Featured

Signature Theatre’s “A Chorus Line” is a singular sensation

In the theater world, a performer who is a true triple threat – one with the ability to perform at the highest levels as an actor, singer, and dancer all at the same time – is rare. Luckily, Signature...

“All I had to do was listen”: Playwright Norman Yeung rethinks his ‘Theory’

By Norman Yeung That Theory has gained urgency and relevance since I wrote the first draft in 2009 is uncanny and alarming. Over ten years of innumerable workshops, readings, and productions, the...

‘The Willard Suitcases’ unpacks the re-imagined voices of psychiatric patients at American Shakespeare Center

First, dear reader, a confession—for which I fully expect to be pilloried, drawn and quartered, then maybe burned at the stake: I’m not a huge fan of musicals these days. Yeah, I know, there was a...

Rainbow Theatre Project’s ‘Blue Camp’ shows its lavender heart

This world premiere comic drama about gays in the military takes us back to July and August of 1964 when LBJ was ordering American ground troops into Vietnam in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident...

‘E2’ – Whipping up a royal froth of glitz and tragedy at Rep Stage

At Rep Stage in Howard County, Bob Bartlett’s new play E2 certainly proves it can make a head-turning entrance. This bold and sensuous take on the oft-told tale of King Edward II unfolds against a...

Haunting world premiere by Ally Theatre Company of ‘Dhana and the Rosebuds’

The email popped into my box from my editor. To paraphrase: “Is it too far for you to go cover Ally Theatre’s new theatre piece in Mt. Rainer about Syrian refugees?” The irony was not lost on me: Too...

On tour in DC with ‘What to Send Up When It Goes Down’ by Aleshea Harris

Editor’s note: Woolly Mammoth Theatre, in conjunction with its staging of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, has brought to DC a show produced by the Harlem-based Movement Theatre Company that is...

Mosaic’s brazenly brainy ‘Theory’ is both a treatise and a treat (Magic Time!)

Academia has inspired several thematically penetrating plays featuring female protagonists—the two teachers falsely accused of being lesbian lovers, for instance, in Lillian Hellman’s 1934 The...

Mosaic’s ‘Theory:’ an embodiment of ‘wokeness’ besieged

Canadian playwright Norman Yeung’s Theory, in its American premiere at Mosaic Theater, seeks to be, in the words of Mosaic’s press release, “a hot button play for our digital moment.” Yeung packs a...

Hometown hero Dave Chappelle honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American humor

On Sunday night Dave Chappelle experienced the most epic of homecomings as the DC native received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The...

Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Simon Godwin on conscience in ‘Everybody’ and himself

On the day after opening night of Everybody, the first show in Simon Godwin’s much-heralded first season as artistic director of Shakespeare Theatre Company, I visited him in his office to ask him...

What’s magnificent and what’s muddled in ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ at Arena Stage (Magic Time!)

Right to Be Forgotten is a play written from the outside in. By that I mean, its intention is to illustrate a legal issue: the tension in U.S. law between privacy and freedom of speech, a tension...

Experience an unforgettable adventure with Rorschach Theatre’s “She Kills Monsters”

Through uncommon uses of environment and intimate passionate performances, Rorschach Theatre seeks to lure its audiences beyond the limits of ordinary theatrical experience. They go above and beyond...

Thoughtful ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ at Arena Stage

How do you put a human face on a difficult, complex subject the natural habitat of which may more likely be a law review article than a stage? Such is playwright Sharyn Rothstein’s task in Right to be...

Shakespeare Theater Company’s ‘Everybody’ flirts with death, but falls short of greatness

There’s really only one thing that all of us – that everybody – has in common. Death, whether we’re ready or not, will come for us. All our failures and triumphs, our relationships and desires, can...

Constellation’s ‘Little Shop’ puts the horror back in horticulture

From its beginnings as a very low-budget 1960 Roger Corman B-picture horror flick (a young Jack Nicholson had a minor role), Little Shop of Horrors has been an irresistible salad of corrupted...

