By André Hereford on April 3, 2022 @here4andre
It’s a rare occasion at the theater, even for critics, to witness a legitimately show-stopping number.
But even before Nova Y. Payton finished singing the searing ballad “Again?” at press night of Ford’s Theatre’s World Premiere musical Grace (★★★★☆), the audience was on their feet, ready to bathe the performer in a juicy, well-earned moment of gratitude.
Had Payton launched into an immediate reprise, nobody would have minded. “Again?” is a really good song, among several composed by Nolan Williams, Jr., who also directs the fine eight-piece orchestra, and has got this ensemble cast’s vocals all the way together — save for a straggler or two.
Director-choreographer Robert Barry Fleming has likewise fit the cast together firmly in their excellent portrayal of a large extended Black family in Philadelphia gathered for the memorial of their dear, deceased matriarch, Gran’Me.
Preparing a picnic in the garden behind the family’s restaurant, Minton’s Place, a one-hundred-year tradition in the community and in their family, the Minton cousins and siblings and aunties comprise a lot of moving parts.
Backgrounded by a recently dedicated mural that rises stories above the garden, family members are in and out of the kitchen, up and down steep staircases, carrying food, serving food, eating, singing about, dancing with, and arguing about food.
All the movement and prop business looks effortless, as the cast weaves around Jason Ardizzone-West’s spare but expressive set. And the focus on all that food richly serves the book by Williams and Nikkole Salter.
A good number of Grace‘s songs also hinge on the details of food appreciation and preparation — as do a good number of family gatherings. One absolutely satisfying number, “The Gospel Bird,” is dedicated to the noble chicken that died so that cousin Haley might live.
Haley lives robustly and warmly in Arica Jackson’s performance, which finds the right frequency of funny, salty, and lovable, to top off a glorious voice. She and her castmates broil that “Bird” into a church choir throwdown that has the crowd clapping along. And Solomon Parker III, as community organizer cousin Lawrence, gets the swingin’ started on the jazzy “Black-Eyed Peas,” where nearly all the Mintons get a moment to shine.
Williams’ score ventures through stage musical interpretations of a myriad of genres, including the aforementioned gospel and jazz, along with blues, R&B, and a soupçon of hip-hop, repped by Rayshun Lamarr’s social media-savvy DJ cousin Joshua. The show weaves intergenerational connections through the music and the script, which tends towards sitcom patness, but still strikes chords of realness.
The performers knock it all out of the park, in any case, with particularly strong contributions from Jackson, Parker, Raquel Jennings as self-proclaimed Afro-boho cousin Jacqui, Jarran Muse as forgot-where-he-came-from cousin EJ, and of course, Payton, as cousin Ruthie, handed the reins to lead the family business into the future, or into ruin.
Improbably originating a musical stage role for the first time, Payton has set an extremely high bar for any performer that follows in the attempt to capture Ruthie’s regret and self-doubt undergirded by indomitable strength and a roof-raising song.
Grace runs through May 14 at Ford’s Theatre, 511 Tenth St. NW. Tickets are $22 to $81. Call 888-616-0270, or visit www.fords.org.
By Sean Maunier on December 25, 2022
SZA has become so celebrated that it might be easy to forget that before this month, she had only released one studio album. Her genre-warping, triple platinum first album, CTRL, was a rightly-celebrated debut that firmed up her reputation as an incredible talent. At the time it was hard to imagine how she could have upped the ante, but the long-awaited SOS (★★★★★) is proof that SZA is not one to shrink from a challenge.
There's no question SZA had already set a high bar for herself, but her sprawling, indulgent sophomore album easily blows it out of the water. Despite clocking in at almost 70 minutes, SOS is a captivating listen the whole way through. Her sound, still distinctly SZA, is far deeper and more expansive, drawing on the strengths of collaborators from Travis Scott to Don Toliver to Phoebe Bridgers and an even more eclectic roster of writers and producers.
By Mark Young on January 8, 2023
Every streaming service dreams of having a fantasy show that will make them the talk of the town. Last year, HBO sort of reclaimed that Game of Thrones hole in their catalog with House of the Dragon, while The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power attempted the same Amazon. The Witcher has long been the closest series of this type for Netflix, which has gone all in on the franchise in the last couple of years, most recently releasing a prequel series The Witcher: Blood Origin (★★☆☆☆).
Essentially an origin story for the whole franchise, Blood Origin tells the story of how the first Witcher, a monster-killer for hire, came to be. Set in the world of elves, Blood Origin follows a group of outcasts trying to keep their society from coming apart at the hands of an evil, power-hungry empire.
By Sean Maunier on January 29, 2023
Coming-of-age albums rarely land as late into someone's career as Sam Smith's Gloria (★★★☆☆). By most imaginable metrics, Smith's career thus far has been a runaway success, and besides, one doesn't publicly come out twice without plenty of security in their own identity.
But as queer people are well aware, the path to growing up is often a messy, non-linear one and there is rarely one single endpoint, if there can even be said to be a conclusion at all. Smith embraces and showcases that complexity on their most personal and up-front album yet, effectively saying to the world, this is what growing up can look like.
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