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A New Home For Soulful Symphony at Merriweather Post Pavilion

Top-rated Columbia amphitheater Merriweather Post Pavilion has forged a new partnership with Maryland’s Soulful Symphony, a visionary orchestra that celebrates, elevates, and reimagines American music...

Review: ‘Twisted Melodies’ at Mosaic Theater Company

A foreboding, wide-open hotel window overlooking the Manhattan night skyline beckons you to enter the tender interior space of ’70s soul singer, composer and recording artist, Donny Hathaway. Twisted...

Opening weekend at the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival (photo feature)

The opening weekend of the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival was a lively family reunion of art, food, music and drama. DCBTAF chair and dancing diplomat Nana Malaya served as ring leader and founder...

Review: Happenstance Theatre Goes Greek with ‘Pantheon’

They’re at it again. The Happenstance Gang: troublemakers, every stinking one of ‘em. And this time, they’re going Greek. Mythologically speaking, that is. Nix on the keggers and beer pong, their...

Review: ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ at Studio Theatre

When Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe planned to tackle the subject of depression, they decided to avoid more familiar approaches: plays about self-destructive superstars who are too far removed...

Arena Stage To Host 11-Hour Marathon Reading of the Mueller Report, Volume II, July 11, 2019

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, in association with activist and actress Jjana Valentiner, will hold a public, nonpartisan 11-hour marathon reading of Special Counsel Robert...

Dressed To Plunder, and Maybe Kill: Costuming Signature’s ‘Blackbeard’

When the actor playing Blackbeard first appears on stage at the Signature Theatre in the new musical bearing his name, smoke literally curls out of his matted black hair. It’s a terrifying look and...

‘Musica Viva Kentlands’ Puts Classical Music Outdoors in Gaithersburg, Maryland

Traveling through the south of France one glorious September, regardless of where my companion and I found ourselves, it seemed that at one point in the afternoon, there would be a classical music...

Review: ‘Ripcord’ at Keegan Theatre

The cute little old ladies are up to something at the sunny nursing home. They share the same room and enough wit to fight over the turf like two college roommates. If only we all could grow old with...

Capital Fringe Basics: How To Buy Tickets and More

Tickets are on sale now for the 2019 Capital Fringe Festival bringing over 500 individual performances, 89 productions, and five Capital Fringe curated shows across 13 stages in Southwest DC. Do not...

Review: ‘Falsettos’ National Tour at the Kennedy Center

The motley crew of neurotic and quasi-neurotic characters in Falsettos, now playing at the Kennedy Center, offers an eye-opening look at all-too-human dilemmas. The rituals of everyday life under...

Jets and Sharks: Is the BSO Missing an Opportunity?

Much of my career has been spent as a health sciences writer. This training helps keep in check my music critic’s right brained instinct to find metaphors in a story. It’s a good restraint to have,...

Review: ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’ at Round House Theatre

Battle lines drawn. Cogent argument made. Can everyone be right at the same time? Does it matter in a world full of choices? Invigorating and decidedly bracing, the Round House production of A Doll’s...

Review: ‘Hello, Dolly!’ at The Kennedy Center

A matchmaker, dance instructor, legal counsel, and mandolin teacher (among other occupations), Dolly Gallagher Levi is a woman of countless talents and side-hustles in bustling, turn-of-the-century...

Review: ‘Grease’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Columbia

Grease can be a sad tale of peer pressure, teen pregnancy, insecure futures, and violence. Based on a book of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, the story was about greasers, pre-Beatles...

A Lively NSO Dazzles, Hinting of Still More Good Things to Come

Now that National Symphony Orchestra music director Gianandrea Noseda has nearly completed two full seasons – and has signed on to stay through 2025 – a clearer picture of the possibilities we can...

Review: ‘A Misanthrope’ at WSC Avant Bard

The audience didn’t stop laughing all night. Between Matt Minnicino’s rhyming couplet- filled, witty, knowing, sometimes bawdy adaptation (or, as he would have it, “distillation”) of a Molière classic...

