Interviews and Features

Profile: Naomi Jacobson Lends Laughter and Innocence to ‘The Remains’ at Studio Theatre

The Remains, a brand new one-act play that’s been generating rave reviews since its opening at Studio Theatre two weeks ago, is a witty and wise meditation on marriage. By turns funny and sad, this...

In The Moment: ‘An Iliad’ Brings Homer to Millennial Audiences at the Atlas (Interviews)

It has been a muscular classic read for centuries. It has withstood the test of time, at least up to now. But in these contemporary days, does Homer’s Iliad resonate, or has it lost its timeless...

Rising Stars: Emily Pogorelc in the Washington National Opera’s ‘Candide’

When Emily Pogorelc bursts onto the stage in the Washington National Opera’s current production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, there is a shock of laughter. Pogorelc plays Cunegonde, the spoiled...

Performance as Research: An Interview with Playwright and ‘Vietgone’ Director Natsu Onoda Power

Many theater people grow up daydreaming of the classic shows they want to take on one day. They envision themselves directing Angels in America, or performing the lead role in Phantom of the Opera....

Profile: Chris Stezin Plays a Rock Music Diehard in the ‘Undeniable Sound of Right Now”

Chris Stezin is a prolific playwright whose last play—produced at The Keegan Theatre in January of 2017—was Mack,Beth, a contemporary take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Now he’s back at the Keegan, this...

Interview: Director Mickey Lund Discusses His New Show “Casa Valentina” at Colonial Players of Annapolis

Mickey Lund is a driving force in the Annapolis theater scene. He was one of the founders of Dignity Players, which put on productions exploring themes of social justice and equality, such as Dustin...

Directors Marcos Santana and Luis Salgado Share Heritage and Helen Hayes Nominations

When the ceremony ends and the last guest makes his or her way out of the Anthem on Monday night, many members of DC’s theater community will go home happy, clutching the trophy that proves they are a...

In the Moment: Conversation about Diversity with Laveen Naidu, Artistic Director, BalletNova

It started with a conversation with Laveen Naidu, artistic director for Northern Virginia’s BalletNova. Naidu said he wanted to change this observation: “ballet is often perceived as being for and...

Someone’s Got To Be the Bad Guy: An Interview with Waitress’ Nick Bailey

To be honest, and I know this may sound strange, my favorite characters are usually the bad guys. The antagonists. The seemingly irredeemably flawed. I’ve always thought that they were the most...

Who’s in Town? Michael Feinstein Talks Music and His Upcoming Strathmore Performance

Spring is here and with it gala season: that time-honored tradition wherein arts organizations close out their season with a celebrity affair intended to highlight their work and refill their coffers....

A Modern Classic Takes on Epic Proportions: Constellation Theatre Brightens Brecht’s Manifesto, Adds Musical Makeover to ‘Caucasian Chalk Circle’

Last week, I decided to venture off my usual path and check out the Constellation Theatre, which performs at Source in the lively 14th Street corridor. What lured me there was the chance to see a new...

In the Moment: Meet the 2018 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre eligible companies

For over three decades, Helen Hayes nominations and awards have represented the pinnacle of professional excellence in Washington, DC area theater. What began as public recognition of a small...

Interview: Actress Gayle Carney Discusses her Off-Broadway show ‘The Promised Land’

Gayle Carney has played a myriad of roles in her many years as an actress. She’s been seen most recently in The Dog Must Die at Highwood Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. That play is a dystopian...

On Her Own: Judy Kuhn’s Solo Cabaret at Dumbarton Concerts

Maybe you can go home again. Broadway’s original Cosette from Les Miserables, Bethesda native Judy Kuhn, returns for a solo concert, A Broadway Cabaret With Judy Kuhn, 8 PM May 5 at Dumbarton United...

In the Moment: Interview with Shakespeare Theatre Company Wig Master Dori Beau Seigneur

How important can a wig be to a theater production and an actor’s performance? What better way to answer that question then with a section from the recent book, The Ascent of Angels in America: The...

Hosting the 2018 Helen Hayes Awards: Michael J. Bobbitt and Alyssa Wilmoth Keegan Talk About their Lives On and Off the Stage as They Prepare for DC Theater’s Big Night Out

Forget the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Tonys. Here in the nation’s capital, there is only one award worth talking about. And that’s the Helen Hayes, honoring the best of DC’s theater professionals for...

In the Moment: ‘Iron & Coal’ Creator Calls His Work an Ode to a Ravaged Soul (at Strathmore)

How does anyone cope with the unthinkable: Whether the unthinkable is The Holocaust, The Killing Fields, chemical bombs dropped on children, slavery or lynchings. How does one survive even somewhat...

