Interviews and Features

Five great films about theater (to help you survive staying home)

Karen Richards (Celeste Holm) the playwright’s wife: A part in a play. You’d do all that for a part in a play? Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) conniving actress: I’d do much more for a part that good....

IN Series to build a digital opera house without walls

If the COVID-19 pandemic has a lesson for the arts community, it’s that what’s small can still be mighty. Without a house to fill and lavish sets and costumes to maintain, Washington’s tiny itinerant...

Gwydion Suilebhan: “Now is the time for artists to ask The Deep Why”

By Gwydion Suilebhan In 1960, a Turkish immigrant named Erol Onaran arrived in the United States with a whopping $32 in his pocket and a fair bit of skill as a television repair person. Erol was a man...

Washington Performing Arts, looking ahead, sets town halls for input

With so much still unknown about the lasting effects of COVID-19 on the performing arts, the singular Washington Performing Arts (WPA) has delayed announcing its 2020–21 season until June 15, 2020....

Lessons in creative coping during COVID-19: Bowie State University theater and dance faculty tell how it’s going

With university campuses closed because of COVID-19, how is student education continuing forward? This is a critical question, especially for higher education theater and dance departments—where...

Artists Who Inspire! #5: Patrick Flynn

Playwright Patrick Flynn was on a roll before Coronavirus brought American theater to a standstill. His adaptation of The Velveteen Rabbit, produced by Adventure Theatre MTC, earned him a 2019 Helen...

Fade to black: Coronavirus closures force local theaters to rethink their futures

This article originally appeared in the April issue of District Fray Magazine. It is reprinted here with permission. The paint was still drying on the set of Signature Theatre’s world-premiere...

Lessons in creative coping during COVID-19: A conversation with Rick Davis, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason University

With college and university campuses in the DMV area closed because of COVID-19, distance learning is now the norm. But how do students in the performing and visual arts continue their education and...

Artists Who Inspire! #4: John Becker

Welcome to the fourth installment of Artists Who Inspire! During this unprecedented shutdown of live theater, DCMTA will use this space to lift up local theater artists who are finding ways to remain...

Artists Who Inspire! #3: Jordan Friend

Welcome to the third installment of Artists Who Inspire! During this unprecedented shutdown of live theater, DCMTA will use this space to lift up local theater artists who are finding ways to remain...

What’s the future of live theater beyond COVID-19?: A point-counterpoint between Audrey Cefaly and Elliott Bales

What follows is an extraordinary conversation. It started as a Facebook post by award-winning playwright Audrey Cefaly. It was joined by her dear friend, acclaimed actor Elliott Bales, who doubles as...

Molly Smith: “Our job as artists is to remind our fellow human beings that better days are coming”

“In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.” —Bertolt Brecht (motto to Svendborg Poems) When I saw the blooming cherry blossoms this year, I...

Artists Who Inspire! #2: Deb Sivigny

Welcome to the second installment of Artists Who Inspire! During this unprecedented shutdown of live theater, DCMTA will use this space to lift up local theater artists who are finding ways to remain...

Artists Who Inspire #1: Tia Shearer Bassett

Welcome to the first installment of Artists Who Inspire! During this unprecedented shutdown of live theater, DCMTA will use this space to lift up local theater artists who are finding ways to remain...

Behind the lines: A pre-opening peek at 4615 Theatre’s ‘Museum 2040’

When Jordan Friend, the highly inventive founder of 4615 Theatre Company, invited me to attend a rehearsal of Museum 2040 a few weeks ago, I jumped at the opportunity. The show, billed as an...

Artistic Director Dianna Cuatto reflects on 17 years at Ballet Theatre of Maryland

Dianna Cuatto, artistic director of the Ballet Theatre of Maryland (BTM), recently announced she would retire in June after leading the company for 17 years. She answered DC Theater Arts’ questions...

“I want to make space for women who make mistakes”: A Q&A with Dani Stoller, author of ‘Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes’ at Signature Theatre

Dani Stoller’s world-premiere comedy Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes is funny and witty and in its own quirky way quite deep. Plus it puts the screw in screwball. Discovered in the SigWorks...

Music of The Go-Go’s powers Monumental Theatre’s ‘Head Over Heels’

Monumental Theatre is providing DC-area audiences with a first look at the jukebox musical comedy Head Over Heels. The production features nearly two dozen musical numbers from The Go-Go’s propelling...

