theaterboy®

Race-Baiting! Political Opportunism! Child Exploitation!

OK, so it's actually just another attempt at guerilla theater-marketing: Charter Theatre honcho Keith Bridges stars (alongside actor-playwright Chris Stezin) in a 7-minute drama about why Charter won't be staging Richard Washer's Quartet, originally announced for the new-play specialists' January-February slot.

Watch (agog) as Bridges explains his emergency back-up plan to his 3-year-old daughter Rosie: "Sweetie, papa has a brilliant idea. He's going to save his theater company by inviting Barack Obama to come see his next play, called Am I Black Enough Yet? Isn't that brilliant?"

Viz:

Choice moment: an "outtake," toward the end, where Bridges tries to get wee Rosie to pimp the Charter website. She's so over it that she won't even wave bye-bye when he finally gives up.

Backstory: Charter lost one of the cast members for Quartet — a play that was already "a tough sell," according to Stezin. (It's not a comedy. It's "a low-key, thoughtful piece," and its musically-inspired structure is anything but orthodox.)

"Bad mojo started to pile up," Stezin says, and with every theater in town having trouble putting butts in seats, a postponement seemed the best thing for Quartet. And as the company's leadership talked about replacements, they realized that Am I Black Enough Yet?, a 2007 hit, "wasn't just our best selling show last season — but our best-selling show ever," Stezin says.

And so, a revival. And, coming down the pipe: More episodes of Charter's serialized YouTube drama. And with any luck, a newly elected special guest and his family in the good seats.

"You can always dream," Stezin says. "We'd love to get the attention of somebody on the Obama campaign."

Because Tboy's Not Dead, Only Resting ...

... he will sometimes emerge from his cave to share delightful artifacts like this, which was brought to his attention by Luke Burbank, Matt Martinez and the team at NPR's Bryant Park Project:

Tboy has decided to be nice today.

Which is why he's not going to name names.

But he is going to giggle, just the tiniest bit, about how cute it was to see two notable D.C.-based actor-types standing outside the National Theatre stage door last night, jittery as schoolkids, waiting nervously for Cherry Jones to come out so they could tell her how much they love her.

Tboy, as you may recall, has a little Cherry Jones crush, too, so let's make it clear he's not actually sneering here. He's just poking a little fun.

And in celebration of crushes in general, and Cherry Jones in particular, he offers this, the first segment of what would appear to be a nice, long, terribly written TV melodrama with Jones and Brooke Shields as a Florida couple whose child becomes the focus of a legal battle after Jones dies and Shields forgets how to act.

Bonus: Anne Meara plays Jones' mommy ...

Today on YouTube ...

"Everyone's a Little Bit Jewish," featuring the combined casts of Avenue Q and Fiddler, from a Broadway Cares benefit.  Courtesy of Tboy's friend Matt, who certifies it as both kosher and "the funniest thing ever."

Today on YouTube ...

More Around Town. More Tboy in the gray sweatery-fleecy getup.

Not that we tape these all at the same time, or anything.

(I should really take a change of clothes ...)

Bonus offering from Wee Jane: Her take on Synetic's take on the Scottish play ...

Today on YouTube ...

Around Town does Into the Woods.

If there's a slight tinge of jealousy in the air, it's because Signature has moved up to the fancy new space, but WETA's TV studio is still on the wrong side of the creek over thar in Shirlington.

So Tboy still has to drive by (and risk the temptations of) the Weenie Beanie every time we go to tape these things ...

Today on YouTube ...

Oh, looky.  It's been a while since Tboy remembered to share these with y'all ...

The one above is Wee Jane and Tboy on Neil LaBute's This is How It Goes. Which, because the Zinoplex has more real estate than the federal government, is still running.

And this next one is a preview of Shakespeare in Washington.  It's mostly Michael Kahn talking about what he was after, though there is an absolutely insufferable intro featuring Tboy in the reading room of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

The scholars working below this little balcony scene explain Tboy's rather hushed tones.  There is however no explanation whatsoever for his hair.

Today on YouTube ...

... a bit of drama.

Nothing to do with the stage, you understand, except that Tboy found it on the blog of playwright Sheila Callaghan, whose We Are Not These Hands goes up at Catalyst this week.

Tboy watched, transfixed (as a deer by headlights) as the cheerful getting-ready-for-the-wedding moment is shattered by ... the arrival of the bride, come from an unsatisfactory visit to the hairdresser.

You might think at the beginning that it's gonna blow over, and they'll all laugh and toast and exeunt omnes in the direction of the church.

But no, this is more like something out of the Greeks: It's just keeps getting worse...

(Curses. Now it turns out the whole thing's faked. By a theater major, of course.)

Today on YouTube ...

... a little offering in honor of everyone's favorite musical-theater composer. Because some of you may not have gotten to Signature for Into the Woods yet.

Also because Oh, My, God.  How often do you figure these two got beat up in junior high?

Talk about agony.

No, actually Tboy loves these guys greatly -- they're complete dorks, but Tboy loves them for wanting it so badly.

But if you need a palate-cleanser, there's video of the guys from the 1990 London production over here.

Well, that was lively.

Took a night off from theater tonight, in favor of the music drama -- which is to say the opera. Except this was a concert staging of an opera, so more music than drama. Or maybe not, because there was a little minimal moving-about of people, and a surprising amount of characterization going on among the principals.

Aaaanyway.  The opera was Salome, which is roughly 3/4 of the Wilde play set to some of the noisiest and most gorgeous orchestral taffy-pulling Richard Strauss ever came up with. Which is  saying something.

Die-hard Synetic followers will remember that Tboy rather likes Salome, chiefly for its excesses. Now imagine those excesses scored for unhinged soprano and backed by a 100-piece orchestra, and you'll have a faint idea of how much fun Tboy had tonight.

Or you could just watch the big finish (in two parts):

That was La Leontyne, for those of you who never saw her onstage.  Tonight's Salome, as you may have read in last weekend's WashPo, was the su-effing-perb Debbie Voigt, which isn't the same kinda voice at all, though they're both glorious in their own way.

p.s.:  This ain't a review, so Tboy's not going to do the whole name-everybody-and-say-something-about-their-contributions thing. But the entire lineup was pretty damn good.

p.p.s: Tim Page, who's a really nice guy in addition to having a Pulitzer on his bookshelf, was there. He liked it, too.