News

News: Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, VA, Presents ‘Always…Patsy Cline’

Emmy Award-winning actress Sally Struthers returns for her fifth engagement at the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia, as Louise Seger in Always…Patsy Cline opening...

Review: ‘Unexpected Joy’ at The York Theatre Company

Though gynocentric themes featuring lead roles for women are a welcome new trend in contemporary theater, there’s little new or unexpected in Unexpected Joy, an original musical by Bill Russell (book...

Review: ‘It Came from Beyond’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

Mid-century aficionados and other interested earthlings can take a time-traveling trip back to the ‘50s at St. Luke’s Theatre with the Off-Broadway premiere of It Came from Beyond, a silly musical...

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...

Review: ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ at the Lyric Theatre

Amazing bursts of magic that dazzle in the darkness, distinctive characterizations of a host of eccentric, endearing, and evil personalities by an enthralling cast, a complex and compelling tale of...

Review: ‘SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical’ at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

As with all of the shows in its genre, the latest offering in the surge of biographical jukebox musicals on Broadway, SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical, holds appeal for a built-in audience of the...

Best Medicine Rep Presents ‘New Plays/New Voices’: A Festival of Plays by Students, (Gaithersburg, MD, April 21)

Join Best Medicine Rep this Saturday at 1 pm for a free and funny celebration of arts education! New Plays/ New Voices, a second annual festival of work written by Montgomery County Public School...

Review: ‘The Seafarer’ at Irish Repertory Theatre

Mystic realism and metaphor meet the Irish gift of gab and a dire predilection for alcohol in Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, a disturbingly dark and devilish comedy about lost souls, drunken...

Review: ‘Three Tall Women’ at the Golden Theatre

Brilliant. Extraordinary. Ingenious. Superb. The best. Yet all adjectives and superlatives pale in comparison with the truly unsurpassed quality of the script, performances, direction, design, and...

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...

News: Adventure Theatre Rallies and Rebuilds After Devastating Fire

It was 6:45 am on March 2nd when Managing Director Leon Seemann received the call informing him that a fire had broken out at Adventure Theatre MTC. Artistic Director Michael Bobbitt was on the other...

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...

Washington Performing Arts Presents the Return of Kronos Quartet Featuring Pipa Virtuoso Wu Man in ‘A Chinese Home’

Collaborative multimedia work is a powerful reflection on tradition and transition. The Grammy-winning Kronos Quartet returns to D.C. on April 19, 2018, with longtime collaborator Wu Man to perform...

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...

Reston Community Players to Present ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’ April 20-May 12

Raise your skirts and bob your hair, because the toe-tapping flapper frolic Thoroughly Modern Millie is ready to take the stage at Reston Community Players. Based on the 1967 Academy Award-winning...

‘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...

Review: ‘Children of a Lesser God’ at Studio 54

When Mark Medoff‘s award-winning play Children of a Lesser God premiered on Broadway in 1980, followed by the highly-lauded film adaptation in 1986, it provided groundbreaking insights into the need...

News: Lauren Gunderson’s ‘Natural Shocks’ Reading to Address Gun Violence

WSC Avant Bard will present a reading of Natural Shocks, a new play by Lauren Gunderson, on Monday, April 23, 2018, at 7:30 pm at 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Rd, McLean, VA 22102, as part of a...

News: Young Artists of America to Dedicate Upcoming ‘Ragtime’ in Concert to Joel Markowitz, Offer Chance to Win Hamilton Tickets

Young Artists of America & Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras Present RAGTIME in Concert Over 275 local student performing artists to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the production’s timeless score....

Report: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s OrchKids Perform at the Library of Congress

On Saturday, April 7, 2018 student musicians in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s OrchKids program performed at Library of Congress’ Coolidge Auditorium as a part of a collaboration with the Library....

Review: ‘Mean Girls’ at the August Wilson Theatre

If you’ve ever witnessed (or worse yet, experienced, encouraged, or participated in) the “girl-on-girl crime” of high-school cliques, malicious gossip, fierce competitiveness, and vicious...

Review: ‘Wicked Frozen’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

What do you get when you cross the super-popular hits Wicked and Frozen with a Boston accent? The laugh-out-loud musical parody Wicked Frozen, presented by John Lant and making its Off-Broadway debut...

Review: ‘Lobby Hero’ at Second Stage Theater

In the current American climate of daily accusations of “fake news,” public denials of misdeeds, not-so-secret cover-ups of illegal activities, and arbitrary job terminations of public officials at...

Review: ‘Rocktopia’ at The Broadway Theatre

A mash-up of classical music with classic rock, Rocktopia, co-created by vocalist Rob Evan (of New York stage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra fame) and Maestro Randall Craig Fleischer (a noted Conductor,...

Review: ‘Angels in America’ at the Neil Simon Theatre

London’s blockbuster National Theatre production of Angels in America – Tony Kushner’s sweeping two-part eight-hour epic about AIDS, politics, and gay life in America in the 1980s – has alighted on...

