Skip to main content
THE WHITE SNAKE
The White Snake is the love story of a white snake with magical powers who turns into a mortal woman and comes down to earth from her thousand year home on a mountain top.  She meets and marries a humble pharmacist assistant and together they start a thriving herbal medicine business,  have a lovely home and are about to have their first child —all the ingredients of an ordinary happy life.  
Unbelievable as ancient epic legends go?   On stage at Constellation Theatre, Eunice Bae as the White Snake and Jacob Yeh as the humble XuXian bring the ancient Chinese legend to real life, where true love and devotion never get old.
Momo Nuakumura is Green Snake,  the White Snake’s faithful companion, who moves the story along to keep everything together while Ryan Sellers plays the vengeful nasty monk who seeks to tear the lovers apart.  
The production features multiple delights for the ears and eyes:  performance by Chinese dulcimer virtuoso Chao Tian,  sumptuous Chinese garments by costume designer Frank Laovitz,  captivating ensemble based-movements featuring a climatic sea battle complete with Cloud and Water spirits by choreographer Jennifer J. Hopkins  and endearing puppets designed by  Matthew Pauli. 
The stellar team of Allison Arkell Stockman as director of Mary Zimmerman adaptation of the ancient Chinese legend and world renowned Tom Teasley who composed the original music give this show its astronomical rating in the galaxy of Constellation hits. 
The White Snake  with its powerful message of transformation and transcendence through love runs to May 26, 2019 at Source, located at 1835 14th Street NW, Washington DC 20009. Tickets can be purchased online at www.ConstellationTheatre.org or over the phone at (202) 204-7741.
PHOTO CREDIT: AJGuban




Popular posts from this blog

  Once is here again!   The Brooklyn Gallery Players reach into the treasure chest of great musicals to bring Once alive and on stage in Brooklyn (until to December 17, 2023). Director Mark Gallagher , and Music Directors David Fletcher and Brendon McCray have crafted a vibrant production, seamlessly integrating the 15 member cast in roles  as both actors and musicians. Set in Dublin, the  formula for the poignant love triangle  is simple. Patrick Newhart  plays Guy, an Irish musician who has given up  on love as he sings the award winning classic  Falling.  Newhart mastered the bombastic busking guitar style and performed each of his songs with intensity and passion Sophie Smith-Brody  is Girl,  a Czech woman  who will inspire him to try again both in  love and with music. Smith-Brody performed each of her disparate songs with aplomb,  from the opening classical piece to her plaintive solos – If You Want...
  Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando — sparkling wit and ageless wisdom —   at   Constellation Theatre — gone but not forgotten In Virginia Woolf’s Orlando A Biography ,  the eponymous hero undergoes many changes over the centuries— from roles in society and relationships to sex change.  Since the time travel gender bending work was published in 1928, this his/her story has continued to undergone adaptions to its original form, from analytical scholarly critiques to crowd pleasing  movies and stage plays.  Constellation Theatre Company continued  the tradition with its amazing presentation of Sarah Ruhl’s narrative play Orlando .    Five actors  take on dozens of roles as characters or in the  chorus to keep the story at its rapid pace,  condensing events spanning almost five centuries into 100 minutes.   Orlando (Mary Myers) is  ever the aristocrat whether as a page in the court of  Queen Elizabeth I (Alan Naylor)...
From EUGENE ONEGIN  to  DER ROSENKAVALIER  (Or Everything you want to know about love is at the MET OPERA) Great music and great literature meet on a great stage at the Met Opera’s production of Eugene Onegin on the big screen on April 25, 2017.  The words are Pushkin’s from his  Russian novel-poem.  The music is by Tchaikovsky  for what he termed “lyrical scenes.” Tchaikovsky’s music is forever embedded in our consciousness  with his fantasy ballets like  Nutcracker   and Swan Lake .   Pushkin’s work has provided the inspiration for dozens of musical works, including another famous Russian opera, Boris Godunov.     This team of Tchaikovsky and Pushkin is a sure thing but while there are many scholarly interpretations of Pushkin’s work, there is none that so gets it at its core as this opera. Using the very words from Pushkin’s poem,  Tchaikovsky built the opera through a series of powerful co...