La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
“It’s going to be a fabulous production,” says Frank Labovitz, costume designer for Signature Theatre’s La Cage Aux Folles. “Matt really has found a core to the show emotionally, but still given it room for fabulous spectacle.”
Indeed, Matthew Gardiner had long wanted to direct La Cage.
La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
“It’s a show that I have seen many times on stage, and never felt like it jelled in the way that I wanted it to,” he says. “I’ve always felt, ‘Oh, I wish I could get my hands on that to try and see if what I feel is in the piece, can come to light on stage.'” He got his chance when Signature’s Artistic Director, Eric D. Schaeffer, put La Cage on the 2015-16 season.
The 32-year-old director appreciates the inherent tension between composer/lyricist Jerry Herman’s “everything in life is beautiful” optimism and book writer Harvey Fierstein’s snark and grit. Yet he also realizes that not everyone will be enthusiastic about another production of the 1983 pro-gay musical, adapted from Jean Poiret’s 1973 French farce. (Never mind that there are also multiple films derived from the source material, including Édouard Molinaro’s 1978 original, a French-Italian co-production, and Mike Nichols’ 1996 Hollywood remake, The Birdcage, starring Nathan Lane and Robin Williams.)
La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
“There is a segment of gay men, when you tell them you’re working on La Cage Aux Folles, who groan,” Gardiner says. “They think it’s offensive. They think it paints gay men as clowns.” Gardiner had a similar reaction to the 2010 Broadway revival, feeling that the drag was too lowbrow and the portrayal of lead character Albin, who spends much of his time in drag as Zaza, was off-kilter. “It’s a hard balance to find,” he says. “You don’t want him to feel like a baritone in a dress. At the same time, you don’t want him to come off as a court jester.”
La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
Gardiner cast Bobby Smith as Albin/Zaza — a potentially risky move, as the actor had no previous experience wearing women’s gowns. Fortunately, Smith proved to be “a natural,” and it’s ultimately because of the award-winning Signature veteran that the production took shape.
Smith is modeling his portrayal in part after the late British female impersonator Danny La Rue. “La Rue was a performer — a man in a frock — and it was meant to be a joke. But he did not live his life in an openly gay manner, and Albin can’t do that, either.” In fact, the central tension in the show revolves around whether Albin will be accepted for who he is, particularly by his adopted son, Jean-Michel (Paul Scanlan), and the boy’s future father-in-law, an anti-gay politician.
La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
“We have the conservative right wing element in the show,” says Brent Barrett, who stars opposite Smith as Albin’s husband, Georges. “We could just substitute Ted Cruz in there for that. As far as LGBT issues have come, there are segments of our society that are still living in the Dark Ages.”
The fact that Smith and Barrett, a Broadway veteran (Chicago, Annie Get Your Gun), are both gay is another key to the production. “Having two gay men in those roles is not something we see very often,” says Gardiner. “I actually can’t think of any production I’ve seen…where the two actors were gay. I think it feels different, and it lands in a different way.
La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
“What I have been trying to do…is to find the soul in La Cage. At its core, it really is about celebrating what makes us different, and at the same time understanding that we’re more alike than we think. And that family is family, no matter how we define it…. It is far beyond a frivolous, silly show with men in drag.”
Gardiner worked with his design team to ensure that the setting wasn’t “any old drag club.” Set in 1979, the club “is meant to be the place that people went to in St. Tropez, something they wouldn’t do anywhere except in this vacation spot. It’s not a gay bar. I think a lot of times you see productions where it misinterprets the Cagelles as a contemporary drag floor show, and that’s not what it is.”
La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
The Cagelles are high camp — a sharp contrast to Jacob (DJ Petrosino), Georges and Albin’s maid. Jacob isn’t glamorous, but is funny and relatable. “He is so over the top and so campy that it frees the other characters, in terms of their looks, to be a little bit more realistic,” says Labovitz.
The Cagelles are, of course, showgirls, and Labovitz has designed elaborate, extravagant outfits for them. It’s given him a sense of scope and international flair that’s different from any other work he’s done.
La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
“Hopefully, when it all comes together, it will really fulfill our vision of both showing the fantasy world of the club but never overshadowing the story of a family and trying to come to terms with what it means to accept each other,” Labovitz says. “I think that’s the most important part for all of us — the idea of what this family is at the core. And that’s sort of the message behind LaCage.”
La Cage Aux Folles runs to July 10 at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., in Arlington. Tickets are $40 to $95. Call 703-820-9771 or visit sigtheatre.org.
La Cage aux Folles at Signature Theatre – Photo: Julian Vankim
Tell us if you’ve heard this one before: a single guy and a single lady both walk into a bar, and sit down for a first date that does not go well. That’s the extent of the setup for the droll, very modern romance Strategic Love Play by English writer Miriam Battye (HBO’s Succession).
A lighthearted yet occasionally caustic look at “the perils and ridiculousness of dating in the age of swiping,” as director Matthew Gardiner put it on press night, the play takes place entirely inside the bar where the Man (Danny Gavigan) and the Woman (Bligh Voth) meet for their date.
Harvard University has drawn criticism from conservatives after announcing that Tufts professor Kareem Khubchandani -- who performs and occasionally lectures in drag as "LaWhore Vagistan" -- will serve as a visiting associate professor in its Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality department.
The visiting professorship was established through an endowment from members of the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus, the university's LGBTQ alumni group. It was created to bring in scholars focused on issues related to sexual minorities and sexuality.
Khubchandani is scheduled to teach two courses during the 2025-2026 academic year: "Queer Ethnography," in the fall semester, and "RuPaulitics: Drag, Race, and Desire" in the spring semester, focusing on the cultural influence of the show RuPaul's Drag Race.
The founders of the legendary Miss Adams Morgan Pageant talk about how D.C.'s largest drag event has evolved over 37 years.
By John Riley Photographs from the 1998 to 2024 pageants courtesy of the Dupont Social Club
October 1, 2025
"The whole Miss Adams Morgan Pageant really started by accident," says Steven Brandt, a board member of the Dupont Social Club, which organizes the annual drag pageant, now a fixture on many D.C. residents' calendars.
Brandt recalls that he and his now-husband, Rick Boylan, were celebrating Halloween in drag with friends when, on their way to a piano bar, walking through Dupont Circle, they were accosted by a group of teenagers.
"It was raining," recalls Brandt. "They ripped my wig off and threw it in a puddle, spewing all kinds of hatefulness. After that, we decided we needed a place to be able to go in drag if we wanted. It was maybe only the first or second time we'd been in drag, but I was so enraged by the experience that I kept saying over and over, 'We've got to...This isn't right.'"
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