John Stoltenberg

Magic Time! The DC Black Theatre Festival: ‘Confessions of a Homo Thug Porn Star’

The DC Black Theatre Festival, which runs through June 26, this year offers some 45 self-produced shows, most one time only. Organized annually by the DC Drama Department, a nonprofit educational...

‘Buyer & Cellar’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

The laughs come so fast in Buyer & Cellar—and Michael Urie’s solo performance is so brilliantly engaging—that the words “funny” and “fun” seem too puny, utterly inadequate to convey the extraordinary...

Magic Time! ‘Grounded’ at The Studio Theatre

Sometimes an extraordinary piece of theater plays like a synecdoche on steroids. It serves as a small part that represents a vast whole with astounding force. A window that lets us see something more...

‘Killer Joe’ at SeeNoSun OnStage

Audiences with a taste for pitch-dark comedy will get their fill of a deliciously unsettling feast in Killer Joe, the launch production of the aptly named new theater company SeeNoSun. Killer Joe has...

‘The Prostate Dialogues’ at Theater J

Theater J’s finale to its fine 2013–2014 season turns out to be a surprisingly poignant solo performance about a man’s privates. Storyteller Jon Spelman is our genial guide; the genitals in question...

‘Magic Time!’ ‘Judgment at Nuremberg’ at The American Century Theater

A resounding round of applause is owed The American Century Theater (TACT), whose sharp, smart production of Judgment at Nuremberg brings this towering play to DC Metro audiences at last. As Artistic...

An Interview With Kieyontaye D. Johnson-Carter, Author of ‘Love in Time of HIV’

When I first saw Love in Time of HIV in May 2012, I was deeply impressed. Giving voice to a young generation’s encounter with the health crisis left them by their elders, the play by Kieyontaye D....

Magic Time! ‘Cock’ at The Studio Theatre

If this were a theater review it would be an effusive rave. The production of Mike Bartlett’s play Cock now at The Studio Theatre is impeccable: The lighting, the sound, the direction, the casting,...

‘A Midsummer Night’s Riot’ at The Keegan Theatre

Watching the world premiere of A Midsummer Night’s Riot is like watching theatrical lighting strike. For the third time. In the exact same place (the Keegan Theater). With the exact same writer...

‘Freud’s Last Session’ at Theater J

If conversation were kindling, this two-hander would combust. If argumentation were edible, this debate would be delectable. If a supersmart script played by two stellar actors were a spectator sport,...

Magic Time! ‘The Threepenny Opera’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s new production of The Threepenny Opera—directed and choreographed with unerring cunning by Matthew Gardiner—is cringe-inducing, snarky, impudent, and jarring. Everything it’s meant...

‘The Amish Project’ at Factory 449

Shooting sprees have become commonplace in our media consumption. Nowadays breaking news of yet another gunman and his multiple victims (the shooters are always male) more numbs than shocks. The...

A Report on ‘Jarman (all this maddening beauty)’ at force/collision

For as long as there have been movies, theater artists have tried to integrate film with live performance. Something about celluloid (these days, video) seems to inspire theater artists to break the...

‘Magic Time!’: ‘Moth’ at The Studio Theatre’s 2ndStage

Up on the fourth floor of The Studio Theatre is a great big black box of a performance space, which isn’t actually black because its walls are cinder block, rather like an institutional enclosure. On...

‘Golda’s Balcony’ at Theater J

There’s not a long list of great actors who, through their indelible bravura depiction of a great historical figure in a solo performance, warrant substituting the word “is” for “as,” in billing like...

‘Camp David’ at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater

The real President Jimmy Carter attended the premiere of Camp David—the engrossing new play by Lawrence Wright in which he is the central character—and offered up this mini-review of it in an...

‘Violet’ at The Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts

Since mid-January an intrepid troupe of musical-theater students has been rehearsing the sweet and soulful show Violet at The Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts under the able direction of Deb...

