Ravelle Brickman

In lipstick and hip schtick, the Kinsey Sicks tickle at Theater J

‘Oy Vey in a Manger,’ their adults-only holiday special, is not for the pious or prudish—let alone right-wing fanatics—but it’s hilarious for everyone else.

Inside ‘Birds of North America’ at Mosaic with its cast and director

Regina Aquino, David Bryan Jackson, and Serge Seiden talk about time and its loss and life’s precious moments.

Arena’s ‘Celia and Fidel’ could not be more timely: Heather Velazquez

The deliciously comic young actress, who aspires to be Castro’s comrade (and stand-in for his late mistress), talks about her role in her cousin’s play.

How to fight injustice? Felicia Curry on the crux of ‘My Lord, What a Night’

The incisive and inspiring play filmed at Ford’s Theatre is now streaming through November 4.

An interview with Dr. Ruth, whose story became ‘Becoming Dr. Ruth’ at Theater J

‘Naomi Jacobson is perfect for this role,’ said the ‘real’ Dr. Ruth.

Studio Acting Conservatory celebrates new home with open house August 28

A landmark acting school settles into a former church—home of the long-lost Black Last Supper—and welcomes the return of in-person classes.

For Quotidian’s farewell, an encore of its Horton Foote world premiere

Theater grande dame Jane Squier Bruns, starring in ‘The Day Emily Married,’ talks about the challenge of playing ‘the mother from hell.’

Ken Ludwig on his parents’ love story and the lost art of letter-writing

When I interviewed Ken Ludwig about his latest play, Dear Jack, Dear Louise, which opened at Arena Stage more than a year ago, I was curious about his parents—the Jack and Louise of the title—and the...

A preshow chat with Felicia Curry and Naomi Jacobson, cohosts of the Helen Hayes Awards

Screens will be lighting up all over Metro DC as theater lovers, supporters, and luminaries gather online for the 2020 Helen Hayes Awards Friday, September 25. The red carpet unrolls at 6 pm sharp...

Camp Arena Stage—DC’s longest-running daycamp for the arts—goes online

When COVID-19 first struck last winter, most of us in the theater world—audiences as well as those on or off stage—thought the crisis would end in a couple of weeks. No such luck. Theaters, along with...

The vision and resurrection of Studio Acting Conservatory

When Joy Zinoman—the doyenne of DC theater and founder of Studio Acting Conservatory—describes the training center’s new home as a “sacred place,” she’s not exaggerating. “Theater is my religion,” she...

Behind the lines: A pre-opening peek at 4615 Theatre’s ‘Museum 2040’

When Jordan Friend, the highly inventive founder of 4615 Theatre Company, invited me to attend a rehearsal of Museum 2040 a few weeks ago, I jumped at the opportunity. The show, billed as an...

Beyond the script: fine-tuning farce in ‘The 39 Steps’ at Constellation

“I’ve never laughed so hard in rehearsal,” said Nick Olcott, describing some of the antics performed by a tiny but talented cast — four actors in 48 roles — in the wickedly funny send-up of Alfred...

Behind the lines: Laura C. Harris talks about seeing stars in ‘Silent Sky’ at Ford’s

When Laura C. Harris bursts onto the stage in Silent Sky at Ford’s Theatre, she is Henrietta Leavitt—hoop skirt and all—fresh out of college, brimming with confidence, and determined to find her place...

Beyond the script: Playwright Steven Dietz talks about ‘Bloomsday,’ a love story in which past and present collide

You don’t have to read Ulysses—or, for that matter, know anything about James Joyce, its author, or Leopold Bloom, its hapless hero—to love Bloomsday. The play, a gentle romance now blossoming in its...

Behind the lines: A talk with Hend Ayoub, the actor whose performance in ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ radiates fury, hope, and joy at Arena Stage

“Read the book. But see the play first!” That’s what Hend Ayoub—the actor who plays Mariam, the empowered first wife of A Thousand Splendid Suns—told me about the show, now in its first DC run at...

Channeling chutzpah in ‘Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World’ at Mosaic

Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World—the award-winning play now enjoying its DC debut at Mosaic Theater—is as delicious a romp as any that’s come along in a while. Billed as a romantic comedy,...

Playwright Jonathan Spector on the shadows that lurk behind the laughter in ‘Eureka Day.’

