Reviews

Review: ‘Respect! A Tribute to Aretha Franklin’ at the American Pops Orchestra

Five fabulous divas joined the innovative new American Pops Orchestra to celebrate the music of Aretha Franklin at the Arena Stage’s Fichandler Stage on September 16. An energized audience sang,...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘#CocktailPlays’ by Juniper Productions at Philadelphia Distilling

For its inaugural offering in the Fringe, Juniper Productions, founded earlier this year, partners with Philadelphia Distilling for a themed site-specific presentation of four commissioned short...

In the Moment: Matt Haimovitz Brings Mobile Music to Northern Virginia

In these days of the end of the brick-and-mortar retail shops, and in these times when new audiences are less likely to purchase subscriptions to the performing arts as Baby Boomers once did, what can...

Review: ‘Ripcord’ at South Camden Theatre Company

Ripcord is the story of a cutthroat battle of practical jokes and dirty tricks between two women in an assisted-living residence for the elderly. Does that seem unlikely? Then you’ve never met Abby...

Review: ‘Lady M’ – A Co-Production of Collective Eleven, Women from Mars and Gitana Theatre at Atlas Performing Arts Center

In the first scene of LadyM, a show devised by Francesca Chilcote, Rachel Hynes, Vanita Kalra, and Anastasia Wilson, a woman dressed in white dumps an entire bottle of ketchup onto a burger. She tears...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘(insert thoughts here)’ by Bradley’s Bucks at Franky Bradley’s

In a delectable mash-up of the 2017 Fringe with an extended Restaurant Week, Franky Bradley’s gives festival-goers the option of enjoying dinner while attending the latest all-new offering by its...

Review: ‘The Addams Family’ at Washington County Playhouse

The Addams Family, made famous by American cartoonist Charles Addams in 1938 in The New Yorker, became well-loved in the 1960s when adapted for television, starring John Astin and Carolyn Jones. This...

Review: ‘Simpatico’ at McCarter Theatre Center

“Do you want to talk, or do you want to be cryptic and weird?” Those words – which sound like they might belong in a lot of Sam Shepard’s plays – appear in the first scene of Shepard’s Simpatico. And...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Marx in Soho’ by Iron Age Theatre/Radical Acts at the Ethical Society of Philadelphia

Actor and activist Bob Weick is back in the Fringe with his signature touring show Marx in Soho by Howard Zinn, which he first performed in the festival in 2004. Presented by Iron Age Theatre/Radical...

Review: ‘I Killed My Mother’ at Spooky Action Theater

Andras Viskey’s I Killed My Mother, now in production at Spooky Action Theater, is a challenging bit of business. Its wordless opening is several minutes of wandering by various members of the company...

Review: ‘Deathtrap’ at Silver Spring Stage

The opening of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap this weekend marked the start of the 50th Season for Silver Spring Stage. The play, which opened on Broadway in the late 1970s, is a suspense thriller with lots of...

Review: ‘SEVENTY IV SECONDS… to judgment’ by GoKash OnSTAGE at Arden Theatre Company

Who decides who lives or dies, and how is that just? These are the questions playwright Kash Goins implores audiences to think about in his new play SEVENTY IV SECONDS… to judgment at the Arden...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Mistress of the Maze’ by WeftWorks at CHI Movements Art Center

Hypnotic, transportive, and exquisitely beautiful, Mistress of the Maze marks the unforgettable debut of WeftWorks with its stunning world-premiere performance in the 2017 Fringe. Created,...

Review: ‘Cheeks’ at Plays and Players Theatre

First things first: Lee Minora’s solo show Cheeks is a laugh riot. Do not miss an opportunity to see this show. It is both whip smart and hysterical (both in the colloquial meaning and a feminist...

Review: ‘Funny Girl’ at Candlelight Dinner Theatre

What would you rather see: Fanny Brice singing on a tugboat in New York harbor, or a real live Fanny Brice in the Ziegfeld Follies? Funny Girl, the original 1964 Broadway musical, is a real stage...

Review: ‘Rapture, Blister, Burn’ at Peter’s Alley Theatre Productions

In these days of constant bombast and weaponized words, when sounding reasonable and wanting to be open to another person’s point of view sounds almost quaint, Peter’s Alley Theatre has taken a quiet...

