Reviews

Review: ‘Zanna Don’t (the Reboot)’ at Theatre Horizon

For the latest show in its 42nd and Main Concerts series, Theatre Horizon tackled Zanna, Don’t!, an offbeat musical that ran Off-Broadway in 2003 and has had productions all over the world since. That...

Review: ‘Truth and Confessions’ at Standing Ovation Theatre Company

“Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It...

Review: ‘The Full Monty’ at Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre

Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre’s production of The Fully Monty is a fun musical with a lot of heart. With book by Terrence McNally, music and lyrics by David Yazbek, and directed by Mason Catharini,...

In the Moment: Interview with Theatrical Designer Deb Sivigny Part II

Continuing the conversation we started in Part I of this interview with costume and scenic designer Deb Sivigny, we delve a bit more into Deb’s work as a designer. Maybe even with some reveals and...

Review: ‘Finding Neverland’ at the Hippodrome Theatre

Those who’ve forgotten Peter Pan are destined to repeat it in Finding Neverland. The U.S. national tour now at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre until July 2 makes for a dreamy midsummer night’s...

Review: Source Festival 2017: ‘Through the Wall’: Artistic Blind Date

A Source Festival Artistic Blind Date brings together three area artists of different disciplines for an adventure in performance art. In five months they need to create and perform a performance that...

Review: ‘The Crusade of Connor Stephens’ at the Jerry Orbach Theater

Gun violence, socio-religious intolerance, same-sex marriage, and gay adoption are some of the current hot-button issues that tear apart a family, polarize a community, and create a media frenzy in...

Film Review: ‘Abacus: Small Enough to Jail’

The fallout of the financial crisis is still being thrashed out in full public view, which makes for a terribly difficult documentary subject; we are a long way from knowing where most of it actually...

Review: ‘The Nerd’ at Bucks County Playhouse

The summer stock experience has nearly passed away. Half a century ago it was a vacation custom to visit a picturesque village and, after a day of sightseeing complemented by great food, stop by a...

Review: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

Turning The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of Sherlock Holmes’ most famous cases, from a mystery into a small-cast comedy is an idea that sure gets around. Hedgerow Theatre staged a four-actor version...

Report: ‘Manual Cinema: The End of TV’ at the Columbia Festival of the Arts

Manual Cinema: The End of TV proved to be an interesting last night for the Columbia Festival of the Arts for this year. It was presented at the Smith Theatre at the Horowitz Center at Howard...

Review: ‘Pippin’ at Princeton Summer Theater

So many men seem destined To settle for something small, But I won’t rest until I know I’ll have it all… Stephen Schwartz’s lyrics for “Corner of the Sky” sum up everything that the title character of...

Review: ‘My Fair Lady’ at Olney Theatre Center

Not your grandparents’ My Fair Lady, Olney Theatre Center presents a brilliant reimagining of this classic musical. With book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, it was adapted...

Review: ‘The Imbible: Day Drinking’ at New World Stages

Feeling overwhelmed by the demands of work, everyday chores, and the incessant pings of your digital devices? Then don’t just find the time, but make the time, for getting together, catching up, and...

Review: Sheryl Crow at Wolf Trap

In support of her latest album, aptly entitled Be Myself, nine-time Grammy Award-winning, singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow returned to Wolf Trap. The sold-out crowd at the Filene Center eagerly embraced...

Magic Time!: ‘Broken Glass’ at Theater J

Arthur Miller’s 1994 Broken Glass does not rise to the stature of his greatest works (Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, The Price, and others). But even lesser Miller can be arresting, as the smart...

Review: ‘Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure’ at Imagination Stage

Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure follows the timeless Lewis Carroll tale, with all the memorable characters we know and love, but with a Rock ‘n’ Roll twist. Written by Rachel Rockwell and...

​Review: ‘Into the Woods’ at Summer Dinner Theatre at Montgomery College

Each time I’ve seen Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, now playing at Montgomery College’s Summer Dinner Theatre through July 2nd, is the best time I’ve seen Into the Woods and this production,...

