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Review: ‘Gypsy’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

We can hold our breath but we’re never likely to get another musical as perfect as Gypsy. Sixty Broadway seasons ago it caught the unique charms and pathology of show business in a magic bubble that...

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: ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Signature Theatre

Outside, the Polar Vortex reigned. Inside, the jazz was hot and smoky and funny and sexy. Ain’t Misbehavin’, celebrating the work of Fats Waller, brought his music and the feel of his life and times...

Magic Time!: ‘Twelve Angry Men’ at Ford’s Theatre

Cross-racial casting can be totally wrongheaded—as when white actors impersonate characters of color. It can also be speciously universalizing—as when actors of color play all the parts in a work...

Tracy Lynn Olivera To Perform One-Night Cabaret at BlackRock This Friday, Feb 1

BlackRock will be kicking off its jam-packed February with Broadway Gold, a musical cabaret spun together by Signature Theatre’s own Tracy Lynn Olivera. On Friday, February 1 at 8 PM, Olivera and her...

Review: ‘The Screwtape Letters’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Lansburgh Theatre

When the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” comes on the pre-show soundtrack, it’s a tipoff that C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters is going to be a diabolically delightful evening of theater and...

Review: ‘La Cage Aux Folles’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents La Cage Aux Folles, with Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman and Book by Harvey Fierstein. Based on Jean Poiret’s farcical play by the same name, La Cage...

Review: ‘Three Sistahs’ at MetroStage

MetroStage’s Three Sistahs is a marvelous musical, an evening of vocal and dramatic excellence. Written and directed by Thomas W. Jones II – with a story by Janet Pryce – and music by William Hubbard,...

Broadway Legend Baayork Lee Comes to Reston CenterStage February 9

An evening of conversation with Broadway legend Baayork Lee is coming to Reston’s CenterStage. Baayork Lee has performed in some of the most far-reaching musical theatre events of the past decades....

Review: ‘Kleptocracy’ at Arena Stage

A young Vladimir Putin (Christopher Geary) steps onto the stage, wearing a 1980s tracksuit, quoting a passage from the Soviet absurdist and surrealist writer Daniil Kharms (1905-1942) “How a Man...

Review: ‘Fun Home’ at the Baltimore Center Stage

“Welcome to our house on Maple Avenue.” With this lyric, the Bechdel family invites the Baltimore Center Stage audience into their home – free of judgment and with all their family dysfunction on full...

Review: ‘Twelve Angry Men’ at Ford’s Theatre

Some sixty-five years since its original premiere as a black-and-white teleplay, Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men remains timeless; all too intriguingly relevant as ever. In the Ford’s Theatre...

Review: ‘The Baltimore Waltz’ at the Keegan Theatre

Anna always wanted to go to Europe. See the City of Lights. Drink a pint of authentic German beer. Have a rendezvous (or two, or five) with strange men who whisper unintelligible sweet nothings into...

Photo Feature: Behind the Scenes at ’19 the Musical’

In honor of last week’s Women’s March, DC Theater Arts sat in on a workshop performance of 19, a musical in development highlighting the fight to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to...

‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre

With a winning young actor in the lead role, any ticket to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is good as gold. Eleven-year-old Rueby Wood made the perfect Charlie Bucket the night we attended at...

Magic Time!: ‘Admissions’ at Studio Theatre

“Some of my best friends are white men,” says Sherri, the very liberal white woman who handles admissions at a small New England prep school. Avowedly antiracist, Sherri is on a mission to increase...

Review: ‘Admissions’ at Studio Theatre

It’s an odd thing, as a Latina here in Washington, D.C., to observe the mental wrestlings of liberal white folks struggling to come to terms with their privilege. How in muted voices they make sure to...

Magic Time!: ‘Jeffrey’ at Rainbow Theatre Project

If there’s such a thing as gay wit, Paul Rudnick’s got a load of it. Imagine Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward if they could be out about it. Yeah, Rudnick ranks with them and then some. As proof, check out...

WATCH Awards Nominations: 19th Annual Washington Area Theatre Community Honors

The nominees for the 19th Annual WATCH Awards were announced tonight at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia.

‘Jeffrey’ at Rainbow Theatre Project

Jeffrey, the current offering of the Rainbow Theatre Project by playwright Paul Rudnick, casts a humorously defiant eye towards the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic – as set in the New York City of the...

Review: ‘Company’ by Stillpointe Theatre

When you go downtown to the Mount Vernon area of Baltimore City, you might not immediately think of the Wilkes School on Park Avenue as a theatrical venue, especially with the Baltimore School for the...

Review: ‘School of Rock: The Musical’ at National Theatre

Kicked out of the band and facing eviction from “his” apartment, Dewey Finn questionably intercepts a substitute teacher assignment at a prestigious local academy to pay the rent. With no teaching...

Review: ‘Cinderella’ at The Kennedy Center Opera House

Don’t walk into the Kennedy Center Opera House expecting a Disney-esque, happily-ever-after retelling of the evergreen fairytale Cinderella. British director/choreographer Matthew Bourne has spent his...

