The Washington Post - 17.02.2020

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friday, february 21, 2020

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club and they’ve been around the longest.

Being booked there and learning how to

perform in a club like that is important.

The Kennedy Center is great for the local

scene because it’s s uch a huge name.

D.C. has a specific style of comedy: It’s

smart and it’s about connecting with the

audience. I t filters out dated c omedy. You

can still talk about tricky topics that

make people u ncomfortable, but if you’re

coming at it from a perspective from 10

years ago, you won’t succeed. If you’re

talking about politics, in terms of the

government and the election, I don’t

think it p lays a big role. Comedy shows in

D.C. have been about getting away from

that. With the election, there will proba-

bly be a slight increase, but it’s not going

to change the o verall feeling.

I think the state of comedy is great r ight

now in D.C. It’s probably never been bet-

ter. I’m hopeful that, like the economy, i t’ll

just keep going and we’ll just get more and

more exciting things.

— as told to Rudi Greenberg

are getting managers and TV credits while

they live here. But they can’t s tay forever.

There are going to be more podcasts and

videos coming out of D.C. Ross Benoit’s

podcast “Smiley Frown” has helped him

build a local following. He’s a mixture of

smart and dumb at the same time, which is a

great c omedy combination.

Denise Taylor is developing as a per-

former. She’s writing intelligent and inter-

esting jokes that are a little different from

what you’ve heard before. She has a pod-

cast with Benjy Himmelfarb, who just

moved to New York, called “Sixty Minute

Hate” where they hate everything and

complain.

Lafayette Wright has been the back-

bone of Underground Comedy shows for

several years. He’s recording an album at

Big Hunt this year, and he’s b een d oing a lot

of colleges. I’m hopeful that he can break

out. He’s good enough that he could have a

half-hour special on Comedy Central.

The DC Improv is always going to have

a huge role because they’re the biggest

Sean Joyce

Underground Comedy

Stand-up comic Sean Joyce started

staging comedy showcases as part of Un-

derground Comedy in 2013 as a way to

spotlight local talent and national up-

and-comers. Since then the 39-year-old

has put on more shows — and given more

opportunities to emerging D.C. stand-ups

— than anyone else in Washington, book-

ing 680 shows last year alone and draw-

ing such big names as Michael Che and

Patton Oswalt. Though Joyce no longer

performs regularly, he plans to produce

even more in 2020, with shows e very n ight

of the week a t such venues a s the Big Hunt,

Wonderland Ballroom, Drafthouse Come-

dy Theater and Reliable Tavern.

I think [D.C.’s comedy scene] is going to be

stronger from top to bottom — from the

lowest level up to the biggest headliner. Peo-

ple are starting to gain a following and get

entertainment opportunities in D.C. People

Reginald L. Douglas just joined the

team at Studio Theatre as associate artis-

tic director, a nd I think that is an inspired

hire. The new Welders 3.0 were recently

announced — that’s the theater company

that reinvents itself every three years w ith

a new set of playwrights — and I think that

Catherine Frost, Farah Lawal Harris,

Sisi Reid, JR Russ, Teshonne Nicole

Powell and Jared Shamberger are tre-

mendously exciting.

Rep Stage announced that they are

going to do a world premiere by Lady

Dane Figueroa Edidi, called “Ghost/

Writer,” opening a year from now, and I’ll

follow her to the end of the Earth. I also

wanted to shout out Nicole A. Watson.

She’s the associate artistic director at

Round House Theatre, and I just want to

see all of her work. Another project on my

radar is “The Till Trilogy,” by Ifa Bayeza,

with Talvin Wilks directing at the Atlas

Performing Arts Center in April. I just

think the Mosaic Theater Company is

doing great work, and people should know

about it.

Finally, I know that I’m talking mostly

about local theater, but I also wanted to

say that I’m so inspired by Stable, that

group of visual artists who came together

to create that gallery space in those artist

studios in Northeast. I’m so inspired by

the annual By the People festival that

Halcyon puts on, and the community

activations that the Eaton Workshop

does. I’m super inspired by Christopher

K. Morgan, and what he’s up to at Dance

Place. For me, the theater is so vibrant and

exciting b ecause the ecology of arts in D.C.

is so vibrant and exciting.

— as told to Thomas Floyd

Maria Manuela Goyanes

Woolly Mammoth Theatre

Maria Manuela Goyanes is one of the

fresher faces in D.C. theater, having depart-

ed New York’s Public Theater (where she

helped produce “Hamilton”) in 2018 to take

over the job of artistic director of Woolly

Mammoth. Since then, the 40-year-old has

put her own stamp on Woolly’s tradition of

boundary-pushing productions, champi-

oning the work of female and minority

voices during a 2019-2020 season that

opened with Pulitzer Prize-winner

“Fairview” and features the timely

sociopolitical drama “Shipwreck.”

I never thought that the impeachment

would be happening at the same time as us

doing Anne Washburn’s U.S. premiere of

“Shipwreck,” which imagines what hap-

pened at the dinner with James B. Comey

and [President] Trump, so it can’t get more

prescient than that. Another project here

I’m insanely excit ed about is “Teenage

Dick,” by Mike Lew, June 1-28, which is

“Richard I II” set i n high school.

In terms of trends, what I’m seeing in

the scene right now is more of these

out-of-the-box partnerships. Woolly for

the first time is collaborating with the

Shakespeare Theatre Company, right

around the corner from us, to present

“The Jungle” next fall. The Folger is

under construction, so that means they’re

going to be doing stuff out in the commu-

nity, and they just announced that they’re

taking over the National Building Muse-

um t o do “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

this summer. I’m going to be the first one

in line for that ticket.

From the Cover

Matt Mcclain/the Washington Post

Maria Manuela Goyanes, who helped produce “Hamilton” at New York’s Public

Theater, is the artistic director for the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

andré chung for the Washington Post

“People are starting to gain a following,”

Sean Joyce says of the D.C. comedy scene.

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