her words tumble out, her fists harden, her pilot’s cock-sure strut is no more. Lights flash in the mind box as things happen. In the last gripping five minutes or so of the production, the audience witnesses intimately the Pilot’s actions and inactions. Frozen. Traumatic. Then a black-out leaving the audience to contemplate the issues raised.

As directed by Haydon, who is the artistic director of Britain’s Gate Theatre and directed the show there, Grounded is a well-accomplished production with a rhythm of life working in the stressful conditions that war brings. Some of the technical and acting elements hit quite well. The blaring music to drown out boredom and help to alleviate stress. The pilot’s need for a blatant kind of lusty life to prove herself alive.

This is playwright Brandt’s introductory course into modern, distant warfare. It will not be the last such teaching production from a playwright or screen writer, I am certain. Grounded is not a drama about the larger morality issues of new warfare including the use of drones. It is more an intimate portrait of one particular woman warrior. A warrior who believes totally in “protect and destroy” as an adage. Who thinks being a pilot is being a “rock star.” Who at first wears a flight suit (Oliver Townsend again) as a powerful sexy attire that draws men to her.

In an interview, Grounded playwright Brant is noted to say: “I approached this play with a lot of questions and wasn’t sure where I stood with this new technology and the moral implications of it; I’m happy anytime American soldiers lives are not at risk, but am troubled by some of the moral implications of [drone warfare] and what it’s doing to our standing in the world.”

Grounded is an issue-raising script and performance that doesn’t shrivel away from tough matters. It has its share of tragedies depicting a world rarely shown on stage. It is another import from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival but will strike a different nerve than the vastly different Black Watch that Shakespeare Theatre brought to town a few years ago. Of possible interest for those who see Grounded is a new movie that will be opening soon in DC, that started as a play written by Matt Witten. It had a one performance screening last week at the E Street Cinema. It is called “Drones.”

Studio Theatre’s artistic director David Muse has brought to DC, what is surely to be a growing list of theater productions not unlike what some of us vividly recall from the Vietnam War era. Different wars with new artistic visions and distinct voices.

Note: I recall this from 1970 as my unit (called Able Flight back then) would sometimes sing from Elton Johns’ “Burn Down the Mission” with lyrics by Bernie Taupin:

If we’re gonna stay alive
Watch the black smoke fly to heaven
See the red flame light the sky.
Burn down the mission
Burn it down to stay alive
It’s our only chance of living
Take all you need to live inside.

Photo Gallery

Photos provided by Studio Theatre

Cast

• The Pilot: Lucy Ellinson

• Playwright: George Brant
• Director: Christopher Haydon
• Set and Costume Designer: Oliver Townsend
• Lighting Designer: Mark Howland
• Sound Designer: Tom Gibbons
• Technical Tour Manager: Katy Munroe Farlie
• Studio Technical Director: Robert Shearin

Disclaimer: Studio Theatre provided a complimentary media ticket to ShowBizRadio for this review.

If one needed an “excuse” not to be home watching the Tony Awards, nothing could serve better than a near-perfect production of Noel Coward’s comedy of unmannerly manners, Private Lives, at Shakespeare Theatre Company.

There isn’t a false note in the direction of Maria Aitkin, an acclaimed Coward actor and teacher, or in the performances of James Waterston and Bianca Amato as Elyot and Amanda. The couple had divorced five years previously and re-meet while on their honeymoons with new spouses, only to find their passions quickly rekindled. Autumn Hurlbert and Jeremy Webb, playing those spouses, the hysterical Sybil and the well-meaning but rigid Victor, ably match the leads. Even in her small role, Jane Ridley grabs and holds the stage for as long as the playwright allows her to.

It doesn’t hurt that this may be Coward’s funniest play — certainly the wit never takes a break and the barbs fly fast and furious, especially between Elyot and Amanda. They’re hopelessly in love and equally hopelessly unable to live together for very long without objects and insults being thrown. Later Sybil and Victor get drawn into the fray, but they are mere amateurs learning from the masters…

From the minute Waterston steps out on the balcony of his and Sybil’s hotel suite, you know he’s in command. Of a perfect English accent, the wit, the right look, and the bits of physical comedy later on.

Plus the actor’s chemistry with Amato’s alternatively sexy, playful, forbidding, and defiant (almost feminist) — not to mention mercurial–Amanda sizzles. From Act II, although not much of a plot is advanced, we seem to learn every nuance of romantic attraction, happy, passionate, frustrated, and miserable.

You might say Private Lives is a master class in love, so much so that we forgive Elyot and Amanda for outrageous and insensitive behavior and overlook the fact that we know nothing about them other than what we see — violations both of morality and theatrical conventions up to that point.

The play is light-hearted; you’ll likely find yourself laughing at almost every line, especially in a production as on target as this one. But you’ll also feel the reality of two people who may be more elegant and devil-may-care than we are but are still looking, underneath their acerbic, callous statements, for a true connection.

In short, Elyot and Amanda are too lovable to judge. And the more-upright Sybil and Victor come across as tedious, even as a part of us feels sorry for the awful way they’re being treated.

Beyond the underlying serious side, Private Lives is hilarious, and this production gives you plenty of cause to laugh. I’m certain many audience members would have sat through a repeat performance right away.

It is fitting that Allen Moyer’s sets — elegant in Act I, and bohemian tossed into disarray in the next two — move forward slightly as each Act begins. Like the text itself, they beckon us to enter the chaotic but endearing world of Elyot and Amanda.

This production is debuting at STC, but cut its teeth in the spring of 2012 at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, with the same cast and director.