Interview: Composer Gregory Spears Unpacks Thoreau in Upcoming DC World Premiere

On Saturday, April 28th at The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, Vocal Arts DC will present their newly commissioned, world premiere of composer Gregory Spears’ song cycle, WALDEN (based on Henry...

Living Dolls: A Conversation With the Five Actors Who Breathe Life Into ‘Paper Dolls’ at Mosaic

Paper Dolls, the bittersweet new musical that opened at Mosaic Theater Company two weeks ago, has produced standing ovations—and laughter and tears—at every production so far. Yet the show, which...

Interview: Actor Sara Barker Discusses Upcoming Performance of Lauren Gunderson’s New Play Against Gun Violence (1st Stage April 23)

On February 14, 2018, a gunman entered Stoneman Douglas High School and killed 17 students and teachers. On April 3, Playwright Lauren Gunderson made her new play involving gun violence, Natural...

In the Moment: Report on The Kennedy Center’s 2018 Arts Summit

The time is most certainly right for the arts to be disruptive; to assert and insert itself in national discussions about social justice and inclusion. Turbulent times call out for the arts–not merely...

Previewing ‘Stepchild, A New Musical’ in the Rough Draft Festival at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center: An Interview with David James Boyd, Chad Kessler, and Kim Weild

As part of LaGuardia Performing Arts Center’s Rough Draft Festival, IRT Theater and TGF 12 Productions have teamed up for a workshop presentation of Stepchild, A New Musical, inspired by the popular...

From ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Evita’ to ‘Snow Child’ at Arena Stage, Bronx-Born Singer Natalie Toro Has Built a Career Belting Out Broadway Hits (Interview)

When Natalie Toro steps onto the Arena Stage in the world premiere of Snow Child this week, she’ll be adding a whole new role to the worldwide musical repertoire. But while the part is new, the...

Shirley Jo Finney and Paige Hernandez Discuss ‘2018 Black Theatre & Dance Symposium’ (Interview)

The University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance is bringing students, faculty, and the community-at-large together for their 2018 Black Theatre and Dance Symposium (BTDS) on...

‘Use All Available Doors’: A Conversation with Brittany Alyse Willis and Toni Rae Salmi

Pinky Swear Productions’ latest offering, Use All Available Doors, will open at the Dupont Underground this weekend. The popular DC arts and culture space in a subterranean trolley station is the...

A View From ‘The Mountaintop’: Actors Gilbert Glenn Brown and Karen Malina White on Martin Luther King’s Life, Death, and Legacy (Interview)

50 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot on the balcony outside of his room at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. His death at age 39 still reverberates throughout the country, which still battles...

In the Moment: Nicole Burton, Pipeline Playwright discusses upcoming MetroStage reading

Pipeline Playwrights, the Northern Virginia-based collective of accomplished women playwrights who support productions that explore the variety of women’s experiences, continues its new series of play...

Interview with Matt Torney, director of ‘Translations’ at Studio Theatre

It’s no coincidence that Matt Torney is directing Translations, the iconic Brian Friel play now on view at Studio Theatre. “It’s a play I’ve wanted to do ever since I first saw it in Belfast, when I...

Interview: Dancer Sebastian Haynes on ‘Nederlands Dans Theater’

Nederlands Dans Theater makes its Kennedy Center debut April 4-6. Artistic director Paul Lightfoot brings a program of distinctive works: “Shoot the Moon” (Glass/León & Lightfoot), “The Statement”...

Interview: A Conversation with Gianandrea Noseda, Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra

The orchestra that makes its home in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall has only had one American music director in the last two generations. So it’s easy to forget that the 100-strong band is, after...

In the Moment: Interview with Grace Gonglewski, Folger’s ‘The Winter’s Tale’

For this writer, Grace Gonglewski as Paulina in the Folger Theatre production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is one rock solid, indispensable presence. As the bravest truth-teller in The Bard’s...

It Takes Two: Interview with Ben Franklin and Joshua Dean of 2 Ring Circus and 2toFly

Cirquelesque is coming to Charm City! Some of New York’s finest circus/boylesque artists are coming this weekend to perform at Boys Night – All Male Cirquelesque Revue this Saturday night, March 24th...

In the Moment: Interview with Andrew Baughman, Landless Theatre’ ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood [Symphonic Metal Version]’

Moving into its 18th year of producing exciting and accessible alternative theater to cultivate new and diverse audiences, the Landless Theatre will present the world premiere of The Mystery of Edwin...

