News

Essential Theatre resurrects a heart-wrencher, ‘The Resurrection of Alice’

“If you like theatrical storytelling—the kind that catches you by the heartstrings, gets you all wrapped up, then doesn’t let loose until the very end—you’re going to love The Resurrection of Alice.”...

Washington Stage Guild to serve up an intellectual feast over Thanksgiving

Washington Stage Guild will present a “heavenly” online performance of George Bernard Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell, the famous dream sequence from his play Man and Superman. Audiences are invited to savor...

‘JookJOYnt’ from Woolly and Makers Lab to jump with Black LGBTQ+ joy

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and DC creative collective Makers Lab reunite for The JookJOYnt, a free, five-part video experience exploring themes of vulnerability, intimacy, and connection. The full...

Update: Creative Cauldron’s ‘On Air’ to stream November 16 to December 13

“Dancing and singing over the wireless airways—how might it have happened? What might have been a dry history lesson is given delightfully appealing musical charm in Creative Cauldron’s world premiere...

Everyman Theatre premieres ‘Queens Girl: Black in the Green Mountains’

Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre will bet on another successful run with Queens Girl: Black in the Green Mountains by Caleen Sinnette Jennings, premiering for in-person performances on November 19. The...

Round House begins monthlong tribute to living legend Adrienne Kennedy

Round House Theatre, in association with McCarter Theatre Center, has announced updated details for The Work of Adrienne Kennedy: Inspiration & Influence, a four-week festival highlighting the...

Grammy-winning percussionists to rap on entrepreneurship and racial justice

As we in the performing arts continue to struggle with finances and other resources in the aftershock of COVID-19, with no end in sight, how can we inform taxpayers and policymakers of the value of...

IN Series’s ‘Gonzales Cantata’ tells a true story of political corruption

Just when American politics could not seem more fraught, IN Series is offering a cheeky throwback to a shockingly simpler time: a made-for-film production of Melissa Dunphy’s The Gonzales Cantata....

Keegan Theatre’s fall rep to stream in real time from onstage

Keegan Theatre returns to mainstage programming with a pair of productions streaming live in rep November 12 to 29, 2020. Performed from the Keegan stage, the fall repertory includes the world...

Signature Theatre to stream concert of hits from days of ​vinyl

This week Signature Theatre releases a new cinematic concert, an inspired alternative to its pre-COVID cabarets. Titled Signature Vinyl, the fully produced, professionally filmed production features...

IN Series’s ‘Orphée et Eurydice’ strikes chord of COVID love and loss

IN Series returns to the original revolutionary opera, Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, for an intimate film experience exploring love, loss, and grief during a global pandemic in which millions have...

Taking Care COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund expands to meet ongoing need

theatreWashington has announced an expansion of the Taking Care COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund, originally organized in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and the sudden loss of work for...

Theater Alliance kicks off eight nights of protest plays

True to its mission—to present “socially conscious, thought-provoking work” that engages audiences “in active dialogue”—Theater Alliance has launched a series of eight short plays by eight emerging...

In time for the election, an audio play about political scheming from Studio

As millions across the country are taking to the polls, Studio Theatre releases its first audio play, an adaption of Kings, the lacerating, fast-talking political drama by Alexandria, Virginia, native...

Theater wonks and gamers connect with a new ‘Twist’

Theater professionals from New York City, Kentucky, and DC have come together to launch ​Twist, a new virtual experience centered around a rotating series of social strategy games. ​Following a...

How DMV theaters are strategizing for reopening

With the fall season and following seasons still only tentatively planned, arts organizations are taking the time to focus on a reopening strategy that makes the most sense for their staff,...

E. Faye Butler to rock the vote as Fannie Lou Hamer at Arena Stage

Two-time Helen Hayes Award winner E. Faye Butler returns to Arena Stage to take on the iconic role of civil and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer in Cheryl L. West’s play Fannie Lou Hamer, Speak...