Cast

• Amanda: Bianca Amato
• Sibyl: Autumn Hurlbert
• Louise: Jane Ridley
• Elyot: James Waterston
• Victor: Jeremy Webb

Direction and Design

• Director: Maria Aitken
• Set Designer: Allen Moyer
• Costume Designer: Candice Donnelly
• Lighting Designer: Philip S. Rosenberg
• Sound Design & Music Arrangements: Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen
• Music Director: Barbara Irvine
• Choreographer: Daniel Pelzig
• Fight Choreographer: Ted Hewlett
• Head of Voice and Text (for STC): Ellen O’Brien
• Original Casting Director: Alaine Alldaffer
• Additional Casting, of Binder Casting: Jack Bowdan
• Literary Associate: Drew Lichtenberg
• Assistant Director: Gus Heagerty
• Production Stage Manager: Leslie Sears
• Assistant Stage Manager: Elizabeth Clewley

Disclaimer: Shakespeare Theatre Company provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Throughout American Century Theater’s production of Abby Mann’s Judgment at Nuremberg, ensemble members portraying Nazis and their victims act as silent witnesses — ghosts, if you like — whose presence provides context for the legal proceeding at its heart. But these are not the only ghosts haunting any production of this powerful script: the memory of the Stanley Kramer’s 1961 film, with a brilliant cast including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Maximilian Schell (who won an Oscar for his performance), Richard Widmark, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, and even the then young and pretty William Shatner is hard to keep out of one’s mind when viewing the stage version of Mann’s story.

At the center of the play is retired American judge Dan Haywood (Craig Miller), brought to Germany to preside over the 1947-48 trial of German judges who had collaborated, or actively participated, in Nazi-era injustices. The headline-grabbing war crimes trials, convicting Goering and other leading Nazi figures, were already complete, and the looming threat of a Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union was leading many to believe gaining support from a revived German nation was more important that pursuing justice against smaller fish.

Haywood is the very figure of what we would want an American judge to be: low-key; kind; seeking the intellectual, historical, and cultural background of the case; understanding of the complexity of human motives; and focused entirely on justice, notwithstanding considerations of realpolitik. Miller is utterly believable in the role, never showy, always inhabiting the character. Some of his best moments are those in which he expresses uncertainty — “I don’t know what to think,” he says more than once. Even when delivering the sternest of judgments, he does do in a compassionate tone. Without attempting to channel Spencer Tracy, Miller makes Haywood a memorable and admirable figure.

In what is the play’s showiest role, defense attorney Oscar Rolfe, Steve Lebens does, to an extent, channel Maximilian Schell’s take on the role. A brilliant advocate, adept at devastating cross-examination, he acknowledges the horrors of the Nazi regime while, as a German patriot, he insists that it is not right to brand the entire German nation as criminal, something he sees as the inevitable implication of the trial. As he questions witnesses who were treated brutally in the defendants’ courtrooms, trying to show that there may have been a legally sound basis for executions and sterilizations, he knowingly reopens their emotional wounds. Lebens is at is best when facing the moral compromises of his own position, attacking people he knows to have been victims on behalf of persons who he knows acted unjustly, not only in the cause of his lawyer’s obligation to zealously defend his clients but in the cause of defending the honor and future of his nation.

The tragic principal defendant, Ernst Janning (Michael Replogle), was a leading jurist and legal scholar before and after the Nazis took power. He gave credibility to the Nazi legal system, and he personally and knowingly made unjust decisions on behalf of that system. As Haywood comments toward the end of the play, Janning loathed the evil he did, yet still chose to do it. In the film, Burt Lancaster gave Janning a commanding presence, dominating even those scenes in which he had no lines, proud even in taking responsibility for his crimes. Replogle takes the role in a quite different direction, displaying less gravitas while giving Janning a somewhat diffident, almost academic air, with an overlay of humility, more willing to admit, in his voice and body, that his choices in life have defeated him.

The approach Replogle takes to Janning is echoed, in one important respect, by Karen Rosnizeck’s Mrs. Bertholt. Both members of the pre-Nazi elite, they hated Hitler and his followers not so much for their evil as for their middle-class grossness. Mrs. Bertholt recounts a story in which Janning told Hitler to his face that he was too “bourgeois,” and Janning himself recoils at sharing prison quarters with his fellow prisoners, who in addition to their corruption were not the sort of people with whom he would ever have shared time and space. Mrs. Bertholt is the widow of a Wehrmacht general hanged for his part in the Malmedy massacre (the murder of 84 American POWs during the Battle of the Bulge). Aristocrats both, they despised the Nazis but supported the war as patriotic Germans defending their country. This class division among the Germans, and Hitler’s success in co-opting the old elites despite their disdain for him, are sometime-forgotten aspects of the period’s history that Mann illuminates in the script.

Rosnizeck’s Mrs. Bertholt is a gracious, civilized figure whose expropriated house provides quarters for Judge Haywood. Rosnizek’s portrayal emphasizes Mrs. Bertholt’s bitterness over her husband’s execution and over the entire war crimes trial enterprise — she stalks out of the final court session after the guilty verdict is announced — but could have benefitted from an additional touch of world-weariness. Rosnizeck also served as the production’s accent coach, and she and the actors playing German characters deserve credit for very credible German accents.

Colonel Ted Lawson (Bruce Alan Rauscher), his memory seared by the sight of the Dachau concentration camp, is appropriately aggressive as the prosecutor, seeking to punish as harshly as possible anyone associated with the Nazi regime. Frequently over-matched by Rolfe as a trial tactician (apparently to the point of neglecting to cross-examine one defense witness), Lawson sometimes gives way to his frustration, yet has the overwhelming moral force of responding to Nazi atrocities on his side (he shows films of the death camps at one point in the trial). A stronger sense of the overwhelming anger eating away at Lawson’s soul would have been a welcome added dimension to Rauscher’s portrayal.

Mann’s script is filled with short character roles, all of which were played successfully. Christopher Henley, as Rudolph Peterson, a now-timorous and nervous victim of sterilization, and Mary Beth Luckenbaugh, as Maria Wallner, a victim of a show trial that resulted in the execution of an elderly Jewish friend, stood out. Luckenbaugh chose to make the character angrier, and less destroyed, than the equivalent character in the movie, played by Judy Garland. The choice worked.

