Reviews

Review: ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

Tucked inside the new live musical retelling of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Toby’s Dinner Theatre is an altogether wonderful concert staging that should not be missed. The show itself...

Review: ‘Pinter Rep’ by Scena Theatre

When Pinter is performed with precision, with exacting attention to the text—as is the case with Scena Theatre’s razor-sharp Pinter Rep—the effect can be both unnerving and exhilarating. The tension...

Review: ‘Beehive’ at Spotlighters Theatre

There are times when the theater takes daring artistic risks, asks uncomfortable questions, and exposes the darkest truths about our institutions and ourselves. We love the medium for that. We also...

Review: ‘P.Y.G. or The Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle’ at Studio Theatre

Don’t be put off by the deliberately opaque, long title of the current world premiere at Studio Theatre’s experimental space. P.Y.G. or The Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle is a very slick,...

Review: ‘The Peculiar Patriot’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

A klaxon sounds. A video montage of “Betsy” LaQuanda Ross (actor and playwright Liza Jessie Peterson) passing through the visitor entrance at a correctional facility plays in black and white on the...

Review: ‘Ghost-Writer’ by Quotidian Theatre Company

There is a mystery at the heart of Ghost-Writer, currently being presented by the Quotidian Theatre Company at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda. Not that Michael Hollinger’s drama is a lighthearted...

Review: ‘Clothes for a Summer Hotel’ by Rainbow Theatre Project

Rainbow Theatre Project has presented a trenchant and exciting production of the rarely produced Clothes for a Summer Hotel. The dualistic themes of the great playwright Tennessee Williams are found...

Review: Curse of the Starving Class at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

When we first see the Tate family in Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class, now playing at Frederick’s Maryland Ensemble Theatre (MET), they are already doomed, they just don’t fully know it yet....

Review: ‘As You Like It’ by Brave Spirits Theatre

Ah, Shakespeare’s As You Like It–the ultimate romantic comedy about people trying to find their way to love in a bewildering world; a world that seems to have no rules, or rules that are made as one...

Review: ‘New York City Ballet: New Works and New Productions’ at the Kennedy Center

It’s been a challenging few years for New York City Ballet, the nation’s preeminent ballet company. What with the misconduct and resignation of its ballet master in chief, subsequent misconduct...

Review: The Kennedy Center’s ‘Celebrating the Human Spirit Awards’ Gala featuring Idina Menzel

The Kennedy Center’s annual party with a purpose on Wednesday night, the Celebrating the Human Spirit Awards Gala, honored Distinguished Philanthropists Patrick G. Ryan and Shirley W. Ryan and Citizen...

Review: ‘Siwayul (Heart of a Womxn)’ by Nelwat Ishkamewe Two-Spirit Theatre

American theater blows off a lot of folx. Leaves out their voices. Doesn’t cast them. Isn’t interested in their stories. Two-Spirit indigenous transpeople, for conspicuous instance, are among the...

Review: ‘The Book of Mormon’ at the Hippodrome Theatre

Ticket holders for The Book of Mormon national tour had better be prepared to exercise a muscle that doesn’t get much of a workout these days — the one that controls the “personally offended” gag...

Review: ‘Analogy Trilogy’ by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company at the Kennedy Center

It’s too simplistic to call Bill T. Jones a choreographer, although that’s been his stock and trade for more than 40 years. This past week his Analogy unfolded as a trilogy, over three nights at the...

Review: ‘New York City Ballet: Works by Balanchine, Robbins, and Reisen’ at the Kennedy Center

Spring is in the air with not only the blooming cherry blossoms but also the bursting energy of the New York City Ballet’s exciting spring concert at the Kennedy Center. Something old and something...

Magic Time!: ‘Native Son’ at Mosaic Theater Company

When one has an overwhelming experience in the theater—as I did watching Native Son at Mosaic—it can take some time to process. This is especially so if the work is unlike anything one thought...

