Category Archives: Entertainment

Entertainment, Interviews, Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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Q&A with Coup Sauvage & the Snips

photo by Erin Smith

Coup Sauvage & the Snips is a soulful, sassy new DC band. The band may be new, but the members have been on the scene for a while. Members’ past and current endeavors include She.Rex, First Ladies DJ Collective , Troll Tax, Hott Beat, Mess up the Mess, Capital City Symphony, and Downbeat:Beatdown. We Love DC Music Editor Alexia got a chance to chat with the group this week, and here’s what they had to say.   

Alexia: How did the idea for the group come about?

Coup Sauvage & the Snips: The idea for the band came from a Capricorn who wanted to keep the spirit of Boney M, Pepper LaBeija and Mahogany-era Diana Ross alive. Two Pisces and three Aries later, the Haus of Sauvage is here and ready to let DC have it. Most of us have known each other for years and been part of the same DIY and creative circles in DC. But it wasn’t until we discovered our mutual love of 70’s variety shows, ball culture and Rosie Perez-inspired dance routines that we decided to join forces last spring. We’ve been together ever since, and we’ll stay together. For the children.

Alexia: How did you all come up with the band name?

CS&tS: Elizabeth had a friend who visited Glastonbury, England. While she was there she met a man known as “The Wizard of Glastonbury.”  He was a blissed-out guru who was a hairdresser in London during the height of glam rock. One night, when everyone was well gone on whisky and dolls, the Wizard offered Elizabeth’s friend a haircut. The result was a massive mushroomy mullet that resulted in uncontrollable sobbing. The story goes that the Wizard was super insulted and said “You don’t like this cut?! I gave this cut to everyone in the 70’s! I gave it to Bowie! It’s the Coupe Sauvage!”  We dropped the “e,” but kept the rest. Without the “e” it means “savage blow” in French. But in honor of our wizard friend we like to use his meaning, “savage cut.” And since Gladys had her Pips, we’ve got our Snips.
Alexia: What are some of your musical influences?

CS&tS: We’re inspired by everything from the soundtrack to “The Wiz” and “Wattstax” to 60s girl groups like The Exciters. We take a lot of our cues from disco, electroboogie and 70’s/80’s dance artists like ESG, Giorgio Moroder, Sylvester, Grace Jones, Labelle, Klymaxx and Kid Creole & The Coconuts. We’re also influenced by 90’s dance music like CeCe Peniston and Inner City. We like to think of them all as our “spirit guides.” The past few months have actually been pretty hard since we’ve lost a lot of our spirit guides – Whitney, Don Cornelius, Donna Summer, Robin Gibb, Chuck Brown. We like to pay tribute to them during our show with the song “Maegan’s Jam.” It’s a dance tribute that involves lots of audience participation. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Interviews, Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: A Q&A with Filligar

Photo Courtesy of Filligar

The industry landscape for independent musicians in America has been in a continual state of evolution ever since the internet went and changed the game. Still, though, it come down to the fact that hard work, perseverance, raw talent, and being at the right place at the right time seem to be working out for those who hold out long enough. Filligar is an example of that.

Full disclosure: I first heard Filligar back in Chicago when I was a freshman in high school. I was 14-years-old and performing in my first “Battle of the Bands.” They were playing too. It was the day that George Harrison passed away. The date was: November 29, 2001. As it turned out, three out of the four members of Filligar just so happened to be in my high school class (Pictured Above: Casey Gibson – keyboard, Pete Mathias – drums, Teddy Mathias – bass), while lead singer and guitarist Johnny Mathias was a couple years behind us.

Back then, they went by the moniker Flipside, sported shorter haircuts, and played a very different style of rock than they do now. But that’s the beauty of age — as you grow, you learn, and Filligar’s made it a point to utilize their personal growth as the means to create one of the most engaging live rock shows in the country.

