Hi, everybody.

I'm Felicia Curry, and welcome to "WETA Arts," the place to discover what's going on in the creative and performing arts in and around D.C.

In this episode, Marvin Gaye's long-closed junior high school has reopened as an art museum... Art has a way to make me feel that I'm not alone.

Curry: an acrobat-turned-artist weaves with rebar wire... Woman: I put ribbons in to indicate that we need to keep our femininity strong.

Curry: and I speak with a titan of the local theater scene, Molly Smith, on the eve of her retirement from Arena Stage... Smith: If you actually looked, you'd see my career is this combination of art and politics.

all these stories coming up on "WETA Arts."

In Southwest D.C., a new art museum has opened its doors.

Called the Rubell Museum, it hosts a rotating selection from the renowned contemporary art collection of Don and Mera Rubell and their son Jason, whose intensive approach to evaluating art has led then to acquire works by early-career artists who'd go on to global acclaim.

I haven't seen people here before in this space, this many people looking.

Curry, voice-over: The Rubells worked for decades to create this museum.

You know the Chinese aphorism "Every long journey starts with a one step"?

And many, many small steps make a long trip.

Curry, voice-over: That first step came when the Rubells began buying art as a young couple living in New York City.

Don: We lived in New York at a time when New York was in a sad economic state, and so the artist were able to get studios in storefronts, and we gradually got to meet the artists working there, and one day, this artist who we visited probably 6 or 7 times said, "Why don't you buy something?"

and we started laughing because we didn't imagine ourselves ever collecting, and we said, "There's no way we can pay for it."

He said, "How much would you be comfortable paying?"

We said, "$5.00 a week"...

He said, "OK.

I'll take that."

and he said he would take it, which kind of shocked us, and that's how we started.

Don; voice-over: We don't approach art saying, "This is what we're gonna look for."

A dynamic, I mean, an extraordinary young artist.

Don, voice-over: We approach from the point of view, "What is the artist doing, and is this really interesting, and is this gonna change the way we think about what we do?"

Mera: There's a lot of biblical references.

The second face represents the religious reference, and the first face represents the, for want of something better, the human reference.

What we do is find compelling artwork that moves us, and compelling artwork is powerful.

Curry, voice-over: In growing up with what had become a full-blown collection, Don and Mera's son Jason acquired his parents' passion for art.

Jason, voice-over: I started collecting when I was a young kid.

This was sort of our family life, was being around the art, being around artists.

Keith Haring, we met him in 19-- I think it was, like, '81.

I was 12 years old.

He was a very charming, nice young guy.

He was, like, 20 years old, I think, at the time.

Like we always did those days, we said, "Well, let's go visit your studio," and that was the start of the relationship.

We bought the first piece he ever sold, and we bought the last piece he ever sold before he died.

Curry, voice-over: Now the collection includes more than 7,000 works by over 1,000 artists.

Most of it is located in Florida, where the Rubells have another museum.

Mera: What started us on having a museum in the first place was actually, Jason when he comes out of college, he decides that he will merge his private collection to our collection if we decide to do something public with it, and so Jason took us on this path.

The artists have a platform in our museum in Miami, but Washington is really the biggest platform for being heard.

Don: This is a time where artists are very concerned with a lot of the basic social political issues of our time, and what better venue to show this than Washington, D.C.?

Curry, voice-over: Finding a venue in Washington wasn't simple.

It required buy-in from their would-be neighbors.

Mera: It was a process.

It was amazing that the community actually knew what they wanted.

They wanted to preserve this Southwest historic property with the legacy that it had.

Curry: Southwest's Randall School was one of the few buildings in the area that survived the 1950s, when homes and neighborhoods were leveled in the name of urban renewal.

Andy Litsky served on the advisory neighborhood commission that recognized the school's potential as an art space.

Litsky: The Randall School stopped being Randall Junior High School in 1978, and afterwards, it fell into great disrepair.

Curry: The abandoned building remained an eyesore for decades while residents organized to improve the neighborhood.

