Acting out: No theater? No audience? No problem. Live Arts turns crisis into creativity with 30in30. Every evening in May, members of the theater’s vast volunteer staff will participate in livestreams of plays from the organization’s last three decades for a retrospective that interim artistic director Jeremy Duncan Pape calls “our gift to the community.”
What do you do when structures fail? When you did everything right, you played by the rules, yet the safety you thought you’d shored up for the future disappears with a twist of fate? In The Humans, a Tony Award-winning comedy-drama by playwright Stephan Karam, characters wrestle to find peace and connection amidst the rumbles and groans of loss.
The play opens with the Blakes gathering to celebrate Thanksgiving in a Chinatown apartment with Mom and Dad, two college-educated children, plus a grandmother and boyfriend in tow. Their celebration of this uniquely American holiday, all about bounty and gratitude, provides a frame for examining the fragile complexities of family love and the fiction of the American Dream.
Young Brigid is a recent college grad, working as a bartender while applying for music jobs, and she offers a true millennial take on everything from student debt to superfoods. She shares the recently acquired apartment with her boyfriend, Richard, a much older grad student, who comes from money and has committed himself to becoming a social worker. Their furniture is stuck on a moving truck somewhere, so the meal is served at a folding table, a champagne toast swigged from Solo cups.
When Brigid’s Irish Catholic parents, Erik and Deirdre Blake, arrive from Scranton, Pennsylvania, they come bearing gifts. Erik gives his daughter a camping lamp and cans of tuna. He wants her to be prepared in case this part of Manhattan floods again. Deirdre offers Brigid a statue of the Virgin Mary for a more general type of protection. In addition to the stresses of low-paying jobs and the strains of longstanding wedlock, Erik and Deirdre are caring for Momo, the grandmother stricken with dementia.
Aimee, the older sister, is stressed out by her job as a Philadelphia lawyer, a recent breakup with her longtime girlfriend, and a painful flareup of ulcerative colitis. She’s a classic first-born child, bouncing between her Blackberry (the play is set in the early 2010s), the bathroom, and moderating bickers between her mother and younger sister.
The apartment itself is both backdrop and character. The top tier of the place is a ground floor room, its lone window bracketed by bars. The bottom is windowless, a basement that groans with the weight of the building. An upstairs neighbor thumps and bangs. Lights flicker and fail, one by one, throughout the course of the show.
The ominous setting gives the play a vaguely catastrophic feeling. Despite Brigid’s insistence that the place is palatial for the price (and, to be fair, she’s probably right), you aren’t surprised that Erik insists she’d have a much better life in Scranton.
A specter of fear haunts all the Blakes, originating from the failure of systems and people designed to protect them: pension plans, marriage, teachers, partners, the human body itself. To combat it, they turn to rituals—the songs they sing every holiday, the prayers before meals, being together and loving each other despite the small cruelties.
Live Arts’ production is directed by Francine Smith, who rose to a significant challenge. She not only orchestrates the subtle frictions of people managing secrets and sympathies, she does it across two floors, overlapping dialogue, and a script that requires unspoken communication and comedic timing.
The cast is excellent across the board. In a show where success depends so heavily on the humanity and authenticity of its actors, I was fully engaged throughout the two-hour runtime. Larry Goldstein plays Erik with an impeccable sense of that dad’s-got-it-all-figured-out distance, keeping things mellow and grounded and acting the part of provider until he just can’t pretend any more. Geri Schirmer is funny and real as Deirdre, bruised by the love she offers her daughters in turns both smothering, stoic, and outspoken.
As Momo, Meg Hoover makes it easy for us to believe her brain is crumbling; it’s no small feat to play in that liminal space, but she does it well. Lena Malcolm, as Aimee, gives us real pain with enough big sister chutzpah to bring back the laughs. Madeline Walker delivers a Brigid who is everything you’d expect—overly sensitive to her parents and wounded by small slights. Johnny Butcher rounds out the ensemble as Richard, who brings equal doses of sincerity and humor, acting as the palate cleanser and awkward-silence-filler that boyfriends typically play during the holidays.
The two-tiered set design creates a physical container that lives and moans around the family in action. Kudos to Gwyn Gilliam and the entire production team for using lighting, sound, and props to make this human experience feel real.
In Vulture, Jesse Green described The Humans as “the most, well, human play I’ve ever seen.” Live Arts’ production does an admirable job bringing that humanity to life. We see ourselves in its people, so flawed and familiar. Nothing distracts us from the discomfort of humans pretending not to struggle. But hope arrives alongside the pain. Forgiveness knocks on the door of betrayal. Being human is the thing that hurts, but it also sets us free.
