Reviews

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Help Me, Wanda!’

Toni Rae Salmi is an actor seen frequently on DC stages, most recently “enjoyably grand” in Perfect Arrangement at Source Festival. In Help Me, Wanda!, she belts out a rockin’ song list—much of it...

Review: ‘Perfect Blue’ at Tiny Dynamite

Something new and cutting-edge is happening at Christ Church Neighborhood House this summer – the U.S. premiere of Perfect Blue, by G.S. Watson. Perfect Blue, produced by Philadelphia-based theatre...

Review: ‘Matthew McConaughey Vs The Devil’ at the New York Musical Festival

Deserving recipient of an Academy Award for Best Actor, or modern-day Faust who sold his soul to capture Hollywood’s biggest honor? Emilie Landmann (book), Carrie Morgan (book and lyrics), and...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Proper Care of the Peace Lily’

There are no absolutes in Proper Care of the Peace Lily. In this 100-minute performance, everything exists in relation: analogies, power differentials, and those actual familial relations that define...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Orson the Magnificent – The Magic of Orson Welles’

You probably know Orson Welles for Citizen Kane and War of the Worlds, but did you know he was also an accomplished magician? In Orson the Magnificent, consummate showman Lars Klores takes audiences...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Roseburg’

A play about gun control, mental health, Robert Kennedy, and the Umpqua Community College shooting that forms a cohesive message without hitting the audience over the head with an anvil? It’s real,...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘5 Epiphanies’

Like storytime for adults, David W. Grant sits in a modern version of a wingback chair in the small space at the Pursuit Wine Bar, sipping a Negroni while regaling us with true tales from his life...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Regulars’

By far the best show I have seen at Fringe so far this year, The Regulars will have you laughing in your seat, squealing at insider “DC” jokes and dancing in the aisles, (Really, be prepared. They...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Shinka’

The post World War II Japanese dance theatre form, Butoh, is traditionally performed in white body make-up. Slow controlled movement, body tension and muscular involvement may rely on elaborate...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: “It’s What We Do”: A Play about the Occupation

Nazi Germany, South African apartheid, any city USA circa Black Lives Matter, pre-civil rights era America, Batista regime in Cuba, Cochabamba in Bolivia, Syrian uprising, 1984, even Jews in Bethlehem...

Review: ‘The Originalist’ at Arena Stage at The Mead Center for American Theater

The original The Originalist returns to Arena in a much larger house (The Kreeger, not the Kogod Cradle where it debuted in 2015). This is fitting. The play, the performances, and the production are...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Repentance’

A light night of theater Repentance is not. In one uninterrupted dialogue that unfolds over the course of 90 minutes, Repentance tells a story of mental anguish, power games and abuse. William Aitken...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Heroes’ Tale’

Four black men in their forties sit around a chess game in Dupont Circle park in 1980. They open the show singing barbershop-quartet style, an upbeat song about themselves: They are the 1342 Dupont...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Kara Sevda’

Let’s get this part out of the way quickly: Lisa VillaMil’s Kara Sevda (at Shopkeepers through July 22) is an exhilarating piece of theater, masterfully and assuredly directed by Kat Haan, beautifully...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Dancing Through Life…By the Way’

Dancing Through Life…By the Way is a one-man show starring Christopher Bennett. No director is credited in the Playbill, but it appears that Mr. Bennett did the majority of the heavy lifting here. He...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Arden Now’

“My employer is an asshole.” Shakespeare said that. Ok, not exactly. But the Rude Mechanicals somehow fit the line seamlessly into Arden Now, their abbreviated and modified – yet still spoken in verse...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Daggers MacKenzie’

There are surprisingly few one-actor musicals. Even rarer: solo musicals where the protagonist juggles razor-sharp daggers. Make your one-actor, dagger-juggling musical about a lesbian circus...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘ClickB@it’

Internet addiction is no laughing matter. However, for the talented team now lighting up the stage at the Sprenger Theatre at Atlas, the Internet–and all the craziness it has produced–is the stuff of...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Aflight’

There is no doubt in my mind that Jane Franklin Dance’s Aflight brings something special to Fringe. Usually based in Arlington, this group blends music, dance, and visual art in a way that is not only...

Review: ‘Empanada For A Dream’ at 1st Stage

Proust may have had his mother’s madeleine, but Juan Francisco Villa has his mother’s empanada to stir up memories of his gritty, hard scrabble childhood in New York’s City’s Lower East Side. It was a...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Garbage Person Karaoke’

Over the 65-minute run time of Caroline Bennett’s Garbage Person Karaoke, there are moments of painful comedy and bitter emotional connections with that specific kind of heartbreak that kicks the...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Ten Principles )'( – Senior Year’

A choose-your-own-adventure review – pick one of the following: a) I have little or no idea what the Burning Man festival is; b) I know about Burning Man, but have never been; c) I am a Burner. Brett...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Echoes’

Mia Amado, producer and director of Echoes, brings this piece about love and mental illness to the Eastman Theatre at Gallaudet. Echoes is by no means an easy play, in terms of execution and in...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘There Ain’t No More’

Willie Carlisle is an astonishing performer, and if I were only reviewing his performance of mountain folk music, I’d recommend this show with the entirety of my full heart. Guitar, banjo, squeeze...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Nasty Women of the Ecstatic Rainbow Mystical Retreat’

This show is a comedy inspired by a tragedy, Greek playwright Euripides’ The Bacchae. In case it has been a while since you last refreshed your memory on the theatrical offerings of Greece in 504 BC,...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘In the Company of de Sade’

Satire is a noble pursuit, but it can also be used as an excuse. Regardless of what a would-be satirist puts onstage, if you dislike it, he can say that your negative reaction is the point. “I found...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘One In Four’

If you’ve ever picked up a roommate from an online ad, you know that living with strangers can be, well, strange. In a world premiere from outer space-oriented Nu Puppis collective, that strangeness...

