David Siegel

In The Moment: Sarah N. Schallern on Alden Theatre’s 2015-2016 Season

Perhaps out of the limelight to those beyond close-in Northern Virginia, the McLean Community Center is not only a “hub” of community activities but includes the wonderfully intimate, well-scheduled,...

‘The Fix’ at Signature Theatre by David Siegel

“Public office is a minefield” so you better just “Grit your teeth, sell the lies” though “maybe I’m just too blunt to survive” are lyrics that provide some of the central posits in The Fix now...

In The Moment: A Preview of the DC Shorts Film Festival & Screenplay Competition September 10-20th

Ah, the end of August. The August month-long Congressional recess will be ending soon. DC area schools at all levels are opening momentarily. We can only hope that the recent mid-summer-time swoon of...

In The Moment: An Interview with Richard Heinrich, Mario Baldessari, and Lynn Sharp Spears on Spooky Action Theater’s Reading of ‘The Bison Beast of Dubois’ on 8/22 & 23

Having recently returned from some time away in Wyoming from the hustling of DC, my eyes widened when I saw an email from Spooky Action Theatre for several staged readings for a play that takes place...

Tom Teasley’s Musical Accompaniment of the 1926 Animated Film, ‘The Adventures of Prince Achmed’ at Constellation Theatre Company

In his own singular musical fashion, Tom Teasley skillfully hooked his Constellation Theatre Company audience to take a venture to the long ago and far away but in a most modern manner. Teasley was a...

National Symphony Orchestra: ‘The Music of John Williams’ at Wolf Trap

It was as good as it gets. A glorious DC area midsummer, low-humidity evening. There was a full house at the Filene Center; with demographically and generationally diverse picnickers filling the lawn...

‘My Fair Lady’ at Zemfira Stage

Northern Virginia’s non-equity, professional theater company, Zemfira Stage, continues to strive to provide ambitious, motivated entertainment with its current production of the much beloved musical,...

In the Moment: Pocket Change Theatre Company Presents ‘Midsummer on a Playground’ 8/28-29 at Workhouse Arts Center

So where does a new theater company head after a successful introduction at the recent Capital Fringe Festival with its production of War and Peas? In the case of Pocket Change Theatre, the answer is...

In the Moment: A Personal ‘Good Luck and Thank You’ to The American Century Theater and Their Ghost Light

Ghost light. Very soon the 20-year run of the The American Century Theater (TACT) will fade into a ghost light -a light that we theater folk know is left lit onstage to protect us from misbehaving...

‘Bayla Sings Barbra’ at 2015 Summer Cabaret Series at Creative Cauldron

“A musical buffet for the audience” is the way Matt Conner, Creative Cauldron Associate Artist and curator of the Cauldron’s 2015 Summer Cabaret Series described what to expect. Laura Hull, founder...

In the Moment: And Now for a Little Baseball, ‘The Nats and the Grays’

The days may have been dark on the home-front during WWII America for Tom Brokow’s The Greatest Generation, but baseball endured. Baseball was the National Pastime; playing ball, along with Big Bands...

In the Moment: Helen Pafumi and Kristen LePine on The Hub Theatre’s ‘Leto Legend’

The Hub Theatre is opening its world premiere of a work by a woman playwright, directed by a woman and with an all-female cast. It is the Hub’s Leto Legend which opens on July 10, 2015. Hub describes...

‘Peter Pan’ in the ThreeSixty Theatre

“Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough.” In its DC area premiere, Peter Pan in the ThreeSixty Theatre has plenty of stimulating ingredients providing an exciting, dreams-come-true...

‘The Producers’ at Olney Theatre Center

Camp it up with the comic free-for-all that is the Olney Theatre Center’s take on Mel Brooks’ Tony Award-winning musical The Producers. Become your very own disrupter of your very own straight-laced,...

In the Moment: ‘Arts Live Here -Tysons Tiles: Bringing Art to Tysons Corner’

Density, urbanization and perhaps, someday in the future, “cool” is coming to the new downtown “Tysons” in Fairfax County, Virginia. Over the decades there has been much talk about refreshing the now...

2015 Capital Fringe Preview #14: ‘Brothel’ by David Siegel

“Characters at the edge of life” is how Playwright, Director, and Producer Isa Seyran described his Capital Fringe offering, Brothel. The new play is to be more that a provocative Buzzfeed worthy,...