There’s no doubt about it. Eureka Day is a very funny play. The show, now having its DC debut at Mosaic Theater, features five perfectly-attuned actors, a director who understands comedy, a script...

Ken Ludwig on ‘Dear Jack, Dear Louise,’ a long-awaited stage celebration of his parents’ long-distance romance

There’s a lovely new play at Arena Stage, but you’ll have to rush if you want to see it. That’s because the play—Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise—will be off and running before the year ends,...

4615 Theatre Company presents ambitious adaptation of Irish legend in ‘Infinite Tales’

If the notion of compressing 900 years of Irish mythology into a single two-hour show sounds like a lot to take on, that’s because it is. In fact, tackling the entire pantheon of Irish legend—which is...

Not your father’s ‘Fiddler’ – The latest Broadway tour of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ comes alive at the National Theatre

When Fiddler on the Roof opens at the National Theatre next week, the village of Anatevka—the fictional setting for one of the most successful Broadway musicals in history—will not be the same...

Reflections on a terrifying role: Susan Rome talks about ‘becoming’ Louise Nevelson in Edward Albee’s ‘Occupant’ at Theater J

When Susan Rome bats her eyelashes—as she often does in Edward Albee’s Occupant, now at Theater J—she becomes Louise Nevelson, the iconic sculptor whose life and work were inseparable. The lashes,...

Variations on villainy in the Folger Theatre’s ‘Amadeus’

Villainy takes many forms. And Ian Merrill Peakes – now plotting revenge against a gifted rival in the Folger Shakespeare Theatre’s production of Amadeus – has played more than a few. His most recent...

‘Port Authority,’ Conor McPherson’s tale of lust and loss, returns to Quotidian

Storytelling is a gift. And Conor McPherson—the Irish playwright, screenwriter and long-time ‘bad boy’ of the British stage–is one of the most gifted tale-tellers ever known. His Port Authority, now...

Ed Gero Delivers Stunning Performance as Falstaff in Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV Part I’ at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre

Henry IV Part I, which opened at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre last week, is superb. (Click here for DCMTA’s review.) This production, starring Ed Gero, is equal to any I’ve seen. In fact, it is...

REACH Report: ‘Storytelling for Seniors with Candace Wolf’

More than 50 seniors crowded into a storytelling circle inside one of the Kennedy Center’s new REACH buildings on Monday, and I, as a card-carrying member of the reduced-fare generation, squeezed in...

Feature: Good news, bad news and coming attractions at 4615 Theatre

First, the bad news. Enron, the farcical, scary and all-but-unbelievable romp through the biggest fraud in corporate history, has closed. The good news is that there’s still time—four more...

‘Fabulation’ Brings a Tale of Comic (and Cosmic) Comeuppance to Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Although it sounds serious on the surface, Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine, is one of the funniest plays ever to grace a DC stage. That’s the opinion of my colleague, John...

Feature: Directing ‘Ann’ at Arena Stage

Ann Richards, the late governor of Texas, and the first woman in that state to be elected in her own right, would be howling with glee if she could see the pandemonium unleashed in government today....

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Inferno the Musical’

“Heaven is so boring.” That’s the complaint of a modern-day version of Dante Alighieri in Inferno the Musical, a look at the vagaries of life and love and the inevitability of fate. Written and...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘If These Balls Could Talk’

There’s plenty of beef in Carolann Valentino’s one-woman musical, If These Balls Could Talk, about her life as a young actress from Texas working at a steakhouse in New York. This was not just any old...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Acuña Acuna’

Whenever Erick Acuña is asked to play Peruvian music, he launches into a burst of rock. Why not, he wonders, since rock is his country’s favorite sound. But rock is not what his hosts expect. No...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Iphigenia in Splott’

Set in a blighted corner of Wales, Iphigenia in Splott is a breathtaking one-woman show, imported from the UK and written by Gary Owen, a Welsh playwright and winner of the Meyer-Whitworth Award for...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘She Sings Light’

She Sings Light, written by Claudia Rosales-Waters and directed by Josh Sticklin, is one of four ‘curated’ shows in the 2019 Capital Fringe Festival. That means that this highly symbolic drama—which...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Heist’

Improv, as any actor knows, is harder than it looks. And dramatic improv—in which actors invent their roles as they go, expanding on a basic situation in ways that are both comic and sad—is even more...

