Staging Diversity: When January Feels Like Summer
Mosaic Theater offers a romantic comedy with minority and LGBT characters
In Cori Thomas’s multi-racial romantic comedy When January Feels Like Summer, we meet a sanitation worker, two young fast food employees and two Indian immigrant siblings, one of whom is preparing for gender transition. “It’s about characters that you ordinarily don’t see on stage,” says the play’s director, Serge Seiden. “And how through serendipity, they find themselves together in various pairings and find love.”
The LGBT community is represented beyond the transgender character, though Seiden understandably hesitates to spell it out in more detail, noting that the play “has a very surprising, heartwarming and delightful ending.”
It’s the kind of play that the Mosaic Theater Company is already making its stock-in-trade after an almost unprecedented level of success in just its first year. “We’re really trying to make the plays about the community in which we live — and I mean the broader community,” says Seiden, managing director and producer of the company, which was founded by artistic director Ari Roth. Selecting works by minority playwrights, assembling a diverse board of trustees, and recruiting students from Gallaudet, Howard and Bowie State for its apprentice program are all part of the ways Mosaic is “very intentionally [being] diverse and inclusive,” says Seiden.
Though he’s directed plays at companies all around town, Seiden has been most closely associated with Studio Theatre, where he worked the past 25 years. But last year Roth made Seiden an offer he couldn’t refuse, from the new challenges of serving in a CEO-style position, to Mosaic’s commitment to putting on shows tackling social justice issues. That connects back to the Maine native’s earliest days in D.C., when he earned a Helen Hayes nomination as an actor in 1988’s A Dance Against Darkness: Living With AIDS, staged by former company D.C. Cabaret. A musical based on interviews with local people, Seiden calls it “theater with a purpose.” He’s hoping to repeat that at Mosaic.
“People really appreciate having their stories told on stage with empathy, instead of fear and derision,” he says.
When January Feels Like Summer runs to June 12 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $40 to $60. Call 202-399-7993 or mosaictheater.org.
Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism
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.