The imperfections of life unravel the hopes of a working-class family in the Tony Award-winning play The Humans, at Live Arts through February 16.
The year is 1995, “Friends” is all the rage, and Tilly Evans is “the most uncommon form of nerd in the world”—a girl-nerd who loves Dungeons & Dragons.
So begins She Kills Monsters, the 2011 comedy-drama by Qui Nguyen. Known for his innovative use of pop culture, stage violence, puppetry, and multimedia, Nguyen transports us to a simpler time “before Facebook, World of Warcraft, and massive multiplayer online RPG’s.”
Agnes Evans is Tilly’s older sister, an English teacher in small-town Ohio. We learn that on the eve of her high school graduation, as she wished her life “was less boring,” a car crash killed Agnes’ mother, father, and Tilly all at once.
Agnes never connected with Tilly or her penchant for armor and fantasy talk. But when she finds a D&D notebook, handwritten by Tilly, she’s determined to make sense of it—to understand Tilly in ways that she couldn’t while her sister was alive.
To learn more about the role playing game, Agnes seeks out a Dungeon Master, an experienced player who acts as referee and storyteller, and so meets Chuck Biggs, a swaggering nerd who describes himself as “big where it counts—in the brain.”
That’s how Agnes learns that Tilly, aka Tillius the Paladin, was a highly respected, widely-known force in the D&D community. It’s the first of many surprises Agnes will uncover about her sister—once she steps inside the game.
From the show’s opening moments to its fantastical conclusion, UVA’s production of She Kills Monsters immerses audience members in a world of imagination. Like Agnes, we enter the theater fresh from “average” lives and quickly find ourselves flooded with the sights, sounds, and excitement of epic battles, supermodel elves, sexy demon-women, and slapstick crusaders. Each element of this production, from the sets to costumes to lighting and sound design, is wildly, wonderfully creative.
Consider the monsters (there are many), all of which need to be slain. The majority are massive puppets, wielded by students who operate the creations with grace and careful choreography. It took a team of 13 students to create these larger-than-life enemies, and the overall effect is fantastic. Up close, each monster is a standalone work of art.
For scenes set in average spaces like high school hallways and suburban living rooms, towering gray set pieces create a muted backdrop without much color or character. But when you enter the world of the game, the simple canvas comes to life, illuminated by projections of Lord of the Rings-style landscapes, WWE-type announcements, and lights that shift across spectrums and sometimes strobe.
The costumes are equally evocative. Sweeping gowns with thigh-high slits, leather breastplates, and gleaming swords; the hooded cloak Chuck sweeps around him like a dorky Merlin DJ—each detail is vivid, colorful, and supremely entertaining. As time passes and she finds herself drawn deeper into the game, even straight-laced Agnes allows herself to don elbow-length gloves and a leather epaulet.
The sound design might be my favorite aspect of the production. As you probably expect, big-screen-worthy soundscapes usher our heroes along their quest. But it’s details like the sound of rolling dice between scenes and the occasional blast of ’90s anthems that make it fun. Keep your ears open for a special Mortal Kombat moment—you won’t be disappointed.
As Tilly, Karen Zipor is strong and composed, just untouchable enough to maintain her believability. After all, she’s a game character, not Agnes’ flesh-and-blood sister, though you spend most of the show forgetting this fact. Aaryan Balu is fantastic as Chuck, who toggles between bombastic DM and uneasy stand-in for Tilly. When he cautions Agnes against pushing the script to fill in the blanks of her sister’s identity, the torment and tension is real.
Tori Kotsen, who plays Agnes, does an excellent job carrying subtle grief into every scene, even when she’s down on one knee sword-fighting a five-headed dragon. As she slips deeper into Tilly’s world, she begins meeting the people who inspired the game. She comes to know her sister’s heartache, rewritten as sexy comrades-at-arms and cheerleader succubi.
Such a rollicking, complex production requires tremendous teamwork. It’s a testament to the entire cast and crew, and especially director Marianne Kubik, that this show delivers fast-paced comedy, multiple choreographed fight scenes, and enough heart to gives us space to feel all the feels.