J’Nai Bridges’ debut in ‘Samson and Delilah’ is a dream come true

When J’Nai Bridges made her triumphant debut in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah Sunday night, it was the fulfillment of a dream. The young mezzo-soprano’s star has been rapidly rising — this...

Beyond the script: fine-tuning farce in ‘The 39 Steps’ at Constellation

“I’ve never laughed so hard in rehearsal,” said Nick Olcott, describing some of the antics performed by a tiny but talented cast — four actors in 48 roles — in the wickedly funny send-up of Alfred...

Actress Tai Alexander and director Angelisa Gillyard provide insight into reprise performance of ‘Welcome to Sis’s’ by Ally Theatre Company

In an effort to illuminate the historic and ongoing impacts of racial discrimination in land and property use laws in Hyattsville, MD, Mapping Racism Project, an initiative led by the Hyattsville...

Actor Mikéah Jennings unpacks his powerful performance in ‘Shipwreck’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre

Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017 is an epic, scorching, and surreal satire of white liberalism in the era of Trump. It takes place at that ominous juncture in recent American...

Better Said Than Done’s Women’s Storytelling Festival: giving voice to women storytellers for all to hear

Who Tells Our Story is the theme of Better Said Than Done’s upcoming, first-of-its-kind, two-day Women’s Storytelling Festival. Audiences can expect stories that have been crafted for a solo spoken...

West-Eastern Divan Ensemble’s first American tour features Kennedy Center performance

The world is so full of intractable political and cultural issues, with deep chasms making understanding, let alone peace, seem so far away. But the venerable Washington Performing Arts (WPA)...

The New Orchestra of Washington presents a love so powerful it hurts in ‘A Poet’s Love: It’s Complicated’

While much of the city is abuzz with romantic romping this Valentine’s Day weekend, the New Orchestra of Washington will concern itself with the transformative power of love and loss when it presents...

Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz discusses his new play ‘Exquisite Agony,’ now playing at GALA Hispanic Theatre

In a particularly poignant scene in Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz’s Exquisite Agony, a heart transplant recipient named Amer has an intimate conversation with Romy, the pregnant daughter...

Megan Hilty on her upcoming Kennedy Center concert, ‘Smash,’ and love

Football and musicals rarely overlap, but it was eight years ago this month – in the coveted slot right after the 2012 Super Bowl – that Smash, the NBC series about developing a Broadway musical,...

Behind the lines: Laura C. Harris talks about seeing stars in ‘Silent Sky’ at Ford’s

When Laura C. Harris bursts onto the stage in Silent Sky at Ford’s Theatre, she is Henrietta Leavitt—hoop skirt and all—fresh out of college, brimming with confidence, and determined to find her place...

‘Red’ director James Bunzli talks about Compass Rose Theater’s new production

James Bunzli, the director of Red, was recently named a Producing Director at Compass Rose Theater. He has been involved in several shows at Compass Rose, from acting and directing to movement and...

Shakespeare Theatre Company rescues James Baldwin’s ‘Amen Corner’ from the vault

In May 1955, when Howard University staged James Baldwin’s play, The Amen Corner, Washington Post reviewer Richard L. Coe deemed it a “fine play that merits not only your attention but also future...

Beyond the script: Playwright Steven Dietz talks about ‘Bloomsday,’ a love story in which past and present collide

You don’t have to read Ulysses—or, for that matter, know anything about James Joyce, its author, or Leopold Bloom, its hapless hero—to love Bloomsday. The play, a gentle romance now blossoming in its...

Matthew M. Nielson on bringing Shakespeare’s ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’ into the 1970s through original music and sound design

Bright and jaunty as a hippie’s tie-dyed shirt, the opening musical number for Folger’s The Merry Wives of Windsor lets the audience know what’s in store. It’s a farce set long ago–well, 1972, to be...

Behind the lines: A talk with Hend Ayoub, the actor whose performance in ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ radiates fury, hope, and joy at Arena Stage

“Read the book. But see the play first!” That’s what Hend Ayoub—the actor who plays Mariam, the empowered first wife of A Thousand Splendid Suns—told me about the show, now in its first DC run at...

‘The Royale’ Director Paige Hernandez talks boxing, hip hop, and the virtue of politeness

Multidisciplinary artist Paige Hernandez is not a fan of boundaries. Whether performing, directing or teaching, the Baltimore native has made a career out of blending artistic forms and reaching...