This was one of American Century’s more ambitious shows technically. Sean Allan Doyle’s complex sound design included such items as excerpts from Hitler’s speeches, Nazi marches, snippets of Wagner, bird sounds in the prison courtyard, and a clang when a prison sequence began. They all fit the occasion and were cued impeccably. The production made extensive use of projections (credited to Patrick Lord and Shayne Weyker), for settings (e.g., the courtroom, the prison, scenes of the city, though not any of Nuremberg in its late-40s bombed-out state) and for the films of the carnage of the concentration camps. These were shown at one end of the oblong playing area, with a distracting but probably unavoidable cutout around the defendants’ dock. In the playing area, with audience seating on either side, Patrick Lord’s set design featured the defendant’s area at one end, the judges’ elevated bench at the other, set dressing pieces in between. The set worked effectively for the courtroom scenes but was less evocative for some other settings, such as the Judge Haywood’s residence, a bar, or the venue of a concert that Judge Haywood attended with Mrs. Bertholt.

Rip Classen’s costumes were appropriate to the period and the characters. Particular blessings upon him for getting the right color for U.S. Army uniform jackets of the era, something I have seen done wrong in more productions than I care to think about. The most notable, and very effective, feature of Marc Allan Wright’s lighting design were the four large fluorescent ceiling fixtures, which provided harsh illumination in the courtroom scenes, especially when they came on quickly following a scene with lower lighting.

Along with the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, American Century consistently produces the best and most interesting dramaturgical material in the area. The Audience Guide for Judgment at Nuremberg is one of the most valuable the group has produced, containing fascinating history of the events portrayed in the play as well as thought-provoking discussions of the legal and ethical issues raised by the war crimes trials. Even if you don’t pick up a copy — and I recommend doing so — this is a play to see not only as well-produced and acted theater, but as a springboard for thought and discussion about matters that have a great deal of contemporary resonance.

Director’s Notes

Judgment at Nuremberg deals with the Allied war-crimes trials held just after World War II, in which significant players in the Nazi regime were made to answer for their actions between 1933 and 1945. Specifically, it treats the portion of the trials that dealt with judges who decided cases during the Third Reich that sent defendants to grisly fates, often on trumped-up charges. (Names have been changed in Abby Mann’s play, but the characters are based quite closely on real historical figures and actual trials.)

Much as the play deals with a particular slice of modern history, it sadly remains relevant today, as war-crimes, genocides, imperialist invasions, and politically-motivated kangaroo courts fill the daily news-stream. Mann told his story first as a life television play, then as a star-studded Hollywood motion picture, and finally as a Broadway play — keeping much of the material intact from medium to medium. We’re presenting the Broadway script, adding selected material from the film, and introducing a framing device that brings “ghosts” from Hitler-era Nuremberg into a silent dialogue with Mann’s eloquent writing.

In the published edition of Mann’s Broadway play, there is an optional narration that starts the action. I felt it would make more sense to print it here rather than including the device of a theatrical narrator in the staging. The playwright starts with a telling point about the continuing legacy of the Nuremberg trials and gives us a concise bit of context for the events you will see unfolding on the stage. Mann, in his “narration” writes:

On January 1, 2001, then President Clinton signed the Rome Treaty for an International Criminal Court. He said, “In taking this action, we reaffirm or support for international accountability and for bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity based on our involvement in the Nuremberg tribunals that brought Nazi war criminals to justice.” Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina called Mr. Clinton’s decision “as outrageous as it is inexplicable. I have a message for the outgoing President. This decision will not stand.” Many others echoed Helms’ objections, including President Bush. Their reason was it could inhibit the ability of the United States to use its military to meet alliance obligations and participate in multinational operations.

The first of the Nuremberg trials were concluded on October 1, 1946. Herman Goering, Reichsmarshall. Charged with conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity. The verdict: guilty on all accounts. The sentence: death by hanging. Rudolph Hess, Deputy Fuhrer. Verdict: guilty on two counts. Sentence: life imprisonment. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs. Verdict: guilty on all counts. Sentence: death by hanging.

Nuremberg, Germany. October 1, 1946. The conclusion of the trial of 22 top Nazis accused of war crimes. Twelve were sentenced to death. Three were acquitted. Seven received prison sentences ranging from ten years to life.

October 16, 1946. The sentences of death were carried out. Julius Streicher. Von Ribbentrop. Wilhelm Keitel. Ernst Kaltenbrunner. All except Herman Goering who cheated the hangman by taking his own life.

The first of the Nuremberg trials were over. Still to come were twelve more trials of 177 diplomats, generals, SS officers, high Nazi officials, doctors, judges, directors of IG Farben, leading German business and professional men, whose cooperation was essential to the success of the Nazi conspiracy.

We hope you find the play as compelling as the actors and I did while working on it.

Photo Gallery

Ellie Nicoll as Mrs. Halbestadt. Background: Jean Miller as ghost	Christopher Henley as Rudolph Peterson. Background: Tel Monks as Judge Ives
Michael Replogle as Ernst Janning, Kim Curtis as Emil Hahn, Victor Gold as Werner Lammpe, Tom Fuller as Frederick Hoffstetter.	Mary Beth Luckenbaugh as Maria Wallner. Background: Tel Monks as Judge Ives.
Bruce A. Rauscher as Colonel Lawson. Background: Kim Curtis as Emil Hahn, Tom Fuller as Frederick Hoffstetter.	Karin Rosnizeck as Frau Bertholt, Craig Miller as Judge Haywood.
Paul Klingenberg as Judge Norris, Craig Miller as Judge Haywood, Tel Monks as Judge Ives.	Michael Replogle as Ernst Janning, Craig Miller as Judge Haywood.
Steve Lebens as Oscar Rolfe, Michael Replogle as Ernst Janning.