Review: ‘Amazing Grace’ at the Museum of the Bible

In 2017, the Broadway musical Amazing Grace opened its national tour with a stint at the World Stage Theater at Washington, D.C.’s Museum of the Bible. (DC Metro Theatre Arts’ review of that...

Review: ‘Native Son’ at Mosaic Theater

We usually think of a rat as a detestable lowlife animal that we dread. It slinks in dark corners of the floor, hiding itself from being seen. It nervously darts and runs when spotted and can fit...

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by Aquila Theatre at George Mason University

Last night, Aquila Theatre performed a wonderful version of the classic comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream at George Mason University’s Center for Visual and Performing Arts. All of the actors (of whom...

Review: ‘columbinus’ at 1st Stage

There’s a lot that’s shocking and disturbing in this show, as well there should be—it’s based on the April 20, 1999, shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. That massacre—during...

Review: ‘DEMO: Now’ at the Kennedy Center

As Director and Curator of DEMO: Now, Damian Woetzel brings together artists of different disciplines. The idea is simple: put artists together in a room and see what develops, what is created that is...

Review: ‘Women’s Works’ at George Washington University

Director and playwright Leslie Jacobson concludes her final year as a full-time professor at George Washington University with excerpts from plays she has written, directed or adapted. The works draw...

Review: ‘A Bronx Tale’ at the National Theatre

Chazz Palminteri is one cool dude. Imagine having your own life story play to sold-out houses on and off Broadway, and be made into a classic film directed by none other than Robert De Niro. And De...

Review: ‘Alice in Wonderland’ at Creative Cauldron

Full of high-spirited playfulness, flights of adorable fancy and some verbal gymnastics that children and adults can savor, Creative Cauldron’s Alice in Wonderland is family entertainment that will...

Review: ‘Resolving Hedda’ by Washington Stage Guild

What if your favorite dramatic heroine could – just for once – alter her tragic fate? That’s the question posed by playwright Jon Klein in the Washington Stage Guild’s production of Resolving Hedda....

Review: ‘La Paloma at the Wall’ by The In Series

The In Series at GALA Theatre has succeeded in brilliantly breathing life into a treasured zarzuela – a blend of song and dance – which was written in 1894 and originally titled La Verbena de la...

Review: ‘The Viennese Classics’ by the National Chamber Ensemble

By Ross Heath Of the National Chamber Ensemble’s roster of exceptional musicians, three artists, Leonid Sushansky (violin and artistic director), Sean Neidlinger (cello), and Carlos Cesar Rodriguez...

Review: ‘Dead Dog’s Bone: A Birthday Play’ by Nu Sass Productions

There is indeed a dog in this play, aptly named Dog, wryly performed by Karen Lange wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and neck bandana. At the top of Act One, Dog sings a country-westernish song, “[Taking...

Review: ‘Pride and Prejudice’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s Pride and Prejudice is an impeccable dance, an elegant minuet from start to finish. Every element works gracefully with every other, producing a pleasing, harmonious...

Review: ‘Spills’ by Who What Where Theater Collective

We are seated on folding chairs in the living room of an actual house where two women and a man in their mid-twenties have agreed to meet up for a three-way. There’s a modest playing area for them and...

Review: ‘Topdog/Underdog’ by Avant Bard

“Watch me close, watch me now!” As I watched Avant Bard’s production of Topdog/Underdog, I knew that it is a production for the ages. Under the visceral, athletic direction of DeMone Seraphin,...

Review: ‘It’s Not You, It’s Me’ by The Second City at Wolf Trap

By Andy Arnold The Second City: It’s Not You, It’s Me gets laughs. Sort of like the laughs an adult might give a naughty, inappropriate child. The show – a re-envisioning of sketches by the Canadian...

Review: ‘Into the Woods’ at Ford’s Theatre

I have loved Sondheim’s Into the Woods since seeing its original Broadway production. Three decades on, Ford’s Theatre’s current version carries the tradition forward proudly. For anyone unfamiliar...

