Royal Blood: The heart of the play is Love

ROYAL BLOOD
ONWARD HO PRODUCTIONS
(AT WEST OF LENIN)
Through April 4

Cast of "Royal Blood": Merat and Love front, Hsieh in tie, Nelson and Moore on upper step (photo by Chris Bennion)

 
Royal Blood is a new play by local Seattle playwright Sonya Schneider and she believes in it so deeply that she and her husband have self-produced it in grand style. Directed by capable director, Laurel Pilar Garcia, with a terrific and accomplished cast, they have also invested in a marvelous set by Jennifer Zeyl, beautifully rendered costumes by Anastasia Armes, exquisite sound and music design by Robertson Witmer and well-crafted lighting by Evan Anderson.

Overall, this is a highly successful production. It focuses on a pretty dysfunctional family and an unfolding of some secrets, but almost all the revelations are earned, and the relationships and choices are clear and ones we might identify with in our own families. The members of this family deeply want to feel 'special.'

As the play begins, a woman we will realize is somewhat mentally challenged digs a hole in the wonderfully detailed backyard set, in real sod, to bury her dog, Lady Di. Deb (Amy Love) looks up from her labors to find her sister, Dorothy (Mari Nelson), has come home from Europe and Deb thinks Dorothy has been brought home due to the dog's death. In fact, Dorothy has come to bury their brother Leo, but their father Cliff (Todd Jefferson Moore) has not yet told Deb of Leo's death.

It's easy to identify with Dorothy's desire to be independent of a challenged little sister, to have tried to leave and make a successful life on her own. It's a little less easy to accept that Dorothy might be on the verge of leaving behind her 16 year-old daughter, Cassiopeia (Nicole Merat), though her ex-husband is apparently a decent father. But then Dorothy learns that her father has cancer and the stakes become much higher.

We also learn that Leo committed suicide and that he had a lover, Adam (David Hsieh), though his homosexuality lies uneasily with Cliff. Cliff is an uncomfortable, though believable, character who is also racist and loves to sarcastically tease his family. Moore handles all of that thoroughly and well, not letting us like him as he struggles to deal with how to manage this new illness.

Nelson, an assured veteran of stages such as the Rep and ACT, holds everything together just like the older sister should, and makes it clear how burdened and uncertain she is, though never displaying her vulnerability to her family. Merat is terrific as the headstrong and difficult and brilliant young girl, ably portraying the know-it-all attitudes and emotional outbursts of that age. Hsieh is restrained and formal in a role that is the least well-rounded of the play.

But the heart of the play is Love in a beautiful portrayal of an older woman who has been sheltered and protected from life while longing to be 'normal.' The title comes from the family's supposed descent from the British Spencer Family, the one that Princess Di came from, and Deb lives out the fantasies of their dead mother, dressing in clothing that would be appropriate on Jackie Kennedy or movie stars. Her quirky obsession with movies provides a unifying through-line and some of the best laughs.

A mentally-challenged character still rarely shows up on stage, and this is a great character. Her fate, with her father sick, is definitely a problem anyone can relate to. The dialogue of the play is smart and virtually all the issues raised in the play are wrapped up by the end. In fact, there are almost too many issues and almost too much neat wrapping up! The second act could be strengthened by judicious pruning of a few problems and maybe even leaving one or two unsolved for now.

It's definitely a solid work and an absorbing evening of storytelling. Sometimes around here, you just have to do it yourself, if it's going to get done. Do yourself and Sonya a favor and go see her show. You'll be glad you did!

For more information, go to Brown Paper Tickets or http://www.onwardhoproductions.com/ or call 800-838-3006.

Time to saddle up for Moisture Festival’s annual appearance on Capitol Hill

(courtesy Buckaroos USA)

(As posted on Capitol Hill Seattle Blog)

It’s time for the Moisture Festival, Seattle’s annual cabaret of comedy, dance and burlesque that spread its wings to include Capitol Hill in 2012 and has been coming back ever since. Since 2004, the Festival has presented a month of events around town in the early spring. This year, the venues include the Festival’s “home” site of Hale’s Palladium, a performance at Teatro Zinzanni, and a solid block of performances at the Broadway Performance Hall, March 28-April 13. This year, there’s a new show in town on the Hill and some big screen action you might want to check out.

