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By alexandra petri | DIRECTED by lee mikeska gardner

 

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About


Washington Post humorist Alexandra Petri’s pitched battle of bloviating wits revisits the televised Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968 and the blistering nightly free-for-all between conservative pundit William F. Buckley and liberal author Gore Vidal. What ensues is a battle for history itself, in a no-holds-barred sesquipedalian brawl about another time when American politics was spinning toward entropy. A protean cast of Demons bring the likes of Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand, James Baldwin, and Truman Capote back to shine a bright light on these preening wordsmiths, wounded warriors on the battlefield of extreme partisanship.

Lead Underwriter: The Vradenburg Foundation
Part of Locally Grown Mosaic

 

INSIGHTS INTO THE PLAY


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Petri dishes

the latest from alexandra petri’s column in the washington post

 

creative team


Chris Banks
Production Manager
Dylan Uremovich
Lighting, Projections, & VFX

Dylan Uremovich is a lighting and multimedia designer based in Washington DC. Although this is his first time as lighting designer for Mosaic, his projections works has been seen previously in at Mosaic in Eureka Day, Theory, Native Son, and Shame 2.0. In addition to Mosaic Theater, he has had the pleasure of working as a designer with several arts organizations in the region including The Kennedy Center, Adventure Theatre, Imagination Stage, Dance Place, Pointless Theatre Co., Infinity Theatre Company, Choral Arts Society of Washington, and Xing Dance Theater. His twin artistic obsessions are telling amazing stories and creating interactive environments that respond to the movements and actions of both performers and audience. Check out more of his work at UremovichDesign.com.

David Bryan Jackson
Sound Design & Editor

David Bryan Jackson recently composed the music and designed sound for Cloud 9 and Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Nora Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts; previous local productions include Bloomsday, Magic, The Apple Cart, The Cocktail Party, and Les Parents Terribles at Washington Stage Guild, Krapp's Last Tape (Keegan Theatre), Henry V (Washington Shakespeare Company), It’s Only A Play (Metrostage), The Supper (Scena Theatre), and Deep Cut (Consenting Adults Theatre Company). He has also worked as an actor at many D.C. area theatres and received a Theatre Lobby award for his performances in Intimate Exchanges at Source Theatre and Via Dolorosa at Theater J (the latter of which he reprised in Los Angeles and Boston, as well as more recently as part of Mosaic’s Voices From a Changing Middle East tour). His Song for the Earth can be heard on Zoe Ravenwood’s album The Problem Might be Me.

Brandee Mathies
Costume Designer

Brandee Mathies has been Studios Theatre's Costume Shop Manager since 1994. He has designed "Mother Struck, Constellations, This Is Our Youth, The Year of Magical Thinking, Stoop Stories, Rimers of Eldritch, A Number, The Syringa Tree, and Comic Briefs" for Studio, as well as "Terminus, Moth, Contractions, A Beautiful View, Crestfall, and Polaroid Stories" for Studio 2ndStage. DC area credits include Vicuna, Satchmo at the Waldorf, Hooded for Dummies, Blood Knot & A Human Being die that night at Mosaic Theater Company "Anything Goes and Spunk" at Howard University; "The Wiz" at Duke Ellington School of the Arts & "Black Nativity" at The Kennedy Center, & "Black Nativity" Theater Alliance.

Emily Lotz
Original Set Designer

Emily is a freelance designer based in Washington DC and a Helen Hayes Award Nominee for Outstanding Scenic Design for Princess & the Pauper - A Bollywood Tale at Imagination Stage. Recent credits include Little Shop of Horrors and The Wiz at ArtsCentric, The War Boys at Ally Theatre Company, Matilda at Nextstop Theatre Company, The Diary of Anne Frank and Dracula at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Elephant and Piggie: We Are In A Play at First Stage, and Always...Patsy Cline at Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Recent assistant credits include How To Catch A Star and She A Gem at The Kennedy Center. For more information on Lotz's work please visit her website at www.emilylotzdesign.com.

Willow Watson
Original Properties Design

Willow Watson has designed the properties for a number of Mosaic Theater productions, including Oh God, The Vanguard Trilogy, Paper Dolls, Vicuna, The Devil's Music: The Life and Times of Bessie Smith,The Return, Blood Knot, A Human Being Died That Night and When January Feels Like Summer. However, she has had a particular affinity and deep connection for the Voices from a Changing Middle East Festivals at both Mosaic and Theatre J. During Mosaic's first two seasons, she collaborated with Israeli artists on both the props and costumes for Ulysses on Bottles and After the War; and for The Admission, Return to Haifa, Pangs of the Messiah, Mikveh, and Accident at Theatre J. Other productions that she found to be particularly meaningful were A Class Act and The Life of Galileo for Studio; Arcadia and Hamlet for The Folger; Camille and Glengarry Glen Ross for RoundHouse; Two Bit Taj Mahal for Theater of the First Amendment; Jitney for Ford's; Assassins for Signature. H er t heatrical w ork h as a lso i ncluded costume crafts, scenic painting and sculpture. She studied fine arts at Corcoran Gallery of Art, Cornell University and City College of New York.

 
Chris Wren
Director of Photography

Chris Wren is a director, cinematographer and theatre artist originally from Spring Green, Wisconsin. He is a founding member of Capital City Theatre and Origin! Theatre Company and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from Edgewood College and an Associate of Arts in Graphic Design and Video Production from Madison College. Chris has over a decade of experience in video production and marketing with a focus on theatre and non-profit performing arts organizations. He is also a proud member of SAG-AFTRA with acting credits that include MTV, CBS, FOX and Hyundai USA in addition to regional theater work. www.theatrevideo.com

Karim Darwish
Video Editor

Karim is a theatre artist, educator and content creator originally from Cairo, Egypt. Karim holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Towson University and an Associate of Arts in Theatre Performance from Montgomery College. Karim also has over 8 years of experience in video production and has produced digital content for theatres, colleges, and non-profit organizations. Through his work, Karim aims to bring awareness to social and global challenges facing our current and future generations and cross language and cultural barriers to empower people regardless of who they are, where they come from, or what they believe in, to be part of the solution!

Shirley Serotsky
Dramaturg
 
 

*Appearing through an agreement between Mosaic Theater Company of DC and Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

 

PRODUCTION PHOTOS


 

Media