Leslie Weisman

‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!’ is delightfully clever family fun at the Kennedy Center

What is your “heart dog?” How do you know it, find it—and deal with the disappointment of maybe not being able to have it? Or even . . . losing it? Heavy questions for the school-age (and even...

Review: ‘The Mighty Five and Friends’ by the Russian Chamber Art Society at the French Embassy

With the concept of nationalism hovering uneasily in the political air, it was as edifying as it was gratifying to hear four first-rate musicians celebrate in song some of the masterworks of what...

Review: ‘Sorrow of Love, Joy of Love: Love Songs of the Great Entertainers’ by the Russian Chamber Art Society

Ah, l’amour! In what could be called a perfect DC description of, and introduction for, a perfect Valentine’s Day concert, Russian Chamber Art Society president Mary Kruger welcomed the sizable and...

Review: ‘TSVETAEVA’ by the Russian Chamber Art Society

The Russian Chamber Art Society (RCAS) has been bringing Russian chamber music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to Washington audiences for more than a decade, so its decision to expand...

Review: ‘Viva V.E.R.D.I. – The Promised End’ by the In Series

Theater can be many things: challenging, and then restoring; transcendent, and yet—fundamental. A platform for the cutting-edge and a welcoming home-fire for the familiar. Rarely does a single show...

‘A Night at the Gaming Tables’ at The Russian Chamber Art Society

Love and money: when fated to compete, can the fight ever be fair? Or is it—and are the parties caught between them—invariably, if not inevitably, doomed? The Russian Romantic poet, playwright, and...

Review: ‘THE RESTLESS HEART: A program of Old Russian, Gypsy (Romani) and Folk Songs of Passion, Longing and Love’ at The Embassy of France

“This concert series is dedicated to Russian chamber vocal music, which is rarely heard in America,” states the program; a regrettably true state of affairs. The Russian Chamber Art Society (RCAS),...

Review: ‘SOON’ at The Highwood Theatre

Depending on whom you ask, climate change is either ongoing, its devastating progression towards the inevitable oblivion of life on Earth all but inarguable, or a hoax perpetrated by the ignorant or...

Review: Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ by The National Symphony Orchestra

A nominally ecclesiastical work written by an essentially non-religious man, the Verdi Requiem has come, in the nearly century and a half since its completion, to be beloved by church-goers and...

Review: ‘The Dog Must Die’ at The Highwood Theatre

What is a life worth? What is the Earth worth? And what are we doing – what can we do, what should we do – to sustain and preserve them? These provocative questions, and other questions that are as...

Review: National Symphony Orchestra with Guest Conductor Juanjo Mena and Pianist Garrick Ohlsson at The Kennedy Center Concert Hall (Final Performance TODAY, 10-15-17 at 3:00 p.m.)

It’s not unusual for concertgoers to be greeted by the sounds of orchestra members tuning their instruments, so commencing Thursday night’s concert with Kennedy Center Composer-in-Residence Mason...

Review: ‘Oberon, or The Elf King’s Oath’ at The In Series

“I’m stuck with writer’s block!” Who among us—be we beginners, practitioners or professionals, list makers, blog posters, PhD thesis or diary writers—has not been visited by that alarming thought?...

Review: ‘Barnaby Rudge’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

Of Charles Dickens’s fifteen novels, there are few, if any, that are less well-known than his first historical, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty—and few, with its forty-plus characters and...

Review: ‘LEAR’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

On the night of the J20 Art Strike, a protest movement asking that “business . . . not proceed as usual in any realm” of the creative arts on Inauguration Day, I felt a little guilty attending a play....

Review: ‘Masterpieces of Russian Vocal Music: Enchanted Evening of Vocal & Piano Duets’ at Russian Chamber Art Society

If there is one thing that those of us in the DC metropolitan area can be sure of when it comes to classical music, it is that finding great examples of it on virtually any night of the week will not...

Review # 2: ‘The Comedy of Errors . . . at Colonus’ at Lumina Studio Theatre (Green Cast)

If you’re a lover of impossible opposites, or have ever wondered what it would be like to wander into a mirthful merge—or, in the company’s assuredly less elegant, but admittedly (and amusingly) more...

