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Mar 12 2018

Use All Available Doors

Pinky Swear Productions to Bring Local Playwright’s
Ode to the DC Metro to Dupont Underground

Dupont Underground — the subterranean streetcar station-turned-arts organization beneath Dupont Circle — will return to its transit roots this spring when local feminist theatre company Pinky Swear Productions brings the world première of local playwright Brittany Alyse Willis’s Use All Available Doors to the wildly popular venue. The production is made possible by a generous grant from CulturalDC’s Performing Arts Program. The station hasn’t been used for transit since 1962, but is an appropriate stage on which to celebrate WMATA’s Red Line and the value it brings to Washington, DC.

Use All Available Doors follows a soon-to-be-decommissioned WMATA train car, a grieving operator re-evaluating her life’s path, and a revolving door of passengers as they travel the length of the Red Line from Shady Grove to Glenmont. A vignette occurs between each stop, highlighting the diverse nature of the path of the Red Line, including a parade, a sing-a-long, and unsolicited foot washing (that one’s a true story), as the train operator, Sherry, reflects on her memories of her mother and her beginnings at WMATA. The production will be performed on Dupont Underground’s real tracks and feature seats made from WMATA-donated cushions from a scrapped 4000-series car.

“I really like the idea of presenting a theatre piece in a non-theatre space,” notes Toni Rae Salmi, who will be directing the show and leading community engagement efforts for Pinky Swear. “Because Dupont Underground is literally underground, our audience will already have that ‘in a Metro station’ vibe. It’s a concrete space with no windows, low lighting, and high ceilings — all we’re missing is the Brutalist architecture!”

Pinky Swear is actively reaching out to the community in the hopes that the play will reflect the wide array of people who live and travel along the Red Line — the oldest and busiest line in the system, which includes 27 stops located in Montgomery County, MD, and Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in the District. To that end, the production team is holding pop-up events at various Metro stations, encouraging riders to share their real-life stories via postcards.

Ultimately, Use All Available Doors is a story about DC that can only be told here, and Pinky Swear hopes everything from the development process to the venue reflects that. “Use All Available Doors is magical and even silly at times, but it’s also about loss — the things we leave behind and the things that are taken from us,” says Willis (they/them), who’s also a Pinky Swear Company member. “The train cars Sherry operates in the play were decommissioned in July 2017 and a part of me genuinely misses them. I wish those old cars could find new life — like our seat cushions or Dupont Underground’s rebirth as an art gallery.”

The play opens on Friday, April 13, 2018, at Dupont Underground (19 Dupont Circle NW), with shows Thursday through Sunday running until May 6, 2018. For more information on Use All Available Doors and Pinky Swear Productions, visit http://pinkyswear-productions.com/upcoming-productions/uaad.

Featuring

CAST:

Lady Davonne

2Deep Carter

Shane Marshall Solo

Ezra Tozian

Jay Sun

Darnell Eaton

Nexus

Nicole Ruthmarie

CREATIVE TEAM:

Playwright/Production Manager — Brittany Alyse Willis

Director/Community Engagement — Toni Rae Salmi

Producer — Karen Lange

Technical Director/Set Design — Michael Salmi

Stage Manager — Katherine Offutt

Dramaturg — Joan Cummins

Costume/Props Design— Liz Gossens

Lighting Design — Katie McCreary

Sound Design — Cresent Haynes

Choreographer — Pauline Lamb

Marketing/Press — John Bavoso

Jan 26 2017

LIZZIE Slays the Critics!

LIZZIE arrived at the Anacostia Playhouse on January 12, and the press took notice! You’ve got two more weekends to rock out with the show everyone’s raving about. Get your tickets now, and don’t miss out on the bloody-good fun!

“Dressed in expressionistic goth-Victorian attire (designed by Liz Gossens), the actors radiate their characters’ simmering frustration and flash glimmers of menace.” — Celia Wren, Washington Post

“By the end of Lizzie, there was a sense of victory, as the girls roared out their last notes, having shared their tale of revenge, murder, and passion.” — DC Theatre Scene

“Featuring an ensemble of gifted performers and musicians, LIZZIE: The Musical is a riotous, feminist retelling of one of the most sensational crimes in American history.” — DC Metro Theater Arts“Given the temper of the times, it’s a comfort to know that the theatre remains a place where we can commune in our rage, and live vicariously through villains we love, but whom we’d rather not meet. Lizzie should be a great way to celebrate resistance, of the familial or political kind.” — BroadwayWorld

About LIZZIE: The Musical

On an August morning in 1892, in a small town in Massachusetts, Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally murdered in their home with an axe. Their daughter, Lizzie, was tried and acquitted for the crime and in the process captured the morbid fascination of the entire nation. Created by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Tim Maner, and Alan Stevens Hewitt, LIZZIE is a tale of sex, rage, and murder told by Lizzie, her sister Emma, her friend Alice Russell, and her maid Bridget Sullivan — all set to a pounding riot grrrl beat.

