John Stoltenberg

What’s ‘Once Upon a One More Time’ doing at the Shakespeare?

There’s got to be more to it than a cool chance to groove on the oeuvre of Britney Spears. | Column by JOHN STOLTENBERG

‘A Strange Loop’ at Woolly Mammoth is a knockout smash

Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning musical sings of a singular poet’s journey from self-loathing to self-respect.

A Q&A with Matthew Gardiner on his new gig at Sig

“What is important in this moment for Signature,” says its new artistic director, “is how we are creating a culture of consent going forward.”

Spooky Action’s unrealistic ‘Realistic Joneses’ is a complete treat

The text keeps us off-kilter in a way that tickles us silly even as a sobering undercurrent churns.

‘Working’ rocks Black Lives Matter Plaza with a musical that matters

A gutsy and gifted project called Working in DC puts on an ebullient show to remind us of the everyday dignity of work.

Whitney White on directing James Baldwin’s classic ‘The Amen Corner’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

A frank, in-depth interview about activating the actor, performance for the white gaze, the play’s queer narrative, and much more.

Solas Nua’s award-winning ‘Silent’ to stream July 11 to 18

UPDATE: Solas Nua’s Silent will stream on demand July 11 to 18, 2021, in a film adaptation of the Olivier Award–winning and Helen Hayes Award–winning production last seen live in DC two years ago....

Rep Stage radio play ‘Ghost/Writer’ is some mind-blowing writing

Playwright Dane Figueroa Edidi mixes romance and vengeance and packs volumes of truth into stunning poetic dialog.

Mike Daisey mansplains

The master monologist takes an unblinking look at Scott Rudin, Andrew Cuomo, and himself.

The reopening long shot

It’s been quite the terrifying year for us connected to the performing arts. An absolute scary time that began in mid-March 2020 as theaters went dark, lit only by their ghost lights. And now it seems...

Trans Lives and Theater as Change Agent: A Q&A with Dane Figueroa Edidi and Natsu Onoda Power

In observance of the the 12th annual International Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31, 2021), we republish this in-depth conversation with two leading lights in DC-area theater. —John...

Taylor Mac puts on the glitz in ‘Holiday Sauce’ on demand

Taylor Mac is an acquired bad taste, and fans who remember fondly Taylor Mac’s over-the-top Holiday Sauce—which played live one-night-only last year at The Kennedy Center—will be gladdened to know a...

Tennessee Williams’s ‘Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers’ returns

Spooky Action Theater’s utterly charming production of The Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers—a recently discovered early work by Tennessee Williams directed for puppets and people by Natsu...

‘This Zoom Life’ could be the the best comedy web series since COVID

These days, in lieu of live scripted comedy, I’ve learned to feel lucky whenever I find online theater that gets me LOLing all alone. To be honest, that happens rarely, and never all the way through....

Mosaic Theater to move on without its founding artistic director, Ari Roth

In a meeting Tuesday night, November 17, 2020, the 26-member board of Mosaic Theater Company of DC unanimously accepted the resignation of Ari Roth, who founded the company six years ago “to be a home...

If you missed ‘What the Constitution Means to Me,’ now’s your chance

This tense election season has been made all the more nerve-wracking by our president’s persistent dissing of the Constitution he swore to uphold. Short of a landslide shellacking, Heidi Shreck’s What...

Can laughter be lethal?: Dr. Linsey Marr on aerosol transmission of COVID

I first learned of Dr. Linsey Marr when I read a startling opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times July 30: As “a civil and environmental engineer who studies how viruses and bacteria spread...

A critic at play

During the past seven-odd years that I’ve contributed to DC Theater Arts, I’ve written about upwards of 600 shows—sometimes as the designated reviewer (when I followed criticism conventions) and...

Theatermakers of color call white theater to account for systemic racism

The cultural momentum powering protests that followed the May 25 murder of George Floyd has galvanized a national and local movement for transformational change in American theater led by Black,...