John Kadlecik on the Living, the Dead, and the Beauty of Improvisation

While American folk band the Grateful Dead officially disbanded shortly after the death of frontman Jerry Garcia in 1995, the Dead has lived on in numerous “post-Jerry” incarnations. Few people have...

Interview: David London on ‘Humbug, The Great P.T. Barnum Séance’

The sign of a good show is being able to announce you’re extending during your opening weekend. David London’s newest spectacular, Humbug, The Great P.T. Barnum Séance just extended through April 20....

In the Moment: Interview with Joe Calarco about ’12 Million Footsteps’

For nearly two decades, the inventive Signature in the Schools education program has exposed Arlington County public high school student actors to highly-charged, real-world issues well beyond the...

Magic Time!: The Birth and Revelation of ‘Mom Baby God’: A Q&A with Playwright/Performer Madeline Joey Rose

Mom Baby God—a solo show written and performed by Madeline Joey Rose about the right’s attack on abortion rights—is as playful as it is powerful. The play centers on a fourteen-year-old girl,...

In the Moment: Interview with Sound Designer Justin Schmitz

All too often the work of a theater sound designer can go unnoticed. In fact, not long ago the Tony Awards decided not to even provide an award category for sound design (now reinstated). Thankfully,...

An Interview with Award-Winning Actor Dan Hodge: Making his Off-Broadway Debut in the New York Premiere of ‘Dogs of Rwanda’

Just concluding his comic roles in the Walnut Street Theatre’s national touring production of Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, with its final performances this week in California,...

Diverse City: A Chat with Matt Ripa, Founding Artistic Director of the DC Queer Theatre Festival

Welcome to the Diverse City column on DC Theater Arts. My name is Darby DeJarnette and I created this column to highlight, through interviews, the different experiences of individuals from various...

Discovering Your Story in Circus: Street Light Circus’s Julia Quigley, Louise Chase Dettman, Dani Pierce Steuber, and Christian Kloc on ‘Circus in Lines: Many Stories Tall’

A couple of things about the local circus community: One, if you show up as your authentic self and are willing to work, you will be heartily, soul-nourishingly embraced. Two, a lot of folks who...

The Day My Great-Great-Grandfather Saved Frederick Douglass from a Probable “Lynching” by the U.S. Government Right After the Harper’s Ferry Raid

(DC Theater Arts is pleased to publish this remarkable first-person history on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s birth and Theater Alliance’s production of Idris Goodwin’s...

Interview: Monumental Theatre Company’s Bridget Grace Sheaff and Gretchen Midgley on ‘Infinite Future: Bernstein’s Lasting Impact’

Monumental Theatre Company is a theatre troupe on the rise. Recently eligible for the Helen Hayes’ John Aniello Award, their productions are steadily gaining high praise and acclaim–and they show no...

In the Moment: DIAVOLO ‘The Veterans Project: A Long Journey Home’ at The Kennedy Center

“We all move, we all walk, we all run, we all fall, we all can even dance.” said Artistic Director Jacques Heim of DIAVOLO. With a motto of “architecture in motion” DIAVOLO will be bringing its highly...

Turning Trauma Into Art: Amy Oestreicher on ‘Gutless and Grateful’ and PTSD in Theater

Amy Oestreicher was a theatre-obsessed teen until her world changed overnight after waking from a coma, caused by her stomach literally exploding. After 27 surgeries and six years being unable to eat...

Interview: Alter Circus members Zoe Stasko, Georgeanna Layton, and Jessica John Get ‘Hysterical’

One of the newest companies in the DC circus scene (yes there is one), Alter Circus, is dedicated to challenging gender norms and celebrating “the rebellious spirit, strength, and grace of women.”...

Interview: Julia Cho, ‘Aubergine’ Playwright (Women’s Voices Theater Festival)

In the world of #MeToo and the #TimesUp movement, how important is the playwright of color’s voice to theater and entertainment world? The Women’s Voices Theater Festival? Do you try more to be...

Who’s in Town? Jamie Bernstein Reflects on Dad Leonard Bernstein’s Legacy in ‘The Bernstein Story’ at Strathmore

The first time music hit me – and it hit me hard – was when I was seven. My mom handed me Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, a bright-red album whose rhythms were as hot as the album cover...

Breanna Sinclairé’s Revolution: On Being a Transwoman in Opera and Performing With the GMCW

Recently, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, announced that transgender opera singer Breanna Sinclairé will join the Chorus for two concerts in 2018— first for the world premiere of the...

In the Moment: Interview with Patrick Lord, Projection Designer

For regular theater-goers, we have seen that projection design is not a fad or an eye-popping, one-time visual effect. Projection design has become an integral part of many a production’s overall...