‘The Bedwetter’
Feb. 4-March 16
Arena Stage
1101 6th St., S.W.
$69-$119
Arenastage.org

Skilled and experienced at comedy and drama, Broadway vet Ashley Blanchet says there’s a big difference between the two. She explains, “Comedy is right or wrong, you nail it or you don’t; whereas with drama there’s room for subjectivity. Because I started out as a dancer, being able to hit the mark makes a lot of sense to me. There’s a lot of rhythm to comedy.”

Currently Blanchet is eliciting laughs as Miss New Hampshire in “The Bedwetter” at Arena Stage. A musical based on comedian Sarah Silverman’s bestselling memoir, it’s the funny yet poignant story of a hairy 10-year-old girl’s struggle with clinical depression and bedwetting.

Blanchet’s Miss New Hampshire is a kind of fairy godmother character.  

“Most of the time I’m in Sarah’s head. She first sees me on TV in Miss America, and soon I start talking to her.” 

By the end of the piece, Sarah learns that Miss New Hampshire is also a bedwetter. Subsequently, the future comedian turns her weaknesses into strengths, taking her depression and bedwetting and using it to fuel her creativity and eventual career.

This isn’t Blanchet’s first time as Miss New Hampshire. She initially auditioned in 2019 and eventually created the role off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company in 2022. 

She recalls going into the audition mostly cold. Only knowing that Miss New Hampshire is a pageant girl who unwittingly says some funny things, she partly fashioned her on Kristin Chenoweth’s ditzy Glinda in “Wicked.” 

“Sarah [Silverman] and the show’s director Anne Kauffman, were laughing. I thought they were just being polite. Turns out, they really liked what I did.” 

Although Blanchet, 37, doesn’t claim a personal connection to bedwetting, she can relate to the depression described in the show. Like Sarah, she had a difficult time transitioning into her teenage years. In fact, she credits theater with saving her life.

At 14, Blanchet left home to attend Walnut Hill School, a private performing arts high school in Massachusetts. From there, she moved on to University of Michigan, a great preparatory place for theater, she says. After graduating with a BFA, she went straight to New York where she made her Broadway debut as part of the ensemble in “Memphis.” Soon she began progressing to parts with words and songs.

Because so many musicals thematically touch on being different, Blanchet says bisexuality helps in her work. 

“I’ve always felt a little bit of an outsider, so the concept of acceptance and learning to love yourself found in ‘The Bedwetter’ is something I can relate to from both a queer perspective and from being Black. As I get older, I’m increasingly grateful to be who I am.” 

Going into college, Blanchet assumed she was straight, but after becoming exceptionally fond of a female friend, growing excited whenever they made plans to hang out, it became clear to her that her feelings were romantic. They were together for three years. 

“Being bisexual, there wasn’t like a community waiting for me despite there being many bi people. I didn’t have what my gay guy friends seemed to find. For me, sexual attraction is more about energy than body parts. Coming to own that and be proud of it was a journey and is relatable to different situations including acting.” 

Blanchet has played Elsa in “Frozen” on Broadway. She was the also the first Black actor to play the title role in “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella” at Paper Mill Playhouse, a well-known regional theater in New Jersey. And Blanchet very happily led the cast as Maria in “The Sound of Music,” also at Paper Mill. 

“These are parts that I never knew I’d do it. That’s kind of what it’s like to be Black in this business,” she says. 

Scheduled to be in D.C. at Arena this winter, “The Bedwetter” cast assumed they’d be in for a wild time no matter how the election played out. They weren’t wrong. Fortunately for Blanchet, she’s immersed in her work and comfortably sharing digs with her big, beloved mixed-breed dog Cosmo.  

Returning to the show, a Broadway-bound production, is proving an exciting challenge. “I’m like, ‘what did a I do last time? What made this joke work?’ I can’t remember,” she says laughing. “But it’s always good to return to the show, making tweaks and changes. I’m always trying to do anything I can to improve my performance.” 

‘Downstate’
Through Feb. 16
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$50-$102
Studiotheatre.org

Crime and punishment are up for discussion at Studio Theatre. In Bruce Norris’s challenging work “Downstate,” the provocative playwright explores the circumstances of those who’ve done their time but can’t seem to escape the taint of the wrongdoing. 

Set in a tidy, no-frills group house somewhere south of the Chicago metropolitan area, “Downstate” gives us four disparate housemates with one thing in common: they’re all registered sex offenders. 

Here, the men live. They wear ankle monitors and follow proscribed and increasingly stringent rules about where they can buy groceries and catch buses. What’s more, there’s the serious harassment from belligerent neighbors who are privy to their pasts. 

We’re first introduced to Fred (Dan Daily), a former piano instructor. The snowy haired, avuncular resident who uses a mobility scooter and peppers sentences with “golly gee” and “gosh,” couldn’t seem more harmless. But Fred has a past. 

And today, Fred also has guests. Andy (Tim Getman), a polite, fortyish financial planner, and his wife Em (Emily Kester), a not particularly Zen yoga instructor, who have traveled from Chicago. 

It’s not a social call. Andy has come with a well-thought strategy on how to calmly confront the man who sexually assaulted him on a piano bench when he was 12. Since that day, Andy’s life has been plagued with anxiety and depression; he hopes to put some closure on the past. 

Interruptions ensue. There are calls from the couple’s son at a nearby hotel who’s eagerly awaiting a promised trip to a water park. At the house, other residents mill about, sometimes queuing up to use the modest home’s one bathroom. Soon, Fred’s visitors leave, wholly dissatisfied. 

