Theatre potpourri*
For the past 15 years or so, Kennedy Center hosts each Labor Day weekend a "page to stage" festival -- dozens of local theater groups (the Washington region abounds in such entities, from minuscule to quite well established) present a gamut of their current projects.
They range from staged readings to fully cast and polished rehearsals of imminent productions.
Joanne and I have been doing it from the early "aughts" -- often spending 8-10 hours a day** happily bouncing from full-fledged musicals to small readings of all or part of a new work. (We both get frustrated that we have to choose, based on brief summaries, among 4-5 pieces running at any one time. Well, one TRIES...)
Yesterday was typical: we saw four productions -- two so good we cannot wait to see them in theaters. One was called "The Young Romantics," done by Washington Rogues (a group we've never heard of) and written by Alexandra Petri -- a musical about Lord Byron, the poet Percy Shelley and his eventual wife Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Frankenstein. Oh, and her obnoxious young step-sister Claire. They did the whole first act, and it was splendid! (Alas I didn't get the name of the young actor who played Shelley so wonderfully -- and who simultaneously played amazing piano, accompanying the rest of the cast in a half-dozen original songs.)
The other great piece is called "Strings," by Carole Bugge, from Washington's Tonic Theatre Co. It's inspired by the play "Copenhagen" by the Brit playwright Michael Frayne, which we had seen in its original London run. It involved a massive "what-if" scenario concerning German creation of an atomic bomb during WWII. Carole, whom we talked with about how she developed it, isn't a physicist (though Tonic does mainly aim to popularize such sciences) but she did learn a lot about black holes and such. Her sophisticated characters play with such exotica, but also extra-marital sex among the three contemporary physicists (and various dead ones!). It works so well.
We also caught two so-so pieces, which shall remain nameless here -- not wanting to undercut anyone's serious efforts. More tomorrow (or Tuesday, perhaps, if we stay well into evening).
______________
* Originated as French "pot pourri," literally, rotten pot -- its first use was in 1749, meaning a bowl of dried flower petals kept open in a room to provide a pleasant background scent. It soon entered English in its broader meaning of a miscellany of things in a category.
** It was all three days of the weekend for over a decade, but that's proven grueling for all concerned, and they've now cut it to the Saturday and Monday. This year they still squeeze in no fewer than 55 companies, each with its own performance of an hour or two.
They range from staged readings to fully cast and polished rehearsals of imminent productions.
Joanne and I have been doing it from the early "aughts" -- often spending 8-10 hours a day** happily bouncing from full-fledged musicals to small readings of all or part of a new work. (We both get frustrated that we have to choose, based on brief summaries, among 4-5 pieces running at any one time. Well, one TRIES...)
Yesterday was typical: we saw four productions -- two so good we cannot wait to see them in theaters. One was called "The Young Romantics," done by Washington Rogues (a group we've never heard of) and written by Alexandra Petri -- a musical about Lord Byron, the poet Percy Shelley and his eventual wife Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Frankenstein. Oh, and her obnoxious young step-sister Claire. They did the whole first act, and it was splendid! (Alas I didn't get the name of the young actor who played Shelley so wonderfully -- and who simultaneously played amazing piano, accompanying the rest of the cast in a half-dozen original songs.)
The other great piece is called "Strings," by Carole Bugge, from Washington's Tonic Theatre Co. It's inspired by the play "Copenhagen" by the Brit playwright Michael Frayne, which we had seen in its original London run. It involved a massive "what-if" scenario concerning German creation of an atomic bomb during WWII. Carole, whom we talked with about how she developed it, isn't a physicist (though Tonic does mainly aim to popularize such sciences) but she did learn a lot about black holes and such. Her sophisticated characters play with such exotica, but also extra-marital sex among the three contemporary physicists (and various dead ones!). It works so well.
We also caught two so-so pieces, which shall remain nameless here -- not wanting to undercut anyone's serious efforts. More tomorrow (or Tuesday, perhaps, if we stay well into evening).
______________
* Originated as French "pot pourri," literally, rotten pot -- its first use was in 1749, meaning a bowl of dried flower petals kept open in a room to provide a pleasant background scent. It soon entered English in its broader meaning of a miscellany of things in a category.
** It was all three days of the weekend for over a decade, but that's proven grueling for all concerned, and they've now cut it to the Saturday and Monday. This year they still squeeze in no fewer than 55 companies, each with its own performance of an hour or two.