A harrowing ‘Pass Over’ powerfully performed at Studio Theatre

There is a drama on stage right now at Studio Theatre—Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu—so harrowing it will stop your heart. In it, Christopher Lovell and Jalen Gilbert give two of the most powerful...

Another lost female genius found, in ‘Einstein’s Wife’ at ExPats Theatre

The history of science is studded with female geniuses snubbed by sexism. There’s biophysicist Rosalind Franklin, geneticist Nettie Stevens, chemist Alice Ball— And several such brilliant women’s...

“I want to make space for women who make mistakes”: A Q&A with Dani Stoller, author of ‘Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes’ at Signature Theatre

Dani Stoller’s world-premiere comedy Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes is funny and witty and in its own quirky way quite deep. Plus it puts the screw in screwball. Discovered in the SigWorks...

‘Boys Don’t Cry’ at Dance Place rejoices in macho detox

Boys Don’t Cry made this boy cry. It happened near the end. I had been watching a performance by the French dance company Cie Hervé KOUBI. Seven shirtless male dancers, all from different countries,...

Theater Alliance’s heartrending ‘This Bitter Earth’ portrays two gay men in loving color

A poetic and politically charged same-gender-loving love story, This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers—now playing in a powerfully moving production at Theater Alliance—strips bare the hearts,...

Actor Mikéah Jennings unpacks his powerful performance in ‘Shipwreck’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre

Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017 is an epic, scorching, and surreal satire of white liberalism in the era of Trump. It takes place at that ominous juncture in recent American...

In ‘Boy’ at Keegan Theatre, the anguish of a gender experiment gone wrong

“Oh, god. Maybe it didn’t work,” the mother exclaims in alarm. It’s the moment in this hold-your-breath drama when she realizes the gender experiment done on her child, one of two identical twins born...

‘The Boy Detective Fails’ is a charming success at American University

“I’m good at finding out the truth,” says Billy Argo (Spencer Coben), the boy-prodigy detective, near the beginning of this clever, quirky, and quite touching musical. So observant of clues is Billy...

‘Heroine’ at The Kennedy Center tells the searing true story of a woman’s rape in the U.S. Army

Post-Play Palaver is an occasional series of conversations between DC Theater Arts writers who saw the same performance, got really into talking about it, and decided to continue their exchange in...

Who is Black? Signature Theatre’s ‘Gun & Powder’ hits a national nerve

It may surprise you (as it did me) that the title of this melodic world-premiere musical does not refer to gunpowder. The word gun means there’s a pistol (which gets dramatically deployed). But the...

Cliff Cardinal’s solo ‘Huff’ at Kennedy Center offers a theatrical high

At the start of this brave performance, we see on a dark stage a young man who is making a suicide attempt. He is wearing cargo pants, a tee, and sneaks and has a food-storage bag over his head. The...

‘The Royale’ at 1st Stage bares a Black brother’s big heart

This play about a boxer packs so many emotional punches into its compact six rounds, you might not know what hit you. As fists fly, bells clang, terse words burst, and the cast claps out each...

‘Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson’ at Dominion Stage rethinks how racist history rocks on

Dominion Stage has given this rowdy, irreverent, and rollicking rock musical a remarkably woke production that is as rousing as it is reflective and as satiric as it is unsettling. Set in 1800s...

Clayton LeBouef’s dreamy ‘RS/24’ returns to Anacostia Playhouse

Summoning a galaxy of African American recording stars, this poignant one-act sometimes seems like a sublime dream with vintage music. There are ethereal visions, vivid Afrofuturist visitations, and...

Mosaic goes rom-com with ‘Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World’

This thoroughly delightful offering from Mosaic Theater Company has all the makings of a lighthearted rom-com. Boy picks up girl. He invites her to his place. She initiates sex. It’s hot. Though they...

In the ‘Pipeline’ at Studio Theatre, a Black son’s legacy of rage

The set for Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline at Studio Theatre could not be any whiter. Its white walls of freshly painted concrete blocks span the breadth of the stage and extend around the audience....