Hailed as “one of the best young bands in America,” this quintet’s been given an opportunity that they and any other independent musician can appreciate — they’re opening up for Counting Crows on the first leg of their Outlaw Roadshow this Summer. But before they leave on tour with Counting Crows, they’re playing a live show at DC9 Saturday May 26.

Filligar took a few minutes to exchange thoughts with We Love DC via e-mail. Here’s what they had to say.

Rachel: Filligar’s been a band for over a decade. How would you describe your evolution from the time you first sat down to jam and now that you’ve been touring for a few years with several albums under your belts?

Filligar: Well, the first time we sat down to jam we played a song that wasn’t our own: Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. We butchered it, and ever since we’ve been playing original music. As times go on, our music has changed just as we’ve changed. Touring the country and experiencing America the beautiful has definitely impacted that sound. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Black Hills @ Black Cat, 5/23/2012

Black Hills: Air apparent? photo by author

Earlier this week I chatted with DC-based Aaron Estes about his latest musical project Black Hills. Last night I got the chance to see the group play at Black Cat, along with openers Reindeer and The Fire Tapes.

I go to a lot of shows. I consider myself a music-lover. In my experience it doesn’t happen often that I am blown away by a band, especially one that is new to me. Last night Black Hills blew me away with their eight-song-set on the backstage of the Black Cat. Now, I wasn’t completely surprised that this happened- I was kind of hoping for it.

I first saw Estes and some of his musical cohorts perform at Run for Cover, a benefit show that has happened for many years at the Black Cat. The show featured all one-off cover bands, made up of DC musicians, to varying degrees of musical success, silliness, and spectacle. The acts Estes was a part of were far-and-away the most spectacular and musically spot-on, two years in a row: a C+C Music Factory cover band in 2010 and a Daft Punk group in 2011. After seeing him at Run for Cover I knew he was one to watch. Fast forward to last week, when I stumbled across the ad for Black Hills on the Black Cat website. After listening to the four songs he has up on Bandcamp, I was giddy.

For a frame of reference, there are a lot of musical comparisons that can be drawn to Black Hills. The influence of Air is apparent, with the lush synths/synth strings and the groovy bass, but at times I was also reminded a little of Genesis, and to make a more current comparison- Gotye.

Though Black Hills’ recorded music is produced by Estes as a solo effort, the live show includes four other very talented musicians. Estes plays synths and sings, and is backed by guitar, more synth, bass and drums.

The lush sounds heard on the recordings were brought to life onstage well, with added sparks from electric guitar, and extra bounce from groovy bass and drums. Highlights of the set included the beautiful “The Good News”, the infectious “In my Dreams”, and the celestial “Glass.” I must also admit that my heart skipped a beat (or three) when they played spot-on, gorgeous covers of Air’s “Run” and Goldfrapp’s “Clowns.”

The only disappointment was that they didn’t have any more songs to play at the end of their set. At least it gives me something to look forward to…

Entertainment, Interviews, Music, People, The Features, We Love Music
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Q&A with Black Hills

photo courtesy of Black Hills

We Love DC Music Editor Alexia Kauffman had the chance to chat with DC-based musical mastermind Aaron Estes recently. Estes previously fronted the indie band Bellman Barker, but is now focusing on going solo with his dreamy-synth-pop project Black Hills. 

Alexia Kauffman: So I never got to see Bellman Barker, but I became aware of you as a performer when I saw you at Run for Cover*, as part of my favorite acts, two years in a row.

Aaron Estes: Oh cool, which acts?

AK: In 2010 it was the C&C Music Factory cover group, and then in 2011 it was the Daft Punk group.

AE: Yeah, those were pretty fun shows. (laughing)

AK: They were so above and beyond awesome, not just the theatrics and visuals that went into them (which were both hilarious and spectacular) but really the music- it was so well done. Plus I’m a fan of anything that glows in the dark. So once I found out who you were I filed it in my mind that I needed to see what music you were doing. And time passed, and I just saw your picture up on the Black Cat website recently, that you’re performing as Black Hills, and I knew I had to check it out. I really dig the tracks you have up on Bandcamp.