Review: ‘The Christians’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Spearheading a “season of community” and stimulating thought-provoking dialogue, Baltimore Center Stage headlines the first production of its 2017/18 span in electrifying fashion with rising...

Review: ‘Clover’ at Ally Theatre Company

But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters, they want to know which tools; They never ask why build. — Anne Sexton, “Wanting to Die” Laura Rocklyn and Ty Hallmark’s new work, Clover, now...

Review: ‘Lela & Co.’ by Factory 449 at The Anacostia Arts Center

The story of Cordelia Lynn’s Lela & Co. is a universal story, told across many borders and many nationalities, ethnicities, and races; during wartime and peacetime, at Super Bowls, World Cups, and...

Review: ‘Sally McCoy’ at Cohesion Theatre Company

“Every man on earth would kill for somethin’. Any says different – jus’ ain’t found out wha’s worth killin’ for yet.” – Devil Anse Hatfield, in Sally McCoy In the middle of the night of August 9,...

Review: ‘The Canterville Ghost’ at The Montgomery Playhouse

Just as you are taking down your Labor Day bunting and searching for last year’s fall decorations, there arrives a bit of spooky mystery and merriment for the whole family to enjoy. The Montgomery...

Review: ‘Any Given Monday’ at Dominion Stage

Moral dilemmas feed the dark humor of Bruce Graham’s Any Given Monday, directed by Jennifer Lyman. Marital infidelity, the loyalty of friendship, the eagerness of youth, and the logic of no logic at...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘I, Peaseblossom’ by Curio Theatre Company at The Woodlands Cemetery

I, Peaseblossom, written by Tim Crouch and directed by Dan Hodge, is a fun, magical way to become more familiar with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The dreams of the fairy Peaseblossom...

Review: ‘Souvenir, A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins’ at Walnut Street Theatre Independence Studio on 3

How is theatre superior to film or TV? What special magic is found in live performance? This question is superbly answered in Souvenir, A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins, Stephen...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Death Is a Cabaret Ol’ Chum’ by REV Theatre Company at Laurel Hill Cemetery

As you enter through the gates and into the courtyard of historic Laurel Hill Cemetery, you are offered your choice of a complimentary cocktail with an appropriately lethal name, while listening to...

Review: ‘Elizabeth Cree’ at Opera Philadelphia

The British statesman Winston Churchill coined the expression, “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” He was speaking of the Soviet Union. The quotation, however, also could be...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘The Groom’s a Fag; The Bride’s a Cunt; The Best Man’s a Whore; and the Maiden of Honor (Just) Hung Herself in the Closet’ by On the Rocks at The Beard Cave at St. Mary’s Church

What do you get when you mix over-the-top parody with uncensored vulgarity with pure poetry? The Groom’s a Fag; The Bride’s a Cunt; The Best Man’s a Whore; and the Maiden of Honor (Just) Hung Herself...

Review: ‘I Hate Hamlet’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre

Threading a touch of Shakespeare with campy humor and artful absurdity, Fells Point Corner Theatre (FPCT) introduces its 30th anniversary season with a fun revival of Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet....

Review: ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ at the Walnut Street Theatre

Want to make one of the zaniest shows of all time even zanier? Just add Frank Ferrante. Ferrante has directed the Walnut’s new production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and he’s...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘These Terrible Things’ by the University of the Arts and The Berserker Residents at the Caplan Studio Theater

It’s a zany self-referencing case of art imitating life in These Terrible Things, as the University of the Arts and The Berserker Residents team up for an absolutely hilarious parody of training...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Airswimming’ by Half Key Theatre Company at Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5

Airswimming, Charlotte Jones’ play about two Englishwomen stuck in a mental institution for no good reason, walks – or should that be swims? – a fine line between sly humor and sensitivity. It’s...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Cotton&Gold’ by AMH Productions at Circle of Hope

Cotton&Gold is a new play by writer/director Alyse M. Hogan, a 2017 University of the Arts graduate, and her company AMH Productions, which describes itself as “a new theater company looking to invest...