Each of the ex-convicts’ stories are imbued with denial. Gio (Jaysen Wright) is an angry guy who quotes scripture, works out, and relies on cringy Eddie Haskell manners. Because Gio did time for statutory rape with an underage female he feels less deviant than his housemates Fred; withdrawn Felix (Richard Ruiz Henry), who sexually assaulted his very young daughter; and Diana Ross-adoring, comfortably queer Dee (Stephen Conrad Moore) who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy when he was 37 and after serving 15 years in prison continues to describe their connection as a loving relationship. 

Eventually, Andy returns without his wife and engages with Fred. Emotions run hot. (Here, fight choreographer Robb Hunter’s knowhow goes on full display.)

Playwright Norris, whose other works include “Clybourne Park,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2011), cunningly delves into revenge, guilt, and mercy through both the residents themselves and other characters including visiting probation officer Ivy (Kelli Blackwell) who shows an unyielding toughness with the occasional flash of sympathy, and Effie (Irene Hamiliton), Gio’s lively young co-worker at Staples. 

 “Downstate” moves swiftly and is never dull. The dialogue rings true, and Norris is master of the shifting tone. 

Perceptively helmed by director David Muse, the design team creates the perfect place for this difficult story to unfold. Set designer Alexander Woodward serves up a house with several mostly unseen bedrooms, a dated paneled common area, and smallish galley kitchen, all with furnishings culled mostly from thrift stores and yard sales. There are necessary details like a busy group bulletin board, Gio’s weight bench, and Fred’s keyboard, a scarily broken front window, and an ominous baseball bat leaning near the front door. 

The space is persuasively lit by lighting designer Stacey Derosier, creating different moods, atmospheres, and, most memorably, an early morning light flooding in from the surrounding outside world. 

In his director’s note, Muse writes “I hope this is the kind of play that stays with you after you leave.” In this, he certainly succeeds. 

‘Hand to God’
Feb. 1-March 2
Keegan Theatre
1742 Church St., N.W.
$49-$59
Keegantheatre.org

Luke Hartwood has loved puppets for as long as he can remember. 

At 24, he’s indulging his passion as puppet designer/coach and properties designer for Keegan Theatre’s production of Robert Askins’ “Hand to God.” It’s the Tony-nominated comedy about meek Jason who after the death of his father finds an outlet for his anxiety at the Christian Puppet Ministry in small town Texas.

Puppets begin as a design team collaboration, Hartwood explains, and move on from there. With “Hand to God,” the playwright’s notes describe Jason’s badly behaved puppet Tyrone as looking “Elmo-y and shit,” but beyond that there’s room for some interpretation. 

Hartwood, who is gay and Asian American, graduated from George Mason University in May 2023. He majored in theater with a double concentration in performance and design/technology, and minored in graphic design. 

“With all my varied interests that’s what made sense to me,” he says. “It wasn’t easy but now I’m a flexible candidate when interviewing for work. I’m skilled in design and the physical fabrication of puppets. And I also act.”

Based in Northern Virginia, he’s been with his partner for six years. Recently, Hartwood shared his thoughts on puppetry and what he wants from the future. 

WASHINGTON BLADE: What’s the attraction to puppets?

LUKE HARTWOOD:  I’ve always loved puppets. It started as a kid watching cartoons, I’d pause the TV get out a sheet of paper and draw a character, usually Pokémon and Digimon. I learned to use shapes, rounded or sharp edges depending if I wanted to make it cute or scary. I moved from 2-D to 3-D using cereal boxes to give dimension to the drawings. Once I carved a character into the wood of my mom’s sideboard. She wasn’t happy.

BLADE: Were puppets your way into theater? 

HARTWOOD: Not exactly. Despite some fear, I started acting when I was a sophomore in high school. I was a shy kid, but I wanted to be in theater. With me, I also brought my love of art and soon began working on props. It wasn’t unusual to see me in costume backstage between scenes building props. 

BLADE: And you continued in college?

HARTWOOD: Mine was the dreaded COVID college experience and the creation of Zoom theater. When we finally came back to live theater, my stage fright returned too. But I got past that and acted in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” [Hartwood was cast as the titular blockhead]. It’s a low-tech show; I did cutouts in the style of Peanuts characters. That was fun. 

BLADE:  With “Hand to God” at Keegan you’re really multitasking. Tell me a little bit about working with actors. 

HARTWOOD:  During casting, the actors were asked to bring a sock to use as a puppet. Not to show expertise but to prove some potential. 

Actor Drew Sharpe plays both Jason and his puppet Tyrone throughout the show; it’s like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. 

We start with basics. But then we retrain the way an actor thinks about a puppet. Not only is he marking up his script with his own blocking and intentions, but he’s also doing the same thing for his puppet. It’s playing two roles simultaneously. I’m in awe of how quickly Drew has learned and improved over the last few weeks.

BLADE: Does being queer affect your project choices? 

HARTWOOD: I try to incorporate my queerness into theater. For a while I didn’t know how to do that. I’m not writing plays or activist pieces, but I’m selective of what shows I do. I like to dedicate time to shows I care about, particularly those involving the queer and POC communities. Sometimes that means working with a smaller theater and not getting paid as much.

BLADE: Is money a concern? 

HARTWOOD: I recently quit my full-time corporate job as a business analyst at a government contracting company to focus fully on theater. If I’m going to spend 40 hours of my week doing something I better love it. 

I was picturing myself in 10, 20, or 30 years. If I push my artistry now, there’s more time for me to become successful or to get my big break. 

Also, I just graduated from bartending school. That should help pay the bills. 

BLADE: How does “Hand to God” jibe with your professional ethos? 

HARTWOOD: Really well. Though not explicitly written for the queer community or POC, it explores grief, toxic masculinity and what it means to be “man enough.” And that resonates with a lot of queer folks. 

And, I’m definitely here for the puppets