Maryland

DCMetroTheaterArts Announces New Editor-in-Chief, Joel Markowitz Named Editor Emeritus

As Founding Editor Continues to Endure Debilitating Effects of ALS, Revitalized Staff Regroups to Carry Forward His Vision Metro DC (September 7, 2017)—DCMetroTheaterArts (DCMTA)—the website that...

Review: ‘Memphis -The Musical’ at Motor House

As a teenager growing up in the 1950s in a small New Jersey town just across the river from Philadelphia, I was hooked on R&B music, my transistor radio tuned to WDAS-AM, 1480 on the upside of the...

Review: Silver Spring Stage 2017 One Act Festival, Weekend Three

One-act plays are tricky beasts. Playwrights must balance tension with plot and story. Too little tension, and the audience is left bored, slogging through countably interminable minutes until the...

Review: ‘The Wizard of Hip’ at MetroStage

Yesterday may be far away for some; but a high-spirited comic primer of one male’s vainglorious attempts to be “hip” and his bewilderment at all things relating to women awaits from the exuberant,...

Review: Silver Spring Stage 2017 One Act Festival, Weekend Two

Silver Spring Stage kicks off its fiftieth season with a festival of one-act plays showcasing homegrown writing and acting talent and the can-do spirit of the best of local theater. Though no stated...

Review: ‘Whipping, or The Football Hamlet’ at Longacre Lea

What a rush. DC area playwright Kathleen Akerley has aced her way through the hottest of “au courant” identity politics in her newest work, the penetrating Whipping, or the Football Hamlet. With...

Review: ‘The Nerd’ at Prince George’s Little Theatre at the Bowie Playhouse

Now in its 58th season, The Nerd is Prince George’s Little Theatre’s 192nd production. Scripted by Larry Shue, the zany comedy is directed by John Degnan, a long-time area director and retired NASA...

Review: Silver Spring Stage 2017 One Act Festival

Silver Spring Stage opened its 2017 One-Act Festival which has been part of their season for fifty years. Each weekend several short plays from the past and present are produced. There is usually no...

Review: ‘Spring Awakening’ at Wildwood Summer Theatre at the Arts Barn

Spring Awakening (co-created by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik and now playing at the Arts Barn in The Kentlands) has a circular tragedy to it. Teens, struggling through youth and confusion and bodies...

Review: “The Secret Garden” at Other Voices Theatre

Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman’s The Secret Garden boasts one of the most gorgeous scores in the history of musical theatre, but is rarely undertaken by community theatre groups due to its musical and...

Review: ‘Lysistrata Jones’ at Red Branch Theatre Company

Red Branch Theatre Company continues to amaze with its 2017 season premiere of the perky and impertinent Lysistrata Jones. Thanks to savvy staging and choreography, this short-lived 2011 Broadway...

Review: ‘Alice and the Book of Wonderland’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of Alice and the Book of Wonderland is an entertaining treat for all ages, with delightful acting, colorful costumes, a creative use of technology, excellent...

Review: ‘King Kirby’ at Off the Quill, Performing at Greenbelt Arts Center

Who could guess that a play about the life of the renowned comic book artist, Jack Kirby (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994), would be filled with so much humor, pathos and fact-dropping narrative?...

Review: ‘Seussical The Musical’ at Wildwood Summer Theatre

Hurry to see Seussical the Musical! This may be one of our area’s most popular theatrical events in no small part because it invites performers of all ages. Yet this particular performance stands out...

Review: ‘Thurgood’ at The Olney Theatre Center

Thurgood, a one-man-show by George Stevens, Jr., is playing at the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab at the Olney Theatre Center in Olney. The play is a about the late Supreme Court Justice and respected...

Review: ‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’ at Cockpit in Court

This hot, summery production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (VSMS), a production of Cockpit in Court Summer Theatre, is a spicy show you definitely want to… Chekhov… your bucket list. This...

Review: ‘Nana’s Naughty Knickers’ at Bowie Community Theatre

In Bowie Community Theatre’s latest offering, Nana’s Naughty Knickers, Sylvia Charles (Shelley Rochester) is a modern-day New York widow who has a pretty big secret. When her granddaughter Bridget...