4615 Theatre’s gripping ‘A Measure of Cruelty’ rips open three men’s wounds

The casual cruelty that constructs men’s certainty they’re real men—and the cost of that violence to others and to themselves—comes under scathing scrutiny in Joe Calarco’s shattering one-act A...

‘Sheltered’ at Theater J hits home in America right now

A gathering stormcloud looms over this exquisitely wrought play by Alix Sobler. “How bad is it going to get?” a character wonders aloud. No one can answer. “It can’t go on like this much longer, can...

Uplifting ‘Veils’ returns to Restoration Stage by popular demand

Four African American women address the audience as if speaking to a department store clerk. Each is shopping for a dress—a dress, they stress, that must be “special.” As they turn to the faces of...

Step Afrika!’s ‘Magical Musical Holiday Step Show’ is a winter wonderland of joy

Now in its eighth year, Step Afrika!’s Magical Musical Holiday Step Show has established itself as the season’s most joyful and lovable family festivity in DC. Exuberant music, adorable humor, and...

Isabella Star LaBlanc, who plays Tiger Lily in ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company, on why Native stories matter

When Playwright Lauren Gunderson took on the challenge of adapting J. M. Barrie’s 1904 Peter Pan, she knew she had to fix what she has called the “deeply harmful misrepresentation of Indigenous people...

At Mosaic’s ‘Eureka Day,’ a class in laughs and spats is in session

The five adults seated onstage in a children’s classroom each have a kid enrolled in this private day school, which like the play we’re watching is named Eureka Day. These earnest parents are all...

‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ at Shakespeare wows with wonder in a woke dream

J. M. Barrie imagined a lot when he wrote his 1904 play about the boy who wouldn’t grow up, but he could not have imagined how many childhoods have been etched by its enchantment. Now in Peter Pan and...

5 reasons Christopher Boone liked ‘Curious Incident’ at Round House better than on Broadway

My name is Christopher Boone and I am 15 and I am brave and I can do anything. I know that because I traveled by train by myself from Swindon to London and I solved the mystery of a neighbor lady’s...

In uproarious ‘Airness’ at 1st Stage, the rock ‘n’ roll is unreal

In the competitive national and international air guitar scene, contestants vie for championships and prizes by pretending to play (or “shred”) imaginary guitars to 60-second tracks from classic rock...

In ’19: The Musical,’ women sing and dance their way to suffrage

On the day I was to see 19: The Musical—which is about how the amendment granting women the right to vote came to pass in 1920—our Constitution Denier in Chief made a perfectly timed gaffe. There he...

The bad romance at the heart of Studio Theatre’s ‘White Pearl’

Anchuli Felicia King’s White Pearl is a hilarious, fast-paced satire set in the Singapore office of a cosmetics startup called Clearday that sells skin-whitening cream to Asian women. As the play...

In Edward Albee’s first-rate ‘Occupant’ at Theater J, a gutsy woman sculptor creates herself

“True if interesting” is Louise Nevelson’s byword in Occupant, Edward Albee’s witty and wise bioplay about the famous sculptor. She was quite the character. For Nevelson, in the hagiography according...

‘Agnes of God’ at Factory 449 glories in a trinity of divine performances

Following on Factory 449’s electrifying production two years ago of Lela & Co.—which earned Helen Hayes Awards for both its director (Rick Hammerly) and star (Felicia Curry)—the company now presents...

What’s Beneath the ‘Sea’ at Scena Theatre?

“It feels unknown. This is nowhere somehow,” says a character in this intriguingly cryptic poetic play by the acclaimed Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse. Indeed, where are we? And what is going on?...

A powerhouse ‘Protest’ and a vague ‘Vaněk Unleashed’ from Alliance for New Music-Theatre

In honor of the Czech dissident, political prisoner, and playwright Václav Havel, Alliance for New Music-Theatre has served up a two-course theatrical repast in DC’s most outré new arts venue, Dupont...