Magic Time! ‘Arguendo’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company by John Stoltenberg

Watching Arguendo—an actual Supreme Court transcript staged cheekily for chuckles by Elevator Repair Service, the New York–based troupe specializing in literary vérité—is like watching a 70-minute...

‘If/Then’ at The Richard Rodgers Theatre

If/Then, the musical with the biggest heart you can imagine, is now back home in the Big Apple, and just like its main character, Elizabeth (the incomparable Idina Menzel), it is starting over in...

‘The Admission’ at Theater J by John Stoltenberg

As many who follow local theater news know, Theater J’s production of The Admission has been preceded by an offstage drama—a who’s-right/who’s-wrong argument, a...

Magic Time! ‘Hair’ at The Keegan Theatre

When I saw the original Broadway production of Hair in the late sixties, my hair was shoulder length, and the slogan “Make love not war!” referred to pacifism pre-9/11 and fluid exchange pre-AIDs....

‘Water by the Spoonful’ at The Studio Theatre

Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful is set in 2009 and takes place mainly in Philadelphia but also travels to San Diego, Japan, and Puerto Rico. Two characters hold the...

‘Normal’ at Molotov Theatre Group

Molotov Theatre Group has an uncanny knack for converting its tiny black-box nook into an auditorium-scale operating theater for surgical dissection of the dark side of human nature. With its new...

‘American Idiot’ at The National Theatre by John Stoltenberg

Among the exhilarating pleasures of seeing American Idiot now on tour at the National Theatre is experiencing this angsty, amped-up ode to antiestablishment disaffection performed full force in DC’s...

Magic Time! ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ at Arena Stage at The Mead Center for American Theater by John Stoltenberg

It takes a wagonload of courage to take on Brecht these days. His “alienation effect” esthetic challenges every theatrical convention that makes a show a contemporary commercial success. He explicitly...

‘Yellow Face’ at Theater J by John Stoltenberg

If there was an open casting call for the role of you, who should get the part and who shouldn’t? Must the actor be descended from a gene pool that arose in the same area on the globe that yours did?...

Playing (with) Gender in WSC Avant Bard’s ‘Orlando’: Acting Insights from Sara Barker and Jay Hardee by John Stoltenberg

Orlando, WSC Avant Bard’s upcoming production, is based on Virginia Woolf’s classic 1928 novel in which Woolf based the character Orlando on the woman she was madly in love with. In both the book and...

‘Peter and the Starcatcher’ at The Kennedy Center by John Stoltenberg

If you’re willing to let your inner child stay up after bedtime and go out and play at The Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater instead, you’re in for an evening of theatrical wonderment and...

‘Glassheart’ at Rorschach Theatre by John Stoltenberg

The evening began enchantingly. The audience was seated on four sides of a square playing area lit by stage lighting, so we could look across and see one another’s faces in that wonderful expectant...

Magic Time! ‘Miss Nelson is Missing’ by John Stoltenberg

I had not been to kid’s theater since I was a kid. As an inveterate theater buff, I was dimly aware there was much highly praised professional children’s theater in the DC Metro area—but I was certain...

‘Urinetown: The Musical’ at Dominion Stage by John Stoltenberg

Urinetown: The Musical holds a special place in my theatergoing memory. I first saw it in New York City days after the September 11, 2001, attacks because then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani told me to. He made...

Magic Time! ‘The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess’ at The National Theatre by John Stoltenberg

History hit an astounding “rewind” and “refresh” button last night at The National Theatre. An abundantly assorted audience of Washingtonians rose as one to applaud an iconic work of musical theater...

‘Our Suburb’ at Theater J by John Stoltenberg

Avid and discerning theatergoers seeking a fresh take on a beloved classic will not find a more rewarding gift this time of year than Our Suburb, brilliantly directed by Judith Ivey, which just opened...

‘Seasonal Disorder’ at Washington Improv Theater by John Stoltenberg

Washington Improv Theater has been tickling DC audiences for 15 years. When I discovered the madcap company a while ago, I got hooked on the spot. Hooked as in addicted. Feeling the need for a...

dog & pony dc’s ‘Toast’ (a Workshop Production) by John Stoltenberg

“Audience integration” is a buzzword that has been flying around awhile but only recently landed in my brain. In live theater, it means going beyond removing the fourth wall; it means erasing the line...