Review: ‘Chicago’ at ArtsCentric at Motor House

The city of Chicago is “Hog Butcher for the World… City of the Big Shoulders,” as poet Carl Sandburg wrote just over a 100 years ago. Much the same could be said of certain elements of the press,...

Review: ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ at the Summer Dinner Theatre at Montgomery College

In 1850 Oregon, Adam Pontipee (a velvety-voiced Da’Von Moody) has come to town to trade some furs and look for a bride. We know he’s a romantic because his opening song is “Bless Your Beautiful Hide”...

Review: ‘to tell my story: a hamlet fanfic’ at The Welders at Silver Spring Black Box Theater

Maybe the only way the play Hamlet could ever make sense is to filter it through a teenaged girl perspective. Watching a 30-year-old man galumph and philosophize his way through Elsinore – casually...

Review: ‘The Tempest’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a colorful, spirited spectacle. Co-directed by Donald Hicken and Sally Boyett, The Tempest is performed outdoors, in the...

Review: ‘Tick Tick… BOOM!’ at Stillpointe Theatre

Before the emergence of the late legendary composer and playwright Jonathan Larson’s iconic Rent on Broadway, there was his semi-autobiographical rock monologue Tick, Tick… Boom! that he performed on...

Review: ‘Bon Voyage! A Happenstance Escapade’ at Round House Theatre

Sunny and cheerful is how I felt after an hour or so with Happenstance Theater’s Bon Voyage! A Happenstance Escapade. The original production, currently at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, made this...

Review: ‘Night Seasons’ at Quotidian Theatre Company

Horton Foote, the Oscar and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of hundreds of plays for stage and screen, was known as the American Chekhov. As such, his work is a perfect choice for The Quotidian Theatre....

Review: ‘King John’ at 4615 Theatre Company

Scandals, sibling rivalry, adultery and divorces represented daily living for England’s royal Plantagenet family, which held the dynastic reigns of power from approximately 1120 to 1490. The...

Review: ‘Oblivion’ at Unexpected Stage Company

“Games have rules,” Brooklyn-parent Dixon (Zach Brewster-Geisz) tells his wife, Pam (Mindy Shaw). They’re playing Boggle, Dixon has tried to play “Slurpee,” and both are a little wounded that their...

Review: ‘The Gun Show’ at 1st Stage

Among the issues polarizing America (and degrading public discourse) is the hot-button question of what to do about guns. Proponents of positions right and left talk past each other. Both camps have...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Think Before You Holla’

Ally Theatre Company’s second-ever production is radically different from the first, Miz Martha Washington, a darkly comedic historical play. Conceived and directed by Taylor Reynolds from art series,...

Review: ‘The Lion in Winter’ at 4615 Theatre Company

The Lion in Winter, written by James Goldman and directed by Jordan Friend, opened this weekend at The Highwood Theatre in Silver Spring; it is being performed in repertory with King John. The play is...

Review: ‘Teresa’ at Seventh Street Playhouse

Now playing at Greenbelt Arts Center (GAC), Seventh Street Playhouse’s Teresa is a thought-provoking, historical dramedy written by Anthony Ernest Gallo and inspired by the life of Saint Teresa of...

From Bethlehem to Philadelphia: An Interview with Rami Khader, Director of the Diyar Dance Theatre

Director Rami Khader, along with a group of talented and committed artists, both male and female and of differing ages and backgrounds, founded Diyar Dance Theatre in 2008. Based in Bethlehem, their...

Preview: ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ at the Laurel Mill Playhouse

This weekend, Laurel Mill Playhouse (LMP) will be doing two tributes. The first is to the wonderful Carol Burnett Show that graced our TVs from 1967-1978. The show included those wonderful comedic...

Review: ‘Empanada For A Dream’ at 1st Stage

Proust may have had his mother’s madeleine, but Juan Francisco Villa has his mother’s empanada to stir up memories of his gritty, hard scrabble childhood in New York’s City’s Lower East Side. It was a...

