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The 2019 WATCH AWARDS Ceremony Takes Place Tonight

The 19th Annual WATCH Awards winners will be announced tonight at a ceremony at the Birchmere in Alexandria Virginia. DC Theater Arts will be at the ceremony to bring you updates on social media...

Review: ‘JQA’ at Arena Stage

Leaving Arena Stage’s world premiere of JQA, the fictionalized account of John Quincy Adams as imagined by playwright/director Aaron Posner, I’m feeling this: Adams was a sour, stiff-necked, rigid man...

Review: ‘Be More Chill’ at the Lyceum Theatre

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, Be More Chill has. Following its sold-out extended run at The Pershing Square Signature Center, the sensational high-school musical that defines teen...

Rep Stage Announces 2019-2020 Season Productions

Rep Stage has announced its 2019-2020 Season: Souvenir By Stephen Temperley Directed by Joseph W. Ritsch September 5-22, 2019 E2 By Bob Bartlett WORLD PREMIERE Directed by Joseph W. Ritsch October...

Baltimore Center Stage Announces 2019-2020 Season

Baltimore Center Stage today announce its upcoming season of mainstage plays to mark the debut programming under Artistic Director Stephanie Ybarra: Miss You Like Hell Book and lyrics by Quiara...

Review: ‘Hands on a Hardbody’ at the Keegan Theatre

The title of this show, if you have never heard of it, doesn’t mean what you might think. It’s not about fitness. It’s not about sex. It’s a country-western musical about ten hard-up Texans trying to...

Studio Acting Conservatory Announces Location for 2019-2020 Classes

The newly formed Studio Acting Conservatory has secured temporary space for its next season of classes. 2019-2020 Classes will take place in Washington, DC, at the Garnet Patterson School, directly...

Review: ‘Eugene Onegin’ at Washington National Opera

Of all the grand tear-jerkers, those epic romances that make you want to tear your heart out and roast it on the barbecue, Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece Eugene Onegin stands out. Packed with beautiful...

Review: ‘Queen of Basel’ at Studio Theatre

Warning: Spoilers Ahead Christy Escobar’s mesmerizing, compelling, utterly brilliant, performance is the centerpiece of Studio Theatre’s world premiere production of Hilary Bettis’ Queen of Basel. In...

Review: ‘Daddy Long Legs’ by Monumental Theatre Company

Sometimes you find a gem in an unlikely place. That happened to me recently at a small state-of-the-art black-box theatre on the campus of a boarding school on a quiet street in Alexandria, Virginia,...

Review: ‘Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ at Signature Theatre

Arresting and compelling are two words that describe Signature Theatre’s fiery production about survival in a society racked by long-term natural disasters and deadly human-made upheavals. Playwright...

Review: ‘Indecent’ at Baltimore Center Stage

As presented at Baltimore Center Stage, Indecent is a timely, timeless story, about a sexuality, about a religion, about a people, about all people. Audiences will leave this production emotionally...

Review: ‘Confection’ by Third Rail Projects at the Folger Shakespeare Library

Note before you begin: Confection is a unique, multimedia, multisensory, ambulatory, audience-interactive, site-specific theatrical experience — “a rollicking rumination on teeny-tiny desserts.” If...

BSO’s Marin Alsop Defines, Delivers “New Normal” in Classical Music

Marin Alsop thinks we’re ready for a “new normal” in classical music. That is why the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s music director has commissioned a work by a renowned composer who happens to be a...

Review: ‘Vanity Fair’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

“I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year.” –Becky Sharp William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) is considered a great writer. Vanity Fair, despite its flaws, is his finest novel....

Arena Stage Announces 2019-2020 Season

Arena Stage announced its 2019-2020 season this morning. The season will include the following: Ann By Holland Taylor In the Kreeger Theater | July 11 – August 11, 2019 Jitney By August Wilson...