Even so, the path to agreeing on this museum was a winding road.

Vincent C. Gray: We've already done Item 5, Item 6.

We'll now move to the consent agenda.

Litsky, voice-over: We had many community meetings.

There were 3 separate council hearings and no fewer than 9 zoning commission hearings.

To put the site of the old Randall School to good use.

It wasn't easy, but when the idea first germinated, everybody embraced it.

First of all, we're gonna be getting rid of a nuisance, and we'll be putting new housing in.

15% affordable housing, and we're getting a museum out of it, that's great.

Mera: Very devoted community members had a vision to save the historic portion of the school.

They came to visit us in Miami.

They really got to know who we are.

Litsky: They recognized the architectural significance of the building.

and the adaptive reuse.

You see all the way through it vestiges of what it used to be.

Mera, voice-over: 14 years of restoring a building that was totally deteriorated, fortunately, we worked with amazing architects who were specialists of restoring historic properties.

Curry, voice-over: The lead designer of the new museum is architect Hany Hassan.

The original building was designed in the Georgian Revival style.

The balustrade, we recreated that exactly from photographs.

All the cornices were restored The roofs were failing completely.

It used to rain inside the building.

We reveal just enough of the historic fabric of the building to give you that sense of texture and the quality of the building without sort of overdoing it so it doesn't compete with the art.

Curry: Some galleries in the museum feature many artists' works.

Gaye: ♪ Father, father... ♪ Curry: Other artists, like their friend Keith Haring, have solo rooms with art that is personally meaningful to the Rubells.

Jason: The room that we're in now, called "Against All Odds," Keith had done towards the end of his life.

He passed away in 1990 from AIDS.

Gaye: ♪ You know we've got... ♪ Mera: He says in his own handwriting, "I dedicate this to Don's brother, "who passed away from AIDS, "but I also dedicate this to Marvin Gaye.

"I was listening to "What's Going On" "over and over and over when I made this piece called "Against All Odds."

Gaye: ♪ Brutality... ♪ Keith: Only much later after we got this building did we connect that Marvin Gaye was in this junior high school.

It just felt like, God, the stars are lining up with the issues that Marvin Gaye was addressing in that album and the drawings that Keith was doing.

We sort of said, "Wow.

"These topics are still at the forefront.

"They're still there.

"There's so much tragedy going on, issues of homophobia, racism, poverty."

Mera: So it was natural to name our inaugural show "What's Going On."

Gaye: ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah... ♪ Curry: It was also natural to hire an executive director who was drawn to D.C. and contemporary art.

My background was really working with objects by artists who had passes away.

When I moved to Washington, I had the opportunity to work with living artists whom you could ask why they made a brushstroke the way they did, and having that in-person interaction in an artist's studio was something I knew I wanted more of.

Our inaugural exhibition "What's Going On" features the work of 37 artists and 190 works of art.

This collection is artists presenting opportunities for us to consider how we all want to participate in the future of our world.

Ahead of the opening, I'm feeling humbled, excited, inspired by the reaction we've already perceived from the community.

Jason: Welcome to the Rubell Museum D.C. Curry, voice-over: The opening draw press, artists, neighbors, and even the mayor.

We are delighted that the Rubell family is bringing their art to D.C. [Applause] We believe that you can preserve history and create new history, more housing, and more integration, and this is a great example.

Jason: On 3.

1, 2, 3.

[Cheering and applause] Curry, voice-over: The first visitors come from across the city and up and down the East Coast.

My first impressions of the Rubell Museum are really overwhelming.

I'm just excited these kinds of works can find their way to D.C. We're very privileged to be here from Miami, and I think this museum will make a very big impact on this community like it has in Miami.

Woman: I was stunned by the Kehinde Wiley when walking in.

It's two stories high.

At least, that's how it felt.

For this city to have the image of a powerful Black man represented in an art historical context is really important and exciting.

I've had so many people come up to me and say "D.C. is ready for this.

D.C. needs this.

"There's nothing else like this here, and we can't wait to come back," and that means everything.