“I’m a straight football player who started dancing later in life,”  Jonathan Betchtel tells CHS about Buckaroos USA, a new addition to the Moisture lineup. “I started dancing late in high school and went to Cornish for modern and ballet training. I’m kind of obsessed with masculinity on stage and how to make it comedic, and it can be nude and fun and outrageous at the same time.”

Most of the performances at BPH will be of the 18+ burlesque, um, variete — though, there will be two all-ages Sunday afternoon performances that also will include fundraisers for The Backbone Campaign and The School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts.

The schedule of performances can be found here.

The one-night performance by Buckaroos USA is Thursday April 3, at Broadway Performance Hall. The Buckaroos were formed last summer after Betchtel, a dancer at the Can Can, mulled how the venue had become an unintentional destination for bachelor and bachelorette parties. He thought that “there could be something bigger and more spectacle-based that fit that genre and that need.”

It was out of that exploration of comedy and masculinity that he came up with the idea of cowboy strippers. While, perhaps, not the first time anybody had thought of that, Betchtel thought it could be done funny and not too raunchy.

“It’s always my intention to make it a really fun night and never shock someone passed enjoying themselves,” Betchtel said.

“There’s a lot of trial and error as we try to learn the moves. Kind of a cliché sports montage mixed with a male stripping group.”

(See a video of their act: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scR71MrSc5Y)

“We’re very honored to be included in the Festival. We’re very new to the scene in this entity and so we’re excited to be a part of it,” Betchtel said.

Another special event is the showing of Burlesque Assassins at Central Cinema, April 10 at 8:00 pm. You can get tickets here.

The film showing, which has played around the world, will feature star Armitage Shanks in attendance. “A trio of femme fatales and Superspies, led by hero Johnny Valentine are a beautiful, deadly, and vital weapon in the war against tyranny, injustice and freedom. The Burlesque Assassins use the feminine charms of the dancehall to lure their way within striking distance of top ranking members of the evil regime. Witness the carnage and the cleavage as they embark on a mission to save the world from the brink of destruction. Their mission: SEDUCE AND DESTROY.” Sign us up.

You can learn more at moisturefestival.com.

SHOWTUNES showcases the music with Cole Porter’s ‘High Society’

Matt Giles, Danielle Barnum, Jared Michael Brown in "High Society" (photo Chris Bennion)

SHOWTUNES is coming! Yup, their next production is at Benaroya Hall, March 29 at 8:00pm and March 30 at 2:00pm. You only have two chances to participate in the fun. They are the folks that choose older musicals no one is likely to fully stage any time soon, and they put on a concert version. They love to choose musicals with great music and High Society is definitely one that fits that bill.

David Hunter Koch directs and Mark Rabe music directs with a young, energetic cast including Danielle Barnum (Tracy Lord), Jared Michael Brown (Dexter Haven), Matt Giles (Mike Connor), John X. Deveney (Uncle Willy), Katherine Strohmaier (Liz Imbrie), Matthew Posner (George Kittredge), Analiese Guettinger (Dinah Lord), Valerie Piacenti (Margaret Lord), and Paul Klein (Seth Lord) with Mallory King, Marissa Ryder and Mike Spee rounding out the Ensemble.

High Society is based on the play The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry. There was a 1956 MGM movie musical made starring Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. A stage musical version of High Society opened on Broadway in 1998 with a book by Arthur Kopit. Some of Cole Porter songs you might know are: Just One of Those Things, Let’s Misbehave, and It’s All Right With Me.

It’s the 1930s and Long Island socialite Tracy Lord is planning a summer wedding to new beau George when her ex-husband Dexter turns up and disrupts the proceedings.  Similar to society/celebrity weddings today, a nosey magazine reporter and photographer are trying to get an exclusive scoop. 

I think we all know what “high society” meant in the ‘30s, with the focus being on the East Coast and the rich who party. Does is mean the same thing today? It seems like today, the focus has shifted toward celebrities, only, though a few rich young people turn into celebrities (think Paris and Nicki Hilton). Usually we mean movie and television stars, and sometimes sports stars.

Wikipedia tells us that “Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage.” In the 1930s, then, he would have been part of “high society” and his musical would reflect some insider knowledge.

