Gearing up for its upcoming 20th season, Virginia’s Creative Cauldron offers “a summer celebrating all things musical theater.”
The August and September lineup includes the company’s annual Summer Cabaret Series featuring “some of the best talent the DMV theater scene has to offer” as selected by curator Matt Conner, the local gay composer and Helen Hayes Award-winning director.
All shows take place in the company’s intimate theater space, but are also available to watch this year as livestreams for those who can’t make it out to the theater at the particular showtimes. Highlights below:
“Sondheim Reunion Cabaret” featuring performers from Cauldron’s recent production of Into the Woods, including Rachel Lockett, Holly Kelly, Brett Klock, Brooke Bloomquist, and Bobby Libby. (8/13)
“Love is the Key” with DeCarlo Raspberry, an evening full of “love in all aspects” drawn from jazz, soul, gospel, classical, R&B, and musical theater. (8/19)
Chris “JChris” Urquiaga, paying tribute to inspiring and empowering Latin divas including Selena, Shakira, and Rocio Durcal, all backed by an energetic band, “Que vivan las divas!” (8/20)
“Double Date” featuring Sarah Anne Sillers with her husband, pianist Andrew Kullberg, and Joshua Simon with his husband Brandon Scott Heishman, billed as a “one-night-only” evening celebrating music, marriage, and friendship with beloved tunes from Broadway and beyond. (9/9)
Susan Derry, the Cauldron star and veteran stage performer whose debut album is titled I Wish It So. (9/10)
“Sous le Ciel de Paris” with Wesley Diener, fresh from a series of performances in southwest France for an evening of opera, musical theater, and standards. (9/16)
“Songs I Stole From My Kids!” with Kanysha Williams offering a peek into her life as a voice teacher, from “the songs that I can’t seem to get out of my head” to “ridiculous stories about hanging out with teenagers multiple times a week.” (9/17)
Creative Caudron performs at ArtSpace Falls Church, 410 South Maple Ave., Retail 116. Tickets are $25 to $35 for each live show, or $90 to $180 for a two-top or four-top table plus wine; $15 for each live stream.
America First Legal Foundation, a right-wing legal group, has called on the U.S. Department of Education to investigate whether five Northern Virginia school districts -- Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William County -- are violating Title IX by allowing transgender individuals to use restrooms that match their gender identity.
Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds.
Most conservatives argue that the statute should only protect individuals who are discriminated against based on their assigned sex at birth.
"It was in high school that the theater bug hit me," says Miss Kitty. "I started as a singer before, and then, once I got to college, that's when I really started getting into dance." By the time she graduated from college, she notes with a flourish, "you could say became a triple threat."
The local performer's potential to become a triple threat was intimated early on by key officials in the drama department of her alma mater, Catholic University.
"I remember auditioning for a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance," she says. "They called me back as Ruth, the nursemaid. Many of my classmates and my voice teacher questioned that, I told them, 'No, I'm actually quite elated that they would be willing to call me back to play a female part, because I would feel a lot more comfortable that way."
Defying the adage that the lady needs no introduction, Bruce David Klein’s captivating documentary Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story extends a four-minute introduction to its larger-than-life subject Liza Minnelli before the film truly enters the breach, touching down on June 22, 1969, the day her mother Judy Garland died.
In the midst of the preamble performance clips -- presenting Liza as a gangly ingenue onstage with her mother, and as a superstar commanding the world’s stages on her own -- Klein runs amusing outtakes of Liza, present-day, sitting for interviews but not at all passively. Dressed in head-to-toe black, her trademark pixie cut topped by a newsboy cap, she commands the room tenaciously, directing the cameraman on how to shoot her.
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