‘Radio Golf’ at Everyman better than par for the course

Everyman Theatre’s current production, billed as August Wilson’s Radio Golf, as though his name is part of the title (it isn’t), doesn’t have much golf in it. It’s not even about golf. It’s about a...

‘Thoughts of a Colored Man’ reveals universal truths at Baltimore Center Stage

Thoughts of a Colored Man is a poetic journey through the lives of seven Black men over the course of a day in Brooklyn, New York. Playwright Keenan Scott II has written, and Steve H. Broadnax III has...

The power of subversive design in ‘Day of Absence’ at Theater Alliance (Magic Time!)

To realize how much white America loved minstrelsy is a reckoning painful or shameful, depending on one’s ancestry. Minstrel shows were never meant for people of African descent to see; they were...

Enjoy Your Stay at Flying V’s ‘Crystal Creek Motel’

Plaza Suite, this is not. In fact, it is about as different as a play can be that shares the same premise: short vignettes about the different people who occupy the same room in, as one character puts...

A musical job unlike any other: A talk with Angel Gil-Ordóñez of the PostClassical Ensemble

Correctly predicting what kind of serious art music would and would not be presented on American concert stages in 2019 would have fooled – even baffled – the most prescient of musical observers from...

LA Theatre Works’ ‘SEVEN’ will explore social injustice through documentary theater at George Mason

LA Theatre Works is bringing its distinctive radio style, live theater to the DMV with a production of SEVEN. A documentary theater play, SEVEN is based on the lives of seven extraordinary women from...

Crashing the Party: Pink Martini Celebrates 25 Years With a Kennedy Center Blowout

If the invitation would have been to see the genre-bending Portland-based cabaret-style self-described ‘little orchestra,’ Pink Martini, featuring China Forbes with special guest star Meow Meow, that...

Prologue Theatre’s ‘Dog Sees God’ Guaranteed to Get You Talking

Now in its second season, Prologue Theatre’s mission is simple: They want to start conversations. They will undoubtedly accomplish this with their take on Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage...

Review: Theater Alliance’s ‘Day of Absence’ by Douglas Turner Ward

Two clowns open a suitcase. In that suitcase lies a rope. A long rope. They start to play with it, tug-of-war stuff, with the loser pretending he’s winning. Lotsa yuks. Then the twist. And the painful...

Review: ‘Broadway Center Stage: Footloose’ at The Kennedy Center

Footloose, the 1984 movie starring everybody’s friend, Kevin Bacon, was a hit for many reasons, but one stood out over the others: dancing means life, and dancing gives meaning to life. This...

Review: The Mariinsky Ballet’s ‘Paquita’ at the Kennedy Center

Ballet, like opera, has a love-hate relationship with its 19th-century repertoire. Contrived plots, truly embarrassing cultural stereotypes, crowd-pleasing but horribly dated choreography that simply...

Review: Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Escape to Margaritaville’ at The National Theatre

Four years ago, I walked into what was then the Barnes & Noble in downtown Bethesda and asked for a sales clerk’s assistance locating one of Jimmy Buffett’s greatest hits CDs. She was stymied. Would...

Appropriate or Appropriation? PostClassical Ensemble and The Lakota Music Project Frames Debate on Indigenous Music

If this summer’s Baltimore Symphony Orchestra labor dispute underscored that remonstrating over the sustainability of American symphony orchestras is pointless if we don’t clarify whether they should...

A Wild Tale Wags ‘My Barking Dog’ at Caos on F

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Review: ‘Merce Cunningham at 100, Beach Birds and BIPED’ at the Kennedy Center

What a pleasure to celebrate the centenary of modern dance master Merce Cunningham with a pair of works that demonstrates his formidable vision for dance, imbued with clarity of form and generosity of...

Review: ‘West by God’ at The Keegan Theatre

The economic and social plight of America’s white rural working class has been the subject of recent blockbuster books from J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy to Educated, by Tara Westover. Now this...

Review: ‘Fences’ at Ford’s Theatre

As seen through the simple symbolism of a wooden fence, Ford’s Theatre’s season opener of August Wilson’s Fences is a brilliant and searing exploration of the tragi-conflicts and heroic triumphs of...