Review: ‘Oil’ at Olney Theatre Center

There are a few shows – very few – which on first viewing have left me breathless. The original productions of Sweeney Todd and Copenhagen come quickly to mind. To this small list add the American...

Review: ‘Blood at the Root’ at Theater Alliance

Raymond O. Caldwell kicks off his new Producing Artistic Directorship at Theater Alliance with a production of Dominque Morisseau’s Blood at the Root that is bursting with youthful exuberance,...

Laura Benanti on Motherhood and Performing with Her Mom

There is one role that Tony Award-winner Laura Benanti cherishes above all others: Mother. The My Fair Lady star gave birth to daughter Ella Rose in 2017. “Becoming a mom changed me in every possible...

Ford’s Theatre Announces 2019-2020 Season

Ford’s Theatre Director Paul R. Tetreault today announced the upcoming 2019-2020 theatrical season will include the following: August Wilson’s Fences Featuring Craig Wallace and Erika Rose A Christmas...

Review: ‘Finding Neverland’ at the National Theatre

The touring company of Finding Neverland (book by James Graham, music and lyrics by Gary Barlow and Elliot Kennedy) is making a mercifully brief stop at Washington’s National Theatre. Spinning a...

Review: ‘Separate Rooms’ at 4615 Theatre

“Will I be missed?,” the young man wonders aloud as he surveys the thirtysomethings who have gathered in his Manhattan apartment for a party after his funeral. “Did it matter that I was here?” They do...

Strathmore Artist in Residency Program Offers Artists Support and Growth

How does a young artist prepare for the rigors of a professional performing career? For the six talented recipients of Strathmore’s Artist in Residence program, that preparation includes a 10-month...

Review: ‘Three Cheers to Grace’ at Young Playwrights’ Theater

“They call me a vegetable,” Grace tells us. “They call me a corpse.” In this nimbly comic and deeply moving new play by Josie Walyus, a 14-year-old named Grace is literally in a coma. That’s how all...

Review: ‘Ouroboros: Dawn of the Cabaret’ by TBD Immersive

Remember the choose-your-own-adventure books from grade school? Well, imagine that but in a live scenario where you are a character in the story, not just an observer guiding the action. This is the...

Review: ‘The King and I’ at the Hippodrome Theatre

The lovely 2015 Lincoln Center staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I is back in town, granting new viewers a rare audience with the king of Siam. This national touring production at...

Scott Ward Abernethy on ‘The Master and Margarita’ and Acting in DC

The extension of Constellation Theatre’s nifty The Master and Margarita provided an opportunity to interview Scott Ward Abernethy, who portrays the Devilish Woland in the production that runs through...

Review: ‘The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical’ at the Kennedy Center

Life is hard enough when growing up, but when you find out that you’re the son of a god, the stakes get even higher. Armed with friends and a pen, Percy Jackson explores the world of newly discovered...

Review: ‘The Heiress’ at Arena Stage

Women are on the move today. A US Congress reflects the voices of women as never before. #MeToo movements everywhere are fighting the forces that would stifle those voices. So, on the surface, it...

Review: ‘Richard the Third’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Did ever a villain so enjoy his murderously evil ways as Shakespeare’s Richard III? In the Shakespeare Theatre’s production, Matthew Rauch’s Richard teaches a master class in duplicity and...

‘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...

Studio Theatre To Close Its Acting Conservatory

Raise your hand if you studied at Studio Theatre’s Acting Conservatory? For the 10,000 plus performers whose careers started at Studio’s 43-year-old conservatory, the news that Studio would be closing...

Review: ‘Reykjavík’ by Rorschach Theatre

The Reykjavík conjured up in Steve Yockey’s new play Reykjavík is not the family-friendly destination the Iceland tourist bureau might try to sell you. But if you’re 18 or older—and if you wish to be...

News: Simon Godwin Announces His Debut Season for Shakespeare Theatre Company

Incoming Artistic Director Simon Godwin today announces Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 2019-2020 Season. Godwin’s debut season highlights his artistic aspirations for the company to create “high...