In the Moment: Company Danzante Performs at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival

Northern Virginia’s Company Danzante will perform at the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts on June 26, 2015. Company Danzante will perform repertory by Co-Directors, Katherine...

In The Moment: 2015 Capital Fringe Preview #4: ‘Our Lady of the Clouds’ by David Siegel

Be transported to the far-away of the mind. What better place to explore provocative magical realism as a performing art than at this year’s Fringe Festival. Letting one’s mind drift into a world...

’The Word and the Wasteland’ at The Source Festival (Review)

A “seemingly guilty mass-murdering white supremacist terrorist” is the phrase dramaturg Alan Katz uses to describe the character at the heart of “The Word and the Wasteland, a full-length play...

‘The Madwoman of Chaillot’ at WSC Avant Bard

Under the lively, animated touch of director Christopher Henley, a merry little band of eager Avant Bard players bring The Madwoman of Chaillot, by French playwright Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944) to...

In the Moment: 2015 Capital Fringe Festival Preview #1: ‘BOND: An Unauthorized Parody’ first at Workhouse Performing Arts Center and then at The Capital Fringe

Looking at the upcoming Workhouse (Lorton, VA) Performing Arts Center calendar and the Capital Fringe Festival performance schedule, I spotted a show from Tasty Monster Productions that is crossing...

In the Moment: Chamber Dance Project’s 2015 Summer Season at the Lansburgh

Don’t hurry out of town for the summer just yet or you will miss the new summer season of DC’s own Chamber Dance Project in residence at the Lansburgh Theatre at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Known for...

In the Moment: ‘After Seeing ‘Jarry Inside Out’

Much has been written about Spooky Action Theater’s premiere production Jarry Inside Out by Richard Henrich. I take this opportunity to connect it to popular culture, in a different manner than I have...

In the Moment: Creative Cauldron’s Summer Cabaret

Ah, the enduring popularity of sophisticated, stylish cabaret entertainment. Now add-in musical artists who easily mix the known American Songbook standards with the less often heard to bring a...

In the Moment: A Chat with Director Aaron Posner and Scenic/Properties Designer Paige Hathaway at ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ at the Folger Theatre

Walking into the Folger Theatre, I did a double-take. This clearly was going to be a different visual experience for Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as directed by Aaron Posner....

‘A Tale of Two Cities’ at Synetic Theater

If only Alex Mills was available to tell stories to my now 31 year old daughter when she was a baby. While I read to her aplenty, she would have marveled and communicating happily through gurgles at...

‘Cabaret’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s Cabaret is a formidable musical that abundantly succeeds in taking the audience by its collective throat and jolting it into alertness to the rise of evil and terror. Under Matthew...

In the Moment: Hylton Performance Center Presents Rosanne Cash on 6/26 and The Castleton Festival on 6/28

It’s never too early to begin thinking about summer entertainment plans, both venues and entertainment. Early this summer, the Hylton Center for the Performing Arts, entering its sixth season on...

In the Moment: ‘Anne & Emmett’ at MetroStage

Created and handsomely rendered with boundless love, heart and soul, the short-run Metro Stage/Race and Reconciliation in America (RARIA) production of Anne & Emmett was a production of grace and...

Audaciously Magical MOMIX Performing on the Center for the Arts Stage Tomorrow Night at 8 PM

“Optical confusion” is how choreographer Moses Pendleton describes the inventive, arresting illusions he has developed over the past decades for his renowned dance theater company, MOMIX. In a recent...

In the Moment: Meet the Encore Chorale

Ideas for this column can come from unexpected encounters. This column was sparked over a dinner with some good friends a few nights ago. Let’s call them Rayna and Ed. We were at the neighborhood...

‘The Fire and the Rain’ at Constellation Theatre Company

It is extraordinary that Constellation Theatre Company continues to seek out and present works of artistry that would likely be unknown to us. And Constellation’s willingness to take financial risks...

‘Closet Land’ at Factory 449 at The Anacostia Arts Center (Review) by David Siegel

Closet Land is certainly haunting. There was no shelter from this play’s unremitting psychological ferocity and physical fierceness of political D/s (Dominance and submission). Over time it became far...

