Community Theater

Lauren Gunderson’s inventive ‘Ada and the Engine’ to go live online

Silver Spring Stage proudly presents the area community theater premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s Ada and the Engine, directed by Jon Jon Johnson and produced by Alika Codispoti and Maura Suilebhan. Ada...

Silver Spring Stage goes online with arresting opener ‘Lobby Hero’

Silver Spring Stage is offering a new season of virtual performances. First up is Lobby Hero by the Academy Award–winning Kenneth Lonergan, an absorbing play where good intentions can be undermined by...

Dominion Stage announces winners of first playwriting contest

The trials and tribulations of a talk show host’s family. A date between two extreme opposites that gets dangerous. These are the themes of the two winning entries in Dominion Stage’s first...

Capital-area community theaters plan fundraising telethon

As COVID-19 continues to ravage the country, its effects on the arts have been devastating. Many organizations have turned to creative ways to raise funds in an effort to offset losses from canceled...

The Pandemic Players offer a helping hand to Baltimore theaters

It is said that the best actors know how to improvise—and a group of DMV-area performers is doing just that, by forming a fully online theater company from the ashes of Baltimore live performance....

DCMTA Spring 2020 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Community Theater Productions, Performances, and Design Elements

Normally we who cover theater for DC Theater Arts collect our favorites as the year draws to a close, but this has not been a normal year. In mid-March the 2020 season was interrupted by a pandemic...

Arts Barn previews compelling 2020–2021 season

Arts On The Green, the organization that provides indispensable arts programming at a collection of venues on the beautiful Gaithersburg campus, has recently offered audiences a sneak peek at the...

Small-town redemption still resonates in Rockville Little Theatre’s ‘The Spitfire Grill’

The Spitfire Grill was in Off-Broadway previews on 9/11. In part because its heartwarming, American roots/small-town spirited songs and characters struck a powerful emotional chord in the days that...

Historical drama and physical comedy combine in an enjoyable ‘Moonlight and Magnolias’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

It’s 1939 and film studio chief David O. Selznick has staked his career on adapting Margaret Mitchell’s bestselling novel Gone with the Wind for the screen. Still, Selznick shuts down production after...

Reston Community Players delivers a powerful ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’

There are some pieces of theater that elicit such raw emotion that describing the experience properly is next to impossible. Reston Community Players’ production of The Diary of Anne Frank, newly...

‘Moonlight and Magnolias’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria blends comic antics and human drama

Hollywood, 1939. The production of Gone with the Wind — arguably the most eagerly anticipated movie of the decade — is in chaos. Producer David O. Selznick (Griffin Voltmann) has just fired the...

A charming trip down the rabbit hole in Chalice Theatre’s ‘Alix in Wonderland’

In 1865, Lewis Carroll created the classic children’s tale, Alice in Wonderland, a journey into a fantasy world of kooky creatures that exhibit traits of both good and bad in their examples of human...

A sexless sex comedy in ‘No Sex Please, We’re British’ at Kensington Arts Theatre

Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott’s farce No Sex Please, We’re British premiered in London’s West End in 1971. It was unanimously panned by critics, although it played to full houses until 1987 at...

Walt Whitman’s vivid accounts of the Civil War come to life in ‘Leaves of America’

Chris Dwyer uses Walt Whitman’s poetry and his many hospital visits to bring vivid accounts of the Civil War to life in Leaves of America: Walt Whitman’s Stories of the Civil War. Whitman fans be...

Colonial Players of Annapolis stages a powerfully ambitious ‘Book of Days’

Colonial Players of Annapolis’ production of Book of Days is powerfully ambitious. Lanford Wilson’s 2000 play follows the lives of several residents of the small town of Dublin, Missouri, over a...

Theatre@CBT’s Peter Pan: something to crow about

Filled to bursting with Warrior Girls, Lost Boys, dastardly Pirates from tiny to extra-large, and flying children, Theatre@CBT’s Peter Pan is a treat from start to finish. Director Kevin Sockwell,...

‘Perfect Arrangement’: Silver Spring Stage explores perfect present, future dreams

Recipe for a Perfect Evening: Take heaping cups of American mid-century corn (straight from the pages of Good Housekeeping), place it in a beautifully crafted Dutch Oven (from the pages of the...

