Stage Banter: The Arena Stage Blog

The Giving Season at Arena Stage

by David Dower

As you all know, this is the time of year when almost every not-for-profit in the country sends out appeals for support. Arena Stage will be no exception, with ticket sales accounting for just over half of what it takes to provide our programming each season, and the year-end letters are winging their way to our patrons' mailboxes as I write this.

But I'm struck by the way the spirit of giving has entered our building in a new way this year. On their own initiative, and with very little fanfare, the casts of both The Women of Brewster Place and Christmas Carol 1941 sought—and got—permission to invite our audiences to donate to organizations involved in charity work related to the shows they are performing every night on stage.

The women of Brewster Place, who we all affectionately refer to as "the ladies" around here, last week collected donations for the Capital Area Food Bank. The stories and issues of Gloria Naylor's characters have touched them deeply, and still touch sold-out crowds each performance. So, at the end of the show, one of the cast members will step out and make an appeal to the audience. I've seen Terry Burrell do it twice now, and it's a show in itself! Meanwhile, the rest of the company heads for the exits and stands ready to greet the audience as they leave, and accept their donations. The beneficiaries were in the house tonight to collect their check. A whopping $8,551 was donated by our audiences last week alone! The outpouring of generosity will go a very long way this Thanksgiving weekend...

Were You in the House?

by David Dower

Were you in the Kreeger the other day for The Women of Brewster Place when a young guide dog was in the audience?

At the end of the first song, along with the applause, there came the unmistakable sound of a dog barking enthusiastically. Reports Marva Hicks, who plays Etta Mae in the show: "Every time people applauded it barked. It was probably pretty uncomfortable for the people around it, and it was a bit of a shock to all of us. But we kept going and it got to be pretty funny actually. We started to look forward to it.  Somewhere along the way the dog gave it up and stopped responding. We were so glad that people just went with it, rather than having to ask the patron to leave. And then, there he was again, at the curtain call, yelping right along with the rest of the audience.  We just started barking back from the stage. It was crazy. The audience fell out."

Now, it's not that we want to encourage you to bring your dog. In fact we won't let you in with your dog unless it is a service dog. But you have to love the fact that the show is so intense that it can inspire this sort of response from an animal so fully trained, and that the theater is so live and that the cast can just roll with it. A movie is never going to bark back at you during the credits!

Thank you, Brewster ladies, and anyone who was in the audience, for making this a wonderful story instead of an unpleasant one. And to the dog, we feel ya. The electricity generated by Marva and Tina Fabrique in "Sing Billie" has even the most sedate among us howling at stage well before the song even ends.

Citizen Review: The Women of Brewster Place

posted by Jacqueline E. Lawton

[Editors' Note: We'll be featuring "Citizen Reviews" of our productions all season. We want to illuminate the experience of people who are not professional critics, creating a dialogue between the 'pros' and the 'regular joes.' We invite you to share your own reviews with us through the Comments feature at the end of this posting.]

Arena Stage states as part of their core purpose an intention “to produce huge plays of all that is passionate, exuberant, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit.” With The Women of Brewster Place, their co-production with the Alliance Theatre, currently playing in the Kreeger Theater, I feel that they’ve accomplished this. It’s easy to tell the story of a disenfranchised group of people who go from poverty, misery and despair to fortune, fame and success. These stories are filled with hope, a sense of duty and purpose, and the overwhelming assurance that the American Dream is alive, well, and achievable for all. While this is a great feeling for an audience to return home with, it’s just misleading. Much like the novel by Gloria Naylor, Arena Stage’s production of The Women of Brewster Place resists this simple telling.

The African-American women presented in The Women of Brewster Place are fierce, vulnerable and passionate. With courage, good intentions and grace they meet racism, poverty and sexism head on, and much like it happens in real life, they don’t always succeed. Regardless, they find the strength within themselves to sing through and of their frustration, hopes, heartache, misery, disappointments, joys, pleasures and fears. They push through their setbacks and are united in their sense of humor, a strident belief in God, the power of the blues, and the strength of their community. These women are so beautifully funny, flawed, sad, witty, overlooked and forgotten.

Citizen Review: The Women of Brewster Place

[Editors' Note: We'll be featuring "Citizen Reviews" of our productions all season. We want to illuminate the experience of people who are not professional critics, creating a dialogue between the 'pros' and the 'regular joes.' We invite you to share your own reviews with us through the Comments feature at the end of this posting.]

reviewed by Alexis Vaughan

The Women of Brewster Place is a captivating, character-driven piece that left me deep in thought about the complexities of our human and societal connections. The beauty of this play rests in how well the actresses convey struggle in the many different dimensions of identity politics. From the young dreamer who excites in crafting her own identity around those of several Black Power icons, to the gay couple who fight over how much of themselves is safe to reveal to their neighbors, Brewster Place plays with the idea of balancing who we really are and who society tells us we are, in a way that really challenges us to consider whether it is better to be like everyone else, or just be.

Seeing what happens in each of the women's lives as they make that decision reflects the realities women of color live with daily. When society's definition of you superceeds your own, it sucks the life out of you and hardens your heart to everyone around you. You become nothing but a shell of yourself of no use to yourself or anyone around you. It's in these times when the world gets into us that we need each other to remind us of who we really are and our worth in this world.

Citizen Review: The Women of Brewster Place

[Editors' Note: We'll be featuring "Citizen Reviews" of our productions all season. We want to illuminate the experience of people who are not professional critics, creating a dialogue between the 'pros' and the 'regular joes.' We invite you to share your own reviews with us through the Comments feature at the end of this posting.]

posted by Susan Williams

When I truly experience a good play or musical, writing a review or even putting my thoughts on paper become more difficult. I learned years ago that if you really experience something in life on a visceral level, you don't fully remember it.

