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theaterboy found out just

theaterboy found out just the other day:

...that the new Miss D.C. is a creature of the theater. Lisa Ferris, crowned June 14 at UDC, is a musical theater major at Catholic University. Her local credits include CUA's A Chorus Line in the winter of 2002 and Walking the Winds at Adventure Theatre the following year -- both shows directed by Michael Bobbitt, whose name you'll remember from the choreography credits of Studio's A New Brain, Bat Boy and A Class Act.

Ferris is off to Atlantic City to take a shot at the Miss America tiara in September; for now, Bobbitt reports, "we (her pageant officials and I) are trying to find a good recent Broadway song for her to sing. Soprano/belt song. Any ideas?"

Theaterboy, who's nothing if not a confirmed Ragtime queen, has already suggested "Back to Before." Anybody else got a favorite? Tell theaterboy, and he'll pass it on...

theaterboy hears: ... that

theaterboy hears:

... that D.C.'s Black Women Playwrights Group will be covering a lot of ground when it stages its 14th anniversary fundraiser this coming Monday and Tuesday. Spell No. 14 is an evening of shorts from five local playwrights -- Joy Hunter Carroll, Debbie Minter Jackson, Kelly-Marie Berry, Lois A. Wiley, and Louise V. Gray -- and the program looks pretty wide-ranging.

Jackson's Journey Home centers on a 30-year-old who's mentoring a challenging young woman even as she wrestles with the emotional legacy of an abusive mother; Wiley's HollerLula! A Letter From Home is a one-woman script featuring the gossipy Gertalou Jenkins, whose letters have plenty to say about "funerals, the stupid things people say when a loved one dies, and ... her brother, Big Country, who's 'special'..."

And let's not forget Gray's Happy Birthday: The Cake, in which a fortysomething couple comes to blows when "secret resentments are revealed" during the preparation of a birthday cake...

The show goes up Monday, June 23, at 7 p.m. at the Studio Theatre ($17 donation suggested). There's an encore the next night --same time, same place...

theaterboy sez: ... "Welcome"

theaterboy sez:

... "Welcome" -- to those of you who've just clicked the link in Ester Goldberg's weekly e-mail and are paying your first visit to theaterboy. Thanks for stopping by, and for God's sake go ahead and bookmark the page! The kids who've already staked out this playground will all play nice, I promise, and if they don't -- well, life's a bitch.

Now, read on, dig through the archives, and enjoy. And when you're done, feel free to drop theaterboy a line and tell him which bit of dish really got you going...

theaterboy almost: ... fell

theaterboy almost:

... fell off his bike this afternoon when he rode by the corner of 17th and Q streets, where David Greer was holding up a lamppost.

Greer, some of theaterboy's older friends will recall, used to do PR for Source Theatre back in the dark ages. (How dark? Well, Pat Murphy Sheehy was still running the place...) He'd moved away to New York or some such Yankee kind of place, but apparently he's back in town now. Theaterboy isn't sure yet what he's up to, but have no fear, he'll find out...

theaterboy hears: That the

theaterboy hears:

That the University of Maryland's Triumph of Love won't be the only bit of business James Magruder will be doing in the area next year. Word is that Catalyst Theater Company is planning to open its season with Turcaret, the classic Alain-René Lesage farce about an unscrupulous financier who finds himself exploited as mercilessly by the sharks in his fashionable social circle as ever he exploited anyone himself. There's sex, scandal, and silliness, not to mention a money-hungry baroness. (Sounds altogether more lively than the woefully misbegotten offering with which Catalyst wrapped its '02-'03 season.)

As things stand now, this Turcaret be the world premiere of a new Magruder translation, which updates the play to the Roaring '20s; Jesse Terrill is set to direct, and Magruder is reportedly planning on working closely with the company...

theaterboy sez: Who knew

theaterboy sez:

Who knew Dan Felton could play the bass? Carolyn Griffin, apparently; Felton will be on the Metro Stage stage with pianist/musical director Howard Breitbart for Closer Than Ever, the Maltby & Shire revue that's next up at the Alexandria house. It's a return to fertile territory for the company, which inaugurated its current digs with the same team's Starting Here, Starting Now a couple of seasons back...

theaterboy sez: My, my.

theaterboy sez:

My, my. Y'all can be a hot-headed lot.

