Reviews

The fun begins ‘After Midnight’ in big band musical from Signature

The singing, dancing, and songs are all highpoints. The filming, editing, and lighting are all superb.

‘Always…Patsy Cline’ live from Creative Cauldron is heady and sweet

If you’re a fan of live music and looking to reenter society after a long and stressful year, this show is a great choice.

‘Will on the Hill’ asks, ‘What’s the deal with Shakespeare?’

Members of Congress and A-list actors join Shakespeare Theatre Company in fun and frolic for a good cause.

An enthralling story of love in ‘Berta, Berta’ from Everyman Theatre

I could not help but root for these two lost and lonely souls to find solace in each other.

Silhouette Stages’ bold ‘BKLYN the Musical’ is a true tearjerker

A scrappy young theater company streams a fairy tale performed by an energetic, cute, and enthusiastic cast.

A sensational seance and powerful storytelling in ‘Animal Wisdom’

Animal Wisdom is a sensational Southern seance with moving original music and heartwrenching storytelling. Animal Wisdom is a collision of traditional storytelling and modern lenses, bursting into a...

‘GMCW Turns 40’ celebrates equality, justice, and joy

GMCW turns 40 is a joyous, and bittersweet, survey of the breadth of the work of Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC. Photographs, newpaper clippings, and video footage of the Chorus singing, acting,...

‘Variant Strains’ comedy about a vaccine race is a booster shot of fun

I didn’t think I was ready to attend live theater again — only the prospect of a new play by the always reliable John Morogiello performing in a winning combo with the irrepressible Rebecca Herron at...

Post-Play Palaver: A double take on ‘Blindness’ at STC

Post-Play Palaver is an occasional series of conversations between DC Theater Arts writers who saw the same performance, got really into talking about it, and decided to continue their exchange in...

An elegently sensual ‘Ella es tango (She Is Tango)’ from GALA

GALA Hispanic Theatre’s Ella es tango (She Is Tango) is the tale of two centuries of music, dance, and female liberation from the origins of Tango as a macho form of entertainment, for the patrons of...

A woman’s liberation through generations in ‘A Very Present Presence’ from Pipeline Playwrights

A Very Present Presence, written by Ann Timmons and directed by Catherine Tripp, is the latest streaming offering from the women’s collective Pipeline Playwrights. Timmons states that this comedy...

‘A More Perfect Union’ from Arena is a thrilling musical accomplishment

I love what you stand for, but I hate the way you lie. to save our soul your secrets need to die. I still love you. God, I still love you. Look me in the eye. Tell me where you’ve been. — lyrics from...

Bowen McCauley Dance to take last bows, gives penultimate performance

As the dance world eases back to stages, Bowen McCauley Dance was among the first to dip a toe in to test the waters, dancing together on the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater stage before a very...

In Mosaic’s darkly funny ‘Inherit the Windbag,’ an epic bickerfest (ep. 8)

Mosaic Theater Company’s web series Inherit the Windbag is a darkly funny revisitation of a debate between two larger-than-life figures. During the 1968 Democratic and Republican National Conventions,...

Apropos Edgar Allan Poe: a reminiscence and a ringing listen

Growing up in Baltimore, it was impossible to avoid the story of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849). He was conceivably our most famous resident. There was the mysterious stranger, known as the “Poe...

A rousing ‘Luther’s Trumpet’ at GMU takes a provocative look at dissent

“A true believer is never comfortable in his faith,” says Martin Luther in Luther’s Trumpet. Director Rick Davis brings this rousing drama, written by historian James Reston Jr., to the George Mason...

Rorschach Theatre hits the jackpot with immersive ‘Distance Frequencies’

Rorschach Theatre’s current production is not a show. Well, not yet. It’s more of an adventure of the mind and, if you wish, the body. Since October 2020, patrons could receive seven chapter boxes of...

