Reviews

Review: ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ at Synetic Theater

Edmond Rostand’s tale of a consummate wordsmith achieves profound new eloquence in Synetic Theater’s wordless production of Cyrano de Bergerac. As they have done in so many previous productions, from...

Review: ‘The Music Man’ at the Kennedy Center

We’ve got trouble, right here in the Capital City. That might be true – mind-numbingly true – but it’s not at the Kennedy Center where Jeffrey Finn has produced a charming, energetic production of...

Review: ‘Philosophus’ at Best Medicine Rep

One of the things Best Medicine Rep does best is comedies about historical and literary figures, such as last year’s Engaging Shaw. They are now presenting another, Philosophus, by Colin Speer...

Review: ‘SHAME 2.0 (With Comments From the Populace)’ at Mosaic Theater Company

“You have to be a good Arab,” says Morad Hassan of the stigma he faces trying to have a career as an Arab actor in Israel—the very country where, he says, “we are the Jews of the Jews.” “FREE...

Review: ‘Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Program B)’ at The Kennedy Center

“Who will tell our grandmothers’ stories?” The phenomenal Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater soulfully responds in memory of its iconic founder with dignity, power and enough creative energy to light...

Review: ‘Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (Program A)’ at The Kennedy Center

A cough, a gasp, the sound of a heartbeat. A sudden flash in the darkness. These sounds and images begin “Lazarus,” the brand-new work from hip hop master Rennie Harris, which opened a glitzy...

Review: ‘The Master and Margarita’ at Constellation Theatre

The devil figure masquerading as Woland, the professor of black magic, in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita loathes skeptics, so much so that he travels around the world with the intention...

Review: ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

The Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a witty, entertaining show with much to say about drama and the theater. Directed by Donald Hicken, Tom...

Review: ‘Everything is Wonderful’ at Everyman Theatre

Having helmed last season’s widely-acclaimed The Book of Joseph, Everyman Theatre Associate Artistic Director Noah Himmelstein has returned to the director’s chair for Everyman’s latest offering. Told...

Magic Time!: ‘The Brothers Size’ at 1st Stage

“You fucked up! You fucked up! You fucked up!” rails the older brother, berating the younger. “You fucked up! You fucked up! You fucked up!” he goes on, as if he cannot rage enough, as if he can’t get...

Review: ‘The Brothers Size’ at 1st Stage

Offering timely explorations of important topics, 1st Stage continuously produces memorable plays. They are always solid, but The Brothers Size will knock you out. In it, a young man newly released...

In the Moment: One Song Lifts ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ from Jukebox Musical Status

By all means, go, have a great time at Signature Theatre’s grandly jaunty Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show, a musical revue centered upon the prolific composer Fats Waller (1904-1943)...

Review: ‘Gypsy’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

We can hold our breath but we’re never likely to get another musical as perfect as Gypsy. Sixty Broadway seasons ago it caught the unique charms and pathology of show business in a magic bubble that...

Review: ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Signature Theatre

Outside, the Polar Vortex reigned. Inside, the jazz was hot and smoky and funny and sexy. Ain’t Misbehavin’, celebrating the work of Fats Waller, brought his music and the feel of his life and times...

Review: ‘Harlequinade’ by American Ballet Theatre at The Kennedy Center

Marius Petipa must have been smiling from his grave last night when the American Ballet Theatre presented another brilliant Russian choreographer’s staging of Petipa’s Harlequinade. This sweet,...

Review: ‘An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly’ at American Pops Orchestra

The American Pops Orchestra recently presented their original adaptation of the children’s story, An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly. Writer, Claybourne Elder, has taken the madcap rhyme and transformed...

Magic Time!: ‘Twelve Angry Men’ at Ford’s Theatre

Cross-racial casting can be totally wrongheaded—as when white actors impersonate characters of color. It can also be speciously universalizing—as when actors of color play all the parts in a work...