The Kennedy Center’s Alicia Adams on playwright Femi Osofisan’s ‘Not All Canoes Sail Back Home’ and the 2020 ‘Boundless: Africa’ series

There was revolution in the air. Decolonization of Africa was taking shape. The world was on fire. And The Kennedy Center’s World Stages will be providing audiences a taste of those times. “The World...

Interview with renowned choreographer Bill T. Jones ahead of world premiere of ‘What Problem?’ at Center for the Arts

Social commentary in a dance performance is not unusual, especially in the modern dance community. But in a week-long residency by The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company at George Mason University,...

Playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer on directing her play ‘Be Here Now’ at Everyman Theatre

I’d say Deborah Zoe Laufer is having a bit of a moment right now, but it’s been going on so long I think it’s fairer to say she’s having a bit of an amazing career. Laufer’s plays have been produced...

‘Spring Awakening’ is more relevant now than ever. Round House’s young actors tell us why.

Spring Awakening has never been a shy musical. Based on German playwright Frank Wedekind’s 1891 tale of teenagers awakening to their sexuality amongst adults who failed to provide any sexual...

For actor Justin Weaks, the diverse content produced in DC theaters was reason enough to move here

In his five years on DC stages, actor Justin Weaks has played an impressive array of characters written by contemporary African American playwrights. It is a dream he feared would never become reality...

Director Stevie Zimmerman on the rewards of going outside of comfort zone

Professional theaters in the DMV have been at the forefront of making diversity a critical watchword and action step. During the past several years, the DMV has hosted two Women’s Voices Theater...

The audacity of Brave Spirits Theatre: a conversation with Artistic Director Charlene V. Smith

Tumultuous times call out for audacity in the performing arts. And Brave Spirits Theatre (BST) has boldly marked its territory for the next two years. Over the 2020 and 2021 seasons, Brave Spirits...

Playwright Jonathan Spector on the shadows that lurk behind the laughter in ‘Eureka Day.’

There’s no doubt about it. Eureka Day is a very funny play. The show, now having its DC debut at Mosaic Theater, features five perfectly-attuned actors, a director who understands comedy, a script...

‘Not just a field trip’: Strathmore partners with Montgomery County Public Schools to engage children in the arts

Schools play a pivotal role in cultivating the next generations, and the arts have a key role. Research suggests that arts educational experiences can produce significant positive impacts on academic...

Ken Ludwig on ‘Dear Jack, Dear Louise,’ a long-awaited stage celebration of his parents’ long-distance romance

There’s a lovely new play at Arena Stage, but you’ll have to rush if you want to see it. That’s because the play—Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise—will be off and running before the year ends,...

Top five theater ghosts…before ‘The Woman in Black’ arrived at Shakespeare Theatre Company

The Woman in Black, the long-playing London ghost story now perturbing a Shakespeare Theatre Company stage, reminds us that spine-chilling horror can be the most delightful of sensations. To put us in...

Dark Horse Theatre Company, theatreWashington’s newest member, kicks off 2020 with ‘The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later’

Dark Horse Theatre Company is the newest member of theatreWashington. As readers of DCMTA are aware, theatreWashington is the organization dedicated to supporting and representing the Washington, DC...

Isabella Star LaBlanc, who plays Tiger Lily in ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company, on why Native stories matter

When Playwright Lauren Gunderson took on the challenge of adapting J. M. Barrie’s 1904 Peter Pan, she knew she had to fix what she has called the “deeply harmful misrepresentation of Indigenous people...

‘A dream for me’: Ashley Bruce on playing Mary Delgado in ‘Jersey Boys’

While the Tony Award-winning musical is called Jersey Boys, let’s not forget that so many of the Billboard chart-toppers performed in the show are about the real-life Frankie Valli and the Four...

Not your father’s ‘Fiddler’ – The latest Broadway tour of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ comes alive at the National Theatre

When Fiddler on the Roof opens at the National Theatre next week, the village of Anatevka—the fictional setting for one of the most successful Broadway musicals in history—will not be the same...

‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!’ Pigeon and Driver tell us why!

Oh, that pigeon! Always causing trouble. He never wants to take a bath. He stays up past his bedtime. And now he wants to drive… a bus?! Children’s author Mo Willems continues his tenure as inaugural...