An exhilarating ‘Freewheelin’ Insurgents’ by Psalmayene 24 from Arena Stage

Nobody knows how the crisis that we are currently experiencing is going to turn out. The questions What are we to do? and How are we to go on? are at the center of The Freewheelin’ Insurgents, the...

My impromptu evening when the show couldn’t go on at American Shakespeare Center

One by one, our beloved live theaters are reopening, and the level of anticipation cannot possibly be higher. This summer, Staunton, Virginia’s company at the American Shakespeare Center is starting...

An independent woman faces cancer in Solas Nua’s intimate outdoor drama

There couldn’t be a more perfect setting for Irish playwright Deirdre Kinahan’s In the Middle of the Fields than the grassy, clovered slope of P Street Beach, a sliver of Rock Creek Park a quick walk...

Studio Theatre’s ‘Flow’ feels like a hip-hop feast for the senses

Director Psalmayene 24 and actor-poet Justin Weaks join forces again in Flow, bridging the gap between Old Skool rappers and new age Flowetry performers to trace the tragic footsteps of seven...

A highly entertaining ‘How He Lied to Her Husband’ from Washington Stage Guild

Washington Stage Guild continues its run of online performances with a one-act comedy from George Bernard Shaw, whose works they perform so frequently that he’s affectionately known as their “house...

GALA presents stunning one-man ‘Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evil Doers’

José Torres-Tama’s genre-bending sci-fi Latino noir satirizes the absurd status of immigrants as “extraterrestrials.”

Rep Stage radio play ‘Ghost/Writer’ is some mind-blowing writing

Playwright Dane Figueroa Edidi mixes romance and vengeance and packs volumes of truth into stunning poetic dialog.

NextStop’s ‘First Date’ is a show to fall in love with

This small show with a big heart is smart, funny, and moving.

In a child’s voice, a magical and moving portrait of the South from Round House

Beth Hylton solos as a fourth-grader in Lucy Alibar’s poetic and comic ‘Throw Me on the Burnpile and Light Me Up.’

Rapid Lemon’s ‘Serious Adverse Effects’ fascinates, resonates

A complex sci-fi drama with a gripping theme of spiritual transcendence, in a world premiere by Derek Lee McPhatter.

Mike Daisey mansplains

The master monologist takes an unblinking look at Scott Rudin, Andrew Cuomo, and himself.

All the tuneful fun of ‘Urinetown’ done with puppets by Landless Theatre

If there was ever a Broadway show that could be done justice as a puppet musical melodrama, it’s Urinetown. The script and songs of this beloved cult musical are the same. The only difference in this...

A daughter’s family dramas drive a hilarious and moving ‘2.5 Minute Ride’

“2.5 minutes is a really long time on a roller coaster if you are having a good time. If you think it’s killing your father it’s a really, really long time.” —Lisa Kron in 2.5 Minute Ride The first of...

‘Blindness’ in darkness at Shakespeare is a brilliant beacon of theater

On this Kentucky Derby weekend, wondering what theatrical “horse” will nose ahead and augur well for a new world of theater when we can emerge from the pandemic, I’m placing my bet on Blindness at...

Poignant memories of love in Signature’s vibrant ‘Midnight at The Never Get’

In the hidden back room of a 1960s Greenwich Village bar is the stage for a past, hidden love at the center of Midnight at The Never Get now streaming from Signature Theatre. Trevor, a colorful and...

Three emerging theater artists confront whitewashing of Black stories

While our country was taking a collective sigh of relief after the guilty verdicts convicting George Floyd’s murderer last week, systemic racism continued to flaunt itself in our society. Manifesting...

‘Pipeline’ at Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe is a masterpiece of stage-to-film

The Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in Sarasota, Florida, took its latest production outside under a balmy 82 degree evening with a full moon glowing over the marquee and offered a 90-minute...