AE: Oh awesome, thank you! Continue reading →

Entertainment, Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Penguin Prison @ Rock & Roll Hotel, 5/19/2012

photo by Jason Coile

Last week We Love DC guest writer Jonathan Druy interviewed Chris Glover of Penguin Prison, and Saturday night he attended the Penguin Prison show at Rock & Roll Hotel. Check out his review of the show below!

By the time the unabashedly glamorous electro-pop opener Class Actress had finished, the packed, rowdy house at Rock & Roll Hotel late Saturday night was ready for Penguin Prison to come out and give them more. When Chris Glover and his three bandmates took the stage, they looked more like an indie-rock band – besides the two rows of keys, Glover sports a guitar and a leather jacket. Their brand of infectious, melodic electro-dance-pop can’t be as easy to swing as they made it look, but having been on tour as long as they have, it’s no wonder they delivered a slick, flawless, crowd-pleasing show. Once they opened with “Golden Train”, one of his best songs, Glover’s skilled voice didn’t falter throughout the set, and most of the show was a faithful live version of songs from their self-titled album. In addition, he sang the breezy new “Hollywood”, a collaboration with the remix artist RAC, and peaked with a cover of Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Jeans”, in which Glover, who’d been using his guitar mostly as a rhythm backup the entire night, busted out with a confident guitar solo. Since the dancing had been pretty much non-stop for the last hour, the crowd had probably earned the encore, as Penguin Prison closed the night with “Multi-Millionaire”.

Entertainment, Interviews, Media, Music, The Features, We Love Music
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Q&A with Chris Glover of Penguin Prison

photo courtesy of Penguin Prison

We Love DC’s guest writer Jonathan Druy had a chance to talk to Chris Glover, who records under the name Penguin Prison. Check out his interview below!

While multi-instrumentalist Chris Glover has been remixing under the name Penguin Prison for a few years now, playing with the music of Lana Del Rey, Kylie Minogue, Kimbra, Marina and the Diamonds, and Goldfrapp, it is also the name of his electronic-pop outfit, hailing from the Brooklyn that gave us LCD Soundsystem, DFA records, bands like Holy Ghost!, Light Asylum and a host of others. Glover sings catchy, infectious, and lyrical pop songs over his own production, which draws inspiration from classic and Nu Disco as well as the French House of the last ten years. It falls squarely into the kind of indie-dance territory fans of Friendly Fires, Miike Snow, LCD, Hot Chip, Cut Copy, and Junior Boys are going to immediately recognize.

Penguin Prison is sort of a next phase in this realm, flirting with mainstream, and not in a bad way. The music is not compromised by its catchiness, because the hooks are good and the grooves are deep. Glover’s a straightforward and stylish vocalist and a sometimes expressionistic lyricist, but has the looks and charisma to pull off a kind of indie-dance Timberlake vibe. The video for one of his album’s several great singles, “Don’t Fuck With My Money”, shot in gritty black and white last year, shows Glover singing against the backdrop of New York City’s Occupy protest. It’s an odd juxtaposition – pretty-boy crooner, electro-pop, citizen activism – he pulls it off with a coolness and unique spirit. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: R. Ring @ DC9, 5/15/2012

R. Ring, photo by Jason Coile

We Love DC guest writer Jonathan Druy attended the R. Ring show at DC9 Tuesday night. Read his thoughts on it below! 

Tuesday night started with a fairly sparse DC9 room, but the evening opened with a sharp acoustic/punk set by Marc Ganancias, and then a soulfully beautiful set by Mean Season, who know how to intertwine chick vocals and guitar into a lean indie-rock gift. When Kelley Deal’s new project R.Ring took the stage, the room began to swell with fans of the Breeders guitarist, who got to see a warm set, highlighted by Deal’s sweet vocals and Mike Montgomery’s amplified acoustic interactions, as well as some really funny between-song convos.