Don, voice-over: The art-- the approaching the art, the collecting of the art-- it's really the mission of our life.

Mera, voice-over: Art has a way in my life to make me feel that I'm not alone, that I'm-- that other people feel like me.

Jason: Its like the reunion to celebrate this communal group passion, you know.

It's great.

I mean, what more could you want, you know?

Litsky: I am carrying this memory of folks in the community who worked on this, too, for many years and aren't here to see it come to fruition.

It's their work, too.

It's a wonderful present to the Southwest community.

Curry: Admission for the Rubell Museum is free for D.C. residents.

It's open Wednesday through Sunday.

Check the website for hours.

Aerialist, weaver, and installation artist-- Kirsty Little is all of these and more.

Originally from Great Britain, Little lives in Chevy Chase, and her work can be seen across the city, from the VisArts Galleries in Rockville to the Honfleur Gallery in Anacostia.

We caught up with her in her studio in Mount Rainier.

Little, voice-over: I was thrilled to discover this incredibly energetic and wildly exciting area that echoed to me a bit what East London is like.

I come from Hackney in London, and there's a ton of energy over there in young people and old people and studios and mixed races, and it's just, like, a very exciting, dynamic space, so when I got here, I'm like, "Wow.

Who knew this existed in D.C.?"

[Orchestral music playing] My previous career, I was in the circus, so I spent 25 years flying through the air with the greatest of ease-- or a lot of struggle-- and then I moved to America with my husband, and I felt that I couldn't continue my circus career here.

There didn't seem to be much circus in D.C., to be honest, at that time.

Curry, voice-over: In D.C., she started taking art classes, including ceramics and weaving.

Little, voice-over: I discovered that I really didn't like weaving on a loom-- it was backbreaking stuff-- and the teacher said, "Well, this was always considered to be woman's work back in history," and at the same time, the Me Too movement was surging.

I'm not a radical feminist, but I certainly support women-- independent, entrepreneurial women-- and I thought, "Well, I need to do something with my art to try and help say something, spread a message," so I started weaving with steel wire instead, which is much harder and much more laborious.

Curry: Her series called "Feminine Peculiar" combines her woven wire work with porcelain and wood.

She explains that this work examines the concept of feminine in today's world.

Little, voice-over: And I use steel wire which is rebar steel wire that you buy in the hardware store, so it's typically considered to be a man's product... [Chuckles] if there is such a thing.

I deliberately use it because it's cheap and dirty and accessible and easy and it's not wrapped up in plastic and it seems like a real product.

I like those elements of it.

I use wax in the weaving, which is another thing that was considered woman's work back in history, making candles, so I put wax on the tips because as I cut the wire, it ends up with a sharp point.

I think that women moving forward need to be powerful but with gentle spirit.

I put ribbons in to indicate that we need to keep our femininity strong.

The wire work here is called "Safe," and I made that during COVID where clearly everybody didn't feel safe at the time.

The little, central section made out of copper with orange is like a family group, and around it, you have this massive energy which is either, like, a dangerous forest or a safety zone.

It's actually a maquette.

I would like to make it as a full-size, walk-through installation in a park someday and have fire in the center of it.

Curry: Little already works in large-scale, using her work to advance awareness of environmental ills.

Little, voice-over: I make enormous installations that have been in American University and VisArts and have been bought by P.G.

County which are mainly around numbers.

I'm trying to raise the profile of reducing single-use plastic.

35 billion plus is the amount of single-use plastic bottles that Americans use every year, so I collected-- I wish I knew how many lids I had.

I had literally my whole house would fill with these lids, and I glued them all into these different shapes and made numbers and displayed it around D.C. and Maryland, and as I, as an extrovert, find art kind of a struggle, almost, to do as a solitary profession, I like engaging in conversation with people about the work, and it's spreading that message.

I think if a talk about the Me Too movement and the hopeful rise of women empowerment, then that gets a lot of energy and resonance.

People understand it a little more, why I work with such strange material, why my artwork could be considered fairly unique.

