Malcolm Lewis Barnes

Opening night at GALA Hispanic Theatre’s Fuego Flamenco Festival

GALA Hispanic Theatre’s groundbreaking new season was topped off November 5, 2021, by a full-house opening of Salvador performed by Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company as part one of the two-weekend Fuego...

Brazilian All Stars’ sultry sound comes to Parilla Performing Arts Center

At the newly renovated venue on the campus of Montgomery Community College, the audience was demanding an encore and dancing in the aisles.

With ‘Flyin’ West,’ Everyman Theatre delivers on its commitment to EDI

Pearl Cleage’s groundbreaking play features pioneering Black women overcoming daunting odds.

Good players make the team in ‘Fences’ at Little Theater of Alexandria

The prominent community theater takes a swing at August Wilson’s big-league drama.

Lakecia Benjamin takes the DC JazzFest stage like a rock star

Her High Priestess of the Sax persona with a Miles Davis sense of cool riveted the pumped-up crowd.

DC Jazz Fest’s blockbuster weekend at The Wharf

September 4 and 5, an eclectic multi-musician lineup from mid-day to midnight.

A joyous mix of hits by Boney James at the Berks Jazz Fest

But the flow was not there.

Maysa: the voice and face of Berks Jazz Fest

The Baltimore native was special guest vocalist with Pieces of a Dream on opening weekend and brought down the house.

Superstar trumpeter Chris Botti opens Berks Jazz Fest

The lyrical legend shared the stage with an international cast of magical musicians.

Norm Lewis brings his smooth vocal genius to Wolf Trap

With the National Symphony Orchestra at the performing arts national park, a perfectly cool evening of Broadway hits.

Big Tony and Trouble Funk bring first Go-Go to Wolf Trap

On the 50th anniversary of the landmark National Park Service music-and-entertainment center, DC’s Official Music takes center stage.

An elegently sensual ‘Ella es tango (She Is Tango)’ from GALA

GALA Hispanic Theatre’s Ella es tango (She Is Tango) is the tale of two centuries of music, dance, and female liberation from the origins of Tango as a macho form of entertainment, for the patrons of...

Studio Theatre’s ‘Flow’ feels like a hip-hop feast for the senses

Director Psalmayene 24 and actor-poet Justin Weaks join forces again in Flow, bridging the gap between Old Skool rappers and new age Flowetry performers to trace the tragic footsteps of seven...

GALA presents stunning one-man ‘Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evil Doers’

José Torres-Tama’s genre-bending sci-fi Latino noir satirizes the absurd status of immigrants as “extraterrestrials.”

‘Pipeline’ at Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe is a masterpiece of stage-to-film

The Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in Sarasota, Florida, took its latest production outside under a balmy 82 degree evening with a full moon glowing over the marquee and offered a 90-minute...

How Asolo Rep has weathered COVID and committed to BIPOC representation

As the run of Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer came to a rousing close on March 3, 2021, Artistic Director Michael Donald Edwards and Managing Director Linda DiGabriele made themselves...

A riveting E. Faye Butler lifts up Black history as Fannie Lou Hamer

Sarasota, Florida’s Asolo Rep continues its 2021 outdoor season with the Rolling World Premiere of Mississippi native Cheryl L. West’s Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Originally...

Florida’s Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe plays outdoors to ‘Light Up the Night!’

The Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in Sarasota, Florida, took advantage of balmy 75-degree evenings to perform a special Valentine’s weekend open-air concert series titled Light Up the Night! A...

Picturing racial justice at the 2020 Commitment March on Washington

The Commitment March on Washington Friday, August 28, capped off a summer of social justice protest and marked the 57th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream“ speech on the steps...

A Zoom critic takes a hard look at a BIPOC roundtable from Transformation Theatre

I want to carve out a new niche in the Bold New World of virtual online arts meetings. I want to become a Zoom critic! Why? Because I have been forced to hone my facilitator skills with this...

Hot button issues for Black theater: A roundtable on revolution

Juneteenth 2020, Washington, DC—In response to the historic Black Lives Matter movement, DC Theater Arts has committed to offer our communications channel to help amplify the BIPOC voices (Black,...

A challenge to theaters to reopen now—outdoors

When are the Small Box theater companies going to throw off the straightjacket of conventional space-bound theater and explore alternative venues? Black Lives Matter Plaza was created overnight with a...

Scenes of radical hospitality for #OpenYourLobby at STC and Woolly (photos)

Six DC theaters welcomed #BlackLivesMatter protesters the weekend of June 5 to 7, 2020 . Photographer Malcolm Lewis Barnes reports from two of them, Shakespeare Theatre Company and Woolly Mammoth...

The stirring street theater of Black Lives Matter in DC (photos)

The sheer creativity and inventiveness of the protesters was on full display at every turn as they each seemed to come prepared with energy and a message. As if re-experiencing What to Send Up When It...

Opening night at Mosaic’s ‘Fabulation’

Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation: or, the Re-education of Undine follows a successful African-American publicist named Udine as she falls on hard times after her husband steals her fortune. Penniless and...

Review: ‘A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn’ at Anacostia Playhouse

Director Stephawn Stephens has deep family roots at the Dew Drop Inn, having started as a performer in A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn. When asked how he pulled off the latest edition he said he simply...

Review: ‘Diagnosed’ at Theater Alliance

I know what it feels like to not want to take a shower for three days. I know how the aches and pains of depression make you crawl into the fetal position and want to close out the world. I am...

Review: ‘Never Thought I was Black Till I Came to America’ (DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival)

The joyful spirit of Kenyan actress and storyteller, Anna Mwalagho filled the black box theater at Anacostia Arts Center as she performed her one-woman Black woman’s rites of passage message play,...

Opening weekend at the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival (photo feature)

The opening weekend of the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival was a lively family reunion of art, food, music and drama. DCBTAF chair and dancing diplomat Nana Malaya served as ring leader and founder...

Watching the Tonys with DC Theater Arts

DC Theater Arts hosted a rousing Tony Awards watch party at DC sports bar Penn Social last Sunday. An enthusiastic crowd of Broadway fans competed for ticket prizes and answered trivia questions posed...

Opening Night Photos: ‘FAME’ at GALA Fires Up Columbia Heights

Tony Award-winning director and Nuyorican choreographer Luis Salgado brings his New York creds to Columbia Heights with the power of a New York City subway platform Flash Dance as over 20 dancers and...