Photos by Johannes Markus

Cast

• Colonel Lawson: Bruce Alan Rauscher
• General Merrin: Lyle Blake Smythers
• Judge Haywood: Craig Miller
• Captain Byers: Jorge A. Silva
• Judge Ives: Tel Monks
• Judge Norris: Paul J. Klingenberg
• Emil Hahn: Kim Kurtis
• Frederick Hoffstetter: Tom Fuller
• Werner Lammpe: Victor Gold
• Ernst Janning: Michael Replogle
• Oscar Rolfe: Steve Lebens
• Dr. Wickert: Ron Sarro
• Mrs. Halbestadt: Ellie Nicoll
• Frau Bertholt: Karin Rosnizeck
• Rudolph Peterson: Christopher Henley
• Dr. Gueter: Larry Kolp
• Maria Wallner: Mary Beth Luckenbaugh
• Elsa Lindnow: Vanessa Bradchulis
• Feldenstien: Jay Delehanty
• Ensemble: Alan Diaz, Paul Alan Hogan, Colin Martin, Jean H. Miller, Lynley Peoples, Gray West

Production Staff

• Director: Joe Banno
• Production Manager: Ed Moser
• Stage Manager: Lindsey E. Moore
• Set Design/Projections Design: Patrick Lord
• Projections Research: Patrick Lord
• Costume Design: Rip Claassen
• Lighting Design: Marc Allan Wright
• Sound Design: Sean Allan Doyle
• Assistant Stage Manager/Board Operator: Chris Beatley
• Master Carpenter: Michael Salmi
• Scenic Painter: Stephanie Chu
• Assistant Carpenter/Scenic Painting: Alex Kellogg
• Master Electrician: Juan Ramirez-Cortes
• Wardrobe Assistant: Cathering Casino
• Publicist: Emily Morrison
• Photography: Johannes Markus
• Program Design: Michael Sherman
• House Manager: Joli Provost
• Outreach Coordinator: Maia Falconi-Sachs

Disclaimer: American Century Theater provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

How do you avoid cheesy lines in praise of Faction of Fools’ current production of Titus Andronicus? Things like “Bloody good time!” or “Give those actors a hand.” Oh, why try? In this intentionally, violently silly production of what could justly be regarded as Shakespeare’s worst play, the mayhem and over-the-top shtick make far more sense than an attempt at a straightforward production. And, by the way, the play may not even be Shakespeare’s at all. There is a centuries-old, probably unresolvable, controversy about whether Shakespeare actually wrote the thing, or at least whether he may have had a forgettable collaborator. It’s an interesting question whether, absent its debatable connection to Shakespeare, anyone would bother looking at this early 1590s mess of a revenge tragedy outside the depths of university literature departments.

Well, Faction of Fools (FoF) might, because the script, full as it is of scheming, beheading, behanding, stabbing, strangling, spearing, and meat pie-baking, and rape, is perfect fodder for the troupe’s comedia-influenced, high-speed, slapstick, ironically knowing, approach to its material. The play uses an ensemble cast, with no preeminent lead, but the FoF production does have a star: stage blood. It’s everywhere. Sometimes it’s a fountain. Sometimes it shoots forth in rhythm, to musical accompaniment. Sometimes it lies on stage for a while, waiting for use by a character. Sometimes you just turn a faucet and there it is. The sanguinary permutations seem endless, and much credit goes to fight choreographer Casey Kaleba for the design and execution of the effects. If there were a Helen Hayes Award for blood, he’d be the front-runner.

Whether non-Shakespeare or semi-Shakespeare or simply bad Shakespeare, the play does not teem with fully realized characters an audience comes to care about, which makes it easier to accept their usually bloody demise. There is one major exception, Lavinia, the daughter of Titus, who is raped, then has her tongue pulled out and her hands cut off to keep her silent. The role is played by Miranda Medugno, a Galludet theater graduate who signs the lines she has before she is mutilated. (The perpetrators have a chilling moment where their realization that she communicates by signing motivates them to remove her hands.) After the graphic horror of the attack on her, she becomes a rather still, almost stoic figure, most notably in a scene where three other characters loudly wail and wallow in bathos on seeing her condition, while she remains seemingly unmoved.

In this style, and given the absence of memorable language in the script, verbal nuance is not a priority. For the most part, actors declaim their lines loudly and rather melodramatically. Titus (Nello DeBlasio) is a prime example of this tendency, which could be fatal to a portrayal in a “straight” production of this or any play but which does not make much difference here. There’s one nice exception to this trend, when Marcus (Toby Mulford) quietly and tenderly helps Lavinia offstage after she is attacked.

Nor is the play itself, or the FoF style in performing it, a place to look for subtle shadings of character. Take the two villains, Tamora (Christina Marie Frank) and Aaron (Manu Kumasi). Tamora is the deadliest of femme fatales, waving her arms about, blatantly exercising her feminine wiles to the hilt, and scheming to hurt her enemy Titus by any means available, the crueler the better. Aaron, Tamora’s servant and lover, simply enjoys his villainy — seldom has evil been so cheerful, as when he notes that he has made his mistress his mistress. Kumasi moves extremely well, making his evil graceful as well as cheerful. Megduno’s Lavinia aside, this pair of malefactors make the most pronounced individual impressions of any of the cast’s members.

There is also an interesting racial angle to the villains’ relationship. While the moral makeup of the characters could not be more different, Aaron, like Othello, is a “Moor” (i.e., is black), while Tamora, like Desdemona, is white. Together, they produce a mixed-race baby (the doll representing the baby is outfitted with its own miniature mask), which quite scandalizes the ancient Rome seen through 16th-century British eyes. Unlike many a production of Othello, the FoF production does not seek interesting ways of exploring the contemporary resonance of this portion of the script, seemingly being content to take this aspect of the play at face value.

The production’s hallmark is choreographed comic movement. Director Matthew R. Wilson and Kaleba keep the cast in nearly constant, sometimes frenetic, motion, with one sight gag after another, even when the blood is not flowing. The cast is strongly committed to the style, and they carry it out with verve and precision.

There is a serious point behind all the lunacy, and that point is also made visually. Ethan Sinnott’s set and Denise Umland’s costumes are white, as are the actors’ comedia makeup and Aaron Cromie’s well-executed masks. As the production proceeds, everything white becomes covered — saturated is not too strong a term — with the free-flowing gore, as the production displays the craziness of unrestrained violence to the audience in vivid red-on-white. Director Wilson’s program note underlines the point, when he says “There is nothing funny about murder or rape but there is something absurd about the culture of violence and patriarchy that produces these atrocities.”