Providence Players of Fairfax presents intimate pop-up performance of ‘Venus in Fur’ at Italian Café

Providence Players of Fairfax presents David Ives’ Venus in Fur, a provocative two-person play-within-a-play. In partnership with Falls Church’s Italian Café, this intimate pop-up captivates, thrills,...

‘Loserville: The Musical’ at The FrederickTowne Players celebrates being true to yourself

A high energy musical premiere blasts onto the stage in the FrederickTowne Players production of Loserville. Excellently directed by Matt J. Bannister, with rocking musical direction from Matthew...

Agatha Christie’s ‘A Daughter’s a Daughter’ by The Arlington Players depicts biting family strife

Agatha Christie’s A Daughter’s a Daughter at The Arlington Players features the character of Sarah Prentice: the most hateful, self-centered, pampered, jealous, possessive, resentful, rotten little...

‘Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson’ at Dominion Stage rethinks how racist history rocks on

Dominion Stage has given this rowdy, irreverent, and rollicking rock musical a remarkably woke production that is as rousing as it is reflective and as satiric as it is unsettling. Set in 1800s...

A community torn apart in ‘Book of Days’ is built back up by the St. Mark’s Players

In this small Missouri town, everyone knows everyone and everything. The church where people notice when you’re not in your pew, the factory where your high school classmates put in their shift...

Britches and Hose Theatre Company presents bold, beautiful ‘Richard III’

By Kelly Hanson William Shakespeare’s Richard III is a masterpiece rife with intrigue, violence, and dark humor. Undertaking such a complicated and beloved production is a bold choice, and Britches...

Laughs aplenty in Ken Ludwig’s ‘The Game’s Afoot’ at Reston Community Players

Reston Community Players’ production of The Game’s Afoot is a lighthearted, murder-mystery comedy. The comedy was written by American playwright and Tony Award winner Ken Ludwig, of Lend Me A Tenor...

2019 WATCH Award Nominations

In a ceremony at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, the WATCH Award committee announced the 2019 WATCH Award nominees. 101 productions (40 musicals, 61 plays) were adjudicated in 2019. The...

Comedic twist on Hamlet, John Barrymore, and theater archetypes in ‘I Hate Hamlet’ at The Castaways Repertory Theatre

I Hate Hamlet invites the audience to spend an evening with a young man plagued by indecision in a marvelous modern re-telling of Hamlet’s own quandary. With ghosts that appear upon the clock striking...

‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria is a comedic romp through the lines of succession and love

After a lifetime of believing he was a humble nobody, Montague “Monty” Navarro learns he is a long-lost member of the D’Ysquith family and the 9th in line for the family earldom. Determined to seek...

Charming ‘Leading Ladies’ pleases at Vienna Theatre Company

Leading Ladies is a charming little farce written by Ken Ludwig. Directed by Eleanore Tapscott, this production at Vienna Theatre Company is sure to be a popular, audience-pleasing production. The...

Rueful romance in ‘Now and Then’ by Upcounty Theatre

Sean Grennan’s Now and Then, receiving its East Coast premiere courtesy of Upcounty Theatre in Germantown, Maryland, deals in regret anticipated and recollected, and inquires about the possibility of...

‘Quadrille’ at Greenbelt Arts Center is a four-handed game of romance and chance where true love prevails

In a veddy, veddy proper tale about class differences, gender roles, secret lovers and the pitfalls of an arranged marriage, playwright Melynda Kiring is quite right that “the fun in this play is the...

‘Yellow Face’ at Silver Spring Stage sparks important conversations

Is racism a taboo subject in the arts? Of course not. From Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Porgy and Bess to the whitewashing of the Oscars, artists have used their platform to explore America’s history of...

A Taste for Murder Productions presents ‘Murder at McGinty’s’

What does the New Year bring to downtown Silver Spring? Murder at McGinty’s! A Taste For Murder Productions and McGinty’s Public House have formed a partnership to present dinner theatre – of the...

Colonial Players’ fascinating ‘The Children’ explores bleak post-nuclear future

Annapolis’ Colonial Players takes on Lucy Kirkwood’s 2016 environmental disaster drama The Children in an intimate production which explores the human cost of uncontrolled consumption and destruction....

