Reviews

Virginia Opera’s ‘Il Postino’: no “scary modern music” here

Virginia Opera’s artistic director Adam Turner, in his program note for contemporary composer Daniel Catán’s Il Postino, hastens to assure audiences that the company is working to dispel myths about...

Live Garra Theatre connects Sartre’s ‘No Exit’ to present day

The Silver Spring Black Box Theatre, situated in the same block as the Fillmore and AFI, has a lot to offer us. Live entertainment, yes, but more importantly entertainment that is personal, and can...

‘The Home’ by Nubia Filmworks at Bowie Center for the Performing Arts

As the Gospel stage play The Home opens, it is clear that the Thompson family must soon face a challenge shared by 43.5 million Americans—caring for a family member over 50. Nubia Filmworks’ Director...

Mark Morris Dance Group boldly re-imagines ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ in ‘Pepperland’ at the Kennedy Center

Mark Morris dances are emphatically watchable, easily digestible, eccentric, and smartly witty. He so proficiently pairs music and dance, costume and set – with a cadre of collaborators – that it’s...

Olney Theatre Center’s ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ entertains from start to finish

Once again, Olney Theatre Center (OTC) has put on a tap-happy show. This time it’s Singin’ in the Rain, where the audience hums the familiar tunes as they ratta-ta-tap back to their cars. That was the...

Disney’s ‘Newsies’ at Arena Stage is the good news DC needs right now

From the moment you enter Arena Stage’s Fichandler Stage, an intimate theater-in-the-round where everyone has a seat close to the action, you’ll be transported to turn-of-the-19th-century New York,...

‘Aladdin’ lights up the skies over Baltimore

On stage, Aladdin starts out as the perfect musical for nine-year-olds. But by the time its two swooning lovers have hopped aboard a flying carpet for a trip to the moon, all moms and dads in the...

Cantus’s ‘Alone Together’ at the Kennedy Center puts form over function

Attending Cantus’s Alone Together at the Kennedy Center made me realize that meaningful interaction relies as much upon solitude and mystery as it does connection and revelation. The vocal octet’s...

Creative Cauldron’s Learning Theater shines a fresh light on ‘The Jungle Book’

Creative Cauldron’s Learning Theater presents its own adaptation of the popular tale, The Jungle Book. Based on Rudyard Kipling’s book of the same name, the show centers around the man-cub, Mowgli,...

Expect the unexpected in Washington Improv Theater’s ‘Life and Death with WIT: Hellcat and iMusical’

Improvisational theater is comprised of different aspects of live performance genres, like stand-up comedy or fully scripted plays. But what defines improv, is how the actors use comments from the...

Artistry, rivalry, madness, and genius in Folger Theatre’s ‘Amadeus’

What a great lively yarn about a musical disruptor as a stand-in for the volcanic eruptions of out-and-out revolution in the air throughout Europe and America. Amadeus at Folger Theatre is a triumph....

Fun, frenetic ‘RENT’ at The National still satisfies

The 20th Anniversary Tour of RENT touched down at the National Theatre this week, much to the delight of area RENTheads. This modern take on Puccini’s La Boheme, with music, lyrics and book by the...

We Happy Few brings ‘Lovers’ Vows’ into the twenty-first century

Elizabeth Inchbald’s Lovers’ Vows, first produced in 1798, is every bit as amusing as the unfortunately named Schitt’s Creek, The Good Place, or any other contemporary comedy. Inchbald, an actress and...

In Edward Albee’s first-rate ‘Occupant’ at Theater J, a gutsy woman sculptor creates herself

“True if interesting” is Louise Nevelson’s byword in Occupant, Edward Albee’s witty and wise bioplay about the famous sculptor. She was quite the character. For Nevelson, in the hagiography according...

‘Taj Express: The Bollywood Musical Revue’ offers dazzling dancing and majestic music

Taj Express: The Bollywood Musical Revue is a treat for the eyes and an ocean-tide of extravagance for the senses. This is a musical with dance moves that make you feel as if you are burning calories...

Studio Theatre’s ‘White Pearl’ tackles globalization and intra-Asian racism with acerbic wit

If you attend Studio Theatre’s current production of the brilliantly acerbic White Pearl and feel in the first ten minutes that you’re not sure you know what’s happening, don’t worry. Playwright...