FoF turns a problematic script into a stylistic and darkly funny triumph. Far be it from a critic to skewer the company’s efforts.

(Editor’s Note: Due to a scheduling mixup, ShowBizRadio sent two reviewers to cover this production. See David Siegel’s review for another view of the show.)

Director’s Notes

I have always been fascinated by the aesthetic of violence. Conflict, collision, and combat — although sources of pain — can also bring moments of beauty. Consider the virtuosity of the martial artist, the elegant sheen of a blood spatter, or even the breathtaking splendor of an exploding supernova.
 
For this bloody play, all the world’s a canvas, and we witness, not only acts of violence, but their aftermath as well. Our Rome is a pristine, gleaming empire that inflicts brutality on other cultures while maintaining a capital city that is sanitary, safe, and spotless. All that changes when Titus returns triumphant and the bloodstains start to accumulate.
 
The bloodshed in Titus is senseless; it is spectacular; and, yes, sometimes it is downright silly. But Shakespeare and his contemporaries already knew that.
 
During the Renaissance, Seneca’s grisly Roman tragedies came back into vogue, and Commedia dell’Arte players presented their own violent delights as part of their repertoire of traveling plays. These “tragic” Commedia pieces were known under the genre of opera reggia, the “royal works” featuring nobles behaving badly — very badly indeed…

Shakespeare knew of this genre both from Seneca’s classical writings and from the contemporary performances of itinerant Italian players. He clearly had these in mind when penning Titus Andronicus, his own contribution to the genre of Renaissance horror story. The play is not meant to be a joke, but it is too absurd to stomach as a straight drama. It is the sixteenth-century’s version of Saw or Hostel.
 
In our darkly comic adaptation, something wicked becomes something wickedly delightful. We see the senselessness of violence — whether in warfare, sibling rivalries, or revenge — and we see the egocentric callousness with which people ignore survivors because they are too consumed with their own grief. There is nothing funny about murder or rape, but there is something absurd about the culture of violence and patriarchy that produces these atrocities. If we laugh at perpetuators of violence, it is only because we know that they don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Or maybe it is because, as Titus says, we “have no tears left to shed.”

Photo Gallery

Nello DeBlasio (Titus), Matthew Pauli (Lucius), Miranda Medugno (Lavinia), Toby Mulford (Marcus)	Matthew Pauli (Lucius), Miranda Medugno (Lavinia), Toby Mulford (Marcus)
Nello DeBlasio (Titus), Miranda Medugno (Lavinia)	Toby Mulford (Marcus), Miranda Medugno (Lavinia), Nello DeBlasio (Titus)

Photos by Teresa Wood

Cast

• Titus Andronicus: Nello DeBlasio
• Demetrius: Charlie Ainsworth
• Bassianus/Publius/Goth Soldier/Quintus: Chema Pineda-Fernandez
• Young Lucius/Mutius/Nurse/Aemilius: Cori Dioquino
• Saturninus: Daniel Flint
• Tamora: Christina Marie Frank
• Chiron/Martius: Tyler Herman
• Aaron: Manu Kumasi
• Lavinia: Miranda Medugno
• Marcus Andronicus/Alarbus: Toby Mulford
• Lucius: Matthew Pauli

Artistic and Design Team

• Written by William Shakespeare
• Adapted and Directed and Co-Choreographer: Matthew R. Wilson
• Production Manager/Stage Manager: Sarah Conte
• Scenic Design: Ethan Sinnott
• Costume Design: Denise Umland
• Lighting Design: Michael Barnett
• Sound Design & Music Composition: Thomas Sowers
• Fight Direction: Casey Kaleba & Matthew R. Wilson
• Co-Choreographer and Blood Effects: Casey Kaleba
• Properties Design & Assistant Blood Effects: Kristen Pilgrim
• Mask Designer and Fabricator: Aaron Cromie
• Assistant Stage Manager: Kathryn Dooley
• Assistant Director: Rachel Spicknall Mulford
• Dramaturg: Natalie Tenner
• ASL Consultant/Interpreter: Dr. Lindsey D. Snyder

Disclaimer: Faction of Fools provided a complimentary media ticket to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Shakespeare certainly knew how to make an audience squirm. “Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head” says Aaron, a key figure in Shakespeare’s rarely produced Titus Andronicus that just opened in DC.

But, this production is by the scrappy Faction of Fools theater company with a go-for-broke, unmuted “commedia dell’ arte” vision. For those not familiar with the Faction of Fools, it is the 2012 Helen Hayes Recipient of the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company in the DC area.

Titus Andronicus is one of Shakespeare’s most chilling, violent, quite unsubtle bloody tales full of honor killings, revenge killings, infanticide, and any number of chopped-off limbs and dismemberments. Nothing much comic in that.

What is the storyline? Titus Andronicus is a fictional Roman general who returns from a decade of war with most of his sons dead on the battlefield. In his victories for the Roman Empire, he has captured Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her three sons as well as Tamora’s lover, Aaron the Moor.

From this start, the blood-fest moves forward with the characters seeking vengeance, advantage and survival to the point of self-mutilation. “If there were reason for these miseries, then into limits could I bind my woes” says Titus after much carnage.

Titus is an operatic play that spins and twists into a bloody cyclone of madness not unlike epic movies with a Vietnam War era mentality such as the “Godfather I & II” or “Apocalypse Now.” Few are left standing as the tragic goings-on finally end. Ah, but his is a Faction of Fools production.

Adapted and staged by Matthew R. Wilson, the Faction of Fools has respected the play’s grisly bones but added a veneer of comic touches to coat the bones and make them a bit more palatable. Wilson and his troupe have not made Titus into a Mel Brooks farce, or a late night comedy act but used their special brand of masked antics, tongue-in-cheek mannerisms and speech along with plenty of double-entendre laden physical movements touches, sitting right along-side the eviscerations. It is as if there is the written text with theatrical components filtering and shifting the words into new meanings.