Review: ‘Huckleberry Finn’s Big River’ at Adventure Theatre MTC

The excellence of this world premiere of Huckleberry Finn’s Big River ensures that it will become a family theater classic. Not only are the script, songs and choreography expertly crafted and...

Review: ‘The Old Man, the Youth, and the Sea’ at GALA Hispanic Theatre

As the clouds have gathered over the past two years, we have witnessed the coarsening of our politics as one party promotes an increasingly strident brand of nationalism, corruption, and incompetence...

Review: ‘Once’ at Olney Theatre Center

If you’ve never heard of the musical Once, written by Enda Walsh, with music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, you aren’t alone. Despite receiving eleven 2012 Tony Award nominations and...

Review: ‘Nell Gwynn’ at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre

Nell Gwynn (1650-1687) was not only one of the most talented actresses in Restoration Theatre, but also one of the most beloved. That was because “pretty, witty” Nell, as diarist Samuel Pepys called...

Not Just ‘Dead White Guys’: Kennedy Center Artistic Directors Defend 2019-2020 Season

The Kennedy Center’s artistic directorial staff defended their calculus for choosing their collective 2019-2020 classical-music season during a media briefing and panel discussion earlier this week....

Review: ‘BLKS’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre

BLKS is gonna be a blockbuster. Let’s get that out of the way. BLKS is a rapid-fire, laugh-out-loud comedy about a quartet of twenty-something black women in New York City who are roommates, gal pals,...

Review: ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ at Synetic Theater

Edmond Rostand’s tale of a consummate wordsmith achieves profound new eloquence in Synetic Theater’s wordless production of Cyrano de Bergerac. As they have done in so many previous productions, from...

In the Moment: Impressions on STC’s ‘Richard the Third’

Complex villains are irresistible on stage and screen. They can be so magnetic. Their restlessness and shadings of evil keep my brain’s neurons firing. I have always thought of the fictional King...

Review: ‘The Music Man’ at the Kennedy Center

We’ve got trouble, right here in the Capital City. That might be true – mind-numbingly true – but it’s not at the Kennedy Center where Jeffrey Finn has produced a charming, energetic production of...

Review: ‘SHAME 2.0 (With Comments From the Populace)’ at Mosaic Theater Company

“You have to be a good Arab,” says Morad Hassan of the stigma he faces trying to have a career as an Arab actor in Israel—the very country where, he says, “we are the Jews of the Jews.” “FREE...

Review: ‘The Master and Margarita’ at Constellation Theatre

The devil figure masquerading as Woland, the professor of black magic, in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita loathes skeptics, so much so that he travels around the world with the intention...

Review: ‘Everything is Wonderful’ at Everyman Theatre

Having helmed last season’s widely-acclaimed The Book of Joseph, Everyman Theatre Associate Artistic Director Noah Himmelstein has returned to the director’s chair for Everyman’s latest offering. Told...

Magic Time!: ‘The Brothers Size’ at 1st Stage

“You fucked up! You fucked up! You fucked up!” rails the older brother, berating the younger. “You fucked up! You fucked up! You fucked up!” he goes on, as if he cannot rage enough, as if he can’t get...

2019 Helen Hayes Nominations Are Announced

Tonight, at a celebration honoring theater excellence on stages across the Washington area, theater artists, administrators, patrons, and special guests gathered in the National Theatre’s Helen Hayes...

Review: ‘The Brothers Size’ at 1st Stage

Offering timely explorations of important topics, 1st Stage continuously produces memorable plays. They are always solid, but The Brothers Size will knock you out. In it, a young man newly released...

In the Moment: One Song Lifts ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ from Jukebox Musical Status

By all means, go, have a great time at Signature Theatre’s grandly jaunty Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show, a musical revue centered upon the prolific composer Fats Waller (1904-1943)...