Theaterboy hears there's evil in the air at a certain young company in a certain theatrically under-served part of town, notably between the artistic director and the director of the troupe's recently wrapped production. Seems the AD took the set designer credit in said show's program, when (an insider says) the concept was very much a collaboration between himself, the director, and the lighting guru.

Sez our source: "The [shape of the playing area] was [the director's] from the beginning, and [lighting guy] made all of the working drawings for the design and construction of the [intricately structured] platform. Other decisions were worked out by committee."

So the solo program credit apparently came as a big, honkin' surprise to everyone but the AD. Tsk, tsk...

The drama gets deeper, though: "When [AD-man] first approached [director-guy] about directing for [the fledgling group], [a certain script] was at the top of the list [director-boy] brought to the table. But the playwright's agent wouldn't grant [the company] the rights, so they eventually settled on [that just-closed, well-reviewed play] instead."

Theaterboy expects that the alternative's availability seemed like a blessing at the time.

Fast-forward to a few days before that production's opening: "[The artistic director] -- who also cast himself in the show despite the fact that he hadn't been onstage for a number of years, but that's another story -- informs [the director] that [the company] has been granted the rights for [that play director-man really, really wanted to do] for their 2003-2004 season."

The catch? "[The AD] has already hired another director to put up the show, even though [the now-peeved director-guy] is the one who brought the script to [the company's] attention."

As theaterboy's readers might well imagine, there was a veritable river of ill-will between the two for the run of that production -- and word is the boys still aren't on speaking terms...

theaterboy sez: What are

theaterboy sez:

What are they putting in the water at Everyman Theatre?

"Quite independently," writes a mole, "two members of the acting company at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore have tied the knot." Last Friday, it seems, Kyle Prue eloped to Florida with his long-time girlfriend, actress Megan Anderson, where vows were reportedly exchanged on the beach with family in attendance.

And just yesterday, actress Deborah Hazlett, currently starring in Jennifer L. Nelson's production of The Pavilion at Everyman, spent her day off doing the Justice of the Peace thing with her long-time beau, playwright John Kim. Actor R. Scott Williams witnessed the ceremony...

theaterboy sez: Was yakking

theaterboy sez:

Was yakking it up in the Shakespeare Theatre lobby Sunday night with Sara Gruber, who still seemed pretty jazzed about her springtime outing. She spent a week in May in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe? Sure. Anmarie McDonald, a playwright and former Shakespeare Theatre publicist who spent a couple of years in that Southern African country, asked Gruber to take a part in her new play Pillow Cases at the Harare International Festival of the Arts. Gruber's boss, Shakespeare Theatre PR chief Barry Colfelt, "was very supportive and gave me the eight days off from my job."

"I left on Wednesday, April 23, and arrived (two red-eye flights later) in Zim on Friday morning, April 25. That afternoon I met the rest of the cast, including a man from England who was playing my brother and a Zimbabwean man who was playing my lover. By Tuesday, we had a show up.

On Wednesday, Anmarie, Jillian Reilly (co-playwright) and the cast lead a workshop on writing plays about AIDS. Thursday night was our final show, then I had Friday and Saturday to bum around the festival. I saw seven other plays, including Born African, a fabulous three-man show that went to Edinburgh and toured the US."

Hmmm. Theaterboy has never been to HIFA, and he's not sure how his travel schedule lines up with that company's, but he remembers smooching one of those Over the Edge boys at some point. The details are hazy; musta been quite a party.

But we digress. "On Sunday, May 4, I flew out of Zim and (two all-day flights later) landed in DC on Monday, May 5," Gruber says -- "just in time to get dolled up for the Helen Hayes Awards. I was pretty out of it and relied on my escort, Michael John Casey, to keep me standing." (Do you know MJ? He's the one who just got that "love letter" review from Dolores Gregory at the Post for his work in Project Y's "White Biting Dog.")

"Anyway," Gruber sez, "Anmarie (who's now living in London) sends her love to all here and hopefully she'll return for a visit soon..."

theaterboy sez: Looks like

theaterboy sez:

Looks like home-grown hero Ethan McSweeny can put another substantial notch in his belt. The New York Times throws his production of The Persians a big fat bouquet today...