Reviews

Review: ‘Two Trains Running’ at Arena Stage

There’s simplicity in truth. Arena Stage’s Two Trains Running is August Wilson’s simple truth about the African American experience during the 1960s urban renewal of inner-city Pittsburgh. But simple...

Review: ‘The Improvised Shakespeare Company’ at The Kennedy Center

The Improvised Shakespeare Company is a show that has been performed to sold out, jam-packed houses in its Chicago hometown since 2005, and in New York City, L.A., San Francisco, Montreal and more...

Review: ‘C.S. Lewis Onstage: The Most Reluctant Convert’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Lansburgh Theatre

That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant...

Review: ‘Potted Potter’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Potted Potter, Potted Productions’ rollicking parody of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, is full of toy snakes, terrible wigs, and boatloads of physical comedy. The audience plays Quidditch. The...

Review: ‘The Pavilion’ at The Hub Theatre

Aching and raw, sweet and lamenting, Hub Theatre’s production of The Pavilion is a master class of three DC-area actors in command of playwright Craig Wright’s lyrical, melodic language about love,...

Review: ‘The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail’ at George Mason University

Despite period costumes, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail feels current, primarily because it is so topical. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee wrote the play in 1969, but George Mason’s production,...

Review: ‘The Orphan Sea’ at Cohesion Theatre Company

By Kylie Miller Cohesion Theatre Company opened their third production of the season with La Llorona by Cecelia Raker and The Orphan Sea by Caridad Svich, which are playing in repertory. The...

Review: ‘Migratory Tales’ at GWU Corcoran School of the Arts & Design

The inspiration for Migratory Tales comes from multiple sources, according to the play’s creator and director, Leslie Jacobson. Our current and painfully divisive debate on immigration was foremost...

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: ‘Works by Balanchine, Martins, and Peck’ by New York City Ballet

In this era of #MeToo, a review of the New York City Ballet can’t begin without noting the allegations of abuse against now-retired Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins. Late last year, the company...

Review: ‘410 [Gone]’ at Rorschach Theatre

A young Chinese-American woman identified in the playbill as “Twenty-one” but named Jamie (Linda Bard) is attempting to use her MacBook to contact her dead younger brother through a video chat app....

Review: ‘The Wiz’ at Ford’s Theatre

Ford Theatre’s The Wiz, the Tony-Award-winning musical based on L. Frank Baum’s novel, will leave you enthralled, amazed, and bedazzled. The show is a cornucopia of colors, dancing, singing, sizzle,...

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: ‘Translations’ at Studio Theatre

Studio Theatre’s take on Translations by Brian Friel (1929-2015) is one crackling fine production. It begins as an intellectually stimulating comedy, then ultimately turns tragic after weaving through...

Review: ‘Alabama Story’ by the Washington Stage Guild

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” – James Baldwin Southern humor, gentle charm, and the awkward silences of discussions...

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...

Review: ‘Moon Over Buffalo’ at the Laurel Mill Playhouse

Moon Over Buffalo, written by Ken Ludwig, opened at the Laurel Mill Playhouse, directed by Larry Simmons and produced by Maureen Rogers. Moon Over Buffalo is a farce in the Shakespearean tradition....

Review: ‘Newsies’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

There’s nothing fake about the news out of Toby’s Dinner Theatre. Its homegrown production of Newsies gathers such a concentration of explosive male talent under one roof that Columbia might consider...

Review: ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ by the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music

W.A. Mozart’s opera, Le nozze di Figaro, came to life last night in the Hartke Theatre. Based on Beaumarchais’s scandalous and once-banned play, it depicts intrigue, class conflict, and domestic...

Review: Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ by The National Symphony Orchestra

A nominally ecclesiastical work written by an essentially non-religious man, the Verdi Requiem has come, in the nearly century and a half since its completion, to be beloved by church-goers and...

Review: ‘Layla and Majnun’ by the Mark Morris Dance Group with the Silkroad Ensemble

A tapestry of poetry, chant, music, and dance drawn from a swath of the ancient Silk Road has provided vivid inspiration for influential choreographer Mark Morris. His re-envisioning of Layla and...

Review: ‘In the Heights’ at The Kennedy Center

Celebrating 10 years since taking Broadway by storm with its exploration of New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood, In the Heights, directed by Stephanie Klemons, takes the stage at The...

Review: ‘Shrek the Musical’ at Charm City Players

Shrek is one of the most enigmatic modern musicals. A work of two of American theatre’s greatest living authors, David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori, it has some outstanding moments; “Big Bright...

Review: ‘School of Rock’ at the Hippodrome Theatre

Dewey Finn, the schleppy hero of School of Rock, is a modern-day Maria Von Trapp, leading children to find happiness through music. While posing as a substitute teacher, he shares his passion for...