Review: ‘Visions of Love’ by Pointless Theatre

Pointless Theatre has produced a stage adaptation of Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece, City Lights, called Visions of Love. Using the original score, adapted and composed by Chaplin himself, and...

Review: ‘The Screwtape Letters’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Lansburgh Theatre

When the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” comes on the pre-show soundtrack, it’s a tipoff that C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters is going to be a diabolically delightful evening of theater and...

Review: ‘La Cage Aux Folles’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents La Cage Aux Folles, with Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman and Book by Harvey Fierstein. Based on Jean Poiret’s farcical play by the same name, La Cage...

Review: ‘Three Sistahs’ at MetroStage

MetroStage’s Three Sistahs is a marvelous musical, an evening of vocal and dramatic excellence. Written and directed by Thomas W. Jones II – with a story by Janet Pryce – and music by William Hubbard,...

Review: ‘Kleptocracy’ at Arena Stage

A young Vladimir Putin (Christopher Geary) steps onto the stage, wearing a 1980s tracksuit, quoting a passage from the Soviet absurdist and surrealist writer Daniil Kharms (1905-1942) “How a Man...

In the Moment: ‘The Baltimore Waltz’ at the Keegan Theatre

How any of us deal with the death of a loved one is so very personal. With the passing of her beloved brother Carl, playwright Paula Vogel found her own sui generis way to let the world know how much...

Review: ‘Gulf View Drive’ at Washington Stage Guild

Gulf View Drive is the third and final play in Arlene Hutton’s highly-acclaimed Nibroc Trilogy, which opened this week to waves of laughter and applause at the Washington Stage Guild in downtown DC....

Review: ‘The Mystery of Love and Sex’ at the Iron Crow Theatre

Human beings are mysterious creatures: how deeply can we know even those closest to us, or ourselves? What’s the cost of knowing? In Bathsheba Doran’s 2015 play, The Mystery of Love and Sex, having...

Review: ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ by Maryland Lyric Opera

The Maryland Lyric Opera’s stated raison d’etre is to find and nurture good singers, then give them a place to test their mettle on masterworks such as those by Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, and the like....

Review: ‘Fun Home’ at the Baltimore Center Stage

“Welcome to our house on Maple Avenue.” With this lyric, the Bechdel family invites the Baltimore Center Stage audience into their home – free of judgment and with all their family dysfunction on full...

Review: ‘Twelve Angry Men’ at Ford’s Theatre

Some sixty-five years since its original premiere as a black-and-white teleplay, Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men remains timeless; all too intriguingly relevant as ever. In the Ford’s Theatre...

Review: ‘The Baltimore Waltz’ at the Keegan Theatre

Anna always wanted to go to Europe. See the City of Lights. Drink a pint of authentic German beer. Have a rendezvous (or two, or five) with strange men who whisper unintelligible sweet nothings into...

‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre

With a winning young actor in the lead role, any ticket to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is good as gold. Eleven-year-old Rueby Wood made the perfect Charlie Bucket the night we attended at...

Magic Time!: ‘Admissions’ at Studio Theatre

“Some of my best friends are white men,” says Sherri, the very liberal white woman who handles admissions at a small New England prep school. Avowedly antiracist, Sherri is on a mission to increase...

Review: ‘Admissions’ at Studio Theatre

It’s an odd thing, as a Latina here in Washington, D.C., to observe the mental wrestlings of liberal white folks struggling to come to terms with their privilege. How in muted voices they make sure to...

Review: ‘Submission’ by Scena Theatre

Go with no preconceived notions to best absorb Scena Theatre’s Submission, the American premiere theater adaptation of the 2015 European best-selling novel by French author Michel Houellebecq. Adapted...

Magic Time!: ‘Jeffrey’ at Rainbow Theatre Project

If there’s such a thing as gay wit, Paul Rudnick’s got a load of it. Imagine Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward if they could be out about it. Yeah, Rudnick ranks with them and then some. As proof, check out...

