A DC-BASED COMPANY, and at our core:
DEVELOPING AND PRODUCING ORIGINAL WORKS OF MUSIC-THEATRE,
FOSTERING THE GROWTH OF ARTISTS,
AND ENGAGING WITH THE COMMUNITY IN PARTNERSHIP
Changing the Conversation Through the Arts
You Make the Difference
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Dear Friends and Supporters of Alliance for New Music-Theatre:
As we come to the end of 2025, we are looking ahead to 2026 and are celebrating over 30-Years as a Not-for-Profit 501 (c) (3) designated Public Charity serving the greater DMV. These are precarious times for the arts, but we are determined to continue our important work in our community to fulfill our mission to:
· Develop new works of music-theatre
· Foster the growth of professional and aspiring artists
· Engage the community into the creative process to promote a deeper understanding
and critical appreciation of the transformative power of music-theatre.
We are asking for your support now. Your donation will help underwrite local artists and our development of new works of music-theatre.
Thank you and have a blessed Holiday season.
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Ukrainian Resilience Resonates in Dupont Underground
The Trumpeter
A refugee-led Ukrainian Men’s Vocal Ensemble enhances the vivid storytelling in Inna Goncharova’s new play of survival against all odds.
Descend with us into the bunker-like setting of Dupont Underground to witness the last surviving member of a Ukrainian military band sheltering from Russian bombardment below the steelworks of Mariupol in 2022. Inna Goncharova’s play presents a vivid depiction of the terrible essence of war, while the spooky, echoey space of Dupont Underground provides an eerie parallel for the trumpeter's subterranean bunker.
11 performances - from January 22 to February 1, 2026.
Tickets available HERE!
Directed by world-celebrated Hungarian director János Szász with Michael Kevin Darnall and Lise Bruneau, this production resonates with haunting music by trumpeter Kevin McKee and a vocal ensemble of Ukrainian men. Building on two readings offered last spring, this fully-staged experience is the latest event in our ongoing commitment to the writings of Ukrainian playwrights, bringing the far-away suffering of the Ukrainians up close during the fourth year of the Russian invasion.
Ruslan Bondar, a Ukrainian conductor of secular and sacred choral music, leads the vocal ensemble. Having left Ukraine, he has recently taken up residence with his young family in the DMV.
As Ruslan tells it: "When I first read the play, I was surprised that there were so many details in it that matched what is happening right now in eastern Ukraine.
The character of the Trumpeter wants to make music, but that life has been destroyed by the war. The play moves between what is really happening all around him—the rockets and the bombs— and his memories. It is very important for me to tell this story in Washington DC about a man who once lived a normal life but now no more. I’ve been in the city of Mariupol and met friends there. I too am a man and a musician who never thought this would happen to my country, and for the horrible choice I had make to leave behind family members, including my mother, my brother, and two daughters from my first marriage. For me I would have stayed, but for my young son, I felt I owed it to him to build for him a new, safe life… Every week, once or twice a week, we Facetime. I send money, clothes, what I can. But it is not enough, and what Russia has destroyed, it will take years, even decades to repair.
[This production will include some folk music, to show what we Ukrainians have created in over 1000 years of history with rich musical traditions, both secular and spiritual. I also want to share some nice music created in the last few years by composers continuing to write in the midst of these tragic circumstances. “
The Trumpeter promises to be an unforgettable event. After two readings last spring, one audience member wrote “This is a theatrical experience like no other. Alliance for New Music-Theatre has created a production that you will remember every time you hear the news. Run run run to the Dupont Underground and find yourself in Ukraine trying to stay alive.”
Come to express solidarity with Ukrainians and others worldwide thrust undeservedly into war zones, remembering it could be us next. Our common humanity is at stake.
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The George Fulginiti Series: Cabaret, Cocktails, & Conversation
Thanks to all who came to our second Cabaret for this season to enjoy Awa Sal Secka in her curated Cabaret - "Bi-Coastal Acoustic'"- on Dec 2 at the Arts Club of Washington.
Many provincial Americans land when they hear “bi-coastal,” naturally conjuring a picture of east coast versus California shores. But singer-actress Awa Sal Secka, born in New York to an immigrant mother and subsequently moved to the DMV, still carries the language, rhythms, and maternal memories of The Gambia along with her American world outside the four walls of her family home.
Awa wove together songs along with stories of these two worlds and identities, in which the tensions and yearnings are never fully resolved, but all fed into and demonstrated the unique richness of this artist’s talent. Awa also shared some of her own songs –treasures! Audience members were drawn in and sat spellbound, describing the quality of the cabaret experience as “unique,” “authentic,” “tender,” “beautiful,” and “a journey.”
It was indeed a journey she and her guitarist DeAnte Haggerty-Willis took us on! And wasn’t the Arts Club blessed to feature such an international sound in this most international of communities, opening our ears and hearts to the world!
