Barbara Mackay

Music and joy collide in ‘Making Opera Soup’ from 1st Stage

In her solo performance outdoors, supreme storyteller Lori Brown Mirabal reveals the fun in opera for both children and adults.

Ancient mysteries astonish and delight at IN Series’ Women Composers Festival

‘Here Be Sirens’ is the phrase cartographers used for many centuries to warn sailors of marine dangers. Composer Kate Soper borrowed the name for her musically complex, theatrically rich opera, her...

‘Exquisita Agonía’ at GALA examines two families connected by one heart

Playwright Nilo Cruz labels his latest work, Exquisita Agonía, a “family drama.” Actually, the show that is currently playing at GALA Theatre is two family dramas that converge. The first family...

Visionary Bill T. Jones creates a community in ‘What Problem?’ at George Mason University

Known internationally as a visionary man of the theater, Bill T. Jones has built a reputation over the past 38 years for his ability to visualize the human condition through choreography and dance....

Songs of love and war in UrbanArias’ brilliant ‘Glory Denied’

If your parents taught you that opera is the ultimate blend of words and music, where both elements are dependent on the other and that the end result is far more than the sum of its parts, and if you...

Theater J examines world history, good and bad, in ‘Sheltered’

Alix Sobler’s play Sheltered, based on real-life characters, is a rarity. It is a history play that doesn’t fall into the trap of portraying a period in history in such detail that it forgets to...

‘Come from Away’ emphasizes joy: Canadian musical lights up Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater

Every September 11, America mourns the tragic events that astonished and saddened people around the globe in 2001: the attack on New York’s Twin Towers and Washington, D.C.’s Pentagon. Each year, at...

A teen of many talents: Ethan Van Slyke of Arena Stage’s ‘Newsies’

Think back to when you were in high school. You went to classes all day and came home and did homework, right? And maybe you took piano lessons once a week or played a sport. Seventeen-year-old Ethan...

Studio Theatre’s ‘White Pearl’ tackles globalization and intra-Asian racism with acerbic wit

If you attend Studio Theatre’s current production of the brilliantly acerbic White Pearl and feel in the first ten minutes that you’re not sure you know what’s happening, don’t worry. Playwright...

‘Protest/Vaněk Unleashed’ heads underground in upcoming Alliance for New Music-Theatre production

In partnership with the Embassy of the Czech Republic’s Mutual Inspirations Festival, and in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, the Alliance for New...

Teatro de la Luna highlights the soul of Tango music and dance

If you’re not ready to give in to an autumnal chill in the air, one of the hottest places to be right now is decidedly Teatro de la Luna. In its Friday night series, Noche de Luna: Tango Show, the...

Mischief and depth: Professor Gerald C. Wood on Conor McPherson and ‘Port Authority’

Gerald C. Wood is an author and expert on the brilliant Irish playwright and filmmaker Conor McPherson. Wood is Professor and Chair of English at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee. In...

Review: ‘Escaped Alone’ at Signature Theatre

British playwright Caryl Churchill is a revolutionary playwright. In her career, she has upset theatrical expectations many times over. She plays with gender and fools with time. She invents unusual...

Washington Stage Guild Refreshes Shaw’s ‘Candida’

George Bernard Shaw published Candida in 1898. Though it was not performed in London until it was a hit in New York in 1903, where it inspired what Shaw called “Candidamania,” the play’s American...

Review: ‘Trying’ at 1st Stage Tysons

You could approach Trying at 1st Stage as a realistic, two-character play about a real-life character, Judge Francis Biddle, and his new secretary, Sarah Schorr. Born to a life of wealth and...

Review: ‘Doubt: A Parable’ at Studio Theatre

In 2003, John Patrick Shanley started writing a play about an America full of opinionated people, people who were certain they were right, people who shunned intellectual debate. From Shanley’s point...

Ray Anthony Thomas Discusses August Wilson and Playing Turnbo in ‘Jitney’ at Arena Stage

He has had major stage roles in everything from The Crucible to Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow. He has appeared in films as different as “Isn’t It Romantic?” and “Shutter Island.” Now...

Teatro de la Luna: Providing Spanish-Language Theater to DC Since 1991

Nucky Walder and Mario Marcel are household names to many Spanish-speaking residents of Washington, DC. For more than 60 years, Marcel, who is from Argentina, has dedicated himself to acting, theater...

Review: ‘Ann’ at Arena Stage

If you are a fan of Ann Richards, the straight-talking, liberal Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995, or alternatively, if you were living on the opposite side of the globe and somehow missed coverage...

Review: ‘The Mollusc’ by Quotidian Theatre Company at The Writer’s Center

If you’re in the mood for a drawing-room comedy exploring the social habits of the British upper class in the Edwardian era, Bethesda’s Quotidian Theatre Company should be on your list. Quotidian is...

Review: ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ at Studio Theatre

When Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe planned to tackle the subject of depression, they decided to avoid more familiar approaches: plays about self-destructive superstars who are too far removed...

Review: ‘The Oresteia’ by Shakespeare Theatre Company

To theater historians, dramaturgs, and lovers of all things Greek, the promise of a production of Aeschylus’ The Oresteia is enough to drive one mad with joy. To begin with, of all the Greek plays...

Review: ‘Rooming House’ by Lucky Plush Productions at the Kennedy Center

Lucky Plush Productions is a dance/theater company currently performing at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. But this is no conventional company. Compared to dance troupes, they are at the...

‘Love’s Labor’s Lost’ Director Vivienne Benesch Finds Inspiration in Folger Reading Room

Actor, director, and administrator Vivienne Benesch has many credits to her name. She is the Producing Artistic Director of the PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For twelve...

Tandavam Events’ Radhika Rao Discusses Indian Classical Dance and ‘Trilochana’

If you are not from the great sub-continent of India or do not have any Indian friends, you might be forgiven for not knowing that there is a healthy culture of Indian classical dance in the DMV, much...

Interview: JaBen Early in Arena Stage’s ‘Junk’

JaBen Early is a Washingtonian through and through. His father worked at the Smithsonian, and his mother was a teacher in DC. He went to Morehouse College and Sarah Lawrence University, and studied...

Review: ‘P.Y.G. or The Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle’ at Studio Theatre

Don’t be put off by the deliberately opaque, long title of the current world premiere at Studio Theatre’s experimental space. P.Y.G. or The Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle is a very slick,...

Review: ‘Ghost-Writer’ by Quotidian Theatre Company

There is a mystery at the heart of Ghost-Writer, currently being presented by the Quotidian Theatre Company at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda. Not that Michael Hollinger’s drama is a lighthearted...

Review: ‘La Paloma at the Wall’ by The In Series

The In Series at GALA Theatre has succeeded in brilliantly breathing life into a treasured zarzuela – a blend of song and dance – which was written in 1894 and originally titled La Verbena de la...

Keegan Theatre To Offer Regional Premiere of ‘Hands on a Hardbody,’ In Which Only the Strong Survive.

The musical Hands on a Hardbody opens at the Keegan Theatre on March 9. Based on a contest held in small-town Texas in 1995, Hands on a Hardbody chronicles a group of people participating in a...