Review: ‘The Jewish Queen Lear’ by Theater J

Valerie Leonard’s engrossing performance as a powerful matriarch lifts the Theater J premiere of the English-language The Jewish Queen Lear beyond a nostalgia-laden look back to a once highly...

Review: ‘The Color Purple’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Magic. Magnificent. Marvelous. There are only so many superlatives I can muster in such a small space, but The Color Purple, now running at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, is phenomenal....

Review: ‘Fallen Angels’ at NextStop Theatre Company

If there could be a single word to describe NextStop Theatre Company’s production of Noel Coward’s 1925 comedy, Fallen Angels, it would be symmetry. Emily Lotz’s delightfully realized period set,...

Review: ‘Dinner with Friends’ at Everyman Theatre

Donald Margulies’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Dinner with Friends, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this season, opened to an enthusiastic full house at Everyman on Friday. The play gives Director...

Review: ‘Henry IV, Part II’ at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company

After a smashing opening of Henry IV, Part I, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) has brought forth its terrific sequel, Henry IV, Part II. This play is wordier and less bloody than its predecessor...

Magic Time!: ‘Queen of Basel’ at Studio Theatre

Queen of Basel by Hilary Bettis, now on the boards at Studio, is scathingly brilliant. One walks out gobsmacked. (I completely concur with my colleague Bob Ashby’s astute review.) But watching Queen...

Review: ‘Thumbelina’ by Metropolitan Ballet Theatre and Academy

Thumbelina, the story of a miniature girl who grows from a seed, is kidnapped by a toad, tormented by beetles, and eventually marries the fairy prince, is not one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most...

Report: ‘Les Misérables in Concert’ by Young Artists of America at Strathmore

Young Artists of America presented its annual concert on Saturday, March 16, performing a semi-staged concert version of Les Misérables that featured a large ensemble of performers, chorus members and...

Review: ‘The Explorers Club’ at Workhouse Arts Center

If you have not yet visited the intimate Workhouse Theatre in Lorton, Virginia, Frank Shutts is currently directing a screwball comedy full of inappropriate giggles. Attitudes are purposefully dated...

Review: ‘Carmen’ by Annapolis Opera

There was a moment in the first act of Annapolis Opera’s Carmen in which Director Fenlon Lamb assembled her cast in a colorful tableau that enthralled me and impressed itself on my mind. This Carmen...

Review: ‘An Evening Of Mozart: The Da Ponte Operas’ by Maryland Lyric Opera’s Young Artist Institute

The Maryland Lyric Opera (MDLO) presented an evening of an assortment of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s musical excerpts from three of his most esteemed operas–The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and...

Review: ‘Faust’ by Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center

It’s been a quarter of a century since Satan came to call on the Kennedy Center, but the Washington National Opera’s production of Faust (with music by Charles Gounod and libretto by Jules Barbier and...

Review: ‘JQA’ at Arena Stage

Leaving Arena Stage’s world premiere of JQA, the fictionalized account of John Quincy Adams as imagined by playwright/director Aaron Posner, I’m feeling this: Adams was a sour, stiff-necked, rigid man...

Review: ‘Hexagon 2019: Romp in the Swamp’

Hexagon has been around for 64 years and never seems to age. Since 1956 the musical comedy theater group has been turning out original political satire that’s as of-the-moment as the news. Its latest...

Magic Time!: ‘Limits’ by Cirkus Cirkör at The Kennedy Center

The circus I fell in love with as a kid is gone. It was touted at the time as the greatest show on earth: a three-ring tented extravaganza that smelled of roasted peanuts, sawdust, and manure and...

Review: ‘The Seagull’ at The Wheel Theatre Company

An aspiring playwright and son loves an aspiring actress and ingenue. A famous actress and mother loves a famous writer and inconstant. Life doesn’t often provide neat parallels between generations...

Review: ‘Hands on a Hardbody’ at the Keegan Theatre

The title of this show, if you have never heard of it, doesn’t mean what you might think. It’s not about fitness. It’s not about sex. It’s a country-western musical about ten hard-up Texans trying to...