AARP Supports Capper Residents! Two months after a fire displaced 160 leaseholders of the Arthur Capper Senior Public Housing complex in Southeast DC, many of the residents are living in hotels awaiting information of their future permanent residence. On November 20, AARP DC, TCMA for the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center and World Central Kitchen hosted a Thanksgiving-themed meal exclusively for the residents of Arthur Capper House to reconnect these former neighbors with one another in fellowship. World Central Kitchen, an internationally renowned disaster-relief agency, donated the entire menu and chefs, DC's Department of Parks and Recreation provided free, roundtrip shuttle service, and the venue at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center was provided courtesy of TCMA (A Drew Company). Seven U.S. Marines of the Washington Barracks participated in the event, and served more than 120 residents and their guests the meal from the buffet line.
Working with a book that was gently updated from the original for the show’s 1987 revival, the cast clearly relishes old-fashioned comedy. As “public enemy number 13” Moonface Martin, Stephen DeRosa continually drops corny puns, adopts badly improvised accents, and tells groan-inducing (L to R) Nicholas Yenson (Ensemble/Quartet), jokes to marvelous effect. Maria Rizzo (Erma/Ensemble) and Mickey Orange (Ensemble/Quartet) in Anything Goes. And as the scandalously Photo: Maria Baranova alluring Erma, Maria Rizzo is in her element, showfrom confusion and slight disgust to casing her gift for delivering snapirresistible attraction and unfettered py comebacks and commanding the desire as she falls under Bennett’s stage with a sassy strut. weird spell. The comedy escalates from Set designer Ken MacDonamusing to hilarious when Benald has beautifully evoked the SS nett performs “The Gypsy in Me,” America, from the battered floormorphing from the repressed Lord boards to the maritime flags strewn Oakleigh into a love-starved looverhead. The set features an ingethario with a secret past. His outnious central platform that periodrageous antics are perfectly comically rises from beneath the stage, plemented and almost eclipsed by exposing the cabins and jail cells in Ross’ priceless response, vacillating the bowels of the ship where various characters hatch their schemes. And Alejo Vietti’s lavish costumes embody the sartorial elegance of a lost era, when men always sported dapper suits and women never left home without a hat. Thanks to this blend of musical and visual pizzazz, cruising back to 1934 has never been more de-lovely. Anything Goes will be performed at Arena’s Fichlander Stage through Dec. 23.
(L to R) Soara-Joye Ross (Reno Sweeney) and Corbin Bleu (Billy Crocker) in Anything Goes. Photo: Maria Baranova
104 H HILLRAG.COM
Barbara Wells is a writer and editor for Reingold, a social marketing communications firm. She and her husband live on Capitol Hill. u