Review: ‘Hick: A Love Story’ at 1st Stage

What was hidden away as a purposefully invisible sidebar of decades-old history, is brought to well-deserved notice by 1st Stage’s inaugural Logan Festival of Solo Performances. With Hick: A Love...

Review: ‘Dial ‘M’ for Murder’ at Sandy Spring Theatre Group by Robin Lynch

Now playing at the Kentland’s Arts Barn, Dial ‘M’ For Murder by the Sandy Spring Theatre Group has a lot to offer those who enjoy a mystery-thriller. First of all, it’s a really good play (that always...

Review: ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’ at The Hub Theatre

Set in a fictionalized American magical kingdom, The Happiest Place on Earth, now playing at Hub Theatre, is a wonderfully bittersweet family saga that actor Tia Shearer crushes in her solo...

Review: ‘Spring Awakening’ at Spotlighters Theatre

The success of any production of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s Spring Awakening rests on the ability to find harmony between the two dichotomous elements of setting and song. The musical is set in...

Review: ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ at Silver Spring Stage

One Man, Two Guvnors directed by William T. Fleming and produced by Karen Flemling is now playing at Silver Spring Stage. This play is a British farce by Richard Bean, based on The Servant of Two...

In the Moment: Report on ‘Declassified’ at The Kennedy Center

A hearty bro-hug to The Kennedy Center and to the National Symphony Orchestra’s (NSO) new Artistic Advisor, Ben Folds, for having the joint jumping at the recent late night Declassified event. It was...

Review: ‘Godspell’ at Infinity Theatre Company

The early 1970s gave us three Bible-themed musicals: Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell (currently in a production directed by Alan Ostroff at Infinity Theatre Company in Annapolis), as well as Andrew Lloyd...

Review: ‘The Full Monty’ at Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre

Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre’s production of The Fully Monty is a fun musical with a lot of heart. With book by Terrence McNally, music and lyrics by David Yazbek, and directed by Mason Catharini,...

In the Moment: Interview with Theatrical Designer Deb Sivigny Part II

Continuing the conversation we started in Part I of this interview with costume and scenic designer Deb Sivigny, we delve a bit more into Deb’s work as a designer. Maybe even with some reveals and...

Review: ‘Finding Neverland’ at the Hippodrome Theatre

Those who’ve forgotten Peter Pan are destined to repeat it in Finding Neverland. The U.S. national tour now at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre until July 2 makes for a dreamy midsummer night’s...

Report: ‘Manual Cinema: The End of TV’ at the Columbia Festival of the Arts

Manual Cinema: The End of TV proved to be an interesting last night for the Columbia Festival of the Arts for this year. It was presented at the Smith Theatre at the Horowitz Center at Howard...

Review: ‘My Fair Lady’ at Olney Theatre Center

Not your grandparents’ My Fair Lady, Olney Theatre Center presents a brilliant reimagining of this classic musical. With book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, it was adapted...

Review: ‘Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure’ at Imagination Stage

Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure follows the timeless Lewis Carroll tale, with all the memorable characters we know and love, but with a Rock ‘n’ Roll twist. Written by Rachel Rockwell and...

​Review: ‘Into the Woods’ at Summer Dinner Theatre at Montgomery College

Each time I’ve seen Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, now playing at Montgomery College’s Summer Dinner Theatre through July 2nd, is the best time I’ve seen Into the Woods and this production,...

Review: ‘Stoop Storytelling Series: My Favorite Film’ at the Columbia Festival of the Arts

On Friday, June 23rd, the Columbia Festival of the Arts brought up the curtain on another edition of the wonderfully unusual, Baltimore-based performing arts group, Stoop Storytelling, at the Smith...

Review: ‘Murder on the Nile’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

Imagine this scene. You’re on a paddle steamer on the Nile River in Egypt. It’s the mid-60s. You find yourself surrounded by an off-kilter cast of characters: Miss Ffoliot-ffoulkes on holiday with her...

In the Moment Interview: Jordan Friend, Artistic Director of 4615 Theatre

A new generation of theater-makers are beginning to assert themselves in the DC area. They are the Millennial generation who have made DC their home over the past decade. Many are natives of the area,...