Stuff I Saw

There's a new chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, one of the crown jewels of our nation's performing arts community. You're likely familiar with him, as he seems to suck the oxygen from...all the things. As with everything that chairman touches, I expect the Kennedy Center to devolve into a celebration of the gauche, a debauched shell of her former elegant self. I'll miss her.

I'll have my memories, though. Here's what I believe to be a complete list of the shows and events I took in at that impressive building hard by the Potomac River.

Took both kids to see a free They Might Be Giants early evening show in the Grand Foyer in October 2010. The occasion was a celebration of the comprehensive redesign of ARTSEDGE—the Kennedy Center’s national K-12 arts education web site. Which is probably fucked. There's a video of the (impressively long and predictably fun) show available here.

In January 2013, I took my little one to see a joyous and high-energy celebration of the 40th anniversary of Schoolhouse Rock at the Millennium Stage. Turns out Shlara was there, too, though neither of us realized the other was in the house.

2016 was a big year for us and the KenCen. Started on New Year's Day with Matilda in the Opera House. Dark and funny. And dark.

It's a great venue. And it ain't gonna look like this for a while.

My then 15 year-old dancer and I attended a premiere of The National Ballet of Canada's 'A Winter's Tale' later that January. My company at the time was headquartered in Toronto and a major sponsor of the ballet's tour, so we got VIP tickets which entitled us to backstage passes after the show. My kid has never been speechless before or since, but she was that evening meeting the cast.

We went as a family to see Fiasco Theatre's incredibly inventive production of Into the Woods in December of that same year. Here's a snippet from a glowing review by Andra Abramson: "The updated Into the Woods directed by Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld is so fresh and innovative and so superbly acted that I was immediately swept up in the action and transported to a fairy tale world of witches, bakers, princesses, giants, and mysterious men." It really was one of the most captivating stage plays I've ever seen.

The exact date has escaped my recollection, but I took my college-aged artist to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre perform Revelations. I've grown to appreciate all forms of dance, and other than my kid's first full piece of choreography, this was the most moving version of the form I've seen.

Lost to time, as well, the date of a holiday-time performance of Les Miserables, a huge, ambitious staging full of big sound, complex sets, and wild lighting. 

My wife and I saw Hamilton there in October 2022. It wasn't the room where it first happened, and it wasn't the original cast, but it was still unlike anything I've seen on stage before.

I hope very much to get back to that venerable building. But as long as That Fucking Guy has anything to do with it, I shan't lighten its doorstep. Like a great many things at the moment, it's a shame.