Jessica Vaughan

‘NSO@Wolf Trap 1812 Orchestra and More!’ by Jessica Vaughan

On a perfect summer evening, the National Symphony Orchestra took on two Russians – Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff – during their popular NSO@Wolf Trap Summer Series for an explosive evening billed as...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Chronic Singles Handbook’ by Jessica Vaughan

Writer and performer Randy Ross got laid off and went around the world, came back and wrote a book about it, and now takes to Fringe to perform it. It’s true to the life of a traveller, which means...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘Lysistrata 1969’ by Jessica Vaughan

The Sock Puppet Guerilla Theater mounts a truly hilarious production of an ancient satire Lysistrata by setting it in 1969. It doesn’t take much updating. The free love hedonism and protest spirit...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘No Sex, Please’ by Jessica Vaughan

No Sex, Please local storyteller Derek Hills recounts the saga of the 28 years it took to lose his virginity in every hilarious, sometime heartbreaking, mostly humiliating detail. He touches on his...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘Lore’ by Jessica Vaughan

Washington Improv Theater goes where they have never gone before with Lore, a long-form improv show that explores the history of story itself by making storytelling the subject of each skit. WIT is a...

Capital Fringe Review: “A Commedia Romeo and Juliet” by Jessica Vaughan

A Commedia Romeo and Juliet by DC Commedia dell’Arte troupe Faction of Fools Theare Company is Shakespeare like you’ve probably never seen it before performed by this company trained in the ancient...

Straight No Chaser at Wolf Trap by Jessica Vaughan

Straight No Chaser, the 10-man a cappella phenomenon, put on a great show of top forty hits, enduring classics and crowd favorites on a steamy night at the Filene Center at Wolf Trap. They rose to...

‘Red Herring’ at Silver Spring Stage by Jessica Vaughan

Silver Spring Stage puts on a 1950’s screwball comedy murder mystery, espionage, romance – about communists and a whole lot of fish in Red Herring to close out their 2013 season. It’s a sweet and...

June 28, 2013 Capital Fringe Festival Preview by Jessica Vaughan

It’s July in DC, which means it’s hot, it’s humid, and it’s time for Fringe! On the last day of June at the Baldacchino Gypsy Tent Bar, 21 shows brought their A game for the annual Fringe Preview. The...

The In Series: ‘Pocket Opera: Love & Money’ by Jessica Vaughan

The In Series, DC’s premier company for intimate opera and classical concerts, closes their season with a creative pairing of two very different, moving pieces in Pocket Opera: Love and Money....

‘The Pajama Game’ at Montgomery College Summer Dinner Theatre by Jessica Vaughan

For the 36th time, college students from Montgomery College and around the nation gather in Rockville for Summer Dinner Theatre. This year, they mount an energetic, hilarious production of the 1950’s...

‘Signs of Life’ at American University by Jessica Vaughan

American University staged a very special reading of a very special musical Signs of Life about an important part of our history. It was billed as a drama with music, and that is the simple truth of...

‘Romeo and Juliet’ at The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at The Music Center at Strathmore by Jessica Vaughan

It was a night of flying fingers and familiar classics with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Music Center at Strathmore for Romeo and Juliet. The three pieces chosen for the evening could not...

‘The Winter’s Tale’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company by Jessica Vaughan

Shakespeare Theatre Company returns with the Bard to finish the season in a lovely, polished, and powerful production of The Winter’s Tale. This play is filed with his comedies, but some have called...

‘WPAS & The Choral Arts Society of DC’s ‘Broadway’s Show-Stoppers with Brian Stokes Mitchell’ by Jessica Vaughan

Broadway legend and Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell and the Choral Arts Society of Washington wowed a Mother’s Day crowd with a feel-good repertoire of Broadway and instant classics at The...

‘My Fair Lady in Concert’ at The Kennedy Center by Jessica Vaughan

The stars were out in force for the Kennedy Center’s 21st Annual Spring Gala. On the program was My Fair Lady In Concert sung by some of Broadway and the West End’s biggest names like Jonathan Pryce,...

‘Show Boat’ at Washington National Opera by Jessica Vaughan

Once in a lifetime you get the opportunity to see four opera companies, 100 performers, and 50 musicians put on America’s first, most iconic musical, Show Boat. Washington National Opera has partnered...

