Lincoln Gets a Laugh - Little Shop of Horrors comes to Ford's Theater

Ford's Theater has had it's run of bad luck over the years. The first theater, known as Ford's Athenaeum, burned down in 1862, presumably before falling into the swamp. Not having huge tracks of land, the Ford brothers rebuilt the structure you see today. However, their success was short lived, as we all know, and the Theater never reopened after the assassination of President Lincoln. Purchased by the U.S. Government, the Theater housed the Army's Surgeon General's Office until disaster struck again on June 9, 1893, when a structural collapse killed 22 clerks, and injured another 68. Turned into a warehouse for many years, the Theater finally reopened in 1968 under it's current incarnation as a working theater and National Historic Landmark.

Things have been relatively quiet since then, so why would the Ford's Theater Society invite disaster by bringing a giant, man-eating plant onto the premises? And right during tour season? We're going to lose scads of eighth graders, keeping that beast happy.

But if you're willing to risk it, Ford's Theater is presenting Little Shop of Horrors, the campy musical that I know best from the 1986 movie with Rick Moranis, Steve Martin, and Bill Murray. This time around, the highlight for me is watching a giant puppet Audrey II chomp on people. I know, I know, I tend to focus on the macabre, but come on, a giant plant eating people? In a live performance? In roughly the same exact spot where John Wilkes Booth shouted "Sic semper tyrannis" before dashing (well, limping) off the stage? The irony alone is worth the price of admission.

Little Shop of Horrors is a welcome, if unconventional, choice for Ford's Theater, which normally runs more historically based dramas. I have to imagine that great American humorist, Abraham Lincoln, is looking down with approval, pleased not to watch yet another portrayal of himself. After all, the man just wanted to get out of the office and have a laugh on April 13th, 1865. About time he got one.

Little Shop of Horrors kicks off today and runs to May 22, and tickets are available through the Box Office. To find out more check out Little Shop's own blog, with video snippets from the performance. 

Ford's Theater Museum to Re-open - Get your tickets now?

Next Wednesday, July 15th, Washington, DC, will welcome back one of our great cultural treasures, the Museum underneath Ford's Theater. Let me say right off the bat that the Theater has created a top notch museum. I was concerned that the Ford's Theater Society and the National Park Service would jump on board the trend for touch screens and interactive games; trying to out wii the wii generation. I was pleasantly surprised that they went for depth over breadth, building content rich displays that don't dumb down their subject matter. While I'll miss the old one, and question why they had to mess with perfection, the really have created an excellent overview of the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

I'm particularly excited that they choose to explore some of the complexity and the growth of Lincoln while President. So often, I get visitors that will tell me that "Lincoln didn't want to free the slaves" or "he wanted to ship them to Africa". While true, these views are snapshots in his life and fail to capture the ability of President Lincoln, perhaps more than any other President, to not let past views hinder him from new judgments. This museum does an excellent job of showing how Lincoln's views shifted and what a tremendous capacity for learning and growth he had. He's not a static character, so I guess it's fair that a museum dedicated to him doesn't have to be either.

The assassination is still discussed, if not necessarily with the depth it had before. The pistol Booth killed Lincoln with is still there naturally, if relegated to the sidelines. The assassination portion of the exhibit is, obviously, at the end and by necessity occupies a smaller portion of the floor space that it did in the previous museum. Most of the artifacts are still there, and they still cover the assassination and its aftermath fully, if not as detailed as in the past. I'll miss that portion of the museum, but they've done well with crafting a new exhibit, so there's no point in being churlish.

Theoretically, the new plan for visiting Ford's Theater consists of four parts. First you visit the museum, to get a sense of how Lincoln worked and lived in his time in Washington. Then you move to the Theater, where you watch either a presentation by a Park Service ranger or a one act play dealing with the assassination. Moving on to the "third act", as the theater folks like to say, you cross the street to the Peterson House, where you witness the site where the President died the next morning. Finally, you will end up next door in the planned Center for Education and Leadership, where they plan to more fully explore Lincoln's legacy. The idea is that the four parts form a coherent and chronologically appropriate path that fully discus Lincoln's Presidency, assassination, and their continuing legacy.

Wonderful, except that this is just going to heighten the logistical nightmare that a visit to Ford's Theater has been this spring. Since the Theater and the Peterson House have opened, this policy has created a feast or famine line at the Peterson House. Since you now need tickets to enter the House, as you will the Museum, the House goes from having no line, to one that stretches around the block, all in the space of sixty seconds. I particularly enjoy the portion of my day where tour guides are frantically trying to gather up their groups as they spill out of the theater to chivvy them in line, bowling over befuddled tourists and 3 for $10 sunglass salesmen, desperate to avoid a ten minute appointment from becoming an hour. Good times.

By requiring a ticket, I fear the new museum is going to be faced with the same issue, albeit in reverse. For the first half of every hour, tumbleweeds will blow by in the museum as everyone else is in the theater. Then the museum will start to fill to capacity, rising to a crescendo about forty five minutes after the hour, when everyone will "just pop down to the museum, to see what they have" before the presentation starts. Finally, as the theater opens, the cycle will repeat itself as the museum empties.

