" Wine Me Up, Maria!: A Go-Go Musical
A collaboration between the GU Theater & Performance Studies Program, Mask & Bauble Dramatic Society, and Black Theatre Ensemble"
The story follows Maria, a DC native and a rising senior at Georgetown, who has a dilemma; it is the summer and she has not landed a job or an internship, but all she wants to do is to write and perform Go-Go music. When she finally finds employment as a live-in tutor for six children in a wealthy Georgetown household, she begins teaching the kids about Go-Go. In an uncanny riff on nanny storylines of musicals such as "The Sound of Music" or "Mary Poppins," the show features a cast of Georgetown students with guest appearance by the Capital Kidds, an educational children's go-go group run by Garris as part of the Innovative School of Performing Arts he founded, which has previously partnered with District of Columbia Public Schools and Department of Parks and Recreation. A blended ensemble of professional go-go musicians and Georgetown students performs live every night as
The Graveyard Band (a simultaneous nod to the Davis Center's location overlooking a Jesuit cemetery and to well-known go-go groups such as the Junkyard Band and the Backyard Band); the band changes its name to The Groove Yard Band during the course of the show, a symbolic gesture indicating how go-go will never be in its grave, but will keep on grooving! Maria and the children perform original go-go songs in scenes ranging from a tutoring session for standardized test prep ("SAT song") to discovery and exploration of D.C. ("In the District").