You can catch this consummate artist later this season, in featured roles at Arena Stage and Signature Theatre.
In our George Fulginiti Cabaret Series, it’s a fine thing that you get the artists curating their own shows, exploring what makes cabaret truly the most personal of music-theatre forms, and most often singing some original songs in the most intimate of spaces. You can always say, “I heard it here first.”
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We continue our second season
with Javier Arrey
in his curated program"Music without Borders"
on Tuesday, February 3 at the Arts Club of Washington
and an encore performance on Friday, February 6 at the Lyceum in Alexandria, VA
Javier Arrey will curate his own program for the Cabaret series that highlights his extensive performances around the world in many different music genres.
Javier Arrey has been heralded as one of the most sought after and versatile Belcanto baritones of the emerging generation. The Chilean born American baritone has appeared in houses like The Vienna State Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Palau de Les Arts, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Nacional de Chile, Washington National Opera and San Francisco Opera.
In addition to his work on the opera stage, baritone Javier Arrey is a world-class interpreter of Lieder and concert repertoire. Recent performances include Mahler’s Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen at Teatro Municipal in Chile and Dvořák’s Biblical Songs and Gypsy Songs in the Czech Republic.
In 2017, Mr. Arrey received the “Congressional Medal of Honor” at the National Congress of Chile in recognition of his artistic career and his social labor bringing the Opera to populations who have no access to live performances. In 2011 Javier Arrey was the winner of the CulturArte Prize at Operalia Competition in Moscow and in 2009 he was finalist at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition (Song prize). Arrey is a graduate of The Washington National Opera “Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program” and Dolora Zajick’s Program “Institute for Young Dramatic Voices. Javier continues to with local opera and concert companies to help develop and educate young artists.
These are the other artists in our season:
April 7 – Oren Levine & Aaron Myers “A Jazzy Something”
June 2 -- Alan Naylor -- “Songs We Need Now”
Hope you will join us for these special events.
What can you expect coming to our cabaret evenings? Sometimes familiar tunes, to be sure, but we specialize in original cabaret compositions, sometimes crossover genres, and we encourage artists to bend and push boundaries of the cabaret form and always speak to our current times, in the space and the place where we are. We come together for an intimate experience with artists who have something to say and engage in lively conversation with the artists following every performance.
The Arts Club of Washington venue is intimate, perfect for an optimal cabaret experience. Also thrown into the price of a ticket, the Arts Club will provide a small bites buffet and a signature cocktail created for this performance. Following the show you will meet the artist and enjoy other fine company. For each performance, the bar opens at 6:30 pm, the show starts at 7:00 pm.
Hope you will join us for these special events. We are also offering the Cabaret Series at the Arts Club on a subscription basis for the three remaining performances for $165 Tickets for individual performances at the Arts Club are $65. For tickets, go HERE.
For the Encore performance on Friday, February 6 at 7:30 pm at the Lyceum tickets are $40 and available HERE
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2026 Composer-Librettist Studio
We are now planning the fourth annual Washington DC Composer-Librettist Studio for June 2026. The sessions will be conducted from June 13 - 28 and hosted by the Music Department of the University of the District of Columbia.
The full On-line application forms for professional Composers, Librettists, and Singers-Actors will be available December 1, 2025.
More information on our webpage HERE.
Josh Cleveland participated as a composer in the Composer-Librettist Studio in the summer of 2023. About the time spent there he writes;
The CL Studio is still one of the most artistically transformative experiences I've had. The studio is a high-octane but low-pressure chance to learn by doing--you don't have time to find excuses not to write! Perhaps most uniquely, it affords the chance to practice the great art of collaboration: how to initiate creatively productive conversations, how to give and take in ways that serve the story/song, and how to make magic...together. I have so many memories of creating and witnessing such magical moments with my studio cohort mates, some of whom became friends and collaborative partners beyond the few weeks we shared that summer. I also deeply appreciated the feedback mechanism to which the CLS faithfully adhered--it allows for the expression of appreciation, curiosity, and creative deliberation in just the right mixture.
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Featured Artist Michael Kevin Darnall
Michael is thrilled to be returning to Alliance for New Music-Theatre, once again collaborating with director, János Szász (Angels in America at Arena Stage, Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Ensemble). He has performed locally at Mosaic, Studio, Constellation, Theatre J, Spooky Action, The Hub, Round House, Ford's, Kennedy Center, and at MetroStage where he was directed by castmate, Lise Bruneau. On television, Michael appeared in HBO's The Wire. He is a proud member of Actor's Equity and the great-grandson of a proud Hungarian-Ukrainian.
Michael Kevin Darnall is an actor calibrated with such sensitivity and nuance that one must simply give oneself over watching him work, marveling where he goes to capture lighting in a bottle in his creation of character.