‘Man in a Case’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company by John Stoltenberg

It is one thing to amble through a modern art gallery and appreciate an innovative multimedia installation—some videos and audio here, some projections and lighting effects there, perhaps some human...

Magic Time! Reflections on ‘Woody Sez: The Life & Music of Woody Guthrie’ by John Stoltenberg

Hootenanny is a word one hardly hears anymore. Whole generations have come along for whom it elicits blank stares and a big ”Huh?” The press release for Woody Sez: The Life & Music of Woody Guthrie...

‘If/Then’ (Revisited) by John Stoltenberg

The first time I saw If/Then, I knew I would be seeing it again. The show’s beauty, originality, and heart won me over, and that experience increased all the way through. I wrote a review for...

‘If/Then’ at The National Theatre by John Stoltenberg

The fresh new musical If/Then—now in a tryout run at The National Theatre on its way to Broadway (where it is destined to be embraced by theatergoers who will want to see it again and again)—is more...

Magic Time! Reflections on ‘Mies Julie’ by John Stoltenberg

On the evidence of Mies Julie, Yael Farber, who wrote and directed it, must be counted among the most important theater artists on the world stage today. Beyond brilliant: important. Rarely have I...

‘Pride in the Falls of Autrey Mill’ at Signature Theatre by John Stoltenberg

“How’s your family?” are the seemingly innocuous final words of this startling and riveting new play. Carly, a quintessentially desperate housewife, is on the phone with a female neighbor in their...

‘Extremities’ at Molotov Theatre Group by John Stoltenberg

There’s dramatic tension—and then there’s traumatic tension. Molotov Theatre Group’s absolutely riveting production of Extremities—William Matrosimone’s wicked good play about a wicked rape...

‘Magic Time!’ ‘The Laramie Project’ at Ford’s Theatre by John Stoltenberg

If you’re a theater buff who’s worried that the shutdown’s shuttering of Ford’s Theatre and the shunting of The Laramie Project to a nearby church means audiences there must be getting something...

Magic Time!: ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by John Stoltenberg

The notorious aesthete Oscar Wilde believed that beauty is be-all and end-all. After The Painting of Dorian Gray met with moral outrage upon its publication in 1890, he appended a Preface to the novel...

‘The Velocity of Autumn’ at Arena Stage at The Mead Center for American Theater by John Stoltenberg

For $64,000, the funny thing about aging is…? Funny like strange or funny like—? Like LOL. Oh, okay, lemme think. [Thinks a long time; lame music plays.] Haven’t got all day. Please, I need more time!...

Magic Time: ‘Molière’s Don Juan’ at Faction of Fools by John Stoltenberg

On top of the antic hilarity in Faction of Fools’ new production of Molière’s Don Juan, I had the funny feeling while watching this company’s work for the first time that I’d been a fool for having...

‘Bell’ at National Geographic by John Stoltenberg

Having heard tantalizing details about Bell in a pre-opening interview, I attended the National Geographic Live production with the sort of eager/anxious anticipation one might have felt watching the...

‘After the Revolution’ at Theater J by John Stoltenberg

Who would have guessed that a family drama about everyday ethics and far-left ideology could be so engrossing and engaging, the characters so real and riveting, that what happens on stage enters one’s...

‘Torch Song Trilogy’ at The Studio Theatre by John Stoltenberg

Some plays don’t age well; they get dated but dusted off anyway. Some time-travel okay, and get mounted in modern dress. But rare is the work that—while still set in the period years ago when it was...

‘Inventing “Bell” at National Geographic: A Q&A with Rick Foucheux and MJ Jacobsen’ by John Stoltenberg

National Geographic has been thinking outside its trademark yellow box a lot lately. The Society’s mission is “Inspiring people to care about the planet.” Adventure and exploration are its DNA. Still,...