Live at last at GALA, a boldly comic ‘Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter’

Trudging up the two flights from the rainy street-level pavement to GALA Hispanic Theatre’s auditorium entrance felt like a pilgrimage. (Yes, I could have taken the elevator, but who would have wanted...

A white cop’s shots at Black man echo through ‘Until the Flood’ at Studio

Dael Orlandersmith’s Until the Flood, now an on-demand production from Studio Theatre, brings the viewer into the conversation. You couldn’t be more active as a listener in this simple, seamless...

In brilliant ‘Children of Medea,’ a Korean American girl hopes to cope

Conformity can be difficult for some of us at the best of times. But it is especially difficult in adolescence for a girl. Cynthia, 17, the main character in Sue Jin Song’s brilliant Children of...

A showcase of extraordinary talents from Ballet Theatre of Maryland

Ballet Theatre of Maryland’s Momentum is a collection of four classical and contemporary works that showcases the extraordinary talents of the company. The first two pieces are choreographed by former...

A powerful theater of witness marks Emancipation Day in ‘Here I Am’

Many of us have been asking, “What will our theaters look like when our community returns to a post-pandemic ‘normal’?” Mélisande Short-Colomb and her collaborators—professionals and students or...

In eye-opening ‘The Jam: Only Child,’ a son and grandson tells it like it was

In The Jam: Only Child — now streaming on demand from Signature Theatre — Tony Award nominee Daniel J. Watts recounts his life as the only child of a single mother: a latchkey kid who grows up with...

Woolly’s powerful father-son convo ‘This Is Who I Am’ in rerun

(This review, first published December 14, 2020, was written about the original livestream run. The production is now streaming on demand through April 25, 2021.) Woolly Mammoth’s production of This...

A Chekhov trio from Workhouse Arts is an intellectual tickle

Chekhov is not a feel-good story teller. His plays tell a brutal truth about people: their motivations, their weaknesses, and their duplicity. The Workhouse Arts Center is currently streaming Chekhov...

KenCen puts on puppet show and kids try it at home

I had the opportunity to watch Leonardo and Sam: The Terrible Monster and the Most Scaredy-Cat Kid in the Whole World, Respectively with my daughters (aged 7 and 9). The show is adapted from two Mo...

Audrey Cefaly’s ‘Maytag Virgin’ is a joy to see at Colonial Players of Annapolis

Maytag Virgin is Colonial Players of Annapolis’s first show since the pandemic forced theaters to close. Directed by Edd Miller, it is offered livestreamed as well as to limited, masked, and...

Grammy-winning percussionists release an exceptional, ‘theatrical’ album

Can an hour-long album of something technically labeled “classical music” actually be the closest thing to musical theater’s tradition of an original cast recording? It can in the case of last month’s...

A theater fan tests Synetic’s impressive new streaming service

The award-winning Synetic Theater is known for innovative interpretations of classic stories, most notably for their Wordless Shakespeare adaptations. As theaters pivoted to virtual performances and...

‘A Boy and His Soul,’ heartwarming and buoyant, from Round House

Playwright Colman Domingo has no time for stereotypes. A Boy and His Soul, his one-man, autobiographical play, is a living, breathing example of real life, real love, and real Black experience. In an...

Woolly’s nifty ‘Rich Kids’ twits excess, whizzes by

You got a fast car I want a ticket to anywhere Maybe we make a deal Maybe together we can get somewhere Any place is better… Is it fast enough so we can fly away?… Leave tonight or live and die this...

‘Cry It Out’ at Everyman Theatre airs real-life new-mom pressures

Award-winning playwright Molly Smith Metzler’s Cry It Out is a beautiful commentary on real life. The struggles of parenting in an age of never enough. An homage to working parents and stay-at-homers...

Studio Theatre’s raw, audacious ‘Cock’ is one big deal

Set me free why don’t cha babe Get out my life why don’t cha babe ‘Cause you don’t really love me You just keep me hangin’ on These unflinching lyrics floated through my brain as I took in Studio...