Ramona Harper

Review: ‘Fabulation or the Re-education of Undine’ at Port City Playhouse

Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation or the Re-education of Undine is an outrageously hilarious romp into the fabulated life of Undine Barnes Callas, a feisty, successful African American woman whose comeuppance...

Review: ‘How I Learned What I Learned’ at Round House Theatre

August Wilson was a high school dropout who went on to receive two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama and he’s regarded as one of the five most celebrated playwrights in the history of American theater. After...

Report: ‘A Centennial Celebration of John F. Kennedy’ at The Kennedy Center

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (The Kennedy Center) paid elegant tribute to the legacy of its namesake in A JFK Centennial Celebration on May 29, 2017, the 100th birthday of our...

Review: ‘Come Together:  A Celebration of John Lennon’ at The Kennedy Center

At a time when we can only imagine a world without walls of division and exclusion, the Annual Kennedy Center’s Spring Gala concert, Come Together: A Celebration of John Lennon, reached for the stars...

Review: The 22nd Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival: Abbey Lincoln Tribute at The Kennedy Center

The music of Abbey Lincoln was The Kennedy Center’s choice for its 22nd Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival. Showcasing the best in old and new jazz artistry, this year’s tribute presented Jazz...

Review: ‘Tribute’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

Scottie Templeton is dying. And with that deadly diagnosis, Tribute, by Bernard Slade, now playing at the Greenbelt Arts Center, poignantly considers what’s really important in life and the...

Review: ‘NSO Pops: Sophisticated Ladies: 100 Years of Ella & Company’ at The Kennedy Center

Acclaimed vocalists Capathia Jenkins, Sy Smith and Montego Glover joyously hopped the A train to Harlem along with the NSO Pops in tribute to the Queen of Jazz in Sophisticated Ladies: 100 Years of...

Review: ‘Paper Dreams’ at Imagination Stage

One of the wonders of children is their capacity to take the simplest object and create a whole new world filled with curiosity and excitement. Paper Dreams, a new children’s dance theatre production...

Review: NSO Pops: An Evening with Ledisi at The Kennedy Center

“Peaches” was in the house. Inspired by the spirit of Nina Simone, acclaimed American R&B and jazz recording artist, songwriter and actress, Ledisi performed an eclectic program of blues, jazz and R&B...

Review: ‘Luther Re-Lives’ at the Publick Playhouse

The velvet voice and beautiful love ballads of one of the greatest R &B crooners of all time, Luther Vandross, lives on through the magnetic stage presence of William “Smooth” Wardlaw’s Luther...

Review #1: ‘Caroline, Or Change’ at Round House Theatre

Round House Theatre continues to shine a spotlight on the works of Tony Kushner (Angels in America) as it explores life’s complexity through its seeming simplicity in Kushner’s autobiographical...

Review: Estampas Porteñas Tango Company’s ‘Deseos’ at the Music Center at Strathmore

Images of the people of Buenos Aires, estampas porteñas, created nostalgic dreams of longing and desire in distant lands and rich cultures as the Estampas Porteñas Tango Company presented Deseos, a...

Review #2: Chocolate City Burlesque’s Third Annual ‘Black Friday’

There ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little bump and grind and Chocolate City’s Burlesque & Cabaret (CCBC) had a whole lotta shakin’ going on. G strings and pasties and a skin show with feathers galore...

Review: ‘Carousel’ at Arena Stage

Life happens. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s, Carousel, is a timeless interlude that explores the human spirit’s indomitable will to go forward no matter life’s circumstances. Director Molly Smith’s...

Review: ‘The Summit: The Manhattan Transfer Meets Take 6’ at The Music Center at Strathmore

The Summit: The Manhattan Tranfer Meets Take 6 was an explosion, in gale wind proportions, of musical enjoyment, creative genius, vocal excellence and a boatload of fun as these two renowned, Grammy...

Review: ‘The Call’ at University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

Annie and Peter, a white married couple, haven’t been able to conceive a child of their own so they decide to adopt a child from Africa. Rebecca and Drea, a newly married African American lesbian...