Having not read the novel or seen the movie of this story, I only knew what I'd read about it in the media. Sometimes the story in a musical gets lost in the music or other aspects of the production. This is not the case here. I was instantly caught up in the story and stayed there through most of the play. (At the preview I attended, there were a few slow moments but overall it moved forward nicely.)

The Buzz Begins All Over Again

The women of Brewster Place are in the house and word is spreading rapidly. Over 700 people showed up for the concert version at Strathmore on Friday the 12th. Over two thousand people have already viewed the video trailer. Many thousands more already have their seats for the show. The previews this weekend are already sold out. We're braced for a party! 

And how fitting that this show, which features the show-stopping "Tear Down the Wall" is the last in the Kreeger before our renovations begin in January—when we will literally be tearing down the theater's back wall. 

Media coverage is starting to roll in on the show as well. Here's a broadcast of a great interview with Tina Fabrique and Molly Smith on NPR. And here's a podcast on DC Theatre Scene featuring local favorites Eleasha Gamble and Monique Midgette, who grew up in Gaithersburg. A shout out to Monique's parents Carolyn Young and Roger Midgette who hosted the cast and crew for a great after-party following the Strathmore concert.

Video: "The Women of Brewster Place" & Invitation to our Open Rehearsal

posted by Vijay Mathew

Throughout the season we are going to be inviting you to join us for the final dress rehearsal of our plays, as our guest. This means that you will have an opportunity to watch and cheer on the actors and crew as they careen through the full production for the first time, with all the elements of tech in place. Each Open Dress Rehearsal will be announced here at Stage Banter.

This video offers a glimpse of what you'll see if you join us on Thursday, October 18 at 8pm in the Kreeger Theater at Arena Stage for our open dress rehearsal before public performances start the next evening. Come help us complete the rehearsal process for this major world premiere event. Theater doesn't exist without a live audience: that's you!

Admission is free, no reservations. Seating is subject to availability. A word of caution on this one—there's an in-house event that night for which there may be as many as 200 seats committed for the rehearsal. That still leaves us with 300 seats, but don't be surprised if there's a big crowd when you get here.

This footage was shot during the dress rehearsal in Atlanta. It's of a few songs from the world premiere musical The Women of Brewster Place. These were taken at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in September.

Feel free to spread it around.  Click here and then click on the "share video" button to send it to a friend. Tell your friends and check back with our blog to get any updates on this invitation.

Sneak Peek at The Women of Brewster Place

Atlanta's Fox affiliate visited The Women of Brewster Place at Alliance Theater and shot some footage of the show to accompany a segment on their "Good Morning Atlanta" program.  Here's a chance to get a sneak peek at the show before it arrives here in D.C. in a couple of weeks.

There's a really great moment in the second segment (located under Videos in the SideBar), when Tina Fabrique sings an impromptu a capella version of the song "This Ain't A Prayer" for the reporter.

For anyone wanting a more extended preview of the music of The Women of Brewster Place, you may want to join us on October 12th at The Strathmore for a concert version of the show, featuring the whole cast with the show's author, Tim Acito on keyboards and its director, Molly Smith, narrating.

Way to Go Alliance Theater

posted by David Dower

I’m in Atlanta. Again. For the opening night of Tim Acito's The Women of Brewster Place. (Opening night for Brewster was also the second night of tech for Well in the Fichandler and a performance of 33 Variations in Kreeger!)

There's a lot of excitement around the place. Alliance Theater has planned a star-studded, red carpeted affair. Mayor Franklin, Star Jones, and celebrities from Oprah's miniseries based on the book are all on guest list.

When I arrived, Molly Smith let me know there was a field trip planned for 2:00pm to see a mural. I was talking to her on my cell while riding the MARTA in from the airport. (I’m sorry to say, I’ve become one of those people who talks on their cell phone on public transportation. Infrequently. But still…) She was telling me about the mural as the train went underground, so I didn’t quite get the connection between it and the show. I didn’t get any connection, for that matter—the call dropped. But I was up for the adventure.

Turns out to be this inspired and inspiring story. And I’m so glad I was here to see it!

Opening Out of Town

By David Dower

You know all those scenes in movies about “The Theatah,” where a show’s in rehearsal and the writer, director and producer all meet in a hotel room for a late-night notes session? There are generally tuxedos and high emotions and a fat cigar in someone’s mouth and zinger after zinger all flying around the room like razor blades. And if it’s a musical, someone’s at the piano banging out new ideas for the 11 o’clock number. Or that boffo opener.

I played a version of that scene last night at the Granada Suites Best Western in Atlanta. Somehow it wasn’t as glamorous. None of us looked particularly good in the beige walls and bad lighting of the Best Western. And our witty repartee was dulled by “end of a long day” energy. But we plowed on anyway, making up with tenacity what we lacked in pizzazz.

The Women of Brewster Place had just finished off their rehearsal day with a run-through of the whole musical. This milestone in the process is called the Designer Run, and it’s the first chance the design team has to see the whole show, from beginning to end, in order.  With a musical of this size, that’s a bunch of folks. Suddenly, after a few weeks of relative seclusion, the private safety of the rehearsal hall is invaded by a bunch of strangers, all staring intently at the stage and madly scribbling notes, as the performers gamely try to remember the music, the choreography, the dialogue, the blocking, and what props and scenery they move on or off stage. Ask ten actors and nine of them will tell you they hate the Designer Run. The one who actually likes it is probably the same one who used to remind the teacher to collect the homework.