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...

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...

Book Review: The Baron of Broadway, ‘Unmasked: A Memoir’ by Andrew Lloyd Webber

One sunny afternoon in 1984, Andrew Lloyd Webber (not yet “Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber” or “Baron Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton” as he is known today) paid 50 cents for a used copy of Gaston Leroux’s The...

Review: ‘Dogs of Rwanda’ at Urban Stages

In Dogs of Rwanda, now making its Off-Broadway debut at Urban Stages, playwright Sean Christopher Lewis revisits the horrors of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the scars they left – both physical and...

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...

Review: ‘Escape to Margaritaville’ at the Marquis Theatre

If you’re in the mood for a fun-filled island vacation, look no further than Manhattan Island and the Broadway premiere of Escape to Margaritaville at the Marquis Theatre. With music and lyrics by the...

News: Monumental Theatre Company to Stage ‘Brooklyn the Musical’ March 15-31

Monumental Theatre Company’s latest offering, Brooklyn The Musical will be presented March 15-31, 2018. Directed by Michael Windsor, Brooklyn follows our lead character on her journey to find her...

News: Traveling Players Ensemble to Perform ‘The Trojan Women’ March 17 and 18

Traveling Players Ensemble will present two public performances of The Trojan Women on March 17, and 18. The Trojan Women explores the consequences of war and women’s relationship to war. The...

Review: ‘Admissions’ at Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

A new twist on the old adage attributed to former Philadelphia Police Chief and Mayor Frank Rizzo, “A liberal is a conservative who hasn’t been mugged yet,” Lincoln Center Theater’s production of...

Here Are the Winners of the 2017 WATCH AWARDS

THE 18th Annual WATCH AWARDS WINNERS ANNOUNCED Sunday, March 11, 2018 – 7:00 pm at The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA HERE ARE THE WINNERS (IN BOLD) Outstanding Set Design in a Musical (5) Skip Gresko –...

Review: ‘All the Ways to Say I Love You’ on Audible

If you love the New York stage and its stars, but can’t make it to the theater in person to see a live performance, Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon and the world’s largest purveyor of audiobooks,...

News: Woolly Mammoth Appoints Maria Manuela Goyanes to Succeed Howard Shalwitz as Artistic Director

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is thrilled to announce the selection of Maria Manuela Goyanes to succeed co-founder Howard Shalwitz as the organization’s Artistic Director. Goyanes is currently...

News: The Welders Receive Grants for the Development of New Work

(Washington, D.C.) The Welders—Washington’s only playwrights’ collective devoted exclusively to developing and producing new plays—has received funding for artistic development of projects by...

News: A Farewell Letter from DCMTA Writer Richard Seff

I didn’t want to slink off into the night without saying so long to you very lovely DC fans at DC Theater Arts. It was time to go, and I’m grateful for the space in which to get sentimental for a...

News: ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ Coming to Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia is excited to be the first regional theater in the metropolitan area to present The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Justin...

What To See This Week: Young Playwright’s Theater Presents ‘Silence is Violence: Whose Earth is This, DC?’

A movement is taking flight and Young Playwright’s Theater (YPT) is one of its co-pilots. Their upcoming Silence is Violence event will explore environmental injustice as it relates to gentrification...

Review: ‘Rap Guide to Consciousness’ at SoHo Playhouse

Do you ever wonder about the nature of awareness and the mechanics of perception? Luckily for us, Baba Brinkman does, and returns to SoHo Playhouse with his well-conceived and brilliantly entertaining...

Kennedy Center Members Did Not Throw Away Their Shot When ‘Hamilton’ Tickets Went On Sale

Imagine for a moment that you were a visitor to DC yesterday and you wanted to see a show at the Kennedy Center. You would likely have logged on to their website and received this message: Because...

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,...

Review: ‘The Amateurs’ at Vineyard Theatre

The latest work by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Jordan Harrison, The Amateurs, now making its world premiere at Vineyard Theatre, is a profound and witty meta-theatrical meditation on the purpose of art...

What’s Playing at the Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival? I’m Glad You Asked.

Looking for something fun to do this weekend? The Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival kicks off today and its ninth season promises to be better than ever. Taking place at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in...

Review: ‘Brilliant Traces’ at The WorkShop Theater

Through the hand of fate, two lonely and damaged strangers have been brought together in an isolated cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, each suffering the effects of familial trauma, the devastation of...

Review: ‘Frankenstein’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

Marking the bicentennial of Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel of 1818, Frankenstein, a new musical with book, music, and lyrics by Eric B. Sirota, focuses less on the monster and more on the man...

Michael Kahn Announces His Final Season as Artistic Director of Shakespeare Theatre Company

At a presentation in Lansburgh Theatre Wednesday morning, Michael Kahn announced Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 2018-2019 Season. With two world premieres from celebrated playwrights, a multiple Tony...