Review:  The Second City’s ‘America; It’s Complicated!’ at the Kennedy Center

There’s not much to laugh at in politics today. Nor is it easy to make fun of diversity, gender, Putin, or Pepsi. But that doesn’t prevent the team of talented comedians at Second City – now in their...

Dressed To Plunder, and Maybe Kill: Costuming Signature’s ‘Blackbeard’

When the actor playing Blackbeard first appears on stage at the Signature Theatre in the new musical bearing his name, smoke literally curls out of his matted black hair. It’s a terrifying look and...

Review: ‘We’re Gonna Die’ by Flying V at The Writer’s Center

When Farrell Parker steps out onto the black box stage at The Writer’s Center in Flying V’s version of We’re Gonna Die, something explodes. Light and sound—literally—erupt. And while much of the...

Review: ‘Mary Stuart’ at Olney Theatre Center

What does a 200-year-old literary classic have to do with the chaos of the US Congress today? A lot, according to Jason Loewith, Olney Theatre Center’s Artistic Director, who has adapted Friedrich...

Helen Hayes Tribute Recognizes Jennifer L. Nelson as a DC Theater Trailblazer

Actors, by definition, play all sorts of roles. But for Jennifer L. Nelson—a theater veteran who’s been working on stage and off ever since she landed in DC at the age of 22—the multi-tasking involves...

Director Laura Giannarelli Muses About ‘Ghost-Writer,’ Michael Hollinger’s Tale of Mystery and Love at Quotidian

Laura Giannarelli is a woman of many roles. A founder of Washington Stage Guild, she’s been a fixture of the DC stage for almost four decades. She’s been the mother-in-law from hell in Gulf View...

Yiddish Translator Nahma Sandrow Talks About Bringing a 19th-Century Masterpiece to a Modern English-Speaking Audience

It took a little over 120 years. But—thanks to Theater J—Jacob Gordin’s wildly popular Yiddish drama, celebrated as The Jewish Queen Lear, has made it onto the English-language stage. The play, whose...

Nancy Robinette, Winner of Last Year’s Top Theater Award, Triumphs as Aunt Lavinia in ‘The Heiress’ at Arena Stage

From the moment she enters—decked out in widow’s weeds and descending a carpeted stairway—Nancy Robinette commands attention. That’s not unusual, since this actor—awarded the 2018 Helen Hayes...

‘Nell Gwynn:’ A London Hit Brings Laughter, Love (and a Few Flying Oranges) to the Folger Theatre

Nell Gwynn – as brash and bawdy as a play could be – has arrived on Capitol Hill. And what a triumph it is! The play, which had a successful run in London’s West End and won Britain’s top award for...

Misha Kachman: A Russian-born Designer Sets the Stage for ‘Kleptocracy’ at Arena Stage

One of the scariest moments in Kleptocracy – Kenneth Lin’s drama about the struggle for power in post-Soviet Russia – occurs when the shadow of a tiger prowls the length of an elevated cage. The cage...

Review: ‘Gulf View Drive’ at Washington Stage Guild

Gulf View Drive is the third and final play in Arlene Hutton’s highly-acclaimed Nibroc Trilogy, which opened this week to waves of laughter and applause at the Washington Stage Guild in downtown DC....

Is God Dead? Or Just Depressed, Lonely and Fed Up With Humankind?

The verdict is in. God is not dead. And rumors of his death, to paraphrase Mark Twain, have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, the deity—He, She or That Which Transcends All Else—is alive and well at...

‘Talley’s Folly’ Dances Through the Holiday Season at Theater J

Talley’s Folly – now in its final week at GALA Hispanic Theatre on 14th Street – is a waltz. Meaning, it’s not a salsa. And it’s not a hustle, a tango or even a hot pasodoble. On the other hand, it’s...

‘Indecent’ at Arena: Victor Raider-Wexler Returns to Washington in the Role of a Lifetime

The role of Otto in Paula Vogel’s Indecent—the Tony Award-winning play at Arena Stage—is an actor’s dream. The play, about a Yiddish melodrama that scandalized Broadway nearly a century ago, opened on...

Review: ‘Venus in Fur’ at 4615 Theatre Company

One of the most remarkable things about D.C. theater is its abundance of good plays, professionally produced and performed, yet often staged in places that are, to put it mildly, a bit odd. Nowhere is...