I think artists could be seemingly strange and unknown people if you work in other environments.

We're just human beings, and we're struggling to make a living, and we like people to put our works into their homes to make them beautiful places.

Kirsty Little's public art project called "RightNOW" about women's equality is on display in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

It's in the storefronts at 5510 through 5530 Wisconsin Avenue and will be up through April 30.

You can also see her art in a group show called "Women's Work" at the Athenaeum Gallery in Alexandria.

It runs from May 4 to June 11.

When Arena Stage was founded in 1950, it was the first desegregated theater in the city.

It became the first regional theater in the nation to have a production make it to Broadway and the first outside of New York to receive a Tony Award.

This looks great.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Curry, voice-over: Under the stewardship of artist director Molly Smith, Arena Stage has made an indelible mark on the D.C. theater scene, on Southwest Waterfront, and even on Broadway.

I met with Smith, who is retiring at the end of the current season, to talk about her ambitions and her legacy.

Hi, Molly.

Welcome to "WETA Arts."

I can't tell you how excited I am to be able to sit down and chat with you.

It's great to be with you, too.

So, Molly, 25 years, 200 productions here at Arena Stage, and I know all of us are thinking why now?

Why not wait till 30, 35, 40?

[Both laugh] I've done just about everything that I wanted to do.

It's now a beautiful chance to pass a baton.

That's the way theaters operate.

We're just caretakers, and then it's time to pass it on.

I'm gonna do a ton of travel.

My partner and I have a cabin in Alaska, but I'm very much Washingtonian.

I'm staying.

I love this city.

I love it creatively.

I love it politically.

It is the city where it happens.

Tell me a little bit about what you were doing in Alaska before you came here to us in D.C.

I was gonna be in a pre-law degree, and I decided, "I'm gonna follow my heart," and I told my teachers, "I'm gonna start a theater in Juno," and they patted me on the back and said, "That's very nice, dear," and I left.

I ended up at Catholic University, and what I was really doing is learning everything I could to start a theater in Alaska, so I would go to New Playwrights' Theatre and ask them, "How do I read a play?"

I went to Asta, and I asked, "How do I run a box office?"

When I traveled back to Alaska, within 6 months, boom, we started Perseverance Theatre.

You're there for almost 20 years.

Why come to D.C. to run a theater?

I had this hunger to speak to a larger audience.

I got a phone call from a headhunter saying, "We'd love for you to throw your hat in the ring."

I said, "Why?"

and he said, "Because you share the same values," so that got me.

A search committee asked me what kind of a theater I wanted to do here.

I said, "For me, all American work," and so this has ended up being the largest theater to really focus on American artists.

Your first production here was "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

Tell me a little bit about that experience.

I wanted to direct in the round, which people said, "It's a director killer.

You're gonna fail.

You're gonna--" OK.

When somebody says I'm gonna fail, it just makes me more interested in something.

That was a wild production, and a lot of people were, "OK.

There's something new in town," and that's what I wanted, but also I very much wanted to do something by Tennessee Williams, great American writer.

Why not put him front and center so that we really understand what this theater's gonna be about?

When you decided that the vision was American voices, Yep.

American artists, Right.

American stories, Right.

did you know immediately, "I have to start looking into new works"?

In Alaska, every year, we would produce brand-new plays of, by and about Alaskans, so I just wrote it really big to "of, by, and about Americans."

The other thing I did when I came to Washington, D.C., is, I really walked the neighborhoods and knew that this theater has to reflect the city.

Hang with me a while.

Smith, voice-over: Occasionally, Arena would be doing productions of color, but it's always through consistency that you get what a theater's doing, so we moved into a third or sometimes half by artists of color.

It's all about how do you welcome people in and what's your mandate, and what are the plays that you're producing.

Tell me what you're doing to continue to make the community part of what's happening here at the theater.

This area when I came was called the Forgotten Quadrant.

The theater looked like a suburban library from the outside.

We wanted to make something that was absolutely dynamic in Southwest Washington.