American Shakespeare Center mines the humor in Shaw’s ‘Caesar and Cleopatra’

The plays of George Bernard Shaw are, to be honest, an acquired taste. Erudite in the extreme, filled with Shaw’s unique sense of his own intellectual superiority—which is expressed with paper-thin...

Signature’s ‘A Chorus Line’ proves musicals can evolve in the right creative hands

“A Chorus Line is still one of those musicals you will sing about to your grandchildren,” wrote theater and dance critic Clive Barnes in his 1975 New York Times review for A Chorus Line. Barnes had an...

‘Agnes of God’ at Factory 449 glories in a trinity of divine performances

Following on Factory 449’s electrifying production two years ago of Lela & Co.—which earned Helen Hayes Awards for both its director (Rick Hammerly) and star (Felicia Curry)—the company now presents...

What’s Beneath the ‘Sea’ at Scena Theatre?

“It feels unknown. This is nowhere somehow,” says a character in this intriguingly cryptic poetic play by the acclaimed Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse. Indeed, where are we? And what is going on?...

‘Blue Camp,’ an affecting play about men surviving enlistment in the Vietnam War

Dispatch from the front. “Greetings: You are hereby ordered for induction in the Armed Forces of the United States.” For those in the audience of the Boomer generation, Rainbow Theatre’s Blue Camp...

Signature Theatre’s “A Chorus Line” is a singular sensation

In the theater world, a performer who is a true triple threat – one with the ability to perform at the highest levels as an actor, singer, and dancer all at the same time – is rare. Luckily, Signature...

A powerhouse ‘Protest’ and a vague ‘Vaněk Unleashed’ from Alliance for New Music-Theatre

In honor of the Czech dissident, political prisoner, and playwright Václav Havel, Alliance for New Music-Theatre has served up a two-course theatrical repast in DC’s most outré new arts venue, Dupont...

‘The Willard Suitcases’ unpacks the re-imagined voices of psychiatric patients at American Shakespeare Center

First, dear reader, a confession—for which I fully expect to be pilloried, drawn and quartered, then maybe burned at the stake: I’m not a huge fan of musicals these days. Yeah, I know, there was a...

Cleopatra rules the stage in American Shakespeare Center’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’

Of all of Shakespeare’s history plays, Antony and Cleopatra is the most complicated and thankless to stage. You’ve got shifting alliances, battles won then lost, and then you’ve got the bizarre...

American Shakespeare Center delivers a fresh take on ‘Julius Caesar’

You know you’re in for a new take on Julius Caesar when the famous Soothsayer (“Beware the Ides of March!”) doesn’t enter upstage right or left, as usual, to make his warning. In Ethan McSweeny’s...

Rainbow Theatre Project’s ‘Blue Camp’ shows its lavender heart

This world premiere comic drama about gays in the military takes us back to July and August of 1964 when LBJ was ordering American ground troops into Vietnam in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident...

A seamless ‘Magic Flute’ at Washington National Opera

The opening night performance of Washington National Opera’s production of Wolfgang A. Mozart’s The Magic Flute was perfectly pleasing, even if the show as written is just too long. Tradition holds...

A thrilling ‘Tosca’ by Annapolis Opera at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts

Annapolis Opera’s production of Tosca, performed at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, is a thrilling work of theater, combining beautiful music, singing, and acting with creative set and lighting...

‘E2’ – Whipping up a royal froth of glitz and tragedy at Rep Stage

At Rep Stage in Howard County, Bob Bartlett’s new play E2 certainly proves it can make a head-turning entrance. This bold and sensuous take on the oft-told tale of King Edward II unfolds against a...

Haunting world premiere by Ally Theatre Company of ‘Dhana and the Rosebuds’

The email popped into my box from my editor. To paraphrase: “Is it too far for you to go cover Ally Theatre’s new theatre piece in Mt. Rainer about Syrian refugees?” The irony was not lost on me: Too...

From these ‘Rags,’ riches at George Mason University

Congratulations DC-area theatergoers! A new version of a major musical is being performed at George Mason University this weekend. It has legs and there are still tickets available. Rags is the...

Wolf Pack’s ‘Rocky Horror Show’ seduces Brentwood

If you are into corsets, fishnets, glitter, high heels, bold makeup, sexual innuendo and cussing as art, Wolf Pack Theatre Company’s (WPTC) rendition of Richard O’Brien’s cult classic Rocky Horror...

