Terry Byrne

NextStop Theatre packs ‘Every Christmas Story’ into hysterical remix

Get a load of these fruitcakes — three wise-guy gals bearing timeless gifts of mirth

Smart showtune satire from Reston Community Players teens

Their ‘Musical of Musicals (The Musical!)’ is meta entertainment and unbridled fun.

A grand night of singing in ‘A Familiar Melody’ at NextStop

A revue of beloved showtunes makes for a giddy reunion of artists and audience.

In ‘Prepping for Widowhood,’ it’s ladies night and never too late

Best Medicine Rep channels women of a certain age ready for their next act.

NextStop’s racy ‘Act of God’ is theater done right-eously

Playing God, Jacob Yeh is a revelation.

‘Theater people are magic’: A Q&A with Deaf and gay artivist Joshua Castille

The LA-based performance artist—now appearing as Romeo at the Frederick Shakespeare Festival—talks about being labeled and falling in love.

A mesmerizing and moving ‘R&J’ from Endangered Species (theatre) Project

Designed for Deaf and hearing audiences, with simultaneous voicing and signing, it’s a feast for the eyes and ears.

On directing R&J with a Deaf Romeo: A Q&A with Christine Mosere

Broadway veteran Joshua Castille (Deaf West’s ‘Spring Awakening’) comes to Frederick Shakespeare Festival and a classic gets a rethink.

Signature’s ‘Detroit ’67’ is a fiery history lesson that grooves and moves

Played out in a basement bunker, this uplifting virtual show spins on nostalgia and desire.

‘Rumors’ swirls with mischief and mayhem at Little Theatre of Alexandria

A solid reason to return to live theater for an outlandish peek at the ups and downs of married life.

What the fork?! ‘What Comes Next’ picks up where pandemic left us off-kilter

In an era of TikTok attention spans, 21st Century Players’ new audio play is a refreshing dive into storied traditions that came before.

Review: ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at Creative Cauldron

America’s beloved franchise The Wizard of Oz gets a sprightly and spectacular makeover at Creative Cauldron this month. The musical — with music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, as adapted...

Review: ‘Red, White, and Tuna’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

The title alone is fair warning. Red, White, and Tuna is irreverently reverse-patriotic. Let’s break it down: red state (Texas), mixed with a dash of white supremacy and a tangy, Southern flavor that...

Review: ‘Private Lives’ at Reston Community Players

Some plays are like peeping through your eye doctor’s phoropter — layer upon layer of filters. Say, a playwright of the Roaring Twenties borrows a style of the 1660s English Restoration period that...

Review: ‘Broadway Bound’ at 1st Stage

As self-conscious plays go, Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound is both a self-fulfilling prophesy and a cross-examination of the creative process. The play, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a...

Review: ‘Godspell’ at W.T. Woodson High School

Stephen Schwartz’s often treacly Godspell, conceived by book writer John-Michael Tebelak, is a parade of parables borrowed from the New Testament’s Matthew and Luke set to a hippie-chic Seventies...

Review: ‘Cirque Spooktacular’ at The Kennedy Center

Like The Nutcracker at Christmastime, Cirque Spooktacular, the NSO Pops’ Cirque de la Symphonie Halloween Extravaganza, is bound to become a seasonal tradition at The John F. Kennedy Center for the...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ’22 Boom!’

Think commissioned plays are a thing of the Elizabethan past? Nu Sass Productions’ 22 Boom! is concierge theater at its nimblest. Written by Miranda Rose Hall and directed by Renana Fox, this...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Too Close’

What better setting for black-box theater than a figurative black box — a stalled elevator — with two discordant strangers trapped inside? Luigi Laraia’s Too Close is definitely too close for comfort....

Review: Source Festival 2016: ‘Secrets & Sound’: Six 10-Minute Plays

Don’t feel like committing to a two-hour show in development? Secrets & Sound: Six 10-Minute Plays is your ticket to theatrical speed-dating. You’re bound to fall in love with one of six playwrights,...

Review: ‘A Little Night Music’ at GWU

A Little Night Music might be classified as a gateway drug to Stephen Sondheim. Whether a fan or a skeptic, once you get a whiff of this vigorous (and tuneful!) exposé on humankind’s mating follies,...

Review: ‘American Idiot’ at The Keegan Theatre

The Keegan Theatre’s American Idiot speaks to collective genius. Hardly a no-brainer to mount this explosive, war-weary work, weaned in the Bush II era, at the height of today’s media-hijacked,...

Review: ‘Robin Hood’ at Victorian Lyric Opera Company

Rob from the rich, give to the poor ̶ a theme with universal and enduring appeal, at least among 99% of us. The centuries-old legend of benevolent British outlaw Robin Hood has pranced across diverse...

Review: ‘Cyrano’ at Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society at Georgetown University

Long before singles misrepresented themselves in their Tinder profiles or cribbed others’ memes online, there was Cyrano de Bergerac— the man who would be Romeo, if not for that monstrous appendage....

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Eddie Lounge Reunion Tour: The Lounge Awakens’

Somebody get Eddie Lounge a cocktail — and maybe a ream of cocktail napkins to wipe his beady, bald head. What’s a guy gotta do to get a drink around here?! The Lord of Loungeology is singing his...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘How to Quit Your Day Job’

Memo to Star Johnson, mastermind of OpenStage’s How to Quit Your Day Job: Quit your day job. It’ll be OK. Johnson’s merry musical comedy — staged bohemian-style in the Eastern Market home of sculptor...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘BellyFunkShun’

A critic is not supposed to be part of the show. A critic is not supposed to get up on the stage and “get down,” wiggling her fat belly/butt under the bright lights. But BellyFunkShun calls for it....