Review: At the Kentlands Arts Barn, Nat King Cole is as ‘Unforgettable’ as you remember him to be

A near-capacity crowd hushed as the evening opened with the title song from Nat King Cole’s 1959 album Welcome to the Club. I was immediately impressed that Don Dillingham, the evening’s soloist,...

DCMTA 2019 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Design Elements in Community Theater Productions

As the year draws to a close, we asked DCMTA writers to think back on the shows that left an indelible impression on them in 2019. In this category, outstanding community theater design, we recognize:...

The British Players’ ‘Alice in Wonderland: A Traditional British Panto’ delivers sublime silliness

Ah, yes, it’s that most wonderful time of the year: The tingle of frozen breath on the air, the sparkle of lights on the trees, the warmth of spiced cider, and the sublime silliness of Panto. “Panto?...

DCMTA 2019 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Performance in a Community Theater Production

As the year draws to a close, we asked DCMTA writers to think back on the shows that left an indelible impression on them in 2019. Here are the community theater performances that made the biggest...

Christmastime is here (in Manassas) with Prince William Little Theatre’s ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’

Prince William Little Theatre’s A Charlie Brown Christmas feels as comfortable and warm as snuggling up on the couch and watching classic Christmas movies with a mug of cocoa. Supported by the hard...

DCMTA 2019 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Community Theater Productions

As the year draws to a close, we asked DCMTA writers to think back on the productions that left an indelible impression on them in 2019. Here are the community theater productions that left the...

StageCoach Theatre Company’s ‘Santa’s Funky Hawaiian Christmas Cabaret’ a clever, enjoyable twist on holiday favorites

Mele Kalikimaka all y’all! This lively original musical collaboration between Director Joey Olson and Producer Jerri Wiseman captured the entire audience from the moment we all got “Lei’d” during the...

The Little Theatre of Alexandria’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ is a holiday feast for the eyes

This year, The Little Theatre of Alexandria’s annual performance of A Christmas Carol brings to the stage the Charles Dickens classic using a script adapted by Donna Ferragut. The script is a...

‘Other Desert Cities’ by Peace Mountain Theatre challenges and shocks

Peace Mountain Theatre’s Other Desert Cities, by Jon Robin Baitz, features outstanding, in-the-moment performances. Director Julie Janson directs a show that touches on themes ranging from family...

Providence Players of Fairfax presents subtle, sweet ‘The Gift of the Magi’

Providence Players of Fairfax and The Young Hearts present The Gift of the Magi, adapted by Jon Jory from the story by O. Henry. Beth Gilles-Whitehead directs an engaging cast in this charming...

‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ at Colonial Players of Annapolis rings in holiday with comedy and heartwarming message

Colonial Players of Annapolis’ production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a hilarious take on the Christmas story. Written by Barbara Robinson and based on her beloved 1971 novel, which was also...

Young adventurer Milo learns how to use time in Greenbelt Arts Center’s ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’

If you know a bored child who doesn’t know what to do with their time, a trip through Susan Nanus’ The Phantom Tollbooth just might be the answer. It certainly works for Milo in Greenbelt Arts...

‘Brides and Mothers’ and ‘Cox and Box’ at The Forgotten Opera Company: Two dazzling flashes of operetta

A double feature, running just two performances at The Forgotten Opera Company, a subset of The Victorian Lyric Opera Company in Rockville? Sure, why not? The world debut of Brides and Mothers, Music...

Set and staging steal the show at 2nd Star’s ‘A Christmas Carol’

The set and staging steal the show at 2nd Star Productions’ A Christmas Carol: The Musical. That is almost a shame because the acting, singing, and dancing are also first-rate; however, the special...

‘Last Summer at Bluefish Cove’ is a heart-wrenching glimpse into lesbian lives

Life has never been easy for women who love other women. Last Summer at Bluefish Cove—written by Jane Chambers and widely regarded as the first production to portray lesbians in a positive light—takes...

Audience-pleasing revival of ‘Guys and Dolls’ by Kensington Arts Theatre

You promise me this. You promise me that. You promise me anything under the sun… belts out a swell Elizabeth Hester as Miss Adelaide, the cherry on top of a high-energy revival of Frank Loesser’s...

Call for proposals for the 2020-2021 theater season at the Arts Barn

Arts on the Green, the City of Gaithersburg’s home for the performing and visual arts which includes the Kentland’s Mansion and Arts Barn, is now soliciting production proposals for the theater season...