On Thursday night my husband and I went to see Sophisticated Ladies at Arena Stage. Since Arena Stage is undergoing a rebuilding they have been using two local stages for the past few years. The musicals have been held at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street and the plays are being held in Crystal City.
Sophisticated Ladies is a celebration of the life and music of Duke Ellington who is originally from Washington DC and was actually raised on U Street. My husband is in the middle of editing a book on Duke Ellington for Phil Schapp and Jazz at Lincoln Center. While this made him more interested in the performance, it also made him a bit of a know it all when the dates, music or images weren't exactly correct.
The show was very well done. The costumes were amazing, the dancing fantastic and I was very impressed with the technical aspects of the set. It was a standard bandstand and stairs set up; but the usage of sliding screens along with projected images was interesting and with the age of the building and the limitations thereof, challenging.
You can read more on the Arena Stage blog here, or read about their new residence program for American Playwrights at the Washington Post website.
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