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  • Regional theaters see boost amid Kennedy Center changes – WTOP News

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    Regional venues, such as Olney Theatre and Signature Theatre, report surging ticket sales, increased donations and growing interest from performers seeking alternatives to the Kennedy Center.

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    As the Kennedy Center faces controversy, local theaters get more support

    The Kennedy Center has faced a turbulent year that has included leadership shake-ups, artist boycotts, falling subscriptions and even a name change adding President Donald Trump’s name to the building.

    As controversies continue to surround D.C.’s iconic performance venue, other theaters in the region are seeing more interest and, in some cases, fielding inquiries from performers and groups who may have worked at the Kennedy Center and are seeking new venues.

    “We have been notified by our donors. About $50,000 worth of donations have come our way from people who would have put that money toward the Kennedy Center but have since decided to invest in us,” said Debbie Ellinghaus, executive director of the Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Maryland.

    Ellinghaus said ticket sales were strong during the holidays, but said it’s hard to know if that’s tied to the ongoing situation at the Kennedy Center. She said there is also a renewed interest in regional theaters and community-driven productions as many look for venues other than the Kennedy Center, which is a major touring house in the region.

    “There’s an opportunity for us to remind our community, and perhaps in many instances, maybe share for the first time what a nonprofit regional theater is, and why we are so integral and important in our community,” Ellinghaus said.

    In Arlington, Maggie Boland, managing director of Signature Theatre, said the theater is in a period of “really strong” ticket sales with its two musicals — “Fiddler on the Roof” and “In Clay” — completely sold out.

    Boland said she can’t speculate on why audiences are choosing Signature, but noted that regardless of the reason, the theater is selling more tickets.

    “Whether it has anything to do with the current conditions or not, I am really pleased to say we are selling more tickets and bringing in more revenue right now than we have in prior years,” Boland said.

    She also said December was a strong month for fundraising, noting that successful productions often drive donations.

    While Signature focuses on its own productions, Olney Theater does bring in other performances and hopes to do more as it nears completion of a $37 million expansion. Ellinghaus said over the past few weeks her “phone rings frequently for rentals or collaborations,” as performers and groups look for alternative venues.

    ‘The arts community is really rich and varied’

    At D.C.’s Arena Stage, Artistic Director Hana S. Sharif said there isn’t data yet to show a trend, but what may be connected to the Kennedy Center situation is what they’re hearing from theatergoers.

    “We’ve heard from patrons who were really excited about us staying on mission with our work, staying invested in community engagement, staying true to our 75-year-old roots and what we’ve seen is an influx of support that was directly related to our clarity of mission and focus,” Sharif said.

    At Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, president and CEO Monica Jeffries Hazangeles said there has been a slight shift of shows to the venue, but nothing big enough to be considered a real trend yet.

    “Most of those decisions, though, are based on really technical production requirements and seating capacity and date inventory,” Hazangeles said.

    Sharif said while it has been “heartbreaking” to see some big performers not choose to come to D.C., the theater community has been stepping in where it can.

    “I’m watching my peers across the board fill in gaps of areas where the Kennedy Center was really helping support the ecosystem,” Sharif said.

    She said the theater community is also close-knit when it comes to staff and performers impacted by the changes.

    “As soon as there started to be shifts happening at Kennedy Center, I think that the response from the rest of the peers was one of real support. Understanding that those are our colleagues. These are people that we’ve worked with in different capacities for many years across projects,” Sharif said.

    Beyond the headlines surrounding the Kennedy Center, Boland said it’s important to note that the arts are alive and well in the D.C. area, and theaters work together to thrive.

    “So, a success at Arena Stage or Shakespeare Theater is good news for Signature and vice versa,” Boland said.

    Hazangeles said she believes the arts community in the region right now is rich, diverse and overall healthy.

    “Each of our nonprofit venues serves artists and audiences in different ways, and so our whole ecosystem, if you will, depends on multiple thriving institutions,” Hazangeles said.

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    Mike Murillo

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  • Terence Blanchard, composer of Spike Lee movie masterpieces, brings opera concert to Strathmore – WTOP News

    Terence Blanchard, composer of Spike Lee movie masterpieces, brings opera concert to Strathmore – WTOP News

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    Terence Blanchard visits North Bethesda on Friday to perform selections from “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which made him the first Black composer to stage an opera at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

    WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews Terence Blanchard at Strathmore (Part 1)

    He composed the music for some of Spike Lee’s greatest movie masterpieces.