Shakespeare Theatre Company Hosts Annual Mock Trial

On January 14, 2019, the Shakespeare Theatre Company presented its Winter Mock Trial at Sidney Harman Hall (610 F Street NW). Guests were invited to hear Richard the Third: A Good Name Restored – Was...

Local Favorite Margo Seibert Comes Home for Signature Theatre Concert

Fans of Margo Seibert – the Broadway star of Rocky and In Transit – may face some unusual competition for tickets to her upcoming concert at Signature Theatre. That’s because metro DC is no touring...

Dante’ Pope Is Center Stage in Strathmore’s Artist in Residency Program

Raheem Devaughn. Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Erykah Badu: Soul vocalist and Strathmore Artist in Residence Dante’ Pope has performed or shared the stage with them all. From sideman to...

Review: ‘American Moor’ at Anacostia Playhouse

American Moor, in a return engagement at Anacostia Playhouse, lambasts the audience with a series of provocative questions: can an actor play a role without tapping into the darkest parts of their...

Magic Time!: ‘ 19: The Musical’

It was “a century of struggle” before women in the United States won the right to vote in 1920, and the centenary of the amendment that cinched it, the nineteenth, is just around the corner. An...

Review: ‘Choir Boy’ at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre

Making a soul-stirring Broadway debut with the Manhattan Theatre Club after its Off-Broadway premiere with MTC in 2013, Tarell Alvin McCraney’s revised Choir Boy has already extended its limited...

Review: ‘Judy Garland: A Star Is Born’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s Cabaret Series is a relaxed affair. Pull up a chair and put your elbows on the table because Awa Sal Secka and Katie Mariko Murray are going to make you feel right at home. The two...

Past Is Prologue in New Musical About Suffragists

When Nancy Pelosi accepted the gavel as Speaker of the House last week, she expressed pride at presiding over Congress during the 100th anniversary of women having the right to vote (coming in 2020)....

Theater J Names Jojo Ruf New Managing Director

Theater J, the nation’s pre-eminent professional Jewish theater, announced yesterday that Jojo Ruf will become its new Managing Director on January 28, 2019. Ruf joins Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr...

American Opera Is Becoming Its Own Genre and It’s Happening Here in DC

Opera in America has had the stink of death upon it for some time now. Lavish productions of period piece love stories and power struggles set largely during the time of kings and courtesans in Europe...

Review: ‘[title of show]’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Like TV’s “Seinfeld,” [title of show] is a show, to a degree, about the mundane. [title of show] is a musical about four friends creating a musical – the one the audience sees. Along the way, they...

Review: ‘From U Street to the Cotton Club’ by The In Series

Rising from its roots in the Deep South, African American music journeyed north with the Great Migration, invigorating urban culture with rhythms derived from shouts to spirituals, work songs and...

Review: ‘The Comedy of Errors’ at the American Shakespeare Center (Staunton, VA)

If you’re a fan of stand-up comedy, you know the highs and lows that come with artists working the crowd with fresh material they’ve been practicing for weeks. With their eyes on you and yours on...

Review: ‘The Winter’s Tale’ at the American Shakespeare Center

For all his brilliance, Shakespeare still suffers from the occasional whining of critics about his later “problem” plays. Longer and more complex, with familiar plot lines splintered and grafted into...

Theaters Offer Discounts to Furloughed Government Employees

With no end to the government shutdown in sight, many DMV arts organizations are offering free or discounted tickets to federal government workers. DMV theaters recognize that government employees...

DCMTA 2018 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 2018. Here are the community theater performances that made the biggest...

David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven Is Not Afraid to Testify

Musician David Lowery is a fascinating mix of contradictions. The co-founder of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven is a learned college math professor and a cool rocker musician, a proud and loving...

‘Passport to the World of Music’ Kicks Off 2019 at Creative Cauldron

Creative Cauldron invites you to join them on a musical tour of the world in their intimate cabaret space, with a diverse musical lineup specially curated by Ken Avis and Lynn Veronneau of the Wammy...

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...

DCMTA 2018 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Performance in a Professional 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 2018. Here are the professional performances that made the biggest impact...

Anacostia Playhouse Suffers Robbery, Spurs Fundraising Efforts

The Anacostia Playhouse community is reeling after a December 26th robbery in which burglars broke into the theater, ransacked the offices and stole thousands of dollars worth of supplies. The...

‘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...

News: Ford’s and Kennedy Center Shows to Go On During Federal Shutdown

DC’s two major federally funded theater venues have both announced that performances will be uninterrupted by the federal shutdown. According to the website of Ford’s Theatre, where A Christmas Carol...

DCMTA 2018 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 2018. Here are the community theater productions that left the...

DCMTA 2018 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Professional 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 2018. In this category, Outstanding Overall Production, we recognize:...

‘Miss Saigon’: Time To Say Goodbye?

A blunt assessment: It’s time to move on. It is time to retire Miss Saigon as the seductive, out-of-touch, museum piece that it is. Miss Saigon has little to say about the sorrows of the Vietnam War....

Magic Time!: ‘Kings’ at Studio Theatre

“Laws are like sausages,” goes the adage. “It’s better not to see them being made.” As it happens, I have a good mental picture of how sausages are made, because for three summers during college I...