Georgetown University freshman Myiah Smith stars as Maria (Shannon Finney Photography)

Georgetown is not one of the neighborhoods that people associate with go-go, Washington, D.C.’s homegrown music genre. But this week, the tony Northwest, D.C. neighborhood is carving out a home for the beloved local genre on stage at Georgetown University.

Wind Me Up, Maria!: A Go-Go Musical premieres Thursday at the Davis Performing Arts Center. Georgetown is as much the venue for the percussive production as it is a part of it.

The play centers on a rising senior at Georgetown who needs a summer job. Born and bred in D.C., Maria is a big fan of go-go. But while she loves to write and perform original tunes, not many people are hiring an amateur go-go musician. Rather than busk for her bookstore fund, Maria lands a tutoring gig caring for the six children of a powerful, single mother.

While mom is busy working for her nonprofit, which builds schools in developing countries, Maria is at home with a half-dozen adopted kids, teaching them the art and history of go-go.

“It’s about many things,” playwright-director Natsu Onoda Power says. “It’s in part about the power of music to unite people and it’s in part about communicating across different cultures and backgrounds.”

A professor of Georgetown University’s Theater & Performance Studies Program and artistic director of the Davis Performing Arts Center, Onoda Power created the show with Charles “Shorty Corleone” Garris, best known as the lead singer of the legendary local go-go band Rare Essence.

Onoda Power recognizes that Georgetown isn’t the first—or even the second, third, or fourth—neighborhood people would associate with go-go. But she says the musical isn’t meant to represent the neighborhood or the genre, but their imagined relationship together.

“It is about Georgetown encountering go-go and go-go encountering Georgetown,” she says. In writing the play, Onoda Power says she wanted to answer the core question: How does a Georgetown student become involved in go-go?

“I wanted first and foremost for this play to educate people about go-go,” she says. The most direct path to that end, she thought, would be for the plot to literally include lessons about the art form. “What’s happening in the plot of the play is also happening with our audience,” Onoda Power says.

Georgetown freshman Myiah Smith plays the lead. “I think what’s most interesting about Maria is she has the opportunity to shed light on something that people wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to,” she says. “It’s both a role that I can very much relate to and a role that I can easily embody, because it is something that lands directly at home, being a native Washingtonian myself.”

Growing up in D.C., it’s hard to escape the city’s love for go-go. As a student at the SEED Public Charter School of Washington, D.C., Smith says it wasn’t uncommon to host go-go bands at school celebrations. But her connection goes deeper than a hometown familiarity: love for go-go runs in her blood.

Natsu Onoda Power and Charles “Shorty Corleone” Garris (Shannon Finney Photography)

“Both my grandfather during the ‘70s and my father when he got a little older played in go-go bands,” she says. Her dad started a go-go band at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he was able to expose Greensboro’s music scene to a culture that it hadn’t previously experienced. With Wind Me Up, Maria!, Smith will follow in her father’s footsteps as an ambassador of go-go.

“Coming to Georgetown, it’s really cool to walk in the legacy of my parents and my grandparents and to continue education through music and culture,” Smith says.

In addition to Georgetown student actors like Smith, Wind Me Up, Maria! features a guest appearance by the Capital Kidds. Garris runs the educational children’s go-go group and calls the kids “the next next generation.” He says he’s excited to share artist development, music production, and stage presence with them.

The extensive setlist includes go-go classics such as “Run Joe,” “Do you know what time it is?” and “Bustin’ Loose.” But there are also originals about changes in Washington (“Gentrification”), studying for standardized testing (“SAT Song”), and exploring the city (“In the District”).

Smith says she hopes audience members will be inspired to check out go-go performances in their area. “I hope that when the audience sees this show, given that we do have a live go-go band playing the songs, that they’re able to get taken over by the go-go beat and the spirit of go-go and just start grooving in their seats and moving their heads and tapping their feet,” she says.

As far as Garris knows, this musical is the first of its kind. “Go-go is still grooving on and living on and there’s new life to the beat that so many have written off,” he says. “Go-go finds a new way to create new life and new space and that’s what’s happening with this merging of these two worlds.”

Despite press coverage that explores how long go-go can survive, Garris and Onoda Power agree that the music will remain true to it’s name. “We are the ones who can keep [go-go] going,” Onoda Power says. “It’s not the time to be questioning it. It’s time to be doing it.”

Wind Me Up, Maria! A Go-Go Musical runs Nov. 3-12 at Georgetown University. Tickets can be purchased here.