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Review: ‘Engaging Shaw’ at Best Medicine Rep

There is an engaging sub-genre of theater, that one might call the battle of wits or the comedy of intellect, that takes some of the greatest minds in history and brings them to life, with all their...

Review: ‘Hero’s Welcome’ at 1st Stage Theatre

Hero’s Welcome at 1st Stage is the area premiere of British playwright Alan Ayckbourn’s 79th play. While Ayckbourn might be best known for his uproarious comedies, the humor here is darker than...

Review: ‘Sweeney Todd’ by Rep Stage

Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street presented by Rep Stage, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by High Wheeler, took to the boards this week at Howard Community College....

C-c-c c’mon: Monumental Theatre Company Announces 2019 Season

Monumental Theatre Company is not messing around: After their 2018 win at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards, Monumental is gearing up for a season guaranteed to impress. From off-Broadway indie hits to...

Review: ‘South Pacific’ at Olney Theater Center

No one is from there. Espiritu Santo, the main island setting of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical drama and the James Michener novel (Tales of the South Pacific) that inspired it, is not the dreamy...

Page to Stage 2018: Tastings from a Buffet (Part Two)

Kennedy Center’s annual Page to Stage Festival is always chock full of tempting offerings, and the challenge of deciding what to see is daunting. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet…except you really...

A New Dynasty Commands the Stage in the Folger Theatre’s ‘Macbeth’

“The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.” Those words—spoken by 10-year-old Owen Peakes in the Folger Theatre’s startling new production of Macbeth—send a faint tremor through the packed house....

Natalie Graves Tucker: Theatre Week Kickoff Emcee and All Around Superwoman (Interview)

Natalie Graves Tucker is so many things to so many people that we might need to add “superwoman” to her resume: actor, mom, marketing professional, voice over artist, video producer, writer, former...

Shakespeare Theatre Company Announces New Artistic Director: Simon Godwin

The Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) today announces the appointment of Simon Godwin as its next Artistic Director. Godwin, currently the Associate Director at the National Theatre of Great Britain...

Review: ‘Small Mouth Sounds’ at Round House Theatre

“You have everything you need within you to be human,” says an unseen guru on the god mic. He is speaking in sonorous tones to six seekers who now sit rapt in a row facing us the audience. They have...

Page to Stage 2018: Tastings from a Buffet (Part One)

Kennedy Center’s annual Page to Stage Festival is always chock full of tempting offerings, and the challenge of deciding what to see is daunting. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet…except you really...

Hip-Hop and Hamilton: The Same Revolution

Born into a society coming off a bloody, soul-crushing war nobody asked for. The folks who govern are taxing their people into oblivion; the common man looked at as a lesser caste, an undeserving...

Review: The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek at MetroStage

There is a good, rather grim, chance that The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek will be Athol Fugard’s last play; well into his eighties, Fugard has wryly admitted as much in recent interviews. If that...

The Top Eleven Ticket Deals During Theater Week

The final days of summer are here. And you know what that means? It’s time to score some awesome deals during Theatre Week. For the third year, we’re bringing you exclusive prices to some of the...

DC-Area Premiere of Athol Fugard’s ‘The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek’ Opens This Weekend at MetroStage

The Washington, DC-area premiere of Athol Fugard’s most recent play The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek opens this weekend at MetroStage and will run through September 30. First preview on Thursday,...

Theater Alliance launches Season 16 with the Word Becomes Action Festival

Theater Alliance launches Season 16 with the Word Becomes Action Festival: Flipping the Script. Building on the success of last year’s inaugural festival, this second annual festival explores themes...

Surrealism on Stage: Behind the Doors at Sarah Ruhl’s ‘Melancholy Play’ at Constellation Theatre

Imagine a cluster of windows without walls, set against a backdrop of doors. And imagine a stage with a floor whose texture resembles sand. Those are just a few of the images—improbable as they...