‘Ragtime’ at Kensington Arts Theatre by Jessica Vaughan

The people called it Ragtime,” and the cast of the Kensington Arts Theatre’s production of the musical Ragtime makes some truly breathtaking Ragtime. Most of the cast has several decades of experience...

‘Optimism! Or Voltaire’s Candide’ at Spooky Action Theater by Jessica Vaughan

“Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” Spooky Action Theater takes Candide’s satire of life, love, hope and human decency to the extreme in Optimism! Or Voltaire’s Candide,...

‘Wallenstein’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company by Jessica Vaughan

In its American premiere, Friedrich Schiller’s Wallenstein by Shakespeare Theatre Company is a tour-de-force, surprisingly funny, sharp, and shattering. It’s paired with their excellent Coriolanus in...

‘La bohème’ at University of Maryland School of Music’s Opera Studio by Jessica Vaughan

Before there was RENT, there was Puccini’s La bohème, perhaps the most popular and certainly one of the most frequently performed operas in history. The University of Maryland School of Music’s Opera...

‘Miriam’ at Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center by Jessica Vaughan

You don’t watch Miriam by writer, choreographer, and dancer Nora Chipaumire so much as you experience it. This one-hour performance piece that explores light and dark and black and white, breaks most...

‘Word Becomes Flesh’ at Atlas Performing Arts Center and Theater Alliance by Jessica Vaughan

“Welcome to the spoken world.” Thus begins a one of a kind performance piece piece by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, an artist, poet, dancer and activist named by the United States Artists Rockefeller...

‘A Walk in the Woods’ at Quotidian Theatre by Jessica Vaughan

Quotidian Theatre Company heats up the Cold War with Lee Blessing’s classic, A Walk in the Woods. Quotidian’s mission is to present theater about real life with “no-frills acting“ or special effects...

‘Norma’ at Washington National Opera by Jessica Vaughan

Washington National Opera mounts a dazzling production of Bellini’s Norma. American soprano Angela Meade makes her debut with WNO. Norma is the role of a lifetime; the Everest of female opera roles,...

‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone’ at Clarice Smith Performance Arts Center by Tiffany Draut

There is a fine group of young actors in the cast of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a surrealistic and sometimes confusing play (I wish there were more production notes to help make the play more...

‘Berlin to Broadway’ at The In Series at Source by Jessica Vaughan

The In Series mounts another fabulous production in their stellar 2012-2013 season, tripping through 30 years of superior opera by composer Kurt Weill in his journey from Berlin to Broadway. This is...

‘Split This Rock: Call and Response’ at INTERSECTIONS at Atlas by Jessica Vaughan

Split This Rock is a non-profit organization that teaches and performs spoken word poetry or slam poetry. A huge part of the organization is focused on young people and one of their major offerings...

‘The Real Thing’ at Silver Spring Stage by Jessica Vaughan

The Real Thing in Silver Spring Stage’s production of the Tom Stoppard’s play of that name refers to love. It is the love of two long-married couples when one partner of each is straying with each...

‘The Drowsy Chaperone’ at The Catholic University of America by Jessica Vaughan

Catholic University spoofs musicals everywhere in a hilarious production of The Drowsy Chaperone, the show-within-a-show that lovingly satires the best and worst in musical theater and the people who...

An Interview with Dan Kohler From ‘Flashdance-The Musical’ by Jessica Vaughan

Dan Kohler is in the Ensemble of Flashdance-The Musical, playing at The Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, MD through this Sunday, February 17th. His previous roles include Jesus in Godspell and Blue...

‘Hughie’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company by Jessica Vaughan

Shakespeare Theatre Company has a quiet hit with Eugene O’Neill’s one-act Hughie. It is a deceptively simple production about an old guy, Erie Smith (Richard Schiff) who returns to his Broadway hotel...

‘The Pirate Laureate of Port Town’ at Flying V Theatre by Jessica Vaughan

The Pirate Laureate of Port Town by one-year-old DC Company Flying V Theatre is flat out hilarious and great fun. I love the DC metro area because companies like this can thrive here and produce plays...