Review: ‘Stonefish’ by The Coil Project at Greenbelt Arts Center

On Saturday, January 19, I had the pleasure of seeing Erica Smith’s years-in-the-making play, Stonefish, produced by The Coil Project and Greenbelt Arts Center. Director David Dieudonne and assistant...

‘Jeffrey’ at Rainbow Theatre Project

Jeffrey, the current offering of the Rainbow Theatre Project by playwright Paul Rudnick, casts a humorously defiant eye towards the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic – as set in the New York City of the...

Review: ‘Company’ by Stillpointe Theatre

When you go downtown to the Mount Vernon area of Baltimore City, you might not immediately think of the Wilkes School on Park Avenue as a theatrical venue, especially with the Baltimore School for the...

Review: ‘School of Rock: The Musical’ at National Theatre

Kicked out of the band and facing eviction from “his” apartment, Dewey Finn questionably intercepts a substitute teacher assignment at a prestigious local academy to pay the rent. With no teaching...

Review: ‘Cinderella’ at The Kennedy Center Opera House

Don’t walk into the Kennedy Center Opera House expecting a Disney-esque, happily-ever-after retelling of the evergreen fairytale Cinderella. British director/choreographer Matthew Bourne has spent his...

Review: ‘The Bad Seed’ at Zemfira Stage

Zemfira Stage is producing an uncommon sighting in the DC area: a production of the offbeat mid-1950’s play, The Bad Seed by Maxwell Anderson. An unconventional nightmare of a melodrama especially for...

Review: ‘Thank You, Dad’ at Rapid Lemon Productions

In 2018, the 40th anniversary year of what’s become known as The Jonestown Massacre, Rapid Lemon Productions commissioned its first full-length play. Emerging local playwright Aladrian C. Wetzel was...

Review: ‘American Moor’ at Anacostia Playhouse

American Moor, in a return engagement at Anacostia Playhouse, lambasts the audience with a series of provocative questions: can an actor play a role without tapping into the darkest parts of their...

Magic Time!: ‘ 19: The Musical’

It was “a century of struggle” before women in the United States won the right to vote in 1920, and the centenary of the amendment that cinched it, the nineteenth, is just around the corner. An...

‘The Enchanted Bookshop’ at Encore Stage & Studio

Encore Stage & Studio’s polished and playful production of The Enchanted Bookshop is funtertainment for the whole family! The Enchanted Bookshop by Todd Wallinger tells the magical tale of Margie, the...

Review: ‘Cartography’ at The Kennedy Center

With its premiere of Cartography, The Kennedy Center continues to be a welcoming venue for theatrically devised civic discourse on often fraught issues. Cartography is a unique live documentary about...

Review: ‘Judy Garland: A Star Is Born’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s Cabaret Series is a relaxed affair. Pull up a chair and put your elbows on the table because Awa Sal Secka and Katie Mariko Murray are going to make you feel right at home. The two...

Review: ‘[title of show]’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Like TV’s “Seinfeld,” [title of show] is a show, to a degree, about the mundane. [title of show] is a musical about four friends creating a musical – the one the audience sees. Along the way, they...

Review: ‘From U Street to the Cotton Club’ by The In Series

Rising from its roots in the Deep South, African American music journeyed north with the Great Migration, invigorating urban culture with rhythms derived from shouts to spirituals, work songs and...

Review: ‘Craving for Travel’ at Dark Horse Theatre Company

Craving for Travel, written by Greg Edwards and Andy Sandberg, and directed by Natasha Parnian immediately piqued my interest from the first time I read the tagline used in promotional materials: “2...

Review: ‘The Comedy of Errors’ at the American Shakespeare Center (Staunton, VA)

If you’re a fan of stand-up comedy, you know the highs and lows that come with artists working the crowd with fresh material they’ve been practicing for weeks. With their eyes on you and yours on...