Review: ‘Marie and Rosetta’ at Mosaic Theater Company

I could well make this a one-word review: Wow. After the sensational opening of Marie and Rosetta at Mosaic last night, wow was the first word I heard from everyone I talked to, and wow was the first...

Interview: Creative Cauldron Producing Director Laura Connors Hull

Creative Cauldron is celebrating its 10th season performing at its ArtSpace venue in Falls Church. Creative Cauldron is one of the area’s small theater gems, with a consistently high quality along...

Dangereuse: The “Wow” Effect: Free-for-All ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at the Shakespeare Theatre Company

First-rate Shakespeare for free is one of the most valuable gifts the Shakespeare Theatre offers the DC community. The two-week run of Romeo and Juliet is a reprise of director Alan Paul’s acclaimed...

Playwright Neil Simon Dies at 91

Neil Simon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright, died last night at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. The cause was complications from pneumonia. He was 91 years old. His...

Patrick Flynn’s ‘The Ferberizing of Coral’ a Winner at Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival

Patrick Flynn’s The Ferberizing of Coral was one of six plays chosen for publication by Samuel French at the 43rd Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival this week. 850 plays were submitted to the...

Review: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Free For All

Romeo & Juliet’s famous entreaty–“wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast”– is strikingly realized in the latest addition to Shakespeare Theatre Company’s yearly Free For All production, a...

Review: ‘Passion’ at Signature Theatre

Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, now playing at Signature Theatre, has two of the greatest songs in the composer’s brilliant portfolio – “I Wish I Could Forget You” and “Loving You” – and three complex,...

Magic Time!: ‘The Interstellar Ghost Hour’ at Longacre Lea

Here’s an idea for a grad lit student in search of a dissertation topic: “Bewilderment and Brilliance in the Theater of Kathleen Akerley.” That thought flipped through my head after I watched The...

Studio Theatre Adds ‘The Children’ to 2018-2019 Season, Announces Cast of Season Opener

Studio Theatre has added a production to its previously announced 2018-2019 season. The Children, by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood, will close out Studio’s season beginning on May 1st, 2019....

Interview: The Hub Theatre’s New Artistic Director Matt Bassett Looks Ahead to 2018-19 Season

In a recent telephone interview, Matt Bassett, Hub Theatre’s new artistic director, discussed the company’s upcoming season. In shaping the season, his first as Hub artistic director, Bassett said...

Interview: MetroStage’s Carolyn Griffin and Actor Doug Brown Discuss ‘The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek’ by Athol Fugard

Over its 30 seasons, MetroStage has had several homes, including 17 years in a cozy venue in Alexandria’s North End. Redevelopment of the area will lead MetroStage to another location in Alexandria in...

Review: ‘In the Closet’ at Rainbow Theatre Project

“It gets better” is the premise and promise of a multimedia campaign that since 2010 has tried to offer hope and encouragement to LGBTQ+ youth. The message can be life-saving. Nearly all such youth at...

Review: ‘The Interstellar Ghost Hour’ by Longacre Lea

It’s the time of the theater season for those with a taste for the offbeat and original, and time to accept the invitation for the yearly production from Longacre Lea displaying Kathleen Akerley’s...

Review: ‘Don Cristóbal’ at Pointless Theatre

Co-directors Rachel Menyuk and Eric Swartz have brought to the DC stage a truly original work with Don Cristóbal, Pointless Theatre’s last show of the 2017-2018 season. At first an obscene and...

Review: ‘Consent’ at Spotlighters Theatre

As audience members enter the Spotlighters Theatre to attend the Baltimore Playwrights Festival’s world premiere of Glennyce Lynn’s Consent, they pass signs warning against medical contamination, as...

Review: ‘Be More Chill’ at The Pershing Square Signature Center

Making its New York debut in a limited engagement at The Pershing Square Signature Center, Be More Chill – sold-out before it opened and extended for another sold-out week beyond its...

