i Sebastiani in Washington, D.C.

However much belated, I have finally posted photographs of i Sebastiani's April 1st performance in Washington, D.C. at the National Museum for Women in the Arts. We did two shows that day, once in a beautiful marble rotunda on the ground floor and a second time in a fifth floor auditorium which apparently was once a porn theatre. Our performance conincided with the exhibition, Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque

This was particularly convenient for me as Washington, D.C. is my home town and it just happened to be my father's birthday.



In this performance of "Dressed for Love", I played the role of Pantalone, the father of Isabella (Catherine Crow), for which I had to borrow the costume from Michael Bergman, who is a much taller actor, which meant that I was constantly having to lift my cloak. Like many commedia dell'arte scenarios, the storyline revolved around young people not being able to marry their true loves because of the plans of vecchi such as Pantalone.

Interestingly enough, Only a week before, when we performed this play I had been cast as Flaminia, a lusty inmate of the convent, who was played by Sophie this go around while in December's productions of Dressed for Love I had played the role of Pedrolino, which come March and April was being played by Michael McAfee. However, this being commedia, it is never the same play.



Being that we were performing in the museum, I was able to slip in a line about "this convent's art collection must be worth a fortune!" and complaints that "Saint Margaret's father must have spent many ducats for that dress, and she still refused to marry! How ungrateful!"

You can look at the full set of photographs from the second show here. I hope to post photographs from the first show later.

Pictured: Kristine Page as Reverend Mother Olivia, Carl West as Arlecchino, and Ian Thal as Pantalone. Photography by Jay Thal.