Opening night at the Shakespeare Theater has always been one of the best places to see and be seen -- and soak up a bit of high culture. Monday's debut of "Major Barbara" was tops.

For one, more local pols than ever filled many of the seats at the new Harman Center for the Arts. D.C. Council members Phil Mendelson and Jim Graham made the scene. Likewise, Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi, former Mayor Tony Williams and his mother, Virginia, were there. The city fathers paid well for their seats, seeing as the city put up $20 million for the Harman Center, around the corner from our downtown sports arena.

More importantly, the opening of "Major Barbara" was especially rewarding for the McSweeny family. Bill and Dorothy McSweeny beamed from their center orchestra seats. Their younger son, Ethan, was directing the play.

"People were astounded when they found out Ethan was directing," Dorothy told me the day after. "We were the proudest parents in the world."

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When I caught up with Evan he said: "It's been a big week for Dorothy and Bill." He knew he was playing second fiddle to his sister, who was expecting the McSweenys' first grandchild.

You may not know about the McSweenys. Look behind many of the artistic and cultural ventures in the city, and you will find their energy and their largesse. She was head of the Commission on Arts and Humanities for years; he's on the Shakespeare board, to name one of many. Both are active in politics, locally and nationally.

Three of their four children turned out well and became lawyers. What happened to Ethan?

"We took our kids early on to the Sylvan Theater and the Kennedy Center," Dorothy says. "You never know what the impact will be."

Evan remembers it this way: "We lived across from the Kennedy Center. If they couldn't find a baby sitter, we got to go. That probably sealed my fate."

He says the family's Irish roots in story telling, better false than true, helped. Both his parents were journalists back in the day. And then there was Michael Kahn.

Ethan was a student actor at St. Albans when Kahn welcomed the drama club to the Shakespeare Theater, where he was the relatively new artistic director. They kept in touch when McSweeny went to Columbia University. He dreamed of being a foreign correspondent but wound up becoming Columbia's first theater major.

Kahn, also a graduate of Columbia, advised McSweeny to take internships, at the Manhattan Theater Club and later with the Shakespeare Theater in D.C. McSweeny was assistant director for a season and then directed "The Persians" in 2006.

"My graduate school was here," he says.

Coming home to direct "Major Barbara" was sweet in many ways. McSweeny could reconnect with actors he had worked with, like Floyd King, Helen Carey and Ted van Griethuysen. It was the first time he was directing his partner of 10 years, Vivienne Benesch, the play's leading lady.

And he knew he was the apple of his parents' eyes - until his sister's new baby arrived.