Special Armistice Day Celebration Event: “In Flanders Fields” at the Art Club of Washington, DC

This Veterans Day, November 11, (previously Armistice Day,) join us in a music-theatre program in remembrance of ancestors and others lost to commemorate what was known as “the war to end all wars.”

Victor Chapman in 1916.

This Veterans Day, Alliance for New Music-Theatre artists John Boulanger, Alan Naylor, and Cara Schaefer will transport audience members back in time some hundred years in our nation’s history. Portraying noted essayist, biographer, and playwright John Jay Chapman, his wife, Elizabeth Astor Chapman, and son Victor, they reminisce about Victor’s signing up with the French Foreign Legion while on a family trip to Europe.

The program commemorates the story of Victor Chapman, who joined the Foreign Legion in September 1914. After a year in the trenches, he joined the “Lafayette Escadrille,” the Legion’s American Aviation Corps, and was the first American aviator to perish in the conflict, all before the United States entered the war in 1917.

Alliance member artists John Boulanger, Alan Naylor, and Cara Schaefer will bring to life a very different era of the nation’s history through the lens of one American family caught up in the war. Portraying noted essayist, biographer, and playwright John Jay Chapman, his wife, Elizabeth Astor Chapman, and son Victor, they reminisce about Victor’s service in the French Foreign Legion and as a WWI aviator.

The program will serve as a “salon event,” and invitation into the Chapman’s home as they read from Victor’s letters from the front, interspersed with poetry and songs written during the “Great War.” Selections include the iconic “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae and poems by other noted war poets including Wilfred Owen, Alan Seeger, and Siegfried Sassoon.

You’ll also hear American popular songs by George M. Cohan and others of the period, settings of John McCrae’s famous title poem by Charles Ives and John Phillip Sousa, and a group of settings of A.E. Housman’s “A Shropshire Lad” poems by George Butterworth, a British composer who died in the “War to End All Wars.”

Boulanger and Schaefer reunite here to pay tribute not only to the men who died in WWI but the artists whose expressions led us through the arc from a vision of heroic combat to the grim and heartbreaking realities of that terrible conflict. They are joined by Helen Hayes award-winner Alan Naylor, who will serve as pianist in addition to portraying the young Victor Chapman.

Boulanger curated the first version of this program in 2017, with founding company member and soprano Laura Lewis, which was presented at the Woodrow Wilson House to commemorate the 100 th anniversary of the United States’ entry into the war.

Boulanger and Schaefer were seen last fall as Julius Caesar and Wo-Man Ray in New Music-Theatre’s original opera The Man Ray Project: Caesar & The Mannequin by composer Andrew Earle Simpson. They reunite here to pay tribute not only to the men who died in WWI but the artists whose expressions led us through the arc from a vision of heroic combat to the grim and heartbreaking realities of that terrible conflict.

They are joined by Helen Hayes award-winner Alan Naylor, who will serve as pianist in addition to portraying the young Victor Chapman.

Period attire, medals and pearls, are encouraged.

The Arts Club will provide a small bites buffet and beverages, included in the price of the ticket. The salon program starts at 7:00 pm.

Seating is limited. Purchase tickets here: https://alliancefornewmusic-theatre.thundertix.com/events/253137

The Alliance for New Music-Theatre

Formed in 1994, The Alliance for New Music-Theatre fosters the collaboration of artists across cultures; nurtures the creation, development, and performance of new works; and engages audiences in the creative process to promote a deeper understanding of the transformative power of music-theatre in its many forms – changing the conversation through the arts.

The Arts Club of Washington

In Flanders Field will be presented in the Gallery Theatre of the Arts Club of Washington. For over a century the Arts Club of Washington has promoted and celebrated the visual, performing, and literary arts in the nation’s capital. Founded in 1916, The Arts Club of Washington is the oldest nonprofit arts organization in the nation’s capital, committed to elevating all forms of artistic expression, facilitating cultural conversations, and preserving the unique history of our permanent collection and buildings, including the historic Monroe House, former home to President James Monroe. The Arts Club is an ideal venue for celebrating Armistice Day and presenting “In Flanders Field” because one of the Club’s founders, Maj. Michel Jacobs served in World War I.

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