Sharpenicity

Washington Stage Guild’s production of Gulf View Drive, with its characters close up and as intimate as our own families, is done with both honesty and grace —this is live theater at its best. Larger than their individual concerns in Gulf View Drive at Washington Stage Guild are the deluge of changes coming in the decade the characters inhabit in the 1950s.   While in the background are the corny culture symbols of the 50s ( Queen for a Day quiz show on television with four women with a sob story:), what looms in the decade ahead are confrontations:   McCarthyism, blatant racism and sexism as well as the post trauma of returning World War II veterans.   Their immediate tasks are the personal worries set in scenes starting right after Thanksgiving and going through Christmas and Easter to Mother’s Day—all the touchstone dates of family gathering which stir up conflicts.   WSG cast works seamlessly together even as the characters are   stubbornly at o...

It may be  230 some miles from U Street to the Cotton Club in Harlem   but it will seem like you are right there at the In Series From U Street to the Cotton Club, now playing at The Source Theatre in Washington DC. DC’s musical contribution to the sound and soul of the Harlem Renaissance  unfolds through poetry and music in   this extraordinary production. And it doesn’t just tell the history, it gives the audience   a chance to experience where it all started. There’s a special tour before the play of just where some of the clubs mentioned in the musical were on the U Street corridor.   The exceptionally talented cast stars Michelle Rogers in duel roles as Little Lena.   Kasi Rogers and Mecca Rogers play her two children who find this musical legacy of their Grandma Lena in a trunk in the attic.   Sybil R. Williams script of a play with music with the inclusion of poetic texts,   weaves an operatic work of the journey o...