Gina Dalfonzo

Shavian wit meets its match in ‘Dear Liar’ from Washington Stage Guild

Lively and brilliant letters between George Bernard Shaw and the original Eliza Doolittle from before there was Zoom.

A highly entertaining ‘How He Lied to Her Husband’ from Washington Stage Guild

Washington Stage Guild continues its run of online performances with a one-act comedy from George Bernard Shaw, whose works they perform so frequently that he’s affectionately known as their “house...

Poignant ‘Dear Elizabeth’ at Vienna Theatre pens a true friendship

Dear Elizabeth, performed by a two-person cast and streamed online by Vienna Theatre Company, is a feast for fans of 20th-century literature, or even just those interested in stories of friendship....

J’Nai Bridges’ debut in ‘Samson and Delilah’ is a dream come true

When J’Nai Bridges made her triumphant debut in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah Sunday night, it was the fulfillment of a dream. The young mezzo-soprano’s star has been rapidly rising — this...

‘Moonlight and Magnolias’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria blends comic antics and human drama

Hollywood, 1939. The production of Gone with the Wind — arguably the most eagerly anticipated movie of the decade — is in chaos. Producer David O. Selznick (Griffin Voltmann) has just fired the...

Review: ‘Pride and Prejudice’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Love is a game—or deadly serious—or both at once, depending on which character you ask in NextStop Theatre Company’s production of Pride and Prejudice. The game motif is evident early on, as the cast...

Review: ‘Bobby Gould in Hell’ by Providence Players of Fairfax

Eternal questions are being hotly debated in the back room of the Italian Café in Falls Church, where the Providence Players of Fairfax have once again set up shop for a “pop-up production” of a David...

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at the City of Fairfax Theatre Company

One doesn’t generally think of Beauty and the Beast as a dance show first and foremost. But in this lively production by The City of Fairfax Theatre Company and Truro Anglican Church, featuring so...

Review: ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ by NextStop Theatre Company

How do you replicate perfection—especially when it involves dumping gallons of water onstage? Any theater company that undertakes a production of Singin’ in the Rain, the beloved movie musical about...

Review: ‘The Savannah Disputation’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

If you never thought the words “theological comedy” could go together, think again. The Savannah Disputation, playing now at The Little Theater of Alexandria, bills itself as just such a comedy. And...

Review: ‘Amazing Grace’ at the Museum of the Bible

In 2017, the Broadway musical Amazing Grace opened its national tour with a stint at the World Stage Theater at Washington, D.C.’s Museum of the Bible. (DC Metro Theatre Arts’ review of that...

Review: ‘The Fantasticks’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s The Fantasticks had a legendary 42-year Off-Broadway run (and then an 11-year revival), suggesting that there’s something strangely captivating about this sweet and...

Review: ‘2018 Marian Anderson Vocal Award Winner: Ryan Speedo Green in Concert’ at the Kennedy Center

Ryan Speedo Green is a man with a story. Many opera fans first learned his name through Daniel Bergner’s 2016 book Sing for Your Life: A Story of Race, Music, and Family. The New York Times journalist...

Review: ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ at the Virginia Opera

Giacomo Puccini never met a foreign culture that he didn’t try to set to music. His operas set in Japan (Madama Butterfly) and China (Turandot) are celebrated as masterpieces. Less celebrated is his...

Review: ‘Crazy for You’ at Signature Theatre

I have a perpetual soft spot for Crazy for You, which was the first show I ever saw on Broadway. What with George and Ira Gershwin songs, Tony-winning choreography by Susan Stroman, and the wonderful...

Review: ‘Catch Me If You Can’ at NextStop Theatre Company

The story of Frank Abegnale, Jr., was first brought to America’s attention in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Catch Me If You Can. It gained a new lease on life in 2011 with the Broadway musical version...

Review: ‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder’ at The Kennedy Center

With a wealthy aristocratic family that refuses to acknowledge him, and a money-hungry girlfriend who refuses to marry him, what’s an impoverished young man to do? The unfortunate relatives of Monty...

‘A Broadway Christmas Carol’ at MetroStage

Probably no other cast in the D.C. metro area works harder for a laugh, or enjoys it more when it comes, than the cast of A Broadway Christmas Carol, now playing its sixth consecutive season at...

‘Oliver!’ at Arena Stage

From its opening number, Arena Stage’s innovative new production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! is bursting with excitement and emotion. Director Molly Smith has stripped the classic musical based on...

‘Friendship Betrayed’ at WSC Avant Bard

Put 1630s Spain and 1920s America into a cocktail shaker, shake well, and you get WSC Avant Bard’s sparkling update of María de Zayas y Sotomayor’s 1632 play Friendship Betrayed. Translated by...

‘A Man for All Seasons’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Forget everything you learned from the recent PBS miniseries Wolf Hall. Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, currently playing at Herndon’s NextStop Theatre, tells a very different tale of Sir Thomas...

‘Major Barbara’ at Pallas Theatre Collective

It’s not always easy to figure out what view of life George Bernard Shaw is trying to express in Major Barbara. Though he was a freethinker, he gives us a witty, tolerant, idealistic heroine, Barbara,...

‘The Fox on the Fairway’ at Reston Community Players

“Golf is not a game, but a way of life. A religion, if you will,” intones Henry Bingham, president of the Quail Valley Country Club, in Ken Ludwig’s The Fox on the Fairway, playing now at Reston’...

‘The Great Divorce’ at Lansburgh Theatre

Having successfully adapted C. S. Lewis’ classic The Screwtape Letters into a two-character play, Max McLean and his group Fellowship for Performing Arts have gone for an even bigger challenge:...

‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ at George Mason University’s School of Theater and School of Music

Charles Dickens left his novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished when he died in 1870. Over a hundred years later, Rupert Holmes took advantage of that ambiguity to create a unique musical, where...

‘Dailey & Vincent LIVE: A Live Recording Event’ at Hylton Performing Arts Center

Award-winning bluegrass duo Dailey & Vincent explained onstage at the Hylton Performing Arts Center Saturday night that they usually model themselves after The Statler Brothers (a member of whom, Don...