A million little things have to go right at any given performance of The Play That Goes Wrong for the hilariously crowd-pleasing farce to fall to pieces with precision.
The show’s perfect storm of mishaps that bedevil a college drama society production of an old-fashioned murder mystery requires spot-on timing and physical readiness from its game cast.
In the Mischief Theatre touring company currently bringing down the house at the Kennedy Center, that cast includes Harlem native Kai Heath, who portrays Annie, the overtaxed stage manager for The Murder at Haversham Manor, the play within the play.
Anni is also, according to the cheeky Playbill within the Playbill, “the unsung hero of the Society.” She’s designed, built, painted, stage-managed, and costumed every drama society production for the last three years. So she’s responsible for all those Haversham Manor sets, props, decor, and costumes that go completely, madly haywire.
Some might say, then, that Annie is to blame for a lot of what goes wrong in The Play That Goes Wrong. Is she a secret saboteur?
“I’ve yet to hear that viewpoint,” says Heath, with a laugh, though she’s serious about standing up for her character. “This particular Annie — the Annie that is played by moi — I believe is coming in kind of last-minute.”
As Heath attests, and as anyone who’s seen the play, written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields and directed by Matt DiCarlo, would agree, Annie is most definitely a team player.
“[She] pops right on in to be a part of the team to complete the story,” says Heath. “This [show] was a last-minute thing for Annie, just trying to meet some last-minute requirement, pick up a little job, but it ends up requiring a lot more of her than what she expected.”
The only cast member who hadn’t done the show before this run, Heath can relate to the team spirit, noting that she feels like a rookie among all-stars. “In a way, I feel in such safe hands,” she says. “But [I’m] also like, ‘Hope I don’t mess up what you guys got going, that’s got you winning all these championships.'”
There wasn’t much time to get up to championship speed, with Heath afforded just two weeks of rehearsal. “When someone from the cast was like, ‘Normally I have five weeks.’ I was like, ‘Whoa!’ That does make me feel like I’m not going so crazy.”
Judging by the extremely funny onstage results, she’s clearly hit her stride. “The first week [of rehearsal], it was myself and the understudies, just so I could learn my way around the set,” says Heath, who started working with the rest of the cast in week two of rehearsal. That was the first of two key pieces to cracking the code of going wrong, she recalls.
The final piece, of course, was the audience.
“Because they’re just so much,” Heath marvels. “The audience response is fueling what I’m doing, particularly for Annie. So yeah, those are the two big missing pieces that when they finally came, made me feel like, ‘Okay, I think I got this? I think I got it.'”
The Play That Goes Wrong runs through August 13, in the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are $39 to $159. Call 202-467-4600, or visit www.kennedy-center.org.
Modi Rosenfeld, better known as simply the mono-monikered Modi, does not consider himself political. Primarily, he's Jewish. Then gay. His role as a comedian is near the top. But political?
"100 percent not," Modi insists. "Not at all."
Still, the Israel-born, Long Island-raised Modi knows his way around a political arena. His turn at roasting the famous in the service of Commentary magazine is testament. During the Donald Trump administration, the guest of honor was former senator Joe Lieberman. The best line, however, was aimed at one of Lieberman's senatorial siblings, in that period of Senate confirmation hearings for Trump's raft of Supreme Court nominations.
"Depending on the cities that we're in, people have more or less familiarity with the piece, and with the song specifically," says Matt Rodin of the Stephen Sondheim classic "Getting Married Today."
The showstopper is a highlight of the composer's Tony Award-winning musical Company, and Rodin, who performs it in the production now at the Kennedy Center, refers to it as a "rollercoaster."
Company debuted on Broadway in 1970 with music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by George Firth. Director Marianne Elliott conceived of this production before the pandemic as a way to mark the musical's 50th anniversary.
Consistent with Rorschach Theatre’s adventurously immersive productions, the company’s latest, Human Museum by Miyoko Conley, engages audiences in playful conversation with its themes well before the show even begins.
Audiences enter through the titular museum, a hallowed institution operated by robots of Earth in a future where humans are extinct. Created inside the same two-story Connecticut Avenue former retail space where, last fall, Rorschach unleashed Night of the Living Dead Live, the Human Museum passes patrons through galleries filled with artifacts of human existence.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!