She Kills Monsters is a deceptively simple story about family, grief, and coming of age. From Agnes’ viewpoint, Tilly is an outsider. From Tilly’s perspective, she is a leader and warrior who doesn’t want to fit in in the first place. But where these two sisters finally meet is someplace in between real life and high fantasy. In this world, young women battle for the people they love and become their own heroes in the process. Here, killing monsters means carving a path to the world as you want it to be.
She Kills Monsters, starring Aaryan Balu as Chuck, Ingrid Kenyon as Dark elf Kaliope, and Tori Kotsen as Agnes, is at UVA’s Ruth Caplin Theatre through November 23.
Before every rehearsal and every performance, the cast and crew stand in a circle. They hold hands, close their eyes, inhale deeply, and exhale fully. “I am light,” they say. “I am love. I am here. I am light. I am love. I am here.” They repeat it over and over, until everyone feels ready to take the stage in the Live Arts Teen Theater Ensemble’s production of Rent.
That affirmation is intended to keep the cast and crew grounded and present, moving them forward into a richly emotional performance with energy and positivity “so that they can accomplish what they need to accomplish,” says director Ti Ames. And with this particular production of Rent, there is much to accomplish.
Rent is one of the most successful pieces of American musical theater to date. With music, lyrics, and book written by Jonathan Larson, the play was first produced in 1994, and in 1996 began a 12-year Broadway run. The musical (often classified a “rock opera”) nabbed four Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, and in 2005 was made into a feature film.
Even if you haven’t seen Rent, chances are you’ve heard someone, somewhere, singing “Seasons of Love” (and had it stuck in your head for the rest of the day). But for those who are unfamiliar with the musical, Rent is about a group of bohemian friends living in Manhattan’s East Village at the start of the 1990s, during the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Cast member Greyson Taylor has heard arguments that, 25 years after its debut, “Rent is dying, or that Rent isn’t important anymore,” that the stereotypes of the LGBTQ+ community the musical explores are no longer accurate, or that the HIV/AIDS crisis is behind us, or that the tale of bohemians trying to make art and pay their rent in a gentrifying Alphabet City is a tired one. But the arguments for Rent’s irrelevance are misguided says Taylor, because, at its core, “Rent is about love. And Rent’s about family,” two universal and eternal aspects of the human experience.
None of the adolescent cast, nor its 24-year-old director, were born when Rent first hit the stage. Yet, in the musical, they’ve found a place to tell their own stories, of many backgrounds, races (actors of color make up more than half of the cast), genders, and sexualities, all experiencing the ups and downs of life together.
A production like Rent “can fall into the trap of being presented in the same way over and over again,” notes Taylor, but “when someone like Ti steps in and creates a completely new way to tell the story, it’s a whole lot easier for people to stop and listen.”
Ames’ artistic choices make this production unique. At the start of the play, the book dictates that “two thugs” should chase after the character of Tom Collins, and in this production the “two thugs” are two white cops. The character of Angel Dumott Schunard (Taylor’s role), typically staged as a drag queen, is here gender fluid.
Ames has actor Camden Luck playing the famously problematic Maureen Johnson as a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) who inappropriately touches the afro of her girlfriend, Joanne Jefferson—something that happens to Mo Jackson, the actor playing Joanne, all the time in real life.
In this production, the characters of Mark Cohen (played by Jakobh McHone) and Roger Davis (played by Thad Lane), dap whenever they see one another, an intentionally chosen gesture that Ames hopes will help normalize platonic affection between two young black men. And April, Roger’s dead girlfriend usually only mentioned by name, is instead an on-stage character whose actions are unexpectedly (at least, to Roger) mirrored by another character.
Ames incorporates Africana elements, such as call-and-response, constant breaking of the fourth wall, and the presence of ancestral spirits. This has been particularly interesting for Taylor, because for his character, Angel, it means that when (spoiler alert) Angel dies, Angel isn’t really gone. “She’s still just as much a part of everyone’s lives,” continuing to help them believe in love, he says. “That’s probably what hit me the most.”
“I am so proud of these kids,” says Ames, who has been constantly moved by the ways in which the actors have plumbed their own emotional depths to bring the characters to life in a way that forces close examination of both difficult issues like racism, homophobia, and loss, as well as joyous experiences like friendship, falling in love, and sharing a first kiss. They’ve taken risks, they’ve pushed themselves. They build each other up. They’ve learned to take breaks when they’re feeling overwhelmed, and to be wholly present with one another on the stage. Plus, “they can sing their little butts off,” says Ames with equal amounts affection and respect.
This is technically the Rent: School Edition, but the cast would be loath to have their production passed off as “just a teen show.”