The Titus set design by Ethan Sinnott is a constructed imperial city that fills the stage at the Elstad Annex at Gallaudet University. There are multi-level play areas, doorways for entrances and exits along with several trap doors and well-positioned windows. It is painted a luminous pure white made even brighter by the white-hot lights from Michael Barnett. Over the course of the performance the pure white becomes a crimson red abstract expressionist canvas of blood splotches, splatters and swirls courtesy of designer Casey Kaleba.

Costume designer Denise Umland has the cast outfitted in white as well, which also takes on a crimson hue. Apropos of “commedia dell’arte,” the actors wear hand-crafted, half masks also in white fabricated by Aaron Cromie. Props are a perverse amusement done up to gratify the most fervent Grand Guignol fane. There is such creativity in the exaggerated manner of showing amputated limbs and other body parts and flowing blood that is sophisticated and cartoonish, and perhaps not for everyone. I will not look at a spigot or a dark quiet pool quite the same again.

Actors who make strong impressions include Miranda Medugno as Lavina, the ultimate victim, who loses hands and tongue after she is raped. Medugno, who is pursuing a Master’s degree in Sign Language Education, brings her “silenced” character into dramatic light and intensity. She draws us to her with her entire being. She is the moral, non-comic center of Titus.

As Tamara, Queen of the Goths, Christina Marie Frank vamps her way through the proceedings. She is physically impish and cunning. Her words, both straight and humorous, are darts that sting all in good fun, well as best fun as can be given her nasty character.

Aaron The Moor is played by Manu Kumasi with a vigorous strut and fire in his eyes. He even gives off a subtext as to why he is so villainous. Nello DeBlasio’s Titus is a madman who loudly whines for attention. DeBlasio plays his Titus as someone on speed with Munchausen by proxy syndrome. Other male characters also have a too-rushed approach to their deliveries. Demetrius (Charlie Ainsworth) and Chiron (Tyler Herman) deserve note for their manner of accomplishing dastardly deeds using both spoken words and ASL in a helter-skelter duet.

Faction of Fools marketing material notes, “Faction’s fifth season ends with a shriek, as we bring you the funniest version yet of Shakespeare’s bloodiest play. In the Fools’ darkly comic take, something wicked becomes something wickedly delightful.” Well, I would not go that far.

Your reviewer marvels at what Wilson and the Fools have accomplished with their audacious take of rushing rivers of blood and carnage. It is up to you and your own gimlet eye whether to buckle up and take this Titus in. It will challenge you to find your pathway past lines such as: “Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?… Ay, that I had not done a thousand more” to find and appreciate the comic touches. It is all a matter of one’s tastes.

I guess humor can be found even in Marlon Brando’s last line in “Apocalypse Now,” “The horror, the horror.”

NOTE: No late seating. Appropriate for ages 13 and up. Select performances ASL Interpreted. Open Captioning available upon request.

(Editor’s Note: Due to a scheduling mixup, ShowBizRadio sent two reviewers to cover this production. See Bob Ashby’s review for another view of the show.)

Director’s Notes

I have always been fascinated by the aesthetic of violence. Conflict, collision, and combat — although sources of pain — can also bring moments of beauty. Consider the virtuosity of the martial artist, the elegant sheen of a blood spatter, or even the breathtaking splendor of an exploding supernova.

For this bloody play, all the world’s a canvas, and we witness, not only acts of violence, but their aftermath as well. Our Rome is a pristine, gleaming empire that inflicts brutality on other cultures while maintaining a capital city that is sanitary, safe, and spotless. All that changes when Titus returns triumphant and the bloodstains start to accumulate.

The bloodshed in Titus is senseless; it is spectacular; and, yes, sometimes it is downright silly. But Shakespeare and his contemporaries already knew that.

During the Renaissance, Seneca’s grisly Roman tragedies came back into vogue, and Commedia dell’Arte players presented their own violent delights as part of their repertoire of traveling plays. These “tragic” Commedia pieces were known under the genre of opera reggia, the “royal works” featuring nobles behaving badly — very badly indeed…

Shakespeare knew of this genre both from Seneca’s classical writings and from the contemporary performances of itinerant Italian players. He clearly had these in mind when penning Titus Andronicus, his own contribution to the genre of Renaissance horror story. The play is not meant to be a joke, but it is too absurd to stomach as a straight drama. It is the sixteenth-century’s version of Saw or Hostel.

In our darkly comic adaptation, something wicked becomes something wickedly delightful. We see the senselessness of violence — whether in warfare, sibling rivalries, or revenge — and we see the egocentric callousness with which people ignore survivors because they are too consumed with their own grief. There is nothing funny about murder or rape, but there is something absurd about the culture of violence and patriarchy that produces these atrocities. If we laugh at perpetuators of violence, it is only because we know that they don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Or maybe it is because, as Titus says, we “have no tears left to shed.”

Photo Gallery

Nello DeBlasio (Titus), Matthew Pauli (Lucius), Miranda Medugno (Lavinia), Toby Mulford (Marcus)	Matthew Pauli (Lucius), Miranda Medugno (Lavinia), Toby Mulford (Marcus)
Nello DeBlasio (Titus), Miranda Medugno (Lavinia)	Toby Mulford (Marcus), Miranda Medugno (Lavinia), Nello DeBlasio (Titus)

Photos by Teresa Wood

Cast

• Titus Andronicus: Nello DeBlasio
• Demetrius: Charlie Ainsworth
• Bassianus/Publius/Goth Soldier/Quintus: Chema Pineda-Fernandez
• Young Lucius/Mutius/Nurse/Aemilius: Cori Dioquino
• Saturninus: Daniel Flint
• Tamora: Christina Marie Frank
• Chiron/Martius: Tyler Herman
• Aaron: Manu Kumasi
• Lavinia: Miranda Medugno
• Marcus Andronicus/Alarbus: Toby Mulford
• Lucius: Matthew Pauli