I caught up with him not just weeks before we go into rehearsal for the Ukrainian play The Trumpeter, which opens January 22, 2026.
Michael Kevin Darnall is an actor calibrated with such sensitivity and nuance that one must simply give oneself over watching him work, marveling where he goes to capture lighting in a bottle in his creation of character. We caught up with him not just weeks before we go into rehearsal for the Ukrainian play The Trumpeter, which opens January 22, 2026.
Michael Kevin Darnall is an actor calibrated with such sensitivity and nuance that one must simply give oneself over watching him work, marveling where he goes to capture lighting in a bottle in his creation of character.
We caught up with him not just weeks before we go into rehearsal for the Ukrainian play The Trumpeter, which opens January 22, 2026.
What draws you back into working on The Trumpeter in this fully immersive staging?
I am really drawn to the poetry of the piece, the narrative of course, the quality of the image making. It’s a very direct address piece which relies on the imagination of the audience to create the images my character paints, but really, I just provide the numbers. The lyrical quality of the piece and the literal trumpeter on stage who not only at times underscore the text but has these solo standout moments, especially in the haunting eerie space that is the Dupont Underground, this deep, cavernous place that not only holds so much history of Washington, DC, but is such a great platform for presenting work in new, innovative ways which is the only way to do things when you are working with János Szász.
You have worked with director János Szász previously in Angels in America. What can you say about how he works and your obvious special rapport?
(chuckling) János sees things in ways no one else does. He will take a classic or a modern classic piece and just spin it on its ear. He doesn’t do things in a schtichy way. It all comes from a very honest, creative place. He sees things in the way we see life in dreams, a lucid dream. You know that this is not literal, but this is one hundred percent real. I just love working with him. He is such a nourishing Director. He is so kind and he really looks out protect his actors. And when he senses you have any sort of gift for art or simply how one sees life, he protects it and encourages it. He is just a wonderful person to be around, and I aways feel safe in his arms.
We also have worked together previously in Alliance’s first Ukrainian Plays Project, a series of short plays. Would you share where your affinity for Ukraine comes from?
My grandmother’s parents, that is my great-grandmother was Slovak and my great grandfather was Hungarian-Ukrainian. My grandmother is so into ancestry and has all of these books. So my big revelation that I only discovered a few years ago was that he was Ukrainian by way of Hungary that is like many the family that migrated to Ukraine. He changed his name from Myscelka to Michael Misoka, and then in America they thought he was Japanese. What I know about him is that he ran away from home was that he was an ornery gentleman who smoked a couple of packs of cigarette a day and would rip the filters off. And he also loved the violin.
Would you like to share anything else about your work as an actor? What would meaningful work be for you in the future?
What I want to be surrounded first and foremost by kind people who are good souls, who care about the work but care about people first. Oh, you can be brilliant but if you are a pain in the ass, I have nothing for you.
You're wanting what I call “playing nicely in the sandbox.”
Exactly, You can help me build my sandcastle , and I will help you build yours! Otherwise, life is too short. I love Lise whom we are going to be working with. I love collaborating on new plays and sometimes with the playwright in the room and able and open to take suggestions from the actor. True collaboration!
Interview by Susan Galbraith
Postscript…I am reminded of the kind of theater work still being done in Ukraine under unimaginable conditions. Colleague Blair Ruble has been reporting about the arts being created in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. In his latest missive he writes, “ Director Dmytro Nekrasov has been transforming a provincial stage in Sumy into a noteworthy contemporary theater even as drones and rockets whiz overhead. The northeast Ukrainian city of Sumy, home to a quarter-million people about twenty miles from the border, endured the full force of the Russian invasion this past autumn…Nekrasov is contemptuous of those who argue the company should relocate because of the war. These times recalibrate moral boundaries and demand an authenticity he strives to create.” In the nation’s capital, shouldn’t we try for the same in carrying local and global stories of urgency
To read more about the work of artists like Nekrasov, follow Blair Ruble’s tireless efforts to keep Ukrainian arts and the people in our hearts and minds. Their fight for freedom and autonomy is ours. Go to and sign up at The Arts of War | citdus
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Artists and Partners on View
Cantate Presents Celebrate
Sunday, December 14, 2025 • 5:00 p.m.
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
6601 Bradley Blvd, Bethesda, MD 20817
Join Cantate Concert Choir, baritone Anthony D. Anderson, and a chamber orchestra for a classic choral holiday celebration featuring beloved choruses from Handel’s Messiah, together with Vaughan Williams’ gorgeous Fantasia on Christmas Carols and more joyous holiday music by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Dan Forrest, and Shawn Kirchner. Cantate’s 2025-2026 cohort of Lift Every Voice fellows elevates the evening with a selection of dazzling seasonal oratorio solos polished during their residency with Cantate.