‘Twelfth Night or What You Will’ at Taffety Punk Theatre Company by Jessica Vaughan

For the Taffety Punk Company’s latest production of Twelfth Night, calling it by Shakespeare’s complete title makes the best sense, Twelfth Night or What you Will. You know something new and different...

‘La Clemenza de Tito’ at The In Series by Jessica Vaughan

The In Series wishes happy birthday to Mozart with a fresh, modern take on his opera La Clemenza de Tito. This classic story of a conspiracy to take down a leader by a woman scorned is set in a 1960s...

‘Third’ at Rockville Little Theatre by Jessica Vaughan

Rockville Little Theatre‘s production of Pulitzer Prize winner Wendy Wasserstein‘s last play Third is layered, powerful, and very funny. It’s set the year we went to war in Iraq on a college campus...

‘Avenue Q’ at Dominion Stage by Jessica Vaughan

Dominion Stage’s Avenue Q is hilarious and touching. The musical debuted Off- Broadway in 2003 and the story of a young English major drifting through his first year out of college is even more...

The Moscow Ballet’s ‘The Great Russian Nutcracker’ at The Music Center at Strathmore by Jessica Vaughan

The Moscow Ballet delivers a sweet production of this holiday classic for their 20th anniversary tour. They work with over 3,600 children around the U.S. to fill many of the roles of the ballet and...

‘An Irish Carol’ at The Keegan Theatre by Jessica Vaughan

The Keegan Theatre’s An Irish Carol is destined to become one of the not-to-be missed DC holiday institutions that everyone sees whenever Keegan deigns to put it on. This production, the second...

30th Anniversary ‘Christmas Revels’ at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium by Jessica Vaughan

For The Washington Revels 30th anniversary Christmas Revels, the company pulls out all the stops, tripping through the centuries in England from medieval times to the 1920s as they bring traditional...

‘JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance’ at The Kennedy Center by Jessica Vaughan.

An impressive gathering of American tap convened at The Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater for JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance. The Chicago Rhythm Project collected twelve performances of...

‘A Commedia Christmas Carol’ by Jessica Vaughan

Faction of Fools Theatre Company combines Charles Dickens and Commedia Dell’Arte this Christmas for an inspired production of A Commedia Christmas Carol. The larger than life fable with its...

Eileen Ivers at Wolf Trap by Jessica Vaughan

Eileen Ivers brought down The Barns at Wolf Trap in an evening of blazing fiddles and holiday classics with her fantastic band Immigrant Soul. Eileen Ivers is a fiddle player from the Bronx, or as she...

‘Tap Dogs’ at The Music Center at Strathmore by Jessica Vaughan

Six tap dancers brought the house down at The Music Center at Strathmore in a spectacular performance of the Aussie sensation Tap Dogs. It is a surround sound and sight experience as six dancers build...

‘James Joyce’s The Dead’ at Quotidian Theatre Company by Jessica Vaughan

Quotidian Theatre Company’s powerful and moving production of James Joyce’s The Dead is their first musical, or, as Director and company co-founder Jack Sbarbori puts it, a “play with music.” He has...

‘Love and Witchcraft’ at The In Series by Jessica Vaughan

The In Series mounts a lovely and powerful production of two operas to open their thirtieth consecutive season. Producing Artistic Director Carla Hübner, who founded the Series in 1982 has called the...

‘In the Red and Brown Water’ at University of Maryland by Jessica Vaughan

In the Red and Brown Water is a stunning piece of theater by the School of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland at the state of the art Clarice Smith Performing Arts...

‘Finian’s Rainbow’ at Catholic University by Jessica Vaughan

Catholic University’s Benjamin T. Rome School of Music mounts a fabulous production of Finian’s Rainbow for its fall musical, with additional actors from Howard University and Duke Ellington School of...

‘Trespassing’ at Ambassador Theater by Jessica Vaughan

Ambassador Theater takes on trespassers and unexpected visitors with two madcap one-acts by Egyptian playwright Alfred Farag. The first, The Visitor, tells the story of an actress and the policeman...

‘Guys and Dolls’ at American University by Jessica Vaughan

American University’s Department of Performing Arts puts on a slick, fast, and fun production of Guys and Dolls to kick off their 2012-2013 season. Karl Kippola is both the director and choreographer,...