“Everyone in this show is well-equipped…capable of displaying the massive amounts of emotion that come behind this show,” says McHone, who is so committed to Rent and his castmates that he drives an hour and a half each way, from his hometown outside of Harrisonburg, to be in this production.
Taylor wants “everyone to leave the theater with a heightened sense of awareness” of the work yet to be done around the many themes addressed in Rent.
It’s what the cast has done, adds McHone, and these are lessons the cast expects to take with them even when the stage lights go down.
That, and the fact that they are light. They are love. They are here.
The Live Arts Teen Theater Ensemble brings love and light to its production of Rent, on stage through July 28.
By Leslie M. Scott-Jones
Walking into the downstage theater at Live Arts, the sounds are familiar. Vocal warm-ups have begun, and musical director Kristen Baltes shouts from the balcony that this is “real life,” signaling to the actors to fill the space with their voices (not easy to do in that room).
Seated in the hallway, with the singing in the background, is Ike Anderson, the director of Live Arts’ 2018-19 season opener, Ragtime.
“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” Anderson tells me, speaking of the enormity of the task he’s undertaken, professionally and personally. “To direct the season opener for the largest theater organization in Charlottesville—and I’m black.”
The last time Live Arts had a black director was almost 10 years ago, when Ray Smith directed Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel. This season, Live Arts has two pieces directed by African Americans.
While there are still glimpses of the usually jovial Anderson, there is a new seriousness, a new shadow, that comes with directing a piece that deals with such intense issues. With a smile on his face, in jest or sarcasm, Anderson talks about the day of callbacks. He stepped out of his home excited to meet the day, take on the world, and was met by a racial slur.
Anderson took on the telling of Ragtime because he felt, “If not me, then who?” His mission is to move the audience’s understanding of what it is like to be black in America.
“This play is about white people that kill some niggas, and walk away,” says Anderson. It’s a dark place to spend more than 10 weeks.
Based on the novel by E. L. Doctorow, (book by Terrence McNally), the musical features African Americans, upper-class whites, and Eastern European immigrants. A well-to-do family takes responsibility for Sarah, an African American woman, who tries to bury her baby alive in the family garden because her husband has left her. Immigrants arrive to Ellis Island hoping for a better life, only to realize that the American dream is not accessible for everyone. A socialist movement forms in New Rochelle. As New York changes, the upper-class family moves to Atlantic City to escape the aftermath of a riot. Immigrants and African Americans fight to be heard and taken seriously, taking matters into their own hands. Everyone in the story goes through a transformation, but this is not a happy musical.
Live Arts has been a pillar in the theater community for more than 20 years, and the appointment of Bree Luck as Producing Artistic Director signaled a new direction for the non-profit.
“One thing we need to do at Live Arts is make sure we’re not just telling stories about a couple of white people sitting around the dinner table,” Luck told C-VILLE when she accepted the director position in 2017.
Ragtime, says Luck, is a story that draws parallels to the struggles of Charlottesville in the wake of August 12, 2017, when three people lost their lives. The musical speaks about how race and class can influence the path of a life. That influence is not always recognizable as negative or positive. With three dramaturgs, each focusing on different aspects of the time, it is clear that there is a deep commitment from the theatrical team to tell a true and visceral story.
“We’re dealing with epic issues, on a small stage—which is where Charlottesville is. We’re dealing with epic issues, and we’re a small town,” says Luck. For some theaters this is a bucket-list show, and despite the complications of producing it, Luck rose to the challenge. “It’s my job to respond to the needs, talents, and desires of the community,” she says when explaining how the entire season was chosen. Those wants and needs have certainly changed since the beginning of her tenure.
Deandra McDonald, who plays Sarah, says she was drawn to the role by the opportunity to tell black stories that are not normally told. The link between this revitalization and the changes in what theater audiences want to see has direct lines to what Charlottesville has been through, and the start of the African American Heritage Center’s Charlottesville Players Guild, an all-black theater company. More black artists are getting opportunities, and Ragtime is a part of that.
“This story is not only a black story, it’s an immigrant story, a story of privilege, and how those worlds blend,” says McDonald.
Live Arts’ Ragtime has the makings of everything that makes life-altering theater: a compelling story, a cast of Charlottesville’s best and brightest actors, and a director with vision. They have come together to tell a story that is as old as time, hoping the audience will understand that this story is still very much real life.
Ragtime, directed by Ike Anderson, is at Live Arts October 5 through 27.