Bloomberg Philanthropies Names D.C. Participants in Arts Innovation and Management Program

Washington, D.C. is no longer just a tourist city with iconic national monuments and fabled museums. Over the past decades, a distinguished cadre of small and medium-sized cultural institutions have...

Review: ‘Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce’ at Constellation Theatre Company

In Jonathan Dahm Robertson’s set for Constellation Theatre Company’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce, a collection of two-dimensional doors is depicted on the face of...

A Revamped ‘FringeNYC’ Returns in October: A Conversation with Producing Artistic Director Elena K. Holy

Following last year’s hiatus, FringeNYC – the New York International Fringe Festival – returns in October with a new structure and focus. Elena K. Holy, Producing Artistic Director of The Present...

Theatre Week Is Just a Few Weeks Away

WASHINGTON, DC – August 14 – theatreWashington today announced plans for Theatre Week 2018, a three-week celebration that will offer $15 and $35 tickets to over 20 productions, a free Kickoff Party,...

Review: Off the Quill’s ‘Frankenstein’

First, to avoid any confusion, let me state what this Frankenstein is not: It is not the Mel Brooks musical Young Frankenstein, with “Abby Normal” brains and creator and creation donning top hat and...

‘Legendary: Sweet Slice of Liberty’ by TBD Immersive

TBD Immersive, DC’s very own immersive theater company, brings a new production to the city this weekend. This time the show comes to life at Slim’s, a funky DC diner located at the corner of Georgia...

Five Top Off-Broadway Picks to Close Out Your Summer with a Bang!

Along with the array of Broadway hits that made their debut in 2018, this summer has brought a wealth of great entertainment beyond the big houses of the Great White Way in the Midtown-West Theater...

Review: ‘Variations on Sacrifice’ by Rapid Lemon Productions at Baltimore Theatre Project

Last night I had the immense pleasure of seeing eleven new plays by thirteen authors in Variations on Sacrifice. The Variations Project is an annual curated event produced by Rapid Lemon Productions...

How ‘Hamilton’ Is Remaking American History

By Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter America has gone Hamilton crazy. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical about Alexander Hamilton, “the forgotten founding father,” has become a turning point in...

Eric Schaeffer Discusses Signature Theatre’s Upcoming ‘Passion’

Starting August 14, Stephen Sondheim’s musical Passion will play at Arlington, Virginia’s Signature Theatre, starring Natascia Diaz (West Side Story) as Fosca and directed by Associate Artistic...

Review: ‘Dinner’ at 4615 Theatre Company

Dinner is darkly hilarious, absurdist and at times psychologically frightening. The play, similar to Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, is about a dinner party gone terribly wrong. Serving under the...

Review: ‘The Story of the Gun’ at Woolly Mammoth

“All you have to do is move your little finger, move your little finger, and you can change the world.” That line from Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins could well serve as an epigraph for Mike Daisey’s...

5 Questions with Joshua Conyers, Summer 2018 Filene Artist at Wolf Trap Opera

Baritone Joshua Conyers is becoming a mainstay in the Washington area. Conyers is a Summer 2018 Filene Artist at Wolf Trap Opera, where he has sung Count Capulet in Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette,...

Magic Time!: ‘The Story of the Gun’ at Woolly Mammoth

Mike Daisey’s monolog The Story of the Gun is a show both hilarious and sobering, and he begins it with a wry riff on who we are who have come to see it. As he joshingly reminds us, we are liberal...

Three Truths I Took Away From Second City’s ‘Generation Gap’

Are we brave enough to laugh at ourselves? That’s a question The Second City explores in it’s latest comedy show Generation Gap, playing now through August 12th at the Kennedy Center. The show blends...

Review: ‘Macbeth’ at 4615 Theatre Company

Why do people commit evil, and once they have started, why can’t they stop? Now, as always, it is a question worth asking. Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, is an exploration of this...

Past is Prologue at 4615 Theatre Company

Artistic Director Jordan Friend had a clear vision when 4615 Theatre Company began producing full seasons last year. Each 4615 season would kick off with a pair of shows – one classic, one...