 Kelley Deal uses that voice, imprinted on those of us who came of age when the Breeders reigned the alternawaves, as one of the band’s electric instruments, cranking up the reverb, or singing through an effects pedal. It provides a nice touch, so songs like “Fall Out and Fire” and “Hundred Dollar Heat”, which Deal sings from the floor, draw in the audience, resulting in an echo-embellished electric/acoustic lullaby. Deal accompanied Montgomery on guitar for a few numbers, and the electrics came out for their closer, a cover of Shellac’s “Ghost”, on which Montgomery also shared vocals.

 The DC9 crowd grew over the course of the set, so by the end there was no shortage of fans chatting with Deal after the show. Here’s hoping the rest of her tour generates as much goodwill as Tuesday night.

Entertainment, Music, Night Life, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Spiritualized, Nikki Lane @ 930 Club, 5/10/2012

Spiritualized, all photos by Matthew Carroll

 British space-rockers Spiritualized delivered a soulful 2-hour long set to a packed house at DC’s 930 Club Thursday night. Nashville-based country songstress Nikki Lane opened. Spiritualized is on tour of the US now in support of their seventh studio album, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, released in April on Double Six Records.

Nikki Lane

Southern country singer Nikki Lane made toes tap and heads bounce with her smart, sassy tunes, bringing to mind at times a young Loretta Lynn. Originally from South Carolina, Lane ended up in Nashville by way of Los Angeles and New York. Though her album Walk of Shame features a full band, including twangy steel guitar, Lane’s songs still stood up when played solo on acoustic guitar. Highlights of her set included the runaway tale “Gone, Gone, Gone“, super-twangy “Western Bound”, and the bouncy “Walk of Shame.”
Continue reading →
Entertainment, Interviews, Music, People, We Love Music
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Q&A with Kelley Deal

photo courtesy of the artist

We Love DC guest writer Jonathan Druy had the chance to interview Kelley Deal. Read his account of it all here!

Breeders guitarist Kelley Deal is touring with her beautiful new acoustic project R.Ring, and they’re stopping by DC9 on Tuesday night, in what may prove to be a truly talent-rich night of acoustic-based indie-folk-rock-thingies, with Mike Ganancias and Mean Season. A new release from Misra Records is on its way.

From Dayton, Ohio, R.Ring is Deal and Mike Montgomery of the band Ampline, performing acoustic, spare, melodic explorations led by Deal’s unique and sometimes distorted vocals, her voice familiar to those who remember the once-ubiquitous Breeders. If you were sentient 20 years ago, you probably owned “Last Splash”, with it’s beautiful singles “Cannonball” and “Divine Hammer”, and its surfy instrumentals, and the sweet chick-rock vocals led by twin sister and Pixie Kim, and harmonized sweetly by Kelley. You probably also loved the “Cannonball” video on early-90s MTV, an unimaginable pre-WWW/Youtube/Smartphone era when the cable network stumbled into post-Cobain indie-land, and played these things called music videos, because it was the only place you could see them, kiddies.

The lead-up to our interview lead me to revisit “Last Splash” and “Pod” and “Safari EP”, and well-up all nostalgic-like with my memories of seeing the Breeders ’92 show at the old 9:30 Club, which almost made me forget that Deal has had plenty to do since then; first with Kelley Deal 6000, then with the reformed and rejuvenated Breeders, first in ’02 then in ’08. And while I did just see a friend of mine sing “Cannonball” at karaoke, fear not, middle-aged geezers, the Breeders haven’t gone away, but the other day Kelley talked to me about her new project and about being among the current crop of veterans that are still doing it and doing it well.

She also got curious about the Ethiopian food I told her about on 9th St. You haven’t lived until you’ve explained Injera to a Breeder…

Jonathan Druy: Are there any memories or feelings about DC you have from past tours?