So what if you wish to skip the ranger talk, and just visit the Museum? Well, that would be my advice. And it's possible, but you will still need a ticket just to visit the Museum, as you do now for the Peterson House. If you've planned ahead and purchased them online, you will be all set. Or if you come in the off season when it's not to full, you're OK. But if you happen to be strolling by, want to duck into the Museum, and the Theater is full, you will be out of luck as all the tickets will be given away for that performance. So you will be in the interesting position of needing a ticket to a show you don't want to see which prevents you from visiting a Museum you do wish to see, which is virtually empty at that time. Fun, isn't it. Ford's tends to disagree with me, and maybe that won't be the case, but so far that scenario has played out repeatedly this spring with the Peterson House and the Theater.

By laying out the Museum, Theater, Peterson House, and, eventually, the Education Center in such a way; and especially by insisting on a ticket policy for each of the sites, Ford's Theater necessarily crowds a first rate museum and makes it more difficult for the casual visitor.

Ford's Theater - Revisted

As all three readers of this blog may remember from previously, I have been less than complimentary about the redesign of Ford's Theater. I invite you to check out the previous post if you want the full blast of my thoughts, but I took a group of eighth graders there the other day and I thought I'd give you my revised impressions.

First of all, the new lobby is very nice, in the sense that a new shopping mall is nice. But credit where credit is due, it will be good for the theater going public to have a real lobby to gather before performances. There's a small concession stand, decent bathrooms, and they didn't butcher the bookshop too badly (although it certainly isn't an improvement). And let's all give the Park Service credit for updating the website to reflect the opening of the theater.

As far as taking large groups goes, the ticket system is a significant improvement over the cattle call of yore, if, and this is a big if, you wish to see the hourly ranger presentation. I did not sit through it this time as DC gun laws prevent me from carrying a firearm there and I would not have any recourse to kill myself if I lost the Russian roulette that is the Park Service's presentations. Like I said before, some are excellent and some are like tax seminars. But if you do want to go to it, this is a far, far more pleasant way to do it than fighting all those eight graders. And it helps that it's not yet crazy tourist season and they were practically begging pedestrians to come in. We'll see how it goes when the onslaughts arrive.

Sadly, the Peterson House is now only available to those who have tickets and I understand the museum will be the same. So you must, in essence, suffer through the rangers to see the museum, or, at the very least, book a ticket in advance. Hopefully, the Park Service will loosen their monopoly on interpretation and we'll be able to just go to the museum and Peterson House on our own, perhaps when everyone else is in the ranger program.

So, all in all, the new system does have some highlights. With a little bit of give on the Park Service's part, I'm hopeful that Ford's Theater will get back on my recommended list. When the museum opens, I will of course give you my review. Despite my misgivings in the last post, I am really, really hoping for the best.

What have you done with Ford's Theater?

Back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was one place that captured the imaginations of die hard Lincoln aficionados and casual tourists alike: Ford's Theater. Ford's Theater was widely popular for being what is was: the Place Where Lincoln Was Shot. You go in, and in a small dark basement was The Gun That Killed Lincoln. No one, not even the most jaded, i-pod listening, FBI t-shirt wearing, 8th grader, needed interpretation. There it all was; the gun, the overcoat with the President's blood, the shackles the conspirators wore; all of it, just sitting there. And the kids were entranced. They didn't need themed displays. They didn't want interactive toys. They saw History, and they knew it. Coupled with the excellent restoration of the theater based on pictures taken shortly after the assassination by Mathew Brady, it was an excellent place to connect with one of America's most pivotal moments.

Well, time moves on and the universe continues it's inevitable push towards entropy. The powers that be decided it was time to sink $50 million into bringing Ford's Theater into the 21st Century. Here's a project I enthusiastically supported. The theater needed work. It wasn't ADA compliant, there was no lobby (and hence no bar!), and any time I hear "historic site" and "dated electrical plan" I cringe and feel the need to throw money at it. And, while they're at, if they could fix those chairs that felt as if I was scourging myself for some unknown sin, well, that would be fine too. All in all, my old friend was in bad shape, and I wished her all the best while she had some needed surgery.

It turns out, however, in addition to the needed bypass surgery, my friend had been sold a bill of goods by a plastic surgeon. Face lifts, augmentations, all kids of things were done to her to get her to look younger and hipper. And like so much plastic surgery, it was all so unnecessary. Eager to hear more about the renovations, I attended a public meeting held by the National Park Service and the Ford's Theater Society, the two organizations that jointly run the Theater as both a monument and a functioning theater. What I heard made me cringe.

First off, the Theater will now only be accessible by timed tickets. Previously, you waited in line if you wished to see the Park Ranger give his hourly presentation at the Theater. At times, you got a good one, and the presentation was worth the wait. Generally, it was just some NPS hack up there boring the kids. So I was able skip all of that and take my groups up to the balcony, let them take their pictures, point out a few items, and head down to the museum. It was quick, and it was real. The kids loved it and it was a meaningful and concise visit. Then we would head outside, do a quick tour of the Peterson House (across the street where Lincoln died) and be on our merry way.