Review: ‘National Symphony Orchestra: Season Opening Gala Concert’ at the Kennedy Center

In a political season where talk of building walls sometimes trumps the optimism of building bridges, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, named in honor of a President whose civil...

Review: ‘Jelly’s Last Jam’ at Signature Theatre

The early days of American jazz come fully back to life in Signature Theatre’s Jelly’s Last Jam. But if the notion of spending two hours in the dark watching something historical sounds boring — not...

Review: ‘The Trump Card’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Mike Daisey knew full well why we came out to see The Trump Card. We were out for “red meat.” We wanted to hear Mike Daisey tear Donald Trump to shreds. We wanted to see Mike kick his ass! And he did....

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Timon 2016’

If Shakespeare is your bag, Timon 2016 will be just what you are looking for, but with a modern air. Directed and adapted by Katie Wanshura, this play is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Timon...

Review: ‘Born for This: The BeBe Winans Story’ at Arena Stage

Family can be boon or bane for most of us. BeBe Winans’ bio musical, Born for This, raises common themes about family to extraordinary heights as it joyfully praises the power of kinship and the...

Review: Patti LaBelle at The Music Center at Strathmore

After more than 50 years in the music business, Patti LaBelle can still pack a house. The fans came out full force to enjoy an evening of old R&B favorites sung by a funky diva who sings from the...

Review: Dick Gregory: An Evening of Comedy & Jazz at The Kennedy Center

Internationally known comedian and civil rights activist, Dick Gregory, closed out the last of a series of five District of Comedy Festival performances along with a young all white jazz trio who...

Review: ‘What Men Don’t Say’ at Anacostia Arts Center

J Weeks Entertainment’s What Men Don’t Say, starring and directed by J the Actor and written by Mone’t Bradley, is a mini-tour de force that puts a new twist on an old theme about men and their love...

Review: ‘Boyz II Men’ at The Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra

Motown Philly came to DC full-blast as the best-selling R&B group of all time, Boyz II Men graced the Concert Hall stage of The Kennedy Center on Friday, May 20, 2016, accompanied by the dynamic...

Review: Patina Miller at Strathmore’s Annual Spring Gala

Patina Miller’s luminous stage presence added snap, sizzle and pop from the best of American musical theater to Strathmore’s annual spring gala, now in its eleventh year. With “Magic To Do” in support...

Review: Patti LaBelle Headlines Greater Washington Urban League “Unsung Heroes” Awards Fundraiser Gala

Recipes for the Good Life. That’s actually the title of a cookbook written by the legendary Godmother of Soul, Patti LaBelle. It’s also a metaphor for a music career spanning more than half a century;...

Review: ‘The Philadelphia Story’ at 2nd Star Productions

It’s always fun to peer into the lives of the rich and famous. As a native Philadelphian, I found Christopher Overly’s revival of Phillip Barry’s 1939 Broadway hit a delightful throwback set amidst my...

Fantasia at ‘An Elegant Evening of Giving’ at Strathmore

Queen of Rock Soul and American Idol winner, Fantasia brought the house down at An Elegant Evening of Giving benefit concert presented by Talking Hands Incorporated at the Music Center at Strathmore...

‘The Impresario’ at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music

Sheaves of music start flying and the upper octaves get higher and louder during an open opera audition. Vanity and rivalry turn into a feline fight-fest when two sopranos vie to get the best part....

‘Any Given Monday’ at the Greenbelt Arts Center

Darkness can be a guilty pleasure. Bruce Graham’s Any Given Monday, currently onstage at the Greenbelt Arts Center, is a dark comedy-drama that makes you laugh in all the wrong places. Under the able...

Whoopi Goldberg at The Kennedy Center

Nothing is off limits to the irascible, irreverently funny Whoopi Goldberg. She warned us from the start, however, that she loves the use of language– very colorful language– as she whooped it up with...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Eulogy’

The tragicomedy of Theater of the Absurd scrambled together with the zaniness of Vaudevillian physical comedy is an apt description for Michael Burgos’s delightfully wacko The Eulogy. Death is in the...

Maysa at The Birchmere Music Hall

There’s an earthy, primal kind of beat that pulsates through every song at a Maysa concert. It’s a sound akin to a heartbeat, a panting breath, or a sonic boom that touches the emotional core the way...