Kelley Deal: I do remember our ’92 show at the old 9:30 club – DC at the time was considered really hip and really happening, and I just remember being a rube from Dayton, and I didn’t know about any of this stuff and I remember thinking “wow, this is really cool!”. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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The Winning Ticket: James Morrison @ 930 Club, 5/16/2012

Today we are giving away a pair of tickets to the sold-out James Morrison show at 930 Club on Wednesday, May 16th! The UK artist is on tour of the US in support of his third album, The Awakening, released in 2011 on Island Records. You can check out the video for his single “One Life” here, and follow James Morrison on twitter here.

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. This show is SOLD OUT!

For the rules of this giveaway…

Comments will be closed at 4pm and a winner will be randomly selected. The winner will be notified by email. The winner must respond to our email in 24 hours or they will forfeit their tickets and we will pick another winner.

Tickets will be available to the winner at the 9:30 Club Guest List window one hour before doors open on the night of the concert. The tickets must be claimed with a valid ID. The winner must be old enough to attend the specific concert or must have a parent’s permission to enter if he/she is under 18 years old.

Downtown, Entertainment, Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Patrick Watson @ 930 Club, 5/8/2012

Patrick Watson, all photos by Matthew Carroll

Patrick Watson set an intimate mood in the 930 club Tuesday night, starting their set in the dark. Five players all together were onstage- Patrick Watson singing and on piano, Robbie Kuster on drums, Mishka Stein on bass, Simon Angell on guitar and Melanie Belair on violin.The Montreal-based band is on tour now opening for Andrew Bird, in support of their latest release Adventures in Your Own Backyard, which came out in Canada April 17th, on Secret City Records/Domino.

Patrick Watson
 Eventually the stage was lit, but softly, making it feel like you could be in the band’s living room, or back yard. Watson’s vocal delivery is delicate for the most part, lilting and floating amidst tinkling piano or softly strummed guitar, violin tremelos. In livelier moments the band had an almost circusy feel, like a gypsy carnival, though still subdued.  To take things to an even more intimate place, the band gathered around one mic in the middle of the stage and played a couple of songs in an old-timey radio way, including the sweet, tender “Words In A Fire.”
Highlights of the set included the spooky, ethereal “Quiet Crowd,” the bouncy “Into Giants,” with its lovely layered vocals, and the Spaghetti-Western feel of “Adventures in Your Own Backyard.”   The band closed their set with a dedication to the recently deceased Maurice Sendak, playing their song “Where The Wild Things Are,” ending with a jammed-out, dark-circus frenzy.
 
Patrick Watson

 

Entertainment, Music, Night Life, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Marilyn Manson @ The Fillmore, 5/1/2012

all photos by Aminta S. Nieves-Candamo

Goth-rock superstars Marilyn Manson played a sold-out show at The Fillmore in Silver Spring on Tuesday night, in the middle of their “Hey, Cruel World” tour. When I got a ticket to this show I did so without many expectations, except maybe to have a trip back in time to my high school/early college days when I was a big fan and saw them several times. I got what I wanted, basically.

Their set was musically strong- Manson himself still has energy, stage presence and rockstar mojo to spare, and thankfully Twiggy (sometimes bassist, now guitarist, and major songwriter for the band) has rejoined the group after a hiatus in the early 2000s (which involved stints with A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails, and The Dessert Sessions). However, having seen them in the height of their fame, while they were riding high on the shock-rock infamy which used to surround them, Tuesday night’s show seemed like mainly old tricks. It was also shorter than one would expect (15 songs, just over an hour-long set) from a band who has been around and active for as long as they have, with as large a catalog as they have. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Interviews, Music, People, The Features, We Love Music
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Q&A with Electric Guest

photo courtesy of Electric Guest

I have been a fan of Matthew Compton for probably fourteen years now. (When I first knew him, and until recently, I knew him as “Cornbread”, but he now goes by Matthew.) I saw his band Engine Down play house shows when I was first at James Madison University, and from the first time seeing them, his hypnotic and powerful drumming captivated me and really stood out. In subsequent years I got to know and became friends (and housemates for a couple years) with Matthew, and my admiration has only ever grown. He’s a creative force to be reckoned with, and has always had this amazing drive and ambition, with whatever he’s doing , but especially music. On top of that, he has a super, ever-present sense of humor.  It’s hard to interact with him and not laugh.