Review: ‘Ballet, Brass & Song: Chamber Dance Project’ at Sidney Harman Hall

Baseball players take the winter off. Football players do the same in the summer. Ballet dancers are of a different breed. When their companies go on hiatus, typically in early June, they find other...

Capital Fringe Preview: ‘In The Company of de Sade’ by Timothy R. King

It was 2012 when King’s Players was born. For our first show, we tackled an original piece called In the Company of de Sade. The premise was simple: a director attempts to stage the Marquis de Sade’s...

Review: ‘Alex Keiper & The Next Generation’ at The Arden Cabaret Series at Arden Theatre Company

Alex Keiper is a well-known Philadelphia actor who was originally asked to do a solo cabaret show by the Arden Theatre Company. Unexpectedly, she decided she wanted to share this event with some of...

Review: ‘Stoop Storytelling Series: My Favorite Film’ at the Columbia Festival of the Arts

On Friday, June 23rd, the Columbia Festival of the Arts brought up the curtain on another edition of the wonderfully unusual, Baltimore-based performing arts group, Stoop Storytelling, at the Smith...

Review: ‘Murder on the Nile’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

Imagine this scene. You’re on a paddle steamer on the Nile River in Egypt. It’s the mid-60s. You find yourself surrounded by an off-kilter cast of characters: Miss Ffoliot-ffoulkes on holiday with her...

Review: ‘Death Comes for the War Poets’ at The Sheen Center

This year marks the centenary of the beginning of America’s involvement in World War I in 1917, and The Sheen Center has recognized it with the stellar world premiere of Death Comes for the War Poets...

In the Moment Interview: Jordan Friend, Artistic Director of 4615 Theatre

A new generation of theater-makers are beginning to assert themselves in the DC area. They are the Millennial generation who have made DC their home over the past decade. Many are natives of the area,...

Review: ‘American Idiot’ at Beyond the Page Theatre Company at West Potomac High School

A guitar solo sounds, the band joins in, and the stage is set for a very talented group of performers at Beyond the Page Theatre Company of West Potomac High School. Who knew that the rebellious...

Spine: ‘When We Were Young and Unafraid’ at The Keegan Theatre

Stepping back 45 years, America is in the midst of a social revolution, and feminist consciousness-raising sessions are underway. Radical feminists, cultural feminists, and political feminists are all...

An Interview with the National Orchestral Institute and Festival (NOI+F) Director Richard Scerbo: Thirty Years After It Began, NOI+F is Breaking Ground and Stronger Than Ever by Robert Lintott

When the National Orchestral Institute and Festival (NOI+F) began in 1987, its first director appealed to student musicians across the country by telling them that “participants will have the...

Review: ‘d4rkly your retrorockets fl4re’ at the Flamboyán Theater

The world-premiere full-stage production of d4rkly your retrorockets fl4re, written by Steven Mark Tenney and co-directed with his sister Susan Tenney, is presented by The Constellation Project as...

Review: ‘The Little Mermaid JR’ at BRAVO Productions

Theater is a vital part of our culture. Imagination is discovered. History revealed. New ideas expressed. And the limitless lessons to be garnered from our fundamentally flawed human selves are...

Celebrating the Lives of the Emanuel Nine: An Interview with the Cast of New Freedom Theatre’s ‘Mother Emanuel’

During a prayer service on June 17, 2015, nine members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, were killed by a 21-year-old white...

Review: ‘Broken Glass’ at Theater J

Shards of unseen, but sharply-felt shattered glass, both of a collapsing marriage and the infamous Kristallnacht (Night of Crystal), are fused together in Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass, now playing at...

Review: ‘Rent’ at the National Theatre

Okay, twenty years ago I was more concerned with raising kids than living rough on the street, but that’s what the current tour of Rent celebrates. Where to live, how to love, finding work, survival,...

Review: ‘When We Were Young and Unafraid’ at The Keegan Theatre

In 1972, there was no Roe v. Wade or Violence Against Women Act. Battered women had little legal recourse, and many found shelter—if they were lucky—in safe houses run by good Samaritans. House of...