Review: ‘The Beckett Trio’ at Scena Theatre

Nanna Ingvarsson is so phenomenal in these three harrowing short plays by Samuel Beckett that one can easily imagine the Nobel Prize-winning minimalist—notoriously persnickety about his stage...

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...

Review: ‘Brooklyn the Musical’ at Monumental Theatre Company

From the moment you step into the graffiti-laced environment and make yourself comfortable among the sofas, lawn chairs, and lounge seats, you are surrounded by the aesthetics of a post-modern fairy...

Review: ‘The Winter’s Tale’ at Folger Theatre

One would not expect a tale full of heartbreak, betrayal, abandonment, and death to be a comedy. But that is exactly what Folger Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is....

Review: ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and book by Peter Parnell. Based on the Victor Hugo novel and...

Review: ‘Nat Turner in Jerusalem’ at Forum Theatre

The unsettling sight of a young man in shackles sitting on a bare, plank-wood floor; a glimmer of night sky piercing the darkness through the barred window of a simple jail cell; and the tense,...

Magic Time!: ‘Nat Turner in Jerusalem’ at Forum Theatre

By coincidence, Nat Turner in Jerusalem opened at Forum Theatre the day that The Raid closed at Theater Alliance. The two plays seen in succession are powerfully connected. Idris Goodwin’s The Raid...

Review: ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by Metropolitan Ballet Theatre & Academy

Alice in Wonderland, the whimsical, magical story of a girl named Alice who follows a mysterious White Rabbit down a rabbit hole and into a mystifying dream world, strikes me as a difficult subject...

Review: ‘Quartet’ at The British Players

Growing old isn’t for sissies. In South-African-born, British playwright Ronald Harwood’s smart 1999 comedy Quartet, he gently wrestles with the indignities of aging in a British senior-citizens’...

Review: ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’ at Prince William Little Theatre

As the play starts, Morrie Schwartz is dying from ALS. That such a heart-warming, honest, and funny play would begin with such a premise is startling. In Tuesdays with Morrie, produced by the Prince...

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...

Review: ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of The Glass Menagerie is a quietly powerful rendition of Tennessee Williams’ classic play, which premiered in 1944. Directed by Donald Hicken, this show...

In the Moment: Ann Timmons, Pipeline Playwrights, Discusses Upcoming MetroStage Reading

Pipeline Playwrights, a Northern Virginia-based collective of accomplished women playwrights who support productions that explore the variety of women’s experiences, is undertaking a new series of...

Review: ‘Animal Farm’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Breathing renewed life into a 72-year old literary classic is no easy task, but Baltimore Center Stage embraces the challenge, presenting George Orwell’s Animal Farm with well-defined verve and...

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...

Review: ‘Chicago’ at The Keegan Theatre

With its snappy-saucy take on Chicago, The Keegan Theatre shows it knows how to give an audience the ol’ razzle-dazzle. And Keegan has done the durable musical proud. In fact in Keegan’s mounting of...

Review: ‘A Burial Place’ at The Wheel Theatre

If you’re looking for proof that big things come in small packages, then you need look no further than the tiny black box theater where A Burial Place, produced by the Wheel Theatre Company at the DC...

Review: ‘Anthracite Fields’ at The Kennedy Center

It was a haunting, atmospheric triumph. It was an urgent, yet respectfully accomplished multimedia exploration of American cultural issues rarely presented on DC stages about the unknown laborers in...

Review: ‘Breathe: The Musical’ at THEARC

Breathe is a brilliantly conceived and beautifully executed gospel musical that celebrates black resilience even as it revisits the traumas endured by the black family in a nation built on slavery. At...

Review: ‘The Big Apple Circus’ Brings Fun to the National Harbor

The Big Apple Circus has come to the DC area for their 40th Anniversary Celebration. Original founders, Paul Binder and Michael Christensen, established the BAC in 1977. Their European styled, one...

Review: ‘KC Jazz Club: Myra Melford with Snowy Egret’ at The Kennedy Center

Myra Melford’s avant garde approach to music is filled with moments of intensity and light. Melford’s career is an illustrious one, with a Fulbright scholarship, a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship, and an...

Review: ‘Mason Bates’s KC Jukebox: California Mystics’ at The Kennedy Center

The Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts Atrium was transformed into a bohemian, Bedouin-style venue, where pillows for seating were splayed across the floor and the audience was lulled into an...

Review: ‘The Snow Queen’ at Creative Cauldron

Creative Cauldron’s Learning Theater Ensemble presents The Snow Queen, an original adaptation based on the tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Written by Ellen Selby, this production joins a long list of...

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...

Review: ‘The Tarot Reading (IV)’ at Anacostia Arts Center

Despite its occultish name, The Tarot Reading is not a cabalistic rite for mystics. It is actually an ingenious theater game for hipster questers who are psyched to play along. To be sure, the...