After a very bad horseback riding accident, he wasn’t able to continue his string of hits, until finally giving us Kiss Me Kate in 1948. In fact, Kiss Me Kate won the very first Tony Award for a musical!

Cole’s mother, Kate Cole, had been raised as a wealthy child of the richest man in Indiana, with the best of everything, and her father expected her to marry wealth. Instead, she married a druggist, Sam Porter! Luckily, Kate’s father still thought Kate deserved the best and supported her and her family as it expanded to include Cole.

Cole went to Yale, where he even wrote some “fight” songs for their sport teams that are still used today. He also wrote full scale musical productions for the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and the Yale Dramatic Association.

Defying his grandfather, after Cole enrolled at Harvard Law, he switched to an arts and music focus. His mother always fully supported his music career, and often covered for him to distract his grandfather from his activities. Eventually he abandoned Harvard and moved to New York City to continue writing musicals.

After college, Porter was well known as a gay man and, similarly to many others of that time (Moms Mabley made her lesbianism part of her comedy act without much controversy), that aspect didn’t appear to derail his successes. He was a wealthy young man who attended all the highest society parties.

In 1917, he moved to Paris and while continuing his social exuberance, he was able to claim “war hero” status on this side of the water, making up stories of working with the French Foreign Legion. The parties could be said to be pre-cursors to those of rock-and-roll bands: sex (of many varieties), drugs, and music.

By 1919, he began a long association with divorced American, Linda Thomas. They became great friends and a useful partnership when he married her as a kind of business arrangement. They remained married until her death in 1954. The marriage helped protect his reputation when cultural shifts made his gay lifestyle less palatable to the public.

Other Cole Porter musicals include Anything Goes, Can-Can and Silk Stockings. Songs we know, even if we have never seen his musicals, include popular singles Night and Day, I Get a Kick Out of You, I've Got You Under My Skin, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, You're the Top and You'd Be So Easy to Love.

For tickets or more information, go to www.showtunestheatre.org/ or here or call (206) 215-4747.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater coming to town in April ~ Dancers Antonio and Kirven Douthit-Boyd discuss getting married

 

Antonio and Kirven Douthit-Boyd at their wedding (courtesy the Douthit-Boyds)

One of Seattle's favorite dance companies is the celebrated Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Next month, April 11-13, you can see them at The Paramount Theatre. (Friday/Saturday 8:00p.m., Sunday 2:00p.m.) And yes, they will be performing their extraordinary signature piece, Revelations, at each of their three performances.


On Friday and Sunday, they will also perform The River, a dance that came out of Alvin Ailey's collaboration with Duke Ellington. This is the only symphonic score Ellington wrote for dance. It has been returned to repertory after a gap of about seven years. Also on Friday and Sunday, the company presents D-Man in the Waters (Part 1), a company premiere, created by choreographer Bill T. Jones in 1989 for his company The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. New artistic director Robert Battle is excited to have Jones work with the Ailey dancers again. The piece is a modern dance classic inspired by the AIDS crisis and a dancer struggling with his health during the creation of the work.


On Saturday, they will perform Ronald K. Brown's Grace, which begins and ends with Duke Ellington's 'Come Sunday' and includes Fela Kuti's music and Roy Davis, among others. The other piece will be Minus 16 by acclaimed Israeli choreographer, Ohad Naharin, described as a roller coaster ride, changing dramatically from section to section and involving improvisation. Music in the piece includes everything from 'Hooray for Hollywood' to Vivaldi and 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.'


30 dancers are in the company. Including the artistic director, associate director, rehearsal director, stage management, a physical therapist, lighting people, etc., 45-48 people travel together on the road. Dancers Antonio and Kirven Douthit-Boyd are two company members who got married last year in New York City.


Antonio said, in an interview with me, "We were together eight years before we got married. It was kind of funny because we woke up one morning on tour and thought, 'Hey, we want to get married.' So we just did it, and we didn't think about DOMA. It was just because we loved each other and thought it was the next step."


Kirven added, "We got married in New York at the City Clerk's office and threw a big party at the (Ailey) Studio afterwards. We didn't have to second guess if it was legal or not."


Antonio described their family relations. "His family is an amazing group of people and I love them. His family and my family spent the last three holiday seasons together, and my mom calls Kirven more than she calls me. So, it's been a good year."