Artistic and Design Team

• Written by William Shakespeare
• Adapted and Directed and Co-Choreographer: Matthew R. Wilson
• Production Manager/Stage Manager: Sarah Conte
• Scenic Design: Ethan Sinnott
• Costume Design: Denise Umland
• Lighting Design: Michael Barnett
• Sound Design & Music Composition: Thomas Sowers
• Fight Direction: Casey Kaleba & Matthew R. Wilson
• Co-Choreographer and Blood Effects: Casey Kaleba
• Properties Design & Assistant Blood Effects: Kristen Pilgrim
• Mask Designer and Fabricator: Aaron Cromie
• Assistant Stage Manager: Kathryn Dooley
• Assistant Director: Rachel Spicknall Mulford
• Dramaturg: Natalie Tenner
• ASL Consultant/Interpreter: Dr. Lindsey D. Snyder

Disclaimer: Faction of Fools provided a complimentary media ticket to ShowBizRadio for this review.

With all of London anguished by fear that Hitler’s war will soon reach their city, atheist physician Sigmund Freud invites Oxford professor C.S. Lewis into his study for a lively debate, addressing questions like: Does God exist? Do humans possess an innate moral conscience? How can a believer adequately explain the quandaries of war, pain, sickness, and death?

Such is the opening scene of Mark St. Germain’s production, Freud’s Last Session; with performances scheduled at Washington DC’s Jewish Community Center Theater J through July 6. The 80-minute play features just two actors and one set; the parquet wood-floored study of Freud, adorned with a carefully arranged bookshelf, floor to ceiling drapes, and an examination couch — which becomes an object of jest throughout.

While an entertaining interplay of opposing worldviews, the lack of an organic exchange of ideas can make the sequences seem too contrived at times — particularly for those familiar with C.S. Lewis’ and Freud’s canon of work, from which their debate heavily draws.

Rick Foucheux’s admirable portrayal of Freud stands out, with the psychoanalyst’s constant questioning halted only by the painful, oral cancer-induced coughing fits that leave him with a bloody rag in his hands; yet nonetheless determined to proceed in defense of all things proven by facts, logic, and empirical observations. He calls Darwin a personal “saint” and derides C.S. Lewis — a hailed scholar and one-time atheist — for being swept up in the “fairytale” of religion.

For his part, Todd Scofield, playing the part of Lewis, deftly calls out the seeming contradictions in Foucheux’s rigid opposition to religious belief; among them the assemblage of religious artifacts carefully arranged on Freud’s desk, as well as the physician’s own admission that he drew comfort from reading the Christian-themed epic, Paradise Lost.

Still, it’s hard not to notice Lewis’ character as the less dynamic of the pair; stiffer both in movement and in speech. As an admirer of the famed literary scholar and member of the Oxford writing group the Inklings, of which J.R.R. Tolkien was also a part, I felt Lewis’ role seemed too defensive and less reliant on the wit and confidence that compelled the 20th century writer to produce a swath of heavily praised Christian writings and apologia.

There were other details from Lewis’ own life that seemed appropriate to introduce, yet were not discussed in the play; among them the fact that his mother — Flora Hamilton Lewis — suffered her own fatal bout of cancer, an experience believed to influence C.S. Lewis’ later conversion. While Lewis does surmise that Freud’s declining health could be leading him to reconsider a belief in God, perhaps in light of his mortality, the close-to-heart experience from Lewis’ childhood was never mentioned.

It’s the painful cancer that seems to drive a wedge deeper in Freud’s resistance to Lewis’ claims that moral consciousness and religious belief are inclinations inscribed on the human heart from birth.

“Is killing me God’s revenge?” asks an exasperated Freud, to which C.S. Lewis confesses, “I do not know.”

For Freud, all circumstance, all decision-making, all belief, can be explained through a logical interpretation of one’s own life experiences. In the case of Lewis, Freud explains away the Oxford writer’s flight to Christianity as a desperate attempt to resolve adolescent “daddy issues,” since Lewis was never close to his biological father from birth.

Another of Freud’s notable lines in the play illustrates this point: “Religion has made the world his nursery.” The pronoun his emphasizes another contention of Freud’s; that religion is an oppressive tool of patriarchal institutions determined to wield power.

Despite the spirited opposition, Lewis does continue to nudge Freud nearer to agnosticism. After sharing a story about a time he spent sick in the hospital, aided by a diminutive man, Freud suggests that there has never been a better joke than that — “an eminent intellectual, saved by a dwarf,” to which Lewis replies, “If it was a joke, who made it?”

But in a play focused on speech and debate, it was an unspoken act that seemed to speak the loudest, and in effect, draw the two men closer than any words they shared. Throughout the play, as Freud was repeatedly interrupted by writhing pain, he tells Lewis that his daughter Anna is the only person he entrusts to remove his mouthpiece and clean it to help assuage the pain.

But as the cancer becomes too much to bear, Lewis steps in, helps the suffering man to his desk chair and proceeds to remove the prostheses. While the play ends relatively unceremoniously — with a simple shake of the hands — it’s hard not to think that exchange trumped the rest.

Cast

• Freud: Rick Foucheux
• C.S. Lewis: Todd Scofield

Disclaimer: The purchased his own tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Moving beyond its flame-thrower of a title, Mike Bartlett’s Cock is a striking, verbally pungent jolt of theater about a love-triangle for contemporary times and audiences. The production is part of Studio’s New British Invasion Festival.

In Cock we witness two men and a woman circling each other; trying to get the right angle and upper hand for a take-down of sorts. To the victor, goes the prize of a lovely young man, who keeps everyone hanging on, but one who has his share of commitment-phobias, to use a dated term of reference. The characters smash at one another with the spewed-forth, hurtful words of people who know well each other’s vulnerable places.

The play is a competitive schoolyard wrestling match, with verbal taunts, and accompanying thrusts and parries as the audience views the goings-on almost as school chums of one or another of the active participants. Will someone get hurt or just give-up and leave the circle forfeiting the match and the prize?