‘I Think I Love You’ Cabaret to Benefit Playwright’s Family on Saturday, June 27, 2015 at 7:30 PM at Clifton Town Hall

Area performers will be performing a good deed on June 27th to help a theater family in need. On June 1, Kelly Hennessa, a social studies teacher for children with special needs at Centreville High...

‘Weird Al’ Yankovic at Wolf Trap

Who knew metro Washington was also the nation’s nerd capital? A sold-out crowd — many ectomorphs in geeky garb, monk/Jedi robes, foil caps, riotous colors, vintage tour shirts, and even one randy...

‘The Glass Mendacity” at Providence Players of Fairfax

For a good time, call (703) 425-6782. That gets you the Providence Players of Fairfax’s reservations line, and this bedrock company of major-league players never disappoints. The Glass Mendacity,...

‘If All the Sky Were Paper’ at The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater

Fitting that If All the Sky Were Paper — a dramatization of war correspondence lovingly presented by archivist Andrew Carroll — would unfold at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a...

‘The Secret Garden’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Weary of winter, Washingtonians? NextStop Theatre Company has your antidote. Instead of a resurrection-vague Jesus Christ Superstar timed to Easter, this praiseworthy playhouse subbed in Marsha Norman...

‘Doubt’ at 1st Stage

No doubt you’ll recall Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, and Amy Adams in the Hollywood 2008 adaptation of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, a Parable — simply titled Doubt and directed...

‘Be My Baby’ at Vienna Theatre Company

Playwright Ken Ludwig is famous for farce, fevered dialogue, and throwing his characters’ worlds off-kilter. Vienna Theatre Company’s endearing take on 2005’s Be My Baby — which Ludwig is alleged to...

‘Sylvia’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Overheard at intermission of NextStop Theatre Company’s production of A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia, a guy whispers to his female companion: “I thought it was gonna be a real dog onstage.” She bites: “With...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Breast in Show’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) At last. A show that has taken the Capital Fringe Festival 2014 theme to heart: Move Me. Breast in Show, conceived and produced by Eileen Mitchard, is arguably the best...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Tango, Cabaret, Love!’

Tango, Cabaret, Love! is not for the faint of heart nor lack of appetite. Conceived, directed by and starring Cecilia De Feo, Laura Quiroga and Lorena Sabogal, the show is a bilingual escapade mixing...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ’13 Men – Cabaret’

(Best of the Capital Fringe 2014) If by 13 Men — A Cabaret you were expecting a beefy crop of men in tights traipsing in and out of the followspot, that ain’t it, kid. The “it” here: marquee-worthy...

‘Cloak and Dagger’ at Signature Theatre

You know you’re in the presence of a legend when the material doesn’t matter as much as the immaterial. With the world premiere of Cloak and Dagger: Or the Case of the Golden Venus — Ed Dixon’s...

Neil Sedaka at The Music Center at Strathmore

“If Carole King can do it, I can do it,” Neil Sedaka told an indulgent, golden-oldies crowd at the Music Center at Strathmore on Friday night. And with that, the 75-year-old pop songwriting legend...

‘Shout! The Mod Musical’ at Creative Cauldron

I attended Shout! The Mod Musical braless. TMI? Well, Creative Cauldron invited us to dress like something out of the Sixties-Seventies, so there we were, women in our 50s and 60s, grooving to the...

‘4 Girls 4’ at The Music Center at Strathmore

For one night only, North Bethesda, MD., was Diva City. Four luminous songbirds swept in to The Music Center at Strathmore on Friday night to lead a largely snowbird audience on a mind-jog down memory...

‘Ben Folds Solo’ at Lisner Auditorium

If piano men Elton John and Billy Joel got together to have a son, he might look and sound a lot like Ben Folds. Wait. That’s talkin’ ’bout my generation. Still, 47-year-old singer-songwriter Folds...

‘Brief Encounter’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Venerable plays get made into acclaimed movies (August: Osage County of recent note), and some movies translate successfully to the stage. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is that famous amalgam of film,...

‘Emptying the Skies’ at the Environmental Film Festival

The 22nd annual Environmental Film Festival in the nation’s capital might cynically be described as the herding of backpack-wearing “woolly hippies” by greenback-seeking scientists and lobbyists. But...

‘Urinetown’ at Act Two @ Levine’s Pre-Professional Program

Do you suppose composer Mark Hollamann and writer Greg Kotis got the loo-dicrous idea for Urinetown while waiting in line for the facilities during intermission at the theater? The campy, satirical...

‘The 39 Steps’ at NextStop Theatre Company by Terry Byrne

Live theater is thrilling. How better, then, to celebrate the remaking of the volunteer-sown Elden Street Players into a major professional troupe than with a remake of a film from thrill master...

A Report on ‘A Fire in Water’ at Silver Finch Arts Collective’ by Terry Byrne

A Fire in Water, a modern, one-act chamber opera in Silver Finch Arts Collective’s cooker, has all the elements of a masterwork: timeless themes of love and war, a stunning score by Terrance Johns and...

‘Time Stands Still’ at McLean Community Players by Terry Byrne

As a working journalist who had spent the day sorting through graphic photos of a terror attack on shoppers in Kenya, I was in the right frame of mind to take in a performance of the Tony Award...

‘Forever Plaid’ at Olney Theatre Center by Terry Byrne

In a week when the world’s buzzing about whether *N SYNC will stage a reunion at the VMAs and news of One Direction’s feature film has fans swooning, the stage is set for the ultimate boy band...