Review: ‘Red Velvet’ at Lantern Theater Company

A scarlet curtain lines the stage of the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden, London with a controversy lurking on either side. Outside, angry Londoners flood the streets protesting the 1833 Slavery...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Alchemist’ at One Shot Coffee

Friendship finds its way to the Fringe by way of Mary Tuomanen and Chris Davis in the form of a felicitous commemorative play, and is heartily welcomed! Mary and Chris have been friends for around 16...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Home’ at the Prince Theater

Home is the newest theatrical confection of Fringe favorite Geoff Sobelle, and a can’t-miss part of the current festival. The first 70 minutes are a surrealistic delight. I recommend sitting on the...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Tilda Swinton Adopt Me Please’ by The Greenfield Collective at the Asian Arts Initiative

Both laugh-out-loud funny and intensely affecting, The Greenfield Collective makes its powerful mark on the Fringe with Tilda Swinton Adopt Me Please, an original work devised by Nicholas Scheppard...

Review: ‘The Arsonists’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Woolly Mammoth’s The Arsonists is not so much an entertainment, even though I laughed frequently, psychotically–and loud, as it is a paratheatrical event during which an absurd play is presented. The...

Review: ‘For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday’ at Playwrights Horizons

Sarah Ruhl is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a Tony Award nominee. Playwrights Horizons has played host to two of her many play — Stage Kiss and Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Her other works have won...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Iphigenia at Aulis’ by the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective at the USS Olympia

“What gods?” asks the devastated Clytemnestra after the sacrifice of her first-born daughter Iphigenia, in The Philadelphia Artists’ Collective’s Fringe adaptation of Iphigenia at Aulis. The ancient...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Leaps of Faith and Other Mistakes’ by Almanac at the Painted Bride Art Center

Did you ever want to sail away from it all and begin anew with a circle of like-minded friends? That’s what the figures in Almanac’s Leaps of Faith and Other Mistakes do, in a decision that tests...

Review: ‘The Legend of Pufferfish Pat’ at InterAct Story Theatre

Pufferfish Pat is hardly your run of the mill Cowboy name. In fact, it’s so unusual that the cowboy it identifies gets “madder than a wet hen!” whenever it is mentioned. His face turns red, he swings...

Review: ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ at the Little Theatre of Alexandria

It’s rare that a play allows for a more distanced view than that of its cinematic counterpart, but in the case of the Little Theatre of Alexandria’s production of Driving Miss Daisy, Alfred Uhry’s...

Review: ‘Word Becomes Flesh’ at Theater Alliance at Anacostia Playhouse

The Word, in spiritual parlance, is the creative power of God made audible and visible through His Son. It is the energy of the divine dynamic made manifest through Self-revelation. True to principle,...

Review: ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, with a book by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and music by Gene de Paul, including new...

Spine: What’s Left of America’s Makers, ‘Skeleton Crew’ at Studio Theatre

Lord, in a bourgeois town It’s a bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around Any Washington theatregoer who craves a working class show, where the characters are...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Strange Tenants’ by Sam Tower + Ensemble at Power Plant Productions

Evincing the seminal inspiration of Fringe mainstays Pig Iron Theatre Company and New Paradise Laboratories, Strange Tenants is the latest original work developed in Sam Tower + Ensemble’s...

Review: ‘Aida’ at Washington National Opera

Eternal, romantic love conquers all — even a jealous rival — in Verdi’s ravishingly melodic Aida, now being presented by the Washington National Opera with splendid work from all involved. Verdi’s...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act’ by Blue Mercury Theatre at Independence Library

For the great South African playwright Athol Fugard, the personal is political. And nowhere is that more true than in Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act, a 1972 Fugard play, based on...

Review: ‘In Cabaret We Trust’ by TBD Immersive at Blind Whino

Tradition Be Damned Immersive has taken over a desanctified church at 700 Delaware Street, SW, Washington, DC. Known as the Blind Whino, or better by the fanciful colors that electrify the church’s...

Review: ‘Skeleton Crew’ at Studio Theatre

Even before the houselights go dim, sparks fly. That vision — of fire blazing from a riveter’s gun in a factory in Detroit — is emblematic of what is to come in Skeleton Crew, Dominique Morrisseau’s...