So…I reconnected with Matthew about a year ago, after losing touch for some time. He was living in LA, and told me he was working on a new project, a band called Electric Guest, with a musician friend named Asa Taccone. Singer Asa Taccone is a driven creative force as well- his musical accomplishments include writing for TV (see: Family Guy episode “Hot Tub of Love”) and contributing/collaborating with comedy group The Lonely Island (of which his brother Jorma is a member.) Asa wrote the hilarious holiday classic “Dick In a Box“, performed by Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg on SNL. Last summer the band only had a couple songs up on a bandcamp website for public ears, but upon first listen I loved it. It is a far cry from the brooding, post-hardcore Engine Down music. Electric Guest’s songs are soul-tinged, sunny, groovy, lighter, but inspired.

Since then the duo has been on fire- they played some super shows at last fall’s CMJ, have been touring the US and Europe, have a full-length album that came out last week, produced by Danger Mouse (a long-time friend of Taccone’s), stormed SXSW, and are charging full-steam ahead into the summer touring and gearing up for festival season. They’ll be making a stop in DC on Saturday, May 5th at the Rock and Roll Hotel. Amidst their super-busy tour schedule they were kind enough to answer a few questions for the We Love DC readers. Continue reading →

Entertainment, Sports Fix, The Features
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Want To Become An NBA Writer? Stories From The Bloggers That Cover The Wizards

In the middle of this past basketball season, I received an e-mail from a person that wanted to know more about how I got myself into a position to cover the Washington Wizards.

For that I have to thank Tom for asking me to cover a Washington team that is perhaps the most overlooked in the city. However the level of coverage, enthusiasm, and knowledge does not even stack up to the colleagues I write alongside- so this past season I asked picked their brains about their experience covering the Washington Professional Basketball Team.

I exchanged messages with Kyle Weidie who runs Truth About It, the Wizards blog of the ESPN True Hoop Network;  George V. Panagakos who is the Washington Wizards writer for Examiner.com; and Mike Jones, a bi-coastal writer for Yahoo! Sports.

Here’s what they had to say.

Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: God of Carnage

Photos: Scott Suchman

At the start of Signature Theatre’s God of Carnage, we find ourselves in the immaculate living room of the Novak family. The modern style and elegance of the whole scene looks as if it was ripped out of a catalog: fresh flowers, a beautiful city skyline, smiling faces from those that are inhabiting the space.

The serenity and beauty of the scene is but a fleeting moment in Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award winning play, the chaos that unfolds will leave the room in a completely different state: floor covered with papers, feathers, and shoes; cigars and glasses of liquor strewn about; actors with scowls that have been stripped of all manners and outward politeness.

This short one-act (approximately 80 minutes) is essentially a strip-show of political correctness where the characters take off layers of social manners piece by piece. What we end up with are subjects that bare-all to the audience.

Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features
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A 2012 Helen Hayes Awards (Drama Prom) Diary

Large crowds of peers; suits and dresses of all shapes and sizes; a night full of brief greetings and close encounters. It’s no wonder why DC’s Helen Hayes Awards Gala is affectionately known as Drama Prom. Even though last year’s initial experience had its ups and downs, unlike high school prom you can try for a better time next year!

So I did just that and I had a wonderful time despite some odd similarities. Here’s how Washington’s biggest night in theatre unfolded through my eyes. If you are interested in finding out who walked away with the coveted hardware just scroll down to the bottom of the post.

9:39 AM

I woke up with a shooting pain in my lower back and a stomach feeling less than 100%. Spending the past weekend at Cafe Citron probably wasn’t the best idea. On top of my body ailments the Orange Line decided to break down (big surprise), delaying my commute into the office.

Not a great start to Prom day but I kept a positive attitude a trudged along the work day.