Describing their wedding day, he added, "The day was more than I wanted it to be. You know how if it rains, it's good luck? We had a tropical storm on our wedding day. My mother was travelling in (to New York) that day, and everyone made it, but we were worried people might not make it. If that was good luck, we're blessed!" he laughs.


Antonio acknowledged, "I still know people in Missouri who want to get married, but they have to go to a different state or not get married because the laws say you can't marry the same sex." Antonio and Kirven were happy to be able to take the next step in their relationship without worrying whether they could do it on their timetable or not.


Antonio Douthit-Boyd grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and began his dance training at 
age 16. He trained at North Carolina School of the Arts, the Joffrey Ballet School, San Francisco Ballet, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem School. Mr. Douthit-Boyd became a member of Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1999 and joined the Ailey company in 2004.


Kirven Douthit-Boyd is from Boston, Massachusetts. Kirven said, "I saw Ailey for the first time when I was in high school in Boston. I was 13. And right away I knew I wanted to dance Ailey." Antonio said that one of the highlights for him of being a part of Ailey is the outreach they do to schools. Kirven clearly was the beneficiary of that outreach in earlier years.


Kirven described, "It was literally a dream come true. I never thought that dance like that was possible. I didn't know how to access it and tried to learn as many areas of dance so I could collect as many skills as I needed to be able to audition for Ailey." He joined Boston Youth Moves in 1999 and also trained at the Boston Conservatory and at The Ailey School. He joined the Ailey company in 2004.


Kirven said, "I got into the company when I was 19. I still had things to learn and was very receptive to all of it and I'm still here, learning. I love the challenge in the diversity of the repertoire. That's one of the greatest things. I've had so many experiences with so many choreographers that I know who I would love to work with in the future. I've also learned about myself as a part of dance and reflect on what I'm able to achieve now and what I was able to achieve when I got into the company (and the change) is incredible to me."


The Douthit-Boyds reported that there are two other couples in the company, currently, and they might be the luckiest of the company. The company spends four months a year travelling in the United States (roughly January through May) and another four travelling around Europe (in the fall). So, those who can stay together in the company might be less lonely than the ones who have to leave loved ones for so much of a year.


While they are focused on being the best dancers they can be, they are aware that dance has an inevitable end date. Antonio said, "Part of the reason we made the decision to get married was because of the other decisions we were planning on 'life after dance' and there's something to be said for loving someone so much that has the same life plan. We're either staying in New York or moving to St. Louis where I am from. We both want to run a dance institution and that's in our heads, but we're working on being the best dancers we can be while we're under contract with Ailey."


Having traveled to so many places, they must have their favorites and Antonio immediately said, "Seattle is one of my favorite stops. The city is amazing. It's laid back and progressive at the same time. It's not so hustle, hustle like New York."
For more information on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and their upcoming appearance in Seattle, go to www.stgpresents.org or www.alvinailey.org or call 206-682-1414. 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Bill T. Jones' D-Man in the Waters (Part 1) (Photo by Paul Kolnik)

'Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking' a great one-night show at ECA

Courtesy "Forbidden Broadway"

If you haven’t yet been out to Edmonds and attended any of the multitude of entertainments at their now 6-year-old revamped performance venue, Edmonds Center for the Arts (ECA), you can get on their mailing list. It’s at 401 4^th Avenue North, just north of Main Street in downtown Edmonds. They claim that they’ve hosted over 1,000 events there in the last six years!

A recent event at ECA was a one-night presentation of Forbidden Broadway. Forbidden Broadway has been around in various spoofy variations for some years. This particular iteration is subtitled: Alive and Kicking.

Creator Gerard Alessandrini keeps it updated, adding new jokes and newly skewered musicals as they debut on Broadway. It’s won a number of award from New York-centric award organizations, like Drama Critics’ Circle, and the Obie. Some of the actors cast in it have gone on to star in other Broadway shows or television and movies. Alessandrini started the whole thing off in 1982.

The production at ECA on March 15^th starred Gina Kreiezmar, Kevin B. McGlynn, Craig Laurie, and Jeanne Montano. The pianist/music director was Catherine Stornetta. Kreiezmar has been part of the fun since 1992. She showed amazing versatility as a mimic when she sang like Patti Lupone, Ethel Merman, Liza Minelli and Mary Poppins.