It already had the Finchandler, which is the 690-seat house.

It already had the Kreeger, which is where you performed.

People do not stop talking about your shirts at the office.

Really?

Sarah was joking you must spend half what you make on shirts.

Smith, voice-over: We added the third theater, and we found a way to make it transparent to the whole city.

It's 450 panes of glass, and it's like a theater terrarium because all 3 theaters are under one roof.

This now has gone from being the Forgotten Quadrant to the hottest area of the city.

Curry: I remember the opening with "Oklahoma!"

Man: ♪ Oh, what a beautiful mornin'... ♪ Curry, voice-over: Tell me why that great American classic musical was what you decided to open this new center with.

Smith: It's dynamic.

It starts with "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'," and I thought, "What better to start this new center with?"

and second, in the 1880s in Oklahoma, there was a great land rush.

Native Americans were actually even running for land, African Americans, Asian Americans, and I wanted to put that diversity in the production, and that was the first time diversity had ever shown up in "Oklahoma!"

except for one role.

♪ We've done her wrong... ♪ Smith, voice-over: Laurey was African American.

Her aunt was African American.

♪ When the wind comes right behind the rain... ♪ Smith, voice-over: Curly was Hispanic.

It changed the way in which "Oklahoma!"

was seen around the country.

There will never be another production that will be all-white.

Tell us about the Power Play initiative.

It's so exciting to me, this idea of American stories being told by people who look like me, if I'm being truthful.

The idea was to do plays in every decade of American life from 1776 to the present decade.

Mean names!

100 died in the bombing of the King David Hotel alone!

Gentlemen, please.

Please... Smith, voice-over: A piece called "Camp David" was about President Carter and the Middle East peace accord...

I am not adding any words, Cat.

Justice Scalia-- No.

Smith, voice-over: "The Originalist" with Ed Gero playing Justice Scalia about a young, African American clerk who was more left-thinking.

Speaking of powerful, you have had work here that has pipelined to other places.

Over 150 other productions have happened around the country.

As far as Broadway, it's been 9 since I've been here.

Evan: ♪ On the outside always looking in... ♪ Smith, voice-over: "Dear Evan Hansen" premiered here, and Ben Platt shot to stardom.

Curry: What's been your favorite project you've worked on?

Oh, God.

It's whatever's the most recent one.

OK. For me, it's "My Body No Choice," which I just did.

After the decision by the Supreme Court to kick out Roe v. Wade, I brought in 8 wonderful female playwrights to write about bodily autonomy.

My career is this combination of art and politics.

It always has been.

But I have to ask you a question.

Oh.

I don't often get asked questions.

From you being here at Arena and from working in all of the theaters in Washington, D.C., how does it feel psychologically to you?

Well, I'll tell you, I was just talking about this this morning to a friend.

I am a D.C. theater actor... ♪ Old Jim Crow, yeah, don't you know... ♪ Curry, voice-over: and this is my D.C. theater family, and I don't use that word lightly.

We support each other, and you were a big part of why this theater community is the way that it is, so thank you for all the work that you have done here in D.C.

Thank you for the work you've allowed us to do here at Arena Stage, and thank you for your time today here on "WETA Arts."

It was so great having this conversation with you.

Well, thanks for the brilliant questions, and I love this answer.

[Both laugh] Curry: There are two shows left in Molly Smith's last season at Arena Stage.

Through April 23, you can catch Tony Kushner's Pulitzer- and Tony-winning epic "Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches," and the season closes with the world premiere of Arena's latest commission "Exclusion" by Kenneth Lin about what happens when a scholarly history of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 gets optioned for a TV miniseries.

"Exclusion" starts on May 5.

Here's a reflection from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder.

"Art is not only the desire to tell one's secret.

It is the desire to tell it and hide it at the same time."

Thank you for watching this episode of "WETA Arts."

Be well, be creative, and enjoy the art all around you.

I'm Felicia Curry.

Announcer: For more about the artists and institutions featured in this episode, go to weta.org/arts.