Review: ‘Describe the Night’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Like Marcel Proust’s famous “madeleine moment,” Rajiv Joseph’s ambitious new play Describe the Night, in an exciting, Kafkaesque rendering by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, finds philosophical...

Got Plans for the Tony Awards? Now You Do!

I am through being a lonely theater geek, locking myself in my bedroom and shushing non-interested family members throughout the Tony Awards broadcast! This year, I’ve decided to throw myself a party....

Review: ‘We’re Gonna Die’ by Flying V at The Writer’s Center

When Farrell Parker steps out onto the black box stage at The Writer’s Center in Flying V’s version of We’re Gonna Die, something explodes. Light and sound—literally—erupt. And while much of the...

Review: ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ by NextStop Theatre Company

How do you replicate perfection—especially when it involves dumping gallons of water onstage? Any theater company that undertakes a production of Singin’ in the Rain, the beloved movie musical about...

Review: ‘Antigonick’ and ‘The Fragments of Sappho’ by Taffety Punk Theatre Company

Antiquity is in the house and what’s old is new again. Taffety Punk is presenting two short theater pieces featuring its signature integration of dance, drama, and music based on voices from Ancient...

Review: ‘Klytmnestra: An Epic Slam Poem’ at Theater Alliance

Dane Figueroa Edidi is one of DC’s most original and multitalented theater artists. A dancer, actor, poet, playwright, and choreographer, she is also a teacher, novelist, political commentator as well...

Interview: Sean-Maurice Lynch of ‘Jubilee’ at Arena Stage

The reviews are in: Jubilee is being praised for honoring and preserving the impact of the Negro Spiritual upon the American Songbook. In the Arena Stage production, Director Tazewell Thompson gives...

Words Matter: Contemporary America Theater Festival 2019 Season Preview

For nearly 30 years, the Contemporary American Theater Festival in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia has offered audiences some of the most breathtaking, insightful and pointed dramas you’re likely...

Review: ‘Sooner/Later’ at Mosaic Theater Company

A rom-com about manhunting…at Mosaic? That’s probably not the sort of fare you’d expect from DC’s preeminent theatrical platform for social-justice programming. But who is to say that fair should have...

Review: ‘Richard iii’ at Synetic Theater

“The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed.” –William Gibson, author of Neuromancer. Synetic Theater, a beloved DC-area institution, has come up with a luxuriantly detailed...

Staging an Epic: A Four-Part Documentary Series from Shakespeare Theatre Company

After 33 years as Artistic Director, Michael Kahn has directed nearly all the world’s greatest classical plays, worked with some of the biggest actors in the world and built the Shakespeare Theatre...

Review: ‘Jubilee’ at Arena Stage

In 1871, Fisk University – an all-Black institution of higher learning in Nashville, Tennessee – was in dire financial straits. To raise money for the institution, Treasurer and Music Professor George...

WNO Gala Demonstrates America’s Solid Standing on Opera’s World Stage

From the nexus of divas, dollars, and diplomats at this year’s Washington National Opera Gala, there arose a thrilling truth: The finely frocked foreigners in attendance might question America’s role...

Photo Highlights from the 2019 Helen Hayes Ceremony!

Visual highlights from the 35th Annual Helen Hayes Awards Ceremony. A complete list of recipients can be found here. Photos of the before and after parties can be found here. All photos by Mukul...

Photos: Behind the Scenes at the 2019 Helen Hayes Awards!

Visual highlights from the 35th Annual Helen Hayes Awards! Party guests brought their glam selves to The Anthem on a lovely spring night to mingle and greet friends before the ceremony. After the...

2019 Helen Hayes Award Winners

Outstanding Choreography in a Musical – Hayes Parker Esse Anything Goes Arena Stage Outstanding Choreography in a Musical – Helen Rachel Leigh Dolan Chicago The Keegan Theatre Outstanding Choreography...

Helen Hayes Videos: Get To Know Your Hosts!

The 35th Annual Helen Hayes Awards are just around the corner and we couldn’t be more excited! All of DC theater in one room together, wearing fancy duds and celebrating another year of hard work and...