The Breath Project resists racial injustice with free virtual festival

The Breath Project—a new theatrical initiative formed in response to racial injustice against Black people—will stream as a free virtual festival October 24 and 25, 2020. In partnership with Studio...

Edge of the Universe Players 2 presents a free audio farce by Chekhov

The Edge of the Universe Players 2, a DC-based company dedicated to deep meanings in the form of theatrical high entertainment, had planned to continue exploring that territory in the 2020 Fringe...

UrbanArias’ new opera is a sexy comedy about expecting parents in lockdown

UrbanArias has partnered with eight other American opera companies to create a newly commissioned operatic video series, Tales From a Safe Distance, inspired by Boccaccio’s The Decameron. Each company...

Alden Theatre’s ‘Drive-Thru Drama’ gets spooky

Just in time for Halloween, The Alden Theatre in McLean continues its unique Drive-Thru Drama performances with Objects in Mirror May Be SPOOKIER Than They Appear, October 16 to November 1, 2020....

Shakespeare Theatre Company plots next season with new twists

The lineup for Shakespeare Theater Company‘s 2020–2021 season—as announced by Artistic Director Simon Godwin and Executive Director Chris Jennings—is signficantly different from plans first announced...

Mosaic Theater heads into fall season recommitted to anti-racism

A monthslong period of intensive introspection and evolution at Mosaic Theater Company, led by a recommitment to anti-racism, has culminated in the company’s recent announcement of fall programming,...

Olney Theatre Center hosts ‘Just Arts,’ a virtual social justice arts festival

In response to ongoing social upheaval and protests for racial justice, Olney Theatre Center is hosting a virtual social justice arts festival amplifying the voices of BIPOC artists and activists in...

Happenstance Theater to clown outdoors and online this weekend

The irrepressibly entertaining Happenstance Theater will perform its Pinot & Augustine clown show on Saturday, October 10, 2020, at 2 pm and 6 pm, in the parking lot at Joe’s Movement Emporium (3309...

Black Artist Coalition to stream ‘I Am… A Celebration of Black Artistry’

The Black Artist Coalition (BAC) releases its second visual project, “I Am…” A Celebration of Black Artistry Thursday, October 8, 2020. One of the pillars of the Black Artist Coalition is advancing...

Free ‘Flash Acts’ theater festival to spotlight U.S. and Russian artists

The Forum for Cultural Engagement has announced Flash Acts, a free six-day, bilingual, virtual theater festival October 8 to 13, 2020. This one-of-a-kind performance festival brings together 20...

CulturalDC to host Reclamation Project racial-equity residency at Source Theatre

The Reclamation Project—an idea inspired by We See You, White American Theater, “Hot button issues for Black theater: A roundtable on revolution,” and “Gender Diverse Black Theatre Leadership...

1st Stage commissions 11 artists to create solo works

As part of its ongoing commitment to creating diverse, modern work by leading playwrights and performers during the prolonged COVID-19 theater closure, 1st Stage has announced eleven new artist...

Round House Theatre announces revised 2020–2021 season

Round House Theatre has announced an updated lineup of plays, conversations, and education offerings, including digital programming for the fall and winter and a return to live productions in its...

Emoji-titled ‘??‍???‍?’ from Solas Nua invites online interplay

Celebrating Solas Nua’s 15th anniversary, the DC-based Irish arts organization has commissioned a series of digital plays from African-American playwright Jeremy Keith Hunter and Irish playwright John...

The complete 2020 Helen Hayes Awards and more

The 2020 Helen Hayes Awards—recognizing outstanding work produced on Washington-area stages in 2019—were celebrated as a series of virtual events, from August 31 to September 11, 2020, followed by the...

For one singular celebration, Helen Hayes Awards glam goes multiplatform

Culminating the 2020 Helen Hayes Awards recognizing outstanding work on Washington-area stages in 2019, the theater community will gather for one singular celebration in three successive digital...

IN Series digital opera season lifts off this weekend with a festival of premieres

IN Series launches its groundbreaking 2020–2021 digital opera season with a Festival Weekend of world premieres September 17 to 19, 2020. The season, characterized by genre-defying collaborations with...