Highwood Theatre Founder Fired Amid Accusations of Criminal Conduct Against Minors

On Friday, September 26, 2019, Washington City Paper reported on serious allegations facing the former executive director and founder of the Highwood Theatre, a children’s theater company based in...

Review: ‘The Tempest’ at Synetic Theater

What an inspired creative jewel. What a brave new world. What a daring technical and artistic production. That is Synetic’s The Tempest; Shakespeare’s tale of shipwreck and magic, power grab and...

Review: Audra McDonald Headlines George Mason’s University’s ‘ARTS by George!’

Audra McDonald’s concert Saturday night, September 28, was the culmination of a wonderful evening at George Mason University’s 14th annual ARTS by George! benefit. The concert hall at the Center for...

The Sorrow Beneath the Surface of ‘School Girls’ at Round House Theatre

Can one laugh heartily at a satirical comedy—be thoroughly engaged by the entertaining characters, story, and performances—and then after it’s over mourn what it was about? That was for me the...

Eighth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival: What to See and Where to See It

The Eighth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival is taking place in the Bromo Arts District from October 10 through 20, 2019. Here’s a listing of all the shows. Ready, Set, Fringe! Fringe Shows with...

Review: ‘School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play’ at Round House Theatre

Teenage girls can be mean – just ask Broadway’s Tina Fey. But if you ask Jocelyn Bioh, the award-winning playwright of off-Broadway’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, you’ll get an...

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Musicians Reach One-Year Agreement: Concert Season to Open This Weekend

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Inc. (BSO) and members of the Orchestra and the Musicians’ Association of Metropolitan Baltimore, Local 40-543, announced at a joint press conference on September 23,...

Review: ‘Trying’ at 1st Stage Tysons

You could approach Trying at 1st Stage as a realistic, two-character play about a real-life character, Judge Francis Biddle, and his new secretary, Sarah Schorr. Born to a life of wealth and...

Review: ‘Cats’ at The Kennedy Center Opera House

Andrew Lloyd Webber catapulted to unprecedented West End and Broadway success with his musical extravaganza Cats, based on a 1939 collection of light verse by the otherwise modernist poet, T.S. Eliot....

Review: ‘Jitney’ at Arena Stage

When the opening moments of a play are a super loud blast of bluesy music and a checkers game on the verge of anarchy, you know you are in for a lively ride. But it was the acting in Jitney, Arena...

Review: ‘Miss You Like Hell’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Theater – including musical theater – has long been used as a medium for analysis of societal issues and concerns in a way that is more entertaining than an essay or lecture. Miss You Like Hell, now...

First look at the fierce performers of ‘School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play’… and their fabulous dresses

DC Theater Arts spent a day at rehearsal with the cast of Round House Theatre Company’s season opener: School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. Not only is this play a fabulous female-centered...

Maria Manuela Goyanes on ‘Fairview,’ race, and what’s next at Woolly Mammoth

I saw Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview opening night at Woolly, and I cannot stop thinking about its originality—not only in form but in intent. I’m not writing about the production—my colleague Amy...

Review: Pulitzer-Winning ‘Fairview’ Jump-Starts Woolly Mammoth’s New Season

The Woolly Mammoth Theater Company has rocket-launched its 40th anniversary season with a searing production of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama....

Review: Raise a Glass to ‘The Smuggler’ at Solas Nua

The bar is open and there’s 100-proof theater on tap. It’s a stirring play about an Irish immigrant bartender, and it’s shaking up a classy new cocktail bar where only 30 patrons at a time can see it....

Review: ‘Love Sick’ at Theater J Offers a Contemporary Look at the Biblical Song of Songs

Celebrating the lushness of love without shying away from the moody darkness that might befall lovers, Theater J opens its new season with the East Coast premiere of the musical Love Sick. Love Sick...

Review: ‘1 Henry IV’ at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre

1 Henry IV at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, directed by Rosa Joshi, is perfectly cast and beautifully executed. Edward Gero is a superb Falstaff, and he is surrounded by gifted actors and strikingly...