The Lab at Georgetown Brings Together Global Artists for ‘The Gathering’

The Lab program at Georgetown University occupies an interesting space in the DC performing arts world, existing at the intersection between art and international affairs. Georgetown’s Laboratory for...

Magic Time!: ‘God of Carnage’ at Keegan Theatre

The set foreshadows the coming fracas. There’s a fault line down the middle where this living room seems sliced in two. And something’s out of whack. The halves do not align. Like two stressed...

Review: ‘The Oresteia’ by Shakespeare Theatre Company

To theater historians, dramaturgs, and lovers of all things Greek, the promise of a production of Aeschylus’ The Oresteia is enough to drive one mad with joy. To begin with, of all the Greek plays...

Review: ‘Love’s Labor’s Lost’ at Folger Theatre

Ready for teasing mockery and romantic conflict that crosses economic classes and genders with an added dash of some re-imagined blurred lines? Then step up to the wit and words of William...

Constellation Theatre Company Announces 2019-2020 Season

Constellation Theatre Company, led by Founding Artistic Director Allison Arkell Stockman and Managing Director A.J. Guban, is thrilled to announce its thirteenth season of epic, larger-than-life...

Helen Hayes Tribute Recognizes Jennifer L. Nelson as a DC Theater Trailblazer

Actors, by definition, play all sorts of roles. But for Jennifer L. Nelson—a theater veteran who’s been working on stage and off ever since she landed in DC at the age of 22—the multi-tasking involves...

Review: ‘The Children’ at Studio Theatre

Three retired nuclear physicists meet in a quaint cottage not far from the nuclear power plant where they once worked and where a catastrophe has occurred. Earthquake, tsunami, tidal wave,...

Ally Theatre Company Earns the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company (Interview)

Ally Theatre Company will receive the 2019 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company at the 35th Annual Helen Hayes Awards. At its core mission, Ally Theatre Company is committed to...

Interview: It’s Been a ‘Monumental’ Year for This DC Theater Company

In 2018 Monumental Theatre Company was the recipient of the prestigious theatreWashington John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company. The Aniello Award aims to give public recognition...

‘The Oresteia’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company: Not Your Typical Chorus Line (Interview)

The Oresteia, freely adapted by Ellen McLaughlin from Aeschylus (c. 525 BCE-c. 456 BCE) promises to be a fitting conclusion to Michael Kahn’s last season as Artistic Director of the Shakespeare...

Review: ‘The 39 Steps’ at Rep Stage Co.

For Rep Stage Co.’s The 39 Steps, disaster is never more than one step away. With only four actors re-enacting an entire vintage spy movie right before our eyes and assuming some 140 different...

Review: ‘Annie Jump and the Library of Heaven’ by Rorschach Theatre

There are two things every teenager knows are true: you can’t choose your parents and you can’t choose the jerks you go to school with. Such is life for Annie Jump in small-town Strawberry, Kansas....

Improvised Excellence: Matthew Morrison Brings His Signature Style to Strathmore This Weekend

Broadway fans are in for a treat as Matthew Morrison (Glee, The Light in the Piazza) and Shoshana Bean (Wicked, Waitress) will be headlining Strathmore’s Spring Gala Concert this weekend. Morrison and...

Review: ‘Oslo’ by Round House Theatre

For those wanting to be absorbed into a highly recommended, fictionalized account of events surrounding the 1993 Oslo Accords and the inconceivable peace between Israelis and Palestinians that bloomed...

Review: ‘The White Snake’ by Constellation Theatre Company

Trained in the mystical arts, two snakes, one white and one green (puppeteered and acted by Eunice Bae and Momo Nakamura, respectively) look longingly down from their mountain top at the hustle and...

The Nominations Are In for the 2019 Tony Awards!

Two-time Tony Award winner Bebe Neuwirth and three-time nominated Brandon Victor Dixon announced the nominations for the American Theatre Wing’s 73rd Annual Tony Awards this morning, chosen from the...