Still Counting on 'Christmas'

Ford's Will Move Dickens Tale to Lansburgh During Renovation

Though Ford's Theatre will be closed for renovation during all of the 2007-08 season, the show will go on when it comes to the nearly three-decade tradition of presenting "A Christmas Carol." Producing Director Paul R. Tetreault says Ford's will offer the holiday staple, presented since 1979, at the Lansburgh Theatre on Seventh Street NW. The exact dates in December haven't been firmed up.

To keep the public aware that Ford's is only on a break -- Tetreault won't know for a while whether the theater will reopen in fall or winter 2008 -- he plans a few other events during the drastically truncated season. "A Cabaret Evening With Scott Bakula and Friends," a benefit performance open to the public, will run Jan. 17-18, 2008, at the Shakespeare Theatre's brand-new Harman Center for the Arts. Bakula headlined in Ford's revival last year of the musical "Shenandoah."

Ford's also will present a series of four readings, "Portraits of Lincoln," at the National Portrait Gallery. Each will pair an author or scholar with an actor. In the first, "Faces in the Mirror: The Fiery Trial of Abraham Lincoln" (Oct. 15), Richard Norton Smith, first executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., will explore the somber depths of Lincoln's personality, and S. Epatha Merkerson will speak Lincoln's words and highlight his humor. The other readings, in February, April and May, will team writers Jay Winik ("April 1865"), James Swanson ("Manhunt") and Harold Holzer ("Lincoln Revisited") with actors yet to be named.

Tetreault says Ford's also has commissioned a world premiere work about Lincoln for 2009, the bicentennial of his birth, but the director is keeping mum about details.

Having the National Park Service, which oversees the historic Ford's building, close it down for such a long stretch is tough to handle, Tetreault admits, especially coming out of a much-recognized 2006-07 season with the revival of "State of the Union," August Wilson's "Jitney" and the world premiere of the musical "Meet John Doe."

"I think we really hit a great stride last year, and I feel like all the work that we've been doing for my three years really came together," Tetreault says, and having to close is "frustrating. But I'm taking a deep breath and saying, this is really about the long-term vision of Ford's Theatre." By the end of 2008 or the start of 2009, says Tetreault, "we're going to come back bigger and better and stronger than ever."

MTC's 'Peter Pan'

Theater pros and students at Rockville's Musical Theater Center will join forces this weekend to get "Peter Pan" off the ground -- with a little help from Flying by Foy, the legendary stage flight technicians.

Kids of all ages study acting, dancing and singing at MTC, which also holds classes in Olney and Silver Spring. Alongside students, the cast includes alumni who've gone pro and MTC teachers and directors who also perform professionally.

This "Peter Pan," playing Friday through Sunday at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, is the musical adaptation that starred Mary Martin on Broadway and on television in the 1950s under Jerome Robbins's direction. Songs are by Mark Charlap and Carolyn Lee, and Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

"We love to do classics," says MTC producer Laurie Levy Issembert. "One of our missions is to keep musical theater alive. . . . We also believe that 'Peter Pan' is the first musical that a child should see."

As a kid, Betsy Nuell, who is directing, staged shows in the garage of her Washington home. She and Issembert have been friends since back then.

The cast includes MTC alums Ryan Watkinson, currently on Broadway in "Xanadu"; Brian Spitulnik, on Broadway in "Chicago"; Nick Blaemire, working in a pre-Broadway tryout of "Cry Baby" at La Jolla Playhouse; Erica Hamilton, with "The Producers" in Las Vegas; and, in the title role, Valerie Issembert, the producer's daughter.

The 25-year-old actress, now based in New York, recently toured with Theatreworks USA. She has started a fund with other friends from her teen years at MTC to help underwrite and make permanent the tradition of bringing former students back for summer musicals.

The actress says playing Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn't grow up, has been "interesting" at her age -- "to play it at 25, when you really have to grow up," adds a layer of subtext for her, she says.

Captain Hook is Daniel McDonald, a regularly featured performer at Toby's Dinner Theatre (he gained 30 pounds to play Dave in "The Full Monty" there recently). He has been in the middle of rehearsals for "Titanic" at Toby's while also readying his Hook. Working onstage opposite some of his MTC students for the first time is "the biggest honor of my life," he says.

And the actor is having fun going over the top. "There are teeth marks all over the wall" of the rehearsal room from his enthusiastic scenery chewing, he jokes. "It is not what you call a subtle performance."

Valerie Issembert says it was "love at first sight" when she and McDonald hit the stage together in rehearsals and that his wild pirate and her emotionally grounded Peter reached a "balance."

"What I really wanted was for the penny to really drop deep, for what is universal about the character to really resonate," she says.

Follow Spot

· Warehouse Theater on Seventh Street NW is closing for the rest of August and will reopen in September for Scena Theatre's "No Exit" and art exhibits. The Cafe and the Next Door music venue that were part of the storefront arts complex will not reopen. Owners Paul and Molly Ruppert have announced that the rough-and-ready theater space and gallery will remain operational at least through Jan. 1, and possibly into next summer. Ultimately, they want to relocate in the wake of a major increase in property taxes.