Now, we have to get timed tickets. For all of it, including the Peterson House. And you have to suffer through the godawful Park Service presentation in order to see the museum. That's fine for the big tour companies who churn thousands of eight graders through the city (Worldstrides, I'm looking at you here), but for the casual visitor, it kills the drop in visit. So now, if you're coming to DC and don't have Ford's already planned out on your itinerary, it ain't happening. No more quick visits. It's now A Thing. And for us locals, who used to drop in with visitors when we happened to be downtown, the tickets pull Ford's Theater out of the fabric of our city. Now it's a planned event, something that you have to mean to do. It rips away the spontaneity that made Ford's Theater so accessible to us. Now it's like the Capitol, the White House, the Washington Monument; something locals won't do because it's a hassle.

And this may be for the best, because the other great failing in the new plan is the reworking of the museum. The same museum that was one of my favorite haunts has been spruced up. No longer will it be quaint yet meaningful experience of yore. Now, instead of "just" being the place where Lincoln died, they want to tell the comprehensive story of Lincoln in DC. Thanks folks, without you, I just might not notice that Lincoln had lived here. Unless of course I went to any other museum in town! Focus on what you have, the story of the Lincoln Assassination and quit trying to re-teach the whole Civil War.

My final frustration is one that transcends just Ford's Theater. Everyone is trying to be more "interactive" and less static. In the last year alone we've had the Newseum and the Museum of Crime and Punishment open up, to join many other infotainment centers. Now, I like a game room as much as the next guy and both of the places I mention above I heartily recommend. But they have to catch you with bells and whistles because they don't have it. That rare quality of being on a site where History with a capital H happened. Ford's has it, why squander it with touch screens and gizmos? You were drawing in the crowds; why try to compete with the flashing lights?

I haven't seen the Theater yet, as it just reopened and I'll be damned if I wait in line for a ticket. It's like a friend asking you to make an appointment when you stop by. I will swing by next week with a tour group, so I'll give everyone an update with my impressions once I see it. I wish I could tell you when the museum proper opens, but as of today (Feb 21st) the Park Service's website still says that the Theater itself will open February 12th. Crackerjack web presence you guys got there. At least they note that "Winter can bring cold temperatures, frozen precipitation and, on occasions, major snowstorms." Awesome, thanks.

Anyway, as always, if anyone else out there happens across Ford's any time soon, please leave your impressions in the comments. Despite my misgivings, I hope others with fresh eyes have a positive experience there.

All Lincoln, All The Time

Ok, I admire President Lincoln as much as the next guy, and even more so if the next guy hails from south of the Rapahonnock. He's one of those rare historical figures where the mythology undersells what he accomplished. His Memorial is a fitting counterweight to the Capitol on our National Mall. And certainly, no President better supports the Great Man theory of history.

But isn't it all getting to be a little much? Yeah, yeah, I know it's the bicentennial of his birth. I know there is more than a casual overlap between Lincoln's life story and our new President's. I'm sure those of us in the DC area have noticed the phenomenon; maybe our friends from Illinois can back us up here. Is it possible that we give the man who was arguably our greatest President too much attention?

It all started innocuously enough. Ford's Theater closed down a few years ago for a long awaited restoration, to reopen on the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin's fascinating look at Lincoln's political machinations during his Presidency, came out around that time. Then, the National Trust for Historic Preservation restored the Lincoln Cottage at the Soldier's Home in NE DC. Ok, these seemed to be, and were, positive developments. The Cottage, in particular, is a welcome addition, very well done, and truly adds something to our awareness of President Lincoln.

But it all went off the rails at some point. For me, it was when I attended a meeting about the re-opening of Ford's Theater and saw that DC's greatest little museum was becoming our latest infotainment center; a 1865 version of the Spy Museum. I'll have more on that later, but for know it just kind of got me noticing what was going on around here. Every new museum exhibit, every new symposium, every new lecture was about Lincoln.

Some of these look cool. Certainly, the National Museum of American History is a natural venue for a retrospective of Lincoln's life. And the Library of Congress, continues it's track record of being, in my opinion, the best American History Museum in Washington with it's exhibit that includes the contents of Lincoln's pockets the night he was assassinated. And I was terribly moved to see the Gettysburg Address on display when the American History Museum re-opened. But Lincoln Stamp Collecting? Random Lincoln Art? And this one really takes the cake (for a look at some craziness near you check it out here). Nothing wrong with any of this individually, but in total it's a bit overwhelming. Even the Economist is noting the trend.

So, all in all, President Lincoln, I ask you not to leave us in peace, but in moderation. It's all just too much. Maybe you could nudge your wife to visit some curators, writers, and lecturers from beyond the grave and let them know that Lincoln has been done. On the off chance they find a new angle, it's going to be lost in the shuffle. And hey, we got some other history to look at here as well.