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.
“I was talking to a couple of homosexuals down in Melbourne, and they were talking to me about listening to Kylie,” John Grant says rather gleefully, clearly relishing this anecdote from his recent tour of Australia. “And I was like, ‘She came and guested at my show at Royal Albert Hall, and came on stage during ‘Glacier.’” The Aussies’ response? “They were just looking at me like I had two heads on my shoulders. They were looking at me like a German Shepherd hearing a weird noise.
“It was really hilarious,” he continues, “because it was just as epic for me as it was for them hearing that.”
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.
Stages are alight this Spring with a deluge of exciting productions -- some starry, as in the case of The Shakespeare Theatre's Uncle Vanya featuring Hugh Bonneville, equally beloved in Downton Abbey and the joyous Paddington films.
The beauty of theater -- and in all these inventive, upcoming works -- is that it serves up various points of view with drama, wit, and intellect often concealed under the guise of boisterous entertainment. At its best, theater quenches our thirst for a deeper connection to our fellow human beings. At its worst, it's Cats. Still, theater sometimes gives you a musical moment that makes your spirits soar.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.