Review: ‘Gigi’ at Washington County Playhouse

For a taste of France and classic musical theatre, Washington County Playhouse in Hagerstown is serving Lerner and Lowe’s Gigi through August 5th. It is a rarely produced musical, faithfully remounted...

Review: ‘The Summer Club: 3rd Anniversary Special’ at Venice Island Performing Arts Center

Back at Manayunk’s Venice Island Performing Arts Center, The Summer Club celebrated its third anniversary on a very hot night with an even hotter performance. With yesterday’s total breakdown of the...

Review: ‘Hamlet’ at REV Theatre Company

Madness is unleashed among the stoic marble and stone memorial markers of iconic Laurel Hill Cemetery as REV Theatre Company, directed by Rosey Hay, lends life force to the language of Shakespeare’s...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Clara Bow: Becoming “It”

Though her name is no longer on the lips of an adoring public, during the height of silent film and then early talkies, Clara Bow was The It Girl, the very personification of the carefree flapper of...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Joe Charnitski’s Funeral’

Not the first, not the second, but the third Joe Charnitski is here from New York to share his story of three lives, two eulogies, and getting out of a small town. Witty, humble, and inviting, Joe...

Review: ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ at Hedgerow Theatre

Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real. Hedgerow Theatre Company has found a way to make you feel like a world traveler without ever leaving Delaware County. Hedgerow’s lively...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Exit, Pursued by a Bear’ at Barabbas Theatre

Exit, Pursued by a Bear, produced by Barabbas Theatre for their 2017 CapFringe entry and directed by Kevin O’Connell, is a welcome DC introduction to Lauren Gunderson’s pithy, ratatat meta riff on...

Review: ‘Hick: A Love Story’ at 1st Stage

What was hidden away as a purposefully invisible sidebar of decades-old history, is brought to well-deserved notice by 1st Stage’s inaugural Logan Festival of Solo Performances. With Hick: A Love...

Review: ‘We Found the Wild Things’ at Who What Where Theater Collective

It is New Year’s Eve, 2015, and seven high school seniors have gathered at the home of the twins, Nicole (Skye Lindberg) and August (Zachary Wilcox). There’s Maisy (Catherine Anne Gilbert), quiet,...

2017 Capitol Fringe Review: ‘Show Business 101’

Welcome to show business! And welcome to Show Business 101, the comedy revue where four talented actors burst on and off the stage offering send-ups of various show biz situations, real and imaginary....

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Spy in the House of Men’

Penny Sterling has seen a lot of hardship: abuse, addiction, assault, and fifty years spent trying to live as a man. Her perspective as a trans woman, a mother, and an alcoholic all build into a rich,...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Love and Other Lures’

An hour of music—wonderfully moody ballads, bluesy numbers, and almost twangy folk songs—is always an hour well spent. Even if that music largely focuses on supernatural themes. Monsters to be exact....

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Contractions’

At this point, there’s an entire genre of books, TV shows, and films about bad bosses and the bizarre vagaries of corporate workplaces. One of the perhaps lesser-known but extremely effective...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘LIFE: A Comic Opera in Three Short Acts’

LIFE: A Comic Opera in Three Short Acts is neither quite an opera nor a musical; it is not a really a comedy or a drama. It’s a bit of everything, using classical music, Broadway, doo-wop, and more to...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Passing – A Stage Play’

Kukui Kikuyu Productions’ Passing – A Stage Play is a fascinating psychological character study in which secrets revealed inevitably lead to a shockingly tragic end which deserves a long life beyond...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Kind of Thing That Would Happen’

What is truth? It’s a big question to explore in 50 minutes, but Agora Dance’s The Kind of Thing That Would Happen attempts to do exactly that. The result is a beautifully executed, if overly...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Comedian Elected to Town Council in New Jersey’

Ask yourself: how much do you need to know about the inner workings of local government in Flemington, New Jersey? If the answer is “I’d rather know about Flemington, NJ than what’s going on in town...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Lost Teeth’

How far are we willing to go to seek happiness? That’s the intriguing premise of Jona Tarlin’s Lost Teeth, a world premiere production from New York City’s Blowout Theatre Company which has a...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Paper’

A cluttered desk, a twenty-minute appointment, a student and a teacher, and what ensues are cerebral twists and turns, well beyond the subdued, weightiness of departmental office hours. We inhabit...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Laramie Project’

One of the most frequently performed plays in America today, The Laramie Project, is now on view at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, where the bare stage of the Lang Theatre has been transformed, for...

Review: ‘The New and Improved Stages of Grief’ at Act II Playhouse

Inevitably, we will each encounter some kind of experience with death as we grow, and although it may be one of our greatest shared experiences, grieving is still a personal process. A mixture of...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘This Too Comes By Hard’

No way around it, this is a dark, harsh, and gritty domestic drama. For some, it may be too dark, too harsh, too gritty, perhaps a partner violence trigger. A fun, frothy, feel-good frolic this show...

Review: ‘A Little Princess’ at Aldersgate Church Community Theater by Debra Cope

The timeless story of kind and courageous young heroine Sara Crewe comes to life on an Alexandria stage in A Little Princess, a new adaptation of the classic Frances Hodgson Burnett novel by Lauren...