WHERE:
The Anacostia Playhouse
2020 Shannon Place SE, Washington, DC 20020

WHEN:

Now through February 5

Thursday — Saturday 8 PM

Sundays at 6 PM

Special nights:

Friday, ¹⁄₁₇ 5% of ticket sales go to Planned Parenthood
Industry night ¹⁄₃₀ at 8 PM
Sunday, ²⁄₅ Free Superbowl type snacks! Because theater-goers like queso, too.

Limited supply of half price tickets on Goldstar!

Can’t make it to the show? Or just want more ways to support us?

Ticket sales rarely, if ever, cover the costs of a show, regardless of the size of the company.

Help us take 40 whacks at the patriarchy by donating to our 40 whacks campaign! We are hoping to raise $7,500 between now and February 5. Join us, and be a part of:

Bringing a show we’ve been after for 7 years to the DC region.
Giving jobs to women directors, designers, and actors.
Supporting Anacostia Playhouse, a woman-owned business.
Helping Pinky Swear continue to produce fantastic shows for a long time to come.

But hey, isn’t Lizzie just an alleged murderer? What does this have to do with the patriarchy?
We’re glad you asked! The show is incredibly feminist and shines a light on how little agency women had in the late 19^th century. Their money, love lives, job prospects, and destinies all relied on men. Makes you mad enough to whack something, doesn’t it?

For press inquiries, contact

Karen Lange

Dec 13 2016

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Apr 01 2013

The Road Ahead for Pinky Swear

Co-Artistic and Executive Director Karen Lange talks about PS’ 2013 productions and what the future holds:

This was the year of identity. We didn’t plan it that way — it just happened. Last spring’s Unclear Family Repertory featured characters redefining what it means to be a friend, a wife, a husband, or a mother, as well as who they were as people. Whether they were moving, evolving in their relationships, trying to bond, or trying to mourn, the women in Smudge, Benched, and Bleed were all struggling to keep a sense of themselves amid a swirling, changing world.

And we kept that theme rolling with Cabaret XXXY: Who Do You Think You Are? — the third in our series of hit Capital Fringe musical cabarets. And though it dealt with its title question in a fun, flirty, sometimes irreverent way, it was still honest in its push for self-examination.

In a way, all of our full-length shows have been about identity from a woman’s perspective. 2011’s Carol’s Christmas dealt with a woman who opted to disappear rather than move on from heartbreak. 2012’s Killing Women explored whether a woman can work and be a mother at the same time without giving up either part of herself.

2013, however, has focused on Identity in a way we never have before and will continue to do so in this fall’s Bondage, whose leather-clad leads try to find honest emotional connection by role-playing many different people. It’s the classic masking and unmasking that is portrayed over and over again in cultures around the world. Are you the mask or are you the person?

In the past, we’ve planned shows in a more or less catch-as-catch-can manner. Scripts have come across our collective desks that we couldn’t resist, and we’ve leapt at them. But this method, while it’s led to some great art, also has us remaining behind the proverbial 8 ball, struggling to select shows, find space, produce, and promote in a much shorter schedule than we want to. We’re growing up — and we need to pick a major so we can graduate to the next level.

Ergo, after Bondage, we’ll be hunkering down to make plans for the shows we will do for the next two years. Two deadlines loom large – applications for Capital Fringe Festival are due in late December. In early January we need to have selected a script for a yet to be announced but very exciting festival in DC. We have several ongoing projects in development, so the strategic planning will include setting dates for those and selecting some scripts to produce. We’re looking at innovative locations, local talent, and provocative topics.

We’re choosing a direction and getting on the road. Stick with us for a great ride.

Oct 01 2012

New Show, New Theater, November

We are thrilled to announce our next play: This November, Pinky Swear is proud to present David Henry Hwang’s BONDAGE. In a Los Angeles S&M parlor, a dominatrix and her client are clad head-to-toe in leather costumes that conceal their faces and ethnicities. These elaborate disguises allow them to play out fantasies based on racial stereotypes and sexual mythologies. Exchanging biting social observations with stinging humor, they progress through their power games to expose the arbitrariness of racially minded thinking. All the while, however, they are haunted by an awareness that in spite of their efforts, they may be moving towards the most terrifying reality of all — a true intimacy that transcends the bounds of race. The production will be directed by Toni Rae Salmi.

In addition to the play, the audience will be treated to an immersive experience in what we are calling our “Lounge.” No more waiting outside the theater when you arrive — you’ll be swept away to a new world the second you walk in the door. Amy Couchoud is leading the Lounge creation team. Come see what she cooks up & what happens when the performance comes to you…

We are equally excited to announce that the production will take place at the brand, spankin’ new (see what we did, there?) Anacostia Playhouse. We are thrilled to support the construction of a new theater space owned & run by women. Anacostia Playhouse exemplifies that art is for everyone, everywhere. They’re embracing the Anacostia community and showing that east of the river is just as crackling with quality entertainment as the west side. Come on down and celebrate the new space, see our show, and look at what these women have made possible. That’s what we call walking the walk.

Performances: November 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, and 23 (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings) with possible extension dates of December 5, 6,7, 12, 13, 14.

Tickets: watch this space — tickets will go on sale in mid-October

Anacostia Playhouse is located at 2020 Shannon Place, SE, WDC