Signature Theatre in Shirlington Presents Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern’s Show Boat.

By Julie LaPorte

VaShawn McIlvain, Delores King Williams, Stephanie Waters, Terry Burnell, ensemble member Kevin McAllister. Photo by Chris Mueller.

The mood at Signature Theatre on Tuesday night was celebratory, and for good reason. The 2009/10 season is Signature’s 20th, and they are now presenting their 100th production, Show Boat. Running through January 17, Show Boat is directed by Eric Schaeffer and offers a revised script and new orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick.

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The National Endowment for the Arts Pays Tribute with Speeches and Song.

By Ann Geracimos

Brian Stokes Mitchell and Denyce Graves. Photo by Henry Grossman.

No shy guy, that Rocco Landesman, the top Broadway producer who has come to Washington to head up the National Endowment for the Arts. Asked at the second annual NEA Opera Honors at the Harman Center on Nov. 14 how he was adjusting to the local scene, he conceded the move was “a culture shock” since he found the capital to be all about cultivating “the power of access” in a town focused on politics.

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Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company presents Charles Mee’s Full Circle.

By Julie LaPorte

Photos by Stan Barouh

Michael Russotto, Sarah Marshall, Daniel Escobar, Jessica Frances Dukes. Photo by Stan Barouh.

In its 30th season, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company continues to offer the community progressive and innovative theater intended to spark a dialog about social issues and the impact that art has had throughout history. Charles Mee’s Full Circle, directed by Michael Rohd and creatively staged to utilize Woolly Mammoth’s theater, challenges viewers with a personal theater experience. The play runs through November 29.

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Discover some of D.C.’s hottest performers.

Washington Ballet Artistic Director Septime Webre. (Photo by Tim Coburn.)

Who says a recession has to dictate our dance as well as our dollars? As the Washington Ballet launches its 2009-2010 season titled “Connect,” the word of the day is extravagance. This winter, the company’s artistic director, Septime Webre, will be re-connecting Washingtonians to the splendor and frivolity of the Roaring Twenties with his premiere of “The Great Gatsby,” based on the great American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fringe, flappers, fouettés en tournants, and a roaring score by Billy Novick, what’s not to love?

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Arena Stage will reopen in the new Mead Center for American Theater in fall 2010, thanks to some of Washington’s most forward-thinking women.

Jaylee Mead, Molly Smith, Arlene Kogod, Michele Berman, Beth Newburger Schwartz (Photo by Joseph Allen)

 Currently undergoing a facelift of facelifts, Arena will reopen as Arena Stage at The Mead Center for American Theater in fall 2010 with the 683-seat Fichandler Stage, the 514-seat fan-shaped Kreeger Theatre, and the new Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle, a 200-seat theater with all the bells and whistles to make it one of the most dramatic spaces in Washington.

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This up and coming actor chose to launch his acting career in the District over New York City. That choice is paying off.

Alexandra Strain in front of poster for "Angels in America" at Forum Theatre. (Photo by James Brantely)

By Kevin Chaffee

Photo by James R. Brantley

The young British-born actor’s outsized talents have earned the acclaim of critics and audiences alike in a flurry of diverse roles in plays ranging from School for Scandal and Rosencranz and Gildenstern Are Dead to Lord of the Flies. The 28-year-old graduate of New York University’s Tisch Institute of Performing Arts currently inhabits the character of Louis, a neurotic and nebbishy “word processor” forced to come to terms with his abandonment of a lover dying of AIDS in the Forum Theatre’s production of Angels in America.

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The Fantasticks is a fanciful take on the traditional boy-meets-girl story.

Sebastian La Cause, Timothy Ware, and Addi McDaniel in The Fantasticks at Arena Stage, November 20- January 10. (Photo by Scott Suchman)

The Fantasticks is a fanciful take on the traditional boy-meets-girl story. After their fathers forbid their love and build a wall to separate the two, Matt and Luisa are led by El Gallo from the wistfulness of “when life was slow and oh so mellow” to the reality that “without a hurt the heart is hollow.”

Popular songs, such as “Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” fill the score. Loosely based on the play The Romancers (Les Romanesques) by Edmond Rostand, the story is centered around youthful love and learning to face the realities the world presents.

“The Fantasticks is profoundly about how to be human,” Dehnert said. “The show comes from a place of innocence. It teaches us how to live with both the happiness and the hurt that life can introduce, while at the same time it dares us to face both and find our way in the world.”

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The Washington National Opera uses smart tactics to draw young audiences

By Arthur Bochner, Chairman, Generation O Advisory Council

Plácido Domingo conducts the WNO in Messe Solenelle.

He’s one of the most celebrated talents of our time: Plácido Domingo, Washington National Opera’s (WNO) general director, and he’s on a mission to get Washington’s young professionals to the theater.

Domingo and I recently sat down to discuss the importance of cultivating young audiences, specifically through Generation O, an audience development program aimed at those in their 20’s and 30’s. “Your generation is the future of WNO, and there’s no better time than now to begin a lifelong love for opera,” Domingo says. Building Generation O is his passion, and the opera legend has helped to transform it into the Washington area’s largest dues-free young patrons’ groups.

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Kevin Chaffee Talks to Septime Webre about his first decade as artistic director of the Washington Ballet.

Photo by Stephen Baranovics

When Septime Webre took over as artistic director in 1999, the Washington Ballet urgently needed a transformative presence. While its nonagenarian founder, Mary Day, had ceded certain freedoms to promising successors to select, direct, and choreograph works – including Choo San Goh, who brought early fame to the company but died young, and world-class dancer Kevin McKenzie, who departed to take over American Ballet Theatre – she remained reluctant to relinquish full control of the company she had founded in 1976. The board, however, clearly felt a new hand was needed. Enter Septime Webre, a dynamic and urbane 37-year-old director of the American Repertory Company, who soon proved to be an inspired choice to lead D.C.’s premier dance troupe into the 21st century.

WASHINGTON LIFE: What did you hope to accomplish when you arrived ten years ago?
SEPTIME WEBRE: I came with two goals. The first was to develop the Washington Ballet into a truly national company. The second was to connect it to Washington itself – to reach out to the city as a whole, not just be in a dance world ivory tower.

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A native Washingtonian returns to her favorite opera company and her most beloved character

By Denyce Graves

Graves as Carmen in the “Habanera” scene.

Washington-born and internationally-acclaimed mezzo soprano Denyce Graves returns to the Kennedy Center November 8-16 to reprise the character of Carmen, the hedonistic gypsy who’s tragic love affair with the jealous Don José forms the plot of Georges Bizet’s eponymous opera. Graves reflects on her return to Washington, her feelings about the fiery heroine’s character, and her unique passion for this classic operatic work.

I’ve had the great privilege to perform in some of the world’s prestigious opera houses, and I’m often asked, “Where is your favorite place to sing?” My answer is always the same: “The Washington National Opera.” Now, it’s true that Washington is my hometown; I began singing here in churches and later in the Duke Ellington Performing Arts School, so I am a bit biased. But there is no place that is as warm and accepting as Washington – it touches me in my very center. Washington has given me so much, and each homecoming is more delicious than the last.

I have been engaged many times by WNO in such roles as Maddalena in Rigoletto, Delilah in Samson and Delilah, Nicklausse in The Tales of Hoffmann, and most recently as Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle. But like my hometown, it is the role of Carmen that I return to again and again.

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