    Terence Blanchard and Kasi Lemmon’s adaptation of “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” at the Metropolitan Opera House became the first opera composed by a Black composer to be staged by the company in its entire history.(The Washington Post via Getty Im/The Washington Post)

    Friday, Terence Blanchard visits Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, to perform selections from his Grammy-winning opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which made him the first Black composer to stage an opera at New York’s Metropolitan Opera back in 2021.

    “We have a concert version of it,” Blanchard told WTOP. “We won’t have the production sets and wardrobe, but it’s a very beautiful concert. To hear the arias done in that setting is a totally different type of experience. … when you experience this concert, you get a broad sense musically of what you would experience if you saw the opera live.”

    Based on the best-selling 2014 memoir of New York Times journalist Charles M. Blow, the opera explores Blow’s struggles to overcome a cycle of violence. It features a libretto by filmmaker Kasi Lemmons, who worked with Blanchard on the coming-of-age thriller “Eve’s Bayou” (1997) and the Harriet Tubman biopic “Harriet” (2019).

    “I called her in to do this libretto and she did a fantastic and amazing job,” Blanchard said.

    Born in New Orleans in 1962, Blanchard grew up with Wynton and Branford Marsalis before studying at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and later Rutgers University. He began touring with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers before forming the Terence Blanchard / Donald Harrison Quintet and eventually going solo in 1990. The collective result was a whopping 16 Grammy nominations and six wins.

    “Whenever you’re acknowledged in that way, it’s a blessing and an honor. And I don’t take it lightly because there’s a lot of great musicians out there doing great work,” Blanchard said.

    While his music career flourished, he also began working on movies with Spike Lee, playing as a session musician on “Do the Right Thing” (1989), which featured an original score by Lee’s late father, composer Bill Lee.

    “It was hard to tell back then because Spike had such a unique cinematic style, we were learning it just as much as anyone else,” Blanchard said. “We knew it was really compelling because we were seeing ourselves and our culture on screen, but to see what it’s meant to people over the years is still something that you couldn’t have foreseen.”

    Blanchard began composing original pieces of music for “Mo’ Better Blues” (1990) before getting his own first sole composer credit on “Jungle Fever” (1991). Arguably their greatest collaboration remains the biopic “Malcolm X” (1992), starring Denzel Washington. Blanchard even made a cameo as a trumpet player in Billie Holiday’s band.

    “When you hear the opening of ‘Malcolm X,’ that’s my experience of hearing [Malcolm’s X’s ‘revolution is bloody’] speech for the first time,” Blanchard said. “That big crash at the beginning is like a shock of what I was hearing, the heartbeat is the bass drum that you hear, the melody of the trumpet is kind of like Malcolm himself, then the cello as a reaction to it is kind of like me, then it just kind of builds and builds and builds until the end.”

    Their collaboration continued on “Crooklyn” (1994), “Clockers” (1995), “4 Little Girls” (1997), “Summer of Sam” (1999), “Bamboozled” (2000), “25th Hour” (2002), “Inside Man” (2006), “When the Levees Broke” (2006), “Miracle at St. Anna” (2008) and “Chi-Raq” (2015) before Blanchard finally received a pair of overdue Oscar nominations for Best Original Score for “BlackKKlansman” (2018) and “Da 5 Bloods” (2020).

    “Each project had its own signature sound,” Blanchard said. “That was the beautiful thing about working with Spike because he would always challenge me in that regard, he would always say things like, ‘So what haven’t you done yet in a score?’ That would cause me to think about new ideas, so when we got to ‘BlackKKlansman,’ we wound up using my electronic band as the foundation for the score and featured the guitarist in my band, Charles Altura.”

    Beyond his work with Lee, Blanchard also composed the scores for Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” (2009), Regina King’s “One Night in Miami” (2020) and Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “Love & Basketball” (2000) and “The Woman King” (2022).

    “When Gina brought me in to just view a cut of [‘The Woman King’], she left me in a room by myself and I was an emotional wreck watching it,” Blanchard said. “I was literally honored to be a part of it and when we got a chance to do the music, man, I brought in some of the opera singers from my opera career, then I asked a good friend of mine, Dianne Reeves, to sing on top of it. Dianne and myself, we both said that it felt like everything we experienced in our musical careers led to us to that moment to make that film.”

    WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews Terence Blanchard at Strathmore (Part 2)

    Hear our full conversation on the podcast below:

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    Jason Fraley

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