Review: The Romantics III: ‘Schumann & Heine’ at The In series at Source

Close your eyes for just a moment. Imagine that you are comfortably seated in an elegant, yet commodious room, filled with people who have come to share—no, not the latest election scuttlebutt; but...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Romanov’

Romanov, at Flashpoint Mead Theatre Lab, is a show that will pull you in different directions, musically (electro-pop opera?) and emotionally (did wrong or done wrong?)—and leave you sitting straight...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘In a Nutshell’

If you’re intrigued by In a Nutshell because you read the promo and you like your play-watching sprinkled with meta, this adroitly selected, astutely seasoned (by Director, Producer and “conceiver”...

Review: ‘Tender Tears and Love and Life: Songs by Anton Rubinstein, Anton Arensky, Alexander Glazunov, and Mark Minkov’ at the Russian Chamber Art Society

In a concert that rang the rafters and tugged at the heartstrings, the Russian Chamber Art Society bade a thrilling farewell to its longtime home at the Austrian embassy, which, after hosting more...

Review: ‘After Life’ | ‘Josephine’ by UrbanArias

Say “operatic double bill” and two duos spring to mind, for aficionados and amateurs alike. From the mid-20th century, Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium and The Telephone; from the late-19th century,...

Review: ‘Leave it to Psmith!’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

Clomping into the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre, shivering from Snowzilla’s persistent chill and shaking caked snow and ice from our boots, we are greeted by the pleasant, ear-warming sounds of...

‘As You Like It’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

What’s in a name? Taking the title of Shakespeare’s character-rich, eminently quotable pastoral comedy literally, is rare—and has rarely been done with the gender-bending, genre-mashing, gleefully...

Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘The Long Way Around’ at The Highwood Theatre

What happens when you realize that the person everyone thinks you are is not the person you really are, and the cost becomes too great to bear? When you’re young, to be sure, your future is, by...

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘The Requiem’ at The Highwood Theatre

Think the promise, even the future of American theater lies in the hands of those imaginative, impassioned, gutsy young Millennials who for the last several years have musically and dramatically set...

‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged! Revised!)’ at Off the Quill

With our calendars getting increasingly crowded and revisiting the plays we read (were supposed to read/wanted to read/never thought of reading) in high school probably not high on our to-do list, it...

‘This Lime Tree Bower’ at Quotidian Theatre Company

The Irish are legendary storytellers, and Conor McPherson’s play, one of his earliest, is a rollicking but thought-provoking tale of adventurous misadventure, told as a rotating round (and refreshed...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘A Family Reunion’

The words “family reunion” are bound to evoke mixed memories, no matter whose family it is. That said, I’d wager there are few whose mixture is as experientially eclectic—and as psychologically...

‘Hamlet’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

If Hamlet as a character is historically—and enduringly—shrouded in fog, the scene that greets us as we enter Lumina Studio Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s eponymous play is more than a match...

‘The Lady’s Not For Burning’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

No, she is not. But in the year “1400, either more or less exactly,” per playwright Christopher Fry’s prefiguratively imprecise formulation, written in the aftermath of the, for many, apocalyptic...

‘From Moscow to Hollywood: Songs from the Movies” at Russian Chamber Art Society

Even today, a trip from Moscow to Hollywood is not one to be taken on the spur of the moment. What must it have meant for those in the early years of the last century, artists and musicians seeking...

Russian Chamber Art Society: ‘Ballades, Fantasies, & Satires’

The Russian Chamber Art Society (RCAS) has become the go-to organization for those in the know in the DC area when it comes to rarely heard—and rewardingly performed—works from the Russian classical...

‘Our Mutual Friend’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

“Part mystery, part romantic comedy, part moral fable, Our Mutual Friend justly earns its place among Dickens’s most brilliant novels.” With these words, Directors Kelly Newman O’Connor and John...