‘Port Authority,’ Conor McPherson’s tale of lust and loss, returns to Quotidian

Storytelling is a gift. And Conor McPherson—the Irish playwright, screenwriter and long-time ‘bad boy’ of the British stage–is one of the most gifted tale-tellers ever known. His Port Authority, now...

A tragic ‘Otello’ at Washington National Opera

The crowd cheered. We were on the Kennedy Center jitney to the Foggy Bottom Metro stop. I had just read aloud a text from my husband that said Howie Kendrick had hit a two-run homer to put the Nats up...

On tour in DC with ‘What to Send Up When It Goes Down’ by Aleshea Harris

Editor’s note: Woolly Mammoth Theatre, in conjunction with its staging of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, has brought to DC a show produced by the Harlem-based Movement Theatre Company that is...

Spektral Quartet lets audiences explore the space ‘in-between’

There was a time when I needed the cash, so I substitute taught high school. Turns out I had a knack for helping resistant young minds to focus. The key to getting my students where they needed to go...

Mosaic’s brazenly brainy ‘Theory’ is both a treatise and a treat (Magic Time!)

Academia has inspired several thematically penetrating plays featuring female protagonists—the two teachers falsely accused of being lesbian lovers, for instance, in Lillian Hellman’s 1934 The...

Mosaic’s ‘Theory:’ an embodiment of ‘wokeness’ besieged

Canadian playwright Norman Yeung’s Theory, in its American premiere at Mosaic Theater, seeks to be, in the words of Mosaic’s press release, “a hot button play for our digital moment.” Yeung packs a...

‘Stirring the Waters Across America’ at The REACH is a powerful musical exploration of resistance to racism

Electrifying. Awakening. These are words to describe the heart-rending workshop presentation of Stirring the Waters Across America performed at Studio K at The REACH. To call it anything less would be...

Michael Burgos’s ‘Tiramisù’ is one hilarious trip

Tiramisù—the caffeinated confection from Italy—translates as “pick me up” or “cheer me up,” which makes it the perfect name for the hilarious new solo show Michael Burgos brought to DC Arts Center...

What’s magnificent and what’s muddled in ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ at Arena Stage (Magic Time!)

Right to Be Forgotten is a play written from the outside in. By that I mean, its intention is to illustrate a legal issue: the tension in U.S. law between privacy and freedom of speech, a tension...

‘Matilda’ at Other Voices Theatre Company is a delightful take on a new favorite

Based on the 1988 children’s novel by Roald Dahl, Other Voices Theatre Company brings to life the endearing story of Matilda Wormwood, a precocious young girl who is misunderstood and abused by her...

Experience an unforgettable adventure with Rorschach Theatre’s “She Kills Monsters”

Through uncommon uses of environment and intimate passionate performances, Rorschach Theatre seeks to lure its audiences beyond the limits of ordinary theatrical experience. They go above and beyond...

Thoughtful ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ at Arena Stage

How do you put a human face on a difficult, complex subject the natural habitat of which may more likely be a law review article than a stage? Such is playwright Sharyn Rothstein’s task in Right to be...

A theater buff auditions the GalaPro app (updated)

How does that new GalaPro app work? How well does it work? And what’s it like to watch a show with it? This inquiring theatergoer wanted to know. Many Deaf and hard of hearing people are already...

Shakespeare Theater Company’s ‘Everybody’ flirts with death, but falls short of greatness

There’s really only one thing that all of us – that everybody – has in common. Death, whether we’re ready or not, will come for us. All our failures and triumphs, our relationships and desires, can...

Constellation’s ‘Little Shop’ puts the horror back in horticulture

From its beginnings as a very low-budget 1960 Roger Corman B-picture horror flick (a young Jack Nicholson had a minor role), Little Shop of Horrors has been an irresistible salad of corrupted...

‘Radio Golf’ at Everyman better than par for the course

Everyman Theatre’s current production, billed as August Wilson’s Radio Golf, as though his name is part of the title (it isn’t), doesn’t have much golf in it. It’s not even about golf. It’s about a...

Teatro de la Luna highlights the soul of Tango music and dance

If you’re not ready to give in to an autumnal chill in the air, one of the hottest places to be right now is decidedly Teatro de la Luna. In its Friday night series, Noche de Luna: Tango Show, the...