Famous names have been changed to protect the innocent and everybody else in CrazySexyCool: The TLC Musical, debuting in a dazzling world-premiere production at Arena Stage.
For anyone already familiar with the dramatic story behind the music of the Grammy-winning girl group, the show, written and directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah, doesn’t need to spell out all the names — except for three.
Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas formed the group TLC in Atlanta, in the New Jack 1990s. As this hit-laden musical attests, the trio then sang, rapped, and danced their way to astounding worldwide success.
But between dropping hip-hop and R&B smashes like “Creep,” “No Scrubs,” and “Waterfalls,” the ladies — collectively and individually — lived through enough turmoil to fill, so far, one two-hour TV documentary, one biographical TV-movie, a notorious episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, and now we’re here.
The breakups and bang-ups, secret romances, cheating lovers, bankruptcy, health scares, and Left Eye burning her man’s house down all make the scene in Kwei-Armah’s enjoyably soapy account, “based on the music performed and recorded by TLC.”
The slight disclaimer is warranted as the show doesn’t stick strictly to the facts, or, again, the names of figures we might recognize. Rather, the script outlines the group’s rise and personal travails, while spotlighting the members’ sisterhood as the redeeming force sustaining them through crisis after crisis.
Portraying T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chilli, respectively, Holli’ Gabrielle Conway, Jade Milan, and Stoney B. Woods resonantly convey the friendship that keeps the women bonded. Crucially, each also passes the test of looking, sounding, and moving like their famous counterpart.
On opening night that meant performing their roles in front of T-Boz and Chilli, who were in attendance, and still killing it, which they did.
Conway — aided in no small part by the on-point, asymmetric-cut wigs designed by Nikiya Mathis — gets into a good groove as husky-voiced T-Boz, the cool, collected presence of the group. As spiritually-guided Chilli, Woods, though showing the least vocal resemblance, still sings credibly and forges a character who grows in her artistry and industry savvy.
Milan, however, is on another level. She captures Left Eye’s voice and rap flow perfectly, along with the late artist’s essence as the group’s live-wire rebel, while channeling her own voice as a dynamic musical performer. And when the character opts to express herself in a more straight-up R&B style, as on “Red Light Special,” Milan proves herself as beguiling a singer as she is impressive a rapper.
The show reimagines that 1995 banger as a seductive love song between Left Eye and NFL star Michael Andre (Darius Jordan Lee), who meet in a club, and quickly hook up. That’s just a few scenes before Michael’s playing around triggers her to go off and set fire to a bathtub full of his sneakers.
The infamous fire that sparked one of the best Behind the Music quotes of all time — “Ohmigod, turn on Channel 5! Lisa burned the house down.” — is depicted with eye-catching pyro effects. Alas, the quote is not included, but Kwei-Armah makes space for the hits you know, and album tracks you might not remember.
The songs stand up well in the slightly (or sometimes greatly) altered context of the script, and for sure, music director Jaret Landon’s 10-piece orchestra sounds sharp playing the spruced-up arrangements by David Holcenberg.
Staged with theatrical verve, the musical numbers radiate the excitement of live concert performances, especially when the ensemble is dancing all-out, or the three leads are hitting famous TLC moves, here choreographed by Chloe O. Davis.
At its best, the show encapsulates in one of those numbers the freshness and excitement, and, yes, the sisterhood, that these ladies bring to the stage and to the world. It’s before they’ve hit it big, and they’re determined to land a spot opening on tour for headliner MC Hammer (Christopher Henry Young, a fabulous dervish in genie pants).
So they barge into his rehearsal, interrupting a rigorous run-through of Hammer’s athletic choreo, and they break it down to “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg,” the group’s breakthrough hit. Not to be outdone, Hammer counters with “U Can’t Touch This,” and soon, we’re in a take-no-prisoners ’90s dance-off.
Joyous, infectious, irrepressible, and nostalgic, the scene delivers all the crazy, sexy, cool we might expect from TLC, and that we could want from this musical.
Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Musical (★★★★☆) runs through August 9 at Arena Stage, 1101 6th St. SW. Tickets are $102 to $143, with discount options available. Call 202-488-3300, or visit arenastage.org.
The Shakespeare Theatre's Othello is one of those productions that should, by every account, be a gob-smacking showstopper. It boasts the iconic Wendell Pierce in the titular role; a young, fresh, and fully-formed cast; and the inimitable Simon Godwin at the director's helm. And yet, somehow, despite all these winning ingredients, this Othello may be very good, but it isn't quite great.
Why it fails to fully ignite is a difficult question, but it certainly starts with where Pierce and Godwin land the interpretation, which feels like something of a tonal mismatch. While the rest of the cast plays it full-on Shakespearean, big and bold, Pierce's man is delivered so inwardly directed that it almost feels more attuned to a televised production along the lines of David Tennant's recent Macbeth.
Following closely in the wake of courtroom drama Inherit the Wind, Arena opens the forum of its in-the-round Fichandler Stage to another heated debate on the nature of humanity, among other things, in Christoper Chen's The Motion.
A new play by Obie Award-winning writer Chen, The Motion may someday prove to have the lasting cultural impact of Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee's 70-year-old courtroom drama. For now, audiences can weigh its impact nightly, enjoying this gripping production, staged by Arena artistic director Hana S. Sharif.
Sharif uses the space fluently for what begins as a straightforward two-on-two debate between scholars arguing either side of a hot-button bio-ethical issue. Seated at a table in one corner, Dr. Alan James (Barzin Akhavan) and Professor Lily Chan (Peregrine Teng Heard) face-off against Dr. Sarah Matthis (Nikkole Salter) and Professor Neal Bharara (Nehal Joshi), in the opposite corner.
Siblings Q and Z might share parents and a few inside jokes, but they were almost completely different people from the very start in Shayan Lotfi's dynamic two-hander drama What Became of Us.
Q (Jo Yang), the dutiful older sister, was born to their immigrant parents while still in the Old Country, according to the play's parlance. Younger brother Z (Stan Kang) was born here in the New Country -- wherever here is. The nations remain unnamed, but here would seem to be the U.S., while there might be any number of places depending on what's implied by the casting.
The play's world-premiere production at New York's Atlantic Theater Company in 2024 alternated two casts between performances, one featuring actors of Asian descent, the other, actors of Arab descent. The audience could thus infer from who's cast something about the Old Country, as well as Q and Z's family history, culture, and relative progress in the family's adopted home.
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