Review: ‘Alice in Wonderland’ at The Collaborative Theatre Company at Fells Point Corner Theatre

Delving into classic text with histrionic flair, The Collaborative Theatre Company (TCT) presents The Manhattan Project’s version of Lewis Carroll’s time-honored 1865 tale, Alice in Wonderland, which...

Review: ‘The Summer Club’ at Venice Island Performing Arts Center

In his banter with the audience during last night’s musical homage to Swing, Big Bands, and ‘The Rat Pack’ at Manayunk’s Venice Island Performing Arts Center, Jeff Coon, Executive Director and...

Review: The Second City’s ‘Divided We Stand’ at The Kennedy Center

They’re back! Second City–the group that made Chicago the capital of comedy and that all but invented improv–has returned to DC, where it is part of The Kennedy Center’s month-long second annual...

Review: ‘Junie B. Jones is Not a Crook’ at Adventure Theatre MTC

When I was about eight-years-old, I saw an irresistible set of Hello, Kitty pencils while shopping with my mom. She told me I couldn’t have them, so I slipped them into my pocket. Once home, my mother...

In the Moment: A Report on ‘How I Learned What I Learned’ at Round House Theatre

Reflections of a hard-headed son on the Round House Theatre production of August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned. As a theatrical production, August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned,...

Review: ‘Forsaken Angels’ at Wolf Pack Theatre Company

“Write what you know.” Attributed to Mark Twain, this advice is adhered to by many a playwright, including a local one, William Leary. His Forsaken Angels, a joint production of Wolf Pack Theatre...

Review: ‘Always… Patsy Cline’ at The Media Theatre

Anyone who has ever felt any heartfelt connection to another can hear a legendary Patsy Cline song and say “Oh yes, been there, seen, done that.” The lyrics are about much more than trucks, beer or...

Review: ‘Oberon, or The Elf King’s Oath’ at The In Series

“I’m stuck with writer’s block!” Who among us—be we beginners, practitioners or professionals, list makers, blog posters, PhD thesis or diary writers—has not been visited by that alarming thought?...

Review: ‘The Sound of Music’ at The Kennedy Center

Art has a way to awaken the senses and make you feel alive. Art shakes the dreariness of everyday life off you as you bathe in the beauty of a live musical performance. The Sound of Music at The...

Review: ‘Evita’ at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

The life of Eva Perón is the stuff legends, and rock operas, are made of: a rags-to-riches story of a poor illegitimate child from provincial Argentina, whose ambitious determination, seductive...

Review: ‘Dreamgirls’ at ANKH Repertory Theatre and The Finest! Performance Foundation

Dreamgirls, with book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Henry Krieger, was one of the very first shows I saw on Broadway, back in the 1980s. It was memorable then and it remains memorable now in the...

Review: ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

“May I return to the beginning?” runs a beloved lyric to the song “Any Dream Will Do” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, now back for the summer at Toby’s — The Dinner Theatre of...

Review: ‘Rebollar and Friends: 40 and Up!’

We’ve all heard the cliches about aging: Life begins at 40. You are not getting older, you are getting better. Age is just a number. Once a man, twice a child. The inspiring dance repertoire Rebollar...

Review: ‘Project Dawn’ at People’s Light

Gritty and harsh, but with flashes of humor and hope, Project Dawn tackles a vital issue and doesn’t shy away from showing its worst repercussions. Karen Hartman’s play, inspired by a real-life court...

Review: ‘The Roses in June’ at Seagull Productions

June 1967. What memories does that bring? Sgt. Pepper, The Rolling Stones, bell bottoms, assassinations, the conflict with ’50s conformity, trouble in the Middle East? This is the era summoned by...

Review: ‘Cry-Baby The Musical’ at Drama Learning Center

Baltimore’s John Waters takes another swipe at Eisenhower-era conformity in Cry-Baby: The Musical, making its area premiere now at the Drama Learning Center in Columbia. The show had a short Broadway...