Nova Y. Payton in Grace at Ford’s – Photo: André Chung
It’s a rare occasion at the theater, even for critics, to witness a legitimately show-stopping number.
But even before Nova Y. Payton finished singing the searing ballad “Again?” at press night of Ford’s Theatre’s World Premiere musical Grace (★★★★☆), the audience was on their feet, ready to bathe the performer in a juicy, well-earned moment of gratitude.
Had Payton launched into an immediate reprise, nobody would have minded. “Again?” is a really good song, among several composed by Nolan Williams, Jr., who also directs the fine eight-piece orchestra, and has got this ensemble cast’s vocals all the way together — save for a straggler or two.
Director-choreographer Robert Barry Fleming has likewise fit the cast together firmly in their excellent portrayal of a large extended Black family in Philadelphia gathered for the memorial of their dear, deceased matriarch, Gran’Me.
Preparing a picnic in the garden behind the family’s restaurant, Minton’s Place, a one-hundred-year tradition in the community and in their family, the Minton cousins and siblings and aunties comprise a lot of moving parts.
Backgrounded by a recently dedicated mural that rises stories above the garden, family members are in and out of the kitchen, up and down steep staircases, carrying food, serving food, eating, singing about, dancing with, and arguing about food.
All the movement and prop business looks effortless, as the cast weaves around Jason Ardizzone-West’s spare but expressive set. And the focus on all that food richly serves the book by Williams and Nikkole Salter.
A good number of Grace‘s songs also hinge on the details of food appreciation and preparation — as do a good number of family gatherings. One absolutely satisfying number, “The Gospel Bird,” is dedicated to the noble chicken that died so that cousin Haley might live.
Grace – Photo: André Chung
Haley lives robustly and warmly in Arica Jackson’s performance, which finds the right frequency of funny, salty, and lovable, to top off a glorious voice. She and her castmates broil that “Bird” into a church choir throwdown that has the crowd clapping along. And Solomon Parker III, as community organizer cousin Lawrence, gets the swingin’ started on the jazzy “Black-Eyed Peas,” where nearly all the Mintons get a moment to shine.
Williams’ score ventures through stage musical interpretations of a myriad of genres, including the aforementioned gospel and jazz, along with blues, R&B, and a soupçon of hip-hop, repped by Rayshun Lamarr’s social media-savvy DJ cousin Joshua. The show weaves intergenerational connections through the music and the script, which tends towards sitcom patness, but still strikes chords of realness.
The performers knock it all out of the park, in any case, with particularly strong contributions from Jackson, Parker, Raquel Jennings as self-proclaimed Afro-boho cousin Jacqui, Jarran Muse as forgot-where-he-came-from cousin EJ, and of course, Payton, as cousin Ruthie, handed the reins to lead the family business into the future, or into ruin.
Improbably originating a musical stage role for the first time, Payton has set an extremely high bar for any performer that follows in the attempt to capture Ruthie’s regret and self-doubt undergirded by indomitable strength and a roof-raising song.
Grace runs through May 14 at Ford’s Theatre, 511 Tenth St. NW. Tickets are $22 to $81. Call 888-616-0270, or visit www.fords.org.
No matter how far theatergoers may roam from that corner of upper Manhattan put on the map by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes' Tony-winning In the Heights, they can always return again.
First, because barely a season goes by that a production doesn't spring to life somewhere near you, wherever you may be. For the DMV this season, that means Signature Theatre's terrific new production, directed by James Vásquez. And, of course, there's always the vibrant, gorgeously shot movie by Wicked director Jon M. Chu.
More crucially, though, the show's creators baked into Hudes' book and Miranda's music and lyrics a feeling of warm familiarity with these streets and New York Latino culture. The characters on this particular block, passionately singing and dancing their way through intertwined lives, form an inviting community. It's fun to return to their barrio from time to time.
It can't be easy to write a play that successfully cries out to the world "Look what happened here! Understand!" Many fall way too hard on the side of over-explaining, feeding the drama with fiction-busting expository and presenting their characters as either heroes or villains to make every point crystal clear.
Their hearts may be in the right place, but they so woefully underestimate their audience that they lose it. The truth is, everyone who has made it to adulthood knows that life is messy and that even the "good guys" stumble and struggle. The plays that can deliver their message amid this human ambiguity are the powerhouses in this tradition, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins being a prime example.
Priyanka Shetty's incisive solo play #Charlottesville starts by asking, "Priyanka, where were you on August 11 and 12, 2017?"
Those days will live in infamy, not only for the brigade of torch-carrying, Dockers-wearing dickheads marching through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, but for the tragic death of Heather Heyer, killed by a self-avowed white supremacist who drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters.
The firestorm set off by the protests and counter-protests, and the ensuing state of emergency and vehicular mass attack, was only further inflamed by then-President Trump's tone-deaf, at best, comments in response.
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