In the Moment: NOVA International Film Festival

The inaugural season of the Northern Virginia International Film Festival, at the Angelika Film Center in the vibrant, youthful Mosaic District of Fairfax County, just wrapped up. Fernando A. Mico,...

‘Murder Ballad’ at The Studio Theatre (Review) by David Siegel

Let yourself be seduced into a dark reverie as a love triangle, or perhaps a rectangle, goes way wrong. Musical pulp-fiction has come to 14th and P Streets pushed forward by electric guitar power...

In the Moment: An Interview with 1st Stage’s ‘Old Wicked Songs’ Musical Director Walter “Bobby” McCoy and Artistic/Managing Director Alex Levy

1st Stage’s production of Old Wicked Songs by Jon Marans has opened to high praise from reviewers and audiences alike. After seeing the show I wanted to learn more about something very specific; the...

In The Moment: Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company Presents ‘Persistent Voices’ at Dance Place 5/2-3 & Reston CenterStage 5/6

In early May, Daniel Phoenix Singh and the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company will be premiering a dance theater work at Dance Place and at Reston’s CenterStage. The new work is inspired by...

In the Moment: ‘Pilobolus Dance’ Comes to The Alden Theatre This Friday

The world renowned Pilobolus will be bringing their “stunning, evocative and visceral” dance theater to the Alden Theatre, said Sarah N. Schallern, director, performing arts, McLean Community Center....

‘The Typographer’s Dream’ at The Hub Theatre

In this town of powerful out-sized personalities of all persuasions, and the ever-increasing shift to delivery of entertainment through pixels and with headsets on, The Hub Theatre’s satisfying...

In the Moment: ‘Off the Wall’ at George Mason University on Saturday, April 18th

Its title beckons with a “come hither” attitude; Off the Wall. Three small intriguing words that are total catnip when strung together. And, then a connection to something called the Virginia Serious...

‘In the Moment’ An Interview with Choreographers Erica Rebollar and Helanius J. Wilkins on ‘Everything for the First Time’ at Atlas on 4/11 at 8 PM

The artistry and craft of two masterful choreographers are coming together for a stimulating, one night only performance at the Atlas Performing Arts Center with the tantalizing title, Everything for...

‘The Island’ at MetroStage

There are so many way to demand justice. In 1973 South Africans Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona found their voices to take on South Africa’s apartheid through the words of and connections...

In The Moment: ‘Call Me William: The Life and Loves of Willa Cather’

“I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.” Willa Cather, Death Comes to the Archbishop. In her Death Comes for the Archbishop Cather she also wrote, “Where there is great love, there...

In the Moment: The Northern Virginia Review’s 29th Volume Unveiled

Searching out the unusual or off the regular trail is one of the joys of having this column with DCMetroTheaterArts. Recently I attended the unveiling of the 29th volume of the Northern Virginia...

‘G-d’s Honest Truth’ at Theater J

Illusions and dreams are often enough the stuff needed to help us keep on truckin’ through life. Certainly Prospero in The Tempest and Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon suggested it was so. But, neither...

‘Soon’ at Signature Theatre

Under the assured, skillful touch of Director Matthew Gardiner, Signature Theatre has delivered a smart, engaging, delightfully personal-sized production of Soon, a new musical by Nick Blaemire (Glory...

In The Moment: ‘The Originalist’ at Arena Stage at The Mead Center for American Theater

Arena’s resident playwright John Strand has developed an affectionate, quite delightfully complex, fictionalized account about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Strand’s The Originalist has plenty...

In the Moment: Interviews of NextStop Theatre Company’s Evan Hoffmann, Katie Keyser, John Loughney, and Bobby Libby of ‘The Secret Garden’

We caught up with NextStop Theatre Company to learn more about its upcoming production of the musical The Secret Garden. The Secret Garden premiered on Broadway in 1991 and received multiple Tony...

‘A Bright Room Called Day’ at Nu Sass Productions

With its Small Batch Audience Series created for an especially limited number of patrons per performance, Nu Sass Productions is out to transform the way DC theater audiences experience the performing...

‘Doctor Caligari’ at Pointless Theatre Company

The Pointless Theatre Company troupe has taken on a major “dare” in adapting a landmark silent expressionist cult film into to a live stage production. Doctor Caligari from Pointless evokes the...