In the case of Cock it is a very angst-filled bout of constant movement with words spit out in an overlapping manner. Then a beat or two of silence to assess the damage. Under David Muse’s direction the production takes on an athletic air with attacks and counter-attacks, rather than cock-fighting event with blood, physical dismemberment and death the expectation. Muse gives the show a plenitude of game-playing offensive and defensive movements and maneuvers; grapples, holds and attempts at take-downs. Whatever sex and sexuality that might be expected with the play’s title is accomplished with words, rather than a shedding of clothes or hot public shows of affection.

Written by the Brit Mike Bartlett, who is in his early 30’s and has made a mark in only about seven years of playwriting. When first produced in Great Britain, Cock won an Olivier Award in 2010 for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. In the Studio program, Bartlett is quoted; “theatre has to appeal to people who do jobs and have lives…the only choice is where your focus is. Do you write your play thinking about other plays? Or do you look out the window and say, my play is about that –whatever the world is. That’s what I’m after.”

Permit your reviewer a digression, but when I read those words from Bartlett, I was drawn back to Al Kooper’s bluesy version of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” with its lyrics of “When I look out my window, Many sights to see, And when I look in my window, So many different people to be, That it’s strange, So strange…must be the season of the witch.”

Cock forcefully tells the story of two men in a long-time relationship just as the younger one, named John (convincingly played in a passive-aggressive manner by Ben Cole in his Studio début), artfully pushes for a break. He is either bored or unhappy with the way his older, stock-broker partner, named M (Scott Parkinson ably showing both a powerful “bitchy” bitterness and a nuanced vulnerability based upon real hurt) treats him. And off John goes.

Soon enough John finds himself involved with not another man; but a divorced, childless woman in her late 20’s named W (a lovely sometimes gentle, sometimes forceful Liesel Allen Yeager in her Studio début as a risk-taking woman going after what she wants). W is a school teacher of sorts. But, for confused and convoluted reasons, John returns to M seeking a reconciliation. M at first seems willing to forgive John, but then is not so certain. He needs some proof of John’s permanence in the partnership. So a dinner is planned to settle the matter. And we learn that W does not want to give up on John who has become the man of her dreams with the possibility of a future to include marriage and children.

There is also a late-comer to the proceedings, M’s father who is called F. As played by Bruce Dow, he is a middle-aged widower with life experiences of his own. He is a wild card at the dinner giving weight to his son’s love for John. He wants the woman W to just go.

This is the set-up for Cock, a tale of sexual attractions and a plenitude of simultaneous conflicting feelings along with an abundance of heated exchanges that pose complex questions about identity, sexuality, and a need for certainty and loyalty in a relationship. As the perplexed John asks himself, “what do I wish to be” his response to himself and others often enough is, “you can’t force me.” He is just in a dumb-struck muddle. He is at a loss of what comes after physical desire and sexual attraction with another human being of any gender.

The technical design for the intimacy of the Milton Theatre is what director Muse described in his program notes as “unencumbered by furniture or scene shifts.” There are short pauses accompanied by a tone-perfect sports buzzer to begin each new interval of action, courtesy of James Bigbee Garver. With Debra Booth’s spare set; a circle of hard-packed (but so clean-looking!) grayish sand-dirt mixture in which the combatants do their work is lit by 10 long fluorescent tubes from lighting designer Colin K. Bills. The only other hard set design element is a circular, blondish plywood back drop It is sometimes used as sitting place for the characters to take a momentary break and a public sip of water, as an athlete might do during a period, quarter or half-time interlude from action.

Alex Jaeger’s tasteful costumes give off the aura of each character. Parkinson wears nicely fitted clothes including a vest and fine laced brown shoes, Yeager is attired in a stylish, well-fitted figure-hugging black dress over her small frame that gives off a chic femininity along with square 3+ inch heels. Cole is in more casual attire with Tiger-like athletic shoes and an open neck shirt.

In program notes, Studio Theatre Dramaturg Adrien-Alice Hansel called the show “an unflinching examination of the vertiginous and seemingly provisional nature of identity itself” with the “main character paralyzed by ambivalence, in love with two people, his long-term boyfriend and a woman he’s just met.” Phew, now that is an excited mouthful of a description, but not off the mark.

So we have character John, who is questioning his sexuality and frames of reference. Who does he love, what does he want? How will he decide between the two people who want him? Would John’s charm and prowess be sufficient for a long-run partnership with anyone? Bartlett’s Cock asks many questions, but leaves answers up to audience members to contemplate and perhaps decide.

Cock is an accomplished trek into a well-groomed performance and culturally loaded play that is worth an audience’s attention. As the play unfolds, it digs deeper and deeper, leaving no character unscathed. Your reviewer leaned ever forward throughout so as not to miss the striking, vivid dialogue and nuanced movements.

And now I am going downstairs to play my very worn vinyl copy of Al Kooper’s “Season of the Witch” and then to YouTube for Donovan’s original version.

(Note: This production contains strong language and sexual content.)

Photo Gallery

Liesel Allen Yeager (W) and Ben Cole (John)	Ben Cole (John), Scott Parkinson (M), and Liesel Allen Yeager (W)
Ben Cole (John) and Scott Parkinson (M)	Liesel Allen Yeager (W), Ben Cole (John), and Scott Parkinson (M)

Photos by Teddy Wolff

Cast

• John: Ben Cole
• M: Scott Parkinson
• W: Liesel Allen Yeager
• F: Bruce Dow

Artistic and Design Team

• Playwright: Mike Bartlett
• Director: David Muse
• Set Design: Debra Booth
• Lighting Design: Colin K. Bills
• Costume Design: Alex Jaeger
• Sound Design: James Bigbee Garver
• Dramaturg: Adrien-Alice Hansel
• Dialect Coach: Ashley Smith
• Casting Director: Jack Doulin
• Production Stage Manager: John Keith Hall
• Technical Director: Robert Shearin

Disclaimer: Studio Theatre provided a complimentary media ticket to ShowBizRadio for this review.