DC Black Theatre Festival: ‘Letters from Zora: In Her Own Words’

The Harlem Renaissance was magically rebirthed through Vanessa Bell Calloway’s phenomenal one-woman performance of Letters from Zora: In Her Own Words at the gala opening for the 6th Annual DC Black...

Kool & the Gang and Chaka Khan at Wolf Trap

Oh what a night – there’s a party goin’ on! Chaka Khan, Queen of Funk Soul, and the funkedelic Kool and the Gang were a red-hot double-hitter that rocked a sold-out house and packed lawn in a concert...

‘An Evening with Shirley MacLaine’ at the Music Center at Strathmore

“This is the nicest reception I’ve had in 600,000 years!” And with that telling introduction, Shirley MacLaine charmed a crowded house of adoring fans on a personal journey filled with funny stories...

Audra McDonald at the Music Center at Strathmore

The amazing vocal talent of Audra McDonald was a like a breath of the most enchanting spring air and perhaps the first real sign of spring in the DC area as Audra sang from the “Great American Song...

‘Good Kids’ at University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

Who knows for sure what really happened when sexual assault is the charge and impetuous youth, just out to have a good time, are exploring the possibilities? Good Kids, presented by the University of...

Kurt Elling’s ‘Passion World’ at The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater

On the most romantic night of the year, Grammy Award- winning jazz vocalist, Kurt Elling’s Passion World concert at The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater was a warm toddy to take the chill off the...

‘Clybourne Park’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

Clybourne Park, written by Bruce Norris in 2010 as sequel to Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 A Raisin in the Sun, is a riveting play that focuses on race relations, America’s covenant-based housing bias,...

An Interview with Jasmine Guy on ‘Raisin’ Cane: A Harlem Renaissance Odyssey’ at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts on January 24, 2015

On the evening of January 24, 2015, the renowned star of stage, television, and film, Jasmine Guy will present for one-night only, “Raisin’ Cane: A Harlem Renaissance Odyssey,” along with the...

Peabo Bryson’s ‘The Colors of Christmas: Bryson, Studdard, Holliday, Dayne’ at Strathmore

Holiday concerts just don’t get any better than Colors of Christmas. In a resplendent performance of Christmas classics and R&B favorites, the Strathmore Music Center’s starry-night Colors of...

‘Black Nativity’ at Theater Alliance

Theater Alliance’s production of Black Nativity at the Anacostia Playhouse is a gloriously joyful noise indeed. An Afrocentric celebration of the Christmas story rooted in the strength and power of...

‘Five Guys Named Moe’ at Arena Stage at The Mead Center for American Theater

Who can resist the youthful, sensuous, energy of five high-stepping, superfine dudes who can sing and dance? “Jump blues” back to the rockin’ days of guys and dolls for an entertaining evening of...

‘Collidescope: Adventures in Pre-and Post-Racial America’ at Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

On the eve of a grand jury’s decision on the killing of Ferguson’s Michael Brown, Collidescope: Adventures in Pre-and Post-Racial America is a boldly courageous indictment on the origins of racial...

‘The Me Nobody Knows’ at University Of Maryland School Of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

The plight of urban youth took a contemporary turn in the University Of Maryland School Of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies’ opening night revival of the 1970s Broadway hit, The Me Nobody...

‘Children of Eden’ at 2nd Star Productions

Am I on the Great White Way or am I really sitting in a theater in Bowie, MD? This is what I was thinking as I enjoyed 2nd Star Production’s opening night of Children of Eden now playing at 2nd Star...

Wanda Sykes With Special Guest Keith Robinson at Strathmore

The Music Center at Strathmore welcomed Wanda Sykes for the first-time to the Marriott Concert Stage to a sold-out crowd of adoring Wanda Sykes fans. Veteran comedian, writer, actress and Emmy...

‘The Cole Porter Project: It’s Alright With Me’ at the In Series

How am I ridin’? I am ridin’ high after seeing the delightful, delectable The Cole Porter Project: It’s Alright With Me!, a cabaret-style show now playing at The In Series performing at Source. The...