Montano, another veteran of FB versions, also had some great moments of mimicry as she took on Sarah Brightman and Fantine from Les Miserables – in an extended funny skit about Les Miz where they pretended they were whirled around the stage on the circling set. Laurie and McGlynn also amped up the fun with spoofs of The Lion King (the circle of mice), Beauty and the Beast, Oklahoma, Yoko Ono, Mandy Patinkin, Avenue Q puppets, Chicago, Jersey Boys, the Book of Mormon and Once.

Each of the two short acts was full of jokes about banal storylines, producers focused more on making money than on making good shows, and creating jokes that musical theater insiders could love to laugh at. Stornetta kept the music coming as the one-person band.

It was a top-notch production and a shame that it was only resident for the one evening. That is often the case with performances at ECA, so if this is the kind of fare you like, you’d do well to attend to the calendar of events or the emails to make sure you get to see those one-night offerings.

For more information, go to www.ec4arts.org or call 425-275-9595.

Remember Milli Vanilli? If you see Girl You Know It's True, you will!

Andrew Lee Creech and Corey Spruill as Rob and Fab (photo by Ian Johnston)

Girl You Know It’s True

Theatre Off Jackson

Through April 5

Warning: If you see this show, Milli Vanilli songs WILL get stuck in your head! Especially if you grew up with them. The Stay Up Late Show and Theatre Off Jackson are co-producing Girl You Know It’s True by Bixby Elliot. If you’ve seen Milli Vanilli, Rob and Fab will make you die laughing. If you have never seen them, this production will introduce you to why it’s so funny that they are intertwined in this play.

The play focuses on a playwright trying desperately to get some recognition for his writing (suspiciously named Bixby) and his husband who really thinks the writing is a “hobby” but doesn’t want to hurt Bixby’s feelings. Bixby gets desperate enough that he starts submitting his work with different personas, and the one of Sid, an African-American lesbian, gets the attention from a prominent New York company that Bixby has been craving.

So, Bixby hires an African-American actress to play the part of his alter-ego playwright Sid to meet the theater-folk and get him the contract. She is so successful at the charade that her own ego gets involved and she thinks she can write the next play herself!

It’s very easy to understand that frustration, and an award-winning movie encapsulates that same idea. Tootsie walks very similar pathways toward lying to get ahead and what happens when it actually works. The production, here, is very fun, with some major talent, though the script is a bit over-written and a good slimming spa treatment would do it a world of good.

Along with the basic story, we get the real history of Milli Vanilli from their unmasking, backward through their winning of the Grammy, back to how they started lip-syncing songs in the first place. Andrew Lee Creech and Corey Spruill do fantastic work as the duo, though Creech (Rob) gets the most personality. They are called upon to recreate period choreography (with help from Diana Cardiff) to great effect. And are costumed outrageously well by Scarlett O’Hairdye.

Just to hammer home the point, various frauds are introduced, like Christophe Rocancourt who claimed to be a Rockefeller and scammed his way into millions of dollars, Laura Albert who wrote as a man, JT LeRoy, and was sued for signing her pen name to a contract, and celebrated jazz musician Billy Tipton (Dorothy Lucille Tipton). Barbi Beckett, back on stage, thankfully, after a hiatus to “produce people,” gets the job of portraying multiple characters who are not as they seem.

The strong cast is headed by Ian Bell, who plays the somewhat hapless Bixby, with Andrew Tasakos as his almost-caring husband. Rebecca M. Davis plays the down-on-her-luck actor who lets success go to her head. Josh List and Daniel Christensen do some hilarious work as various characters and Michael Blaylock and Scott Shoemaker have an unfortunate role that wastes their time and confuses the ending. Many of these fine folks work with Ian and his Brown Derby movie spoofs.

A terrific minimalist set by Robin Macartney takes curtains to a whole new level of utility. Burlap with a few pops of color and we can go around the world. Sound support by Ed Hawkins and lights by Patti West provide the rest of the transformations. Directing honors are also by Ed Hawkins.

The overall effect, especially with interludes about Milli Vanilli, is a very fun evening. You might want to avail yourself of the specialized drinks they’ve prepared at TOJ to make it even funnier. They can help you forget that the script is heavy-handed, and maybe encourage you to just sing along.

For more information, go to www.theatreoffjackson.org or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/518052 or call 800-838-3006.