GALA Hispanic Theatre announces 2020–2021 season and plans to reopen

November 23, 2020, UPDATE: FUEGO FLAMENCO XVI, originally scheduled for December 4–6, 2020, has been cancelled. November 3, 2020, UPDATE: The Department of Homeland Security of the District of...

Olney Theatre Center takes ‘The Humans’ from stage to stream

The Humans—Stephen Karam’s Tony Award–winning family dramedy—was slated for a run at Olney Theatre Center this season, but that physical production was shelved this summer when the COVID would not...

Meshaun Labrone’s two Capital Fringe hits to be filmed for streaming

Meshaun Labrone—the actor, writer, musician, and former DC Police officer whose solo stage plays Spook and Power! Stokely Carmichael were Capital Fringe hits—recently signed a production deal with...

Legendary Bread and Puppet Theater to perform on the Mall September 19 and 20

Against the backdrop of COVID-19, racial injustice, and the upcoming election, CulturalDC is staging one of the first large-scale productions in the Washington, DC, area since the pandemic began. The...

A bipartisan romance casts a play on both houses in ‘Will on the Hill’ at STC

Who says a theater performance can’t make a difference in politics? With all the ongoing political and cultural conflict, is there a way to simmer things down for at least one brief shining moment....

Alden Theatre’s new Drive-Thru is a family-friendly mystery

With the sold-out success of Small Change, their first Drive-Thru theater experience, the creative folk at the Alden Theatre in McLean have developed a totally new live event. It is the Alden’s second...

Whitney White and Soyica Colbert join Shakespeare Theatre Company

Shakespeare Theatre Company Artistic Director Simon Godwin has announced that Whitney White and Soyica Colbert—the director and the dramaturg for The Amen Corner—are joining STC as associate...

Young Playwrights’ Theater names first Young Playwrights in Progress

Young Playwrights’ Theater (YPT) has announced that Savannah Miller and Adanna Paul are its first two participants in the 2020-2021 Young Playwrights in Progress (YPIP) new play development program....

Studio Theatre enlists Black artists for March and The Breath Project

Studio Theatre has commissioned seven Black artists who are attending the 57th anniversary March on Washington Friday, August 28, to create artistic responses that bear witness to their experience at...

2020 Helen Hayes Awards to be revealed over four weeks on 21 Zooms

theatreWashington has announced updated plans for the 36th annual Helen Hayes Awards—originally scheduled to take place at The Anthem on May 18, 2020, but postponed because of COVID. Celebrated as a...

Sheldon Epps Joins Ford’s Theatre Leadership Team

Sheldon Epps will join the Ford’s Theatre leadership team as Senior Artistic Advisor. He steps into the new role as the theater reevaluates its 2020–2021 season amid the national reckoning for racial...

Black Artist Coalition begins in the DMV

Announced today, the Black Artist Coalition (BAC) has formed in response to the increasing awareness of both macro- and microaggressions that have more often than not tainted Black artists’ experience...

American Shakespeare Center to livestream performances via Marquee TV

American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia, has announced that their Summer 2020 SafeStart Season will be available for online viewing in partnership with Marquee TV. Dubbed “BlkFrs LIVE,” live...

Venues continue to extend shutdown with delayed seasons

As the current public safety situation with COVID-19 continues to be unpredictable, DMV-area theaters and other venues are being forced to make decisions regarding their upcoming fall seasons. Many...

New season of ‘Shakespeare Hour LIVE’ returns in September

Shakespeare Theatre Company will continue its online program Shakespeare Hour LIVE! in September with episodes devoted to Shakespeare and the Law (September 9), Shakespeare & Film (September 16),...

Jade Jones as rapper “Litty Official” debuts hip-hop mixtape

DMV rapper “Litty Official” releases their mixtape He Could Never on Spotify, Soundcloud, and iTunes. Jade Jones, the artist behind Litty, has crafted a standout lo-fi trap mixtape for the moment with...