2:39 PM

I couldn’t believe it was happening. Again. A year after my Helen Hayes date woke up with pinkeye and had to bail, my date woke up terribly ill and was unable to attend the festivities. I began to wonder if I have been cursed or if the ghost of Helen Hayes was haunting me.

Luckily fellow arts writer Joanna saved the day and stepped into Jenn’s place, saving me from awkwardly roaming the Helen Hayes Awards alone.

Continue reading →

Entertainment, Special Events, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Dogugaeshi

Basil Twist's production of Dogugaeshi. Photo credit: Richard Termine.

The only reason I didn’t give Basil Twist’s hypnotic Dogugaeshi a standing ovation was that I was simply too stunned to rise from my seat.

Certainly I was prepared to be enchanted, after my last experience of the Basil Twist Festival – Petrushka at Shakespeare Theatre Company – but this was even more intense. Over the course of one hour I’d been transported, body and mind, to a theatrical state I had never experienced before.

There’s a haunting beauty to Dogugaeshi. As it’s a very brief run I urge you to catch it this week before closing on April 22. If it were just a presentation of Japanese folk puppet theater, that would still be reason to see it, but Twist takes this classic form and reframes it as a profound elegy on time and the ephemeral nature of beauty.

It’s the dogugaeshi itself, a “set change” stage mechanism, that tricks the eye until the viewer is almost in a trance. Or is it that strange, playful fox blowing out a candle? Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Spidermusical

The production story of Broadway’s blockbuster musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark“, has more twists and turns than the actual musical. With a monster budget, superstar composers, and ambitious aerial stunts the show has been plagued with delays, technical mishaps, and harsh reviews. As a result the show has been the target of many late-night jokes and parodies. Leave it to Timothy Michael Drucker, creator of “Perez Hilton Saves The Universe“, to write his own Spider Man musical using a fraction of the budget of the Broadway production. Affectionately called “Spidemusical: A Second Chance For Awesome”, the show pokes fun at its blockbuster brother which boasts production costs upwards of a million dollars a week. After a New York run, the show arrives in D.C. where the daring folks at Landless Theatre Company take on the challenge of essentially making a sweded version of Turn Off the Dark.

Instead of high wire acrobatics, Landless employs an action figure tied to a stick. You won’t find fancy costumes in this show, instead actors don animal masks that look like they were plucked from the local Toys ‘R Us. The show is hilariously campy without going over the top. It is the perfect blend of humor and performance.

Continue reading →

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Long Day’s Journey into Night

Peter Michael Goetz as James Tyrone, Sr. and Helen Carey as Mary Tyrone in Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater’s production of Long Day’s Journey into Night. Photo by Scott Suchman.

It’s hard not to feel hopeless while watching Eugene O’Neill’s Long Days Journey into Night. The day after I saw Arena Stage‘s production of this three hour masterpiece on how to tear your family apart, the headlines were full of stories proving the play’s relevancy to our times. Sales of the two most popular prescription painkillers (oxycodone and hydrocodone, of the opioid category) have risen dramatically in new areas of the US. Concurrent with the increase in sales is the increase in overdose deaths and pharmacy robberies. It’s an addiction problem that begins not with recreational use, but with using the medication initially for pain.

Just like poor Mary Tyrone, hooked on dope for decades following a difficult birth in a sordid hotel.

Played by the radiantly distraught Helen Carey, this long-suffering mother seems the proper focus for the play’s maelstrom of guilt and self-deceit. The whole family is caught in a continuous cycle of devastating returns to the past and an inability to escape. It’s a harrowing seesaw of emotions for an audience to endure. Luckily, director Robin Phillips introduces just enough laughter intermixed with the morbidity to allow us to hope.

But, it’s apparent as a society we have a long way to go to shake the yoke of the “poison” Mary takes. To call it a matter of willpower is a tragic misunderstanding. The Tyrones certainly aren’t able to exert any willpower about anything, as they repeatedly rip up each other in the present in an effort to win in the past.

Continue reading →