Edward Gero and Nancy Opel in Ford Theatre’s upcoming production of ‘Hello Dolly.’ (Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy Ford’s)
For local LGBT theatergoers, the spring season promises a wide selection of both fresh and familiar offerings, some light and others more compelling.
At Arena Stage, Robert O’Hara is directing “The Mountaintop” (March 29-May12), playwright Katori Hall’s “bold reimagining of the last night of the historic life of Dr. Martin Luther King.” Talented, multifaceted and gay, O’Hara is currently playwright in residence at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Arena (arenastage.org) is also mounting gay playwright Jon Robin Baitz’s newest play “Other Desert Cities” (April 26-May 26). While spending Christmas at the beige Palm Springs home of her aging Reaganite power couple parents, fragile adult daughter Brooke drops a bomb — she’s writing a tell-all memoir. Complications ensue. The New York Times’ Ben Brantley compared “Other Desert Cities” to sophisticated plays from the past. It’s like those “literate, thoughtful, well-tailored topical dramas in which people spoke with a fluency, wittiness and sense of timing we only wished we could command in real life.”
This spring will age MaryBeth Wise far beyond her years. She’s cast to play Mary in Round House Theatre’s (roundhousetheatre.org) production of “How to Write a New Book for the Bible” (April 10-May 5), playwright Bill Cain’s autobiographical work about a man who returns home to care for his dying mother. “It’s kind of a memory play,” says Wise, who is gay. “My part requires going from age 40 to 80, and back and forth.” She predicts a “funny and intense journey.” Ryan Rilette is directing.
Triple threat Bobby Smith will be spending a lot of time at Arlington’s Signature Theatre (signature-theatre.org) in the coming months. First, Smith (who is gay) plays Peter, a possibly gay man living happily with ex-wife Susan in Eric Schaeffer’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” (May 21-June 30), the award-winning musical about a marriage-phobic bachelor’s search for meaning. The show’s spectacular score includes “Being Alive,” “Side By Side,” “Little Things You Do Together,” “Another Hundred People” and “Ladies Who Lunch.”
And this summer, Smith is evil Richard Riddle in Signature’s “Spin,” a world premiere musical based on a Korean cult classic titled “Speedy Scandal.” Smith describes his character as a sort of Rex Reed-style gossip columnist villain.
At MetroStage (metrostage.org) in Alexandria, John Vreeke is directing “Ghost Writer” (April 25-June 2). When a famed novelist drops dead mid-sentence, his typist, Myra (Susan Lynskey), continues writing his unfinished book as if taking dictation from the great beyond. MetroStage’s artistic director Carolyn Griffin says Vreeke, who is gay, is brilliant at finding “the perfect tone and balance for gemlike plays with delicate scripts in which very special relationships are portrayed.”
At Folger Theatre on Capitol Hill (folger.edu), prolific gay set designer Tony Cisek is again collaborating with British director Robert Richmond — this time on Shakespeare’s gender bending comedy “Twelfth Night” (April 30-June 9). The cast features local favorites including Joshua Morgan (also gay) as Valentine, the gentleman attendant to Duke Orsino.
In Tysons Corner, 1st Stage (1ststagespringhill.org) is presenting gay playwright John Logan’s “Never the Sinner” (March 22-April 14), an erotically fraught telling of the real life Leopold and Loeb case in which a pair of affluent Chicago teenagers attempt to commit the perfect murder. The talented Jeremy Skidmore directs.
As part of the Kennedy Center’s Nordic Cool 2013 (a month-long celebration of Scandinavian culture), Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre is presenting the U.S. premiere of “Fanny and Alexander” (March 7-9), its much ballyhooed stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s beautiful Oscar-winning feature film.
Also coming to the Kennedy Center: “The Guardsman” (May 25-June 23), a revival of the 1920s Broadway comedy hit that starred the famed married acting team Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne as game-playing newlywed actors. Known for years as the first family of the American theater, Lunt and Fontanne, both gay, were married primarily for reasons of business and friendship. (kennedy-center.org)
On the Ides of March, Ford’s Theatre (in co-production with Signature) is rolling out that musical comedy chestnut “Hello Dolly!” (March 15-May 18) (fordstheatre.org). Based on gay playwright Thornton Wilder’s comedy “The Matchmaker,” the 1964 fun musical boasts a memorable score by gay composer Jerry Herman that includes enduring tunes like “Before the Parade Passes By,” and, of course, “Hello, Dolly!” The title role — most notably performed by Carol Channing in New York and on tour for what seems several centuries, and Barbra Streisand on the silver screen — will be played by Broadway veteran Nancy Opel. Terrific local actor Edward Gero is cast as Dolly’s grumpy romantic quarry Horace Vandergelder. Signature’s gay artistic director Eric Schaeffer is directing.
Philip Fletcher is taking on the lead role of the wronged Prospero in Synetic Theater’s (synetictheater.org) “The Tempest” (through March 24), the ninth installment of the fabulously innovative movement based company’s “Silent Shakespeare” series. Fletcher, who’s gay, won a Helen Hayes Award for his outstanding supporting actor effort as one of three witches in Synetic’s “Macbeth.”
Olney Theatre Center (olneytheatre.org) is mounting Jeff Talbott’s racially charged comedy “The Submission” (May 9-June 9). Here’s the premise: Using the pen name Shaleeha G’ntamobi, a nascent gay white playwright writes a about a black family dealing with ghetto life. When his play is selected to be produced by a prestigious theater festival, the playwright hires a black actress to stand in for him. Guess what? Things don’t go smoothly.