Bellini’s ‘La Sonnambula’ (The Sleepwalker) at The In Series

It’s eleven o’clock. Do you know where your children are? A question we’ve become accustomed to, it’s meant to both prod us and reassure us that the “village” is looking out for us, and for our kids....

‘Twelfth Night’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

All the world’s a stage, and much of life’s a circus. Shakespeare may not have said the second part, but his whirlwind, identity-switching, gender-bending, who’s-on-first 1602 comedy Twelfth Night,...

‘Tchaikovsky is Forever: Operatic Arias and Romances’ at The Embassy of Austria

Say “Tchaikovsky,” and as Christmas creeps ever closer, be it excitingly or inexorably, visions of sugar plums, graceful ballerinas in sparkles and white tulle, and softly falling faux snow begin,...

‘Danny Boy’ at Unexpected Stage Company

It’s not often that theatergoers have the rug of common assumptions pulled out from under them and enjoy both the trip and—as the dust and a few loose threads settle to the ground beside them—the...

Washington National Opera Presents: An Evening with Ailyn Pérez

Amore! Amour! Amor! The eagerly anticipated concert by the couple memorably dubbed by a leading British newspaper “the Jay-Z and Beyoncé of opera,” tenor Stephen Costello and soprano Ailyn Pérez,...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Uniform’

You can easily miss him. Lying on the floor in dim light, dressed in grey, still as death, he is easily overlooked. It is the young woman, her dark blond hair held back with a tortoise-shell barrette,...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘We’ve Come to Play’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) Who, indeed, has come to play? Five women in ten choreographic (no less compelling, for being non-cinematic) captures, their bodies conveying emotional captures that, as...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review ‘Cross the Line’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) Six actors: three men, three women, all in all black—t’s, tanks, slacks, shoes, leggings—sitting, standing, walking upon; bounding, flipping, dancing across a square black...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘The Man in the Desert’

(Best of the Fringe!) Stephen Mead is no stranger to Fringe—or to one-man shows: his “Dark. Powerful. Mysterious. Magnetic. Suspenseful” performance in Murder on the Bare Stage, as lauded last year by...

‘Made in America: Celebrating American Choral Music’ at The Kennedy Center

“Made in the USA”: for generations, assurance that the product we were about to enjoy was produced upon the great land mass containing the contiguous 48, also known with patriotic pride, devotion and...

Andrea Rost, Soprano: Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Independent Hungary Gala Concert at The Warner Theatre

Soprano Andrea Rost, whose career began in European opera houses, must have felt at home in the Warner’s lavishly appointed, gilded and crystal-chandeliered art deco interior, the stage’s ornate...

Film Review: ‘Madame Parliamentarian’: A Film by Rouane Itani

Rarely do we see the poetically evocative adjective “arabesque” outside the ballet. So being invited to “An Arabesque Event” held an irresistible charm. As it turned out, the title was more figurative...

‘Speaking of Shakespeare, Falstaff, and King Henry IV’ with Stacy Keach and Edward Gero at the Woman’s National Democratic Club

What’s the best place to enjoy a scrumptious lunch surrounded by ever-changing exhibits by local artists, while hearing celebrated actors and writers engage each other in stimulating, illuminating...

‘Peter Pan’ at The Washington Ballet at The Kennedy Center

If you have a child or grandchild you’d like to introduce to ballet, does The Washington Ballet have a show for you. Artistic Director Septime Webre’s Peter Pan is a cherry lollipop of a production...

Film Review: ‘The Unknown Known’

SUBJECT: What You Know There are known knowns. There are known unknowns. There are unknown unknowns. But there are also unknown knowns—that is to say, things that you think you know that it turns out...

‘The Cradle Will Rock’ at The George Washington University

“The Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre entrance temporarily closed for emergency work until Monday, March 31.” For anyone familiar with the legendary lockout that threatened to strand several hundred eager...

A Report on ‘Richard Strauss at 150, with Saul Lilienstein’ at The Kennedy Center

In his third and final Explore the Arts lecture at The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Gallery on great composers serendipitously born in years lending themselves to anniversary celebrations in the last...