Reviews

Review: Mariinsky Ballet’s ‘The Little Humpbacked Horse’ at The Kennedy Center

Movement and merriment abound in Mariinsky’s The Little Humpbacked Horse Restraint and sutlety are generally not traits associated with Russian comedy ballet, and that proved true last evening at The...

Review: ‘Romeo & Juliet’ at The Media Theatre

“Two households, both alike in dignity In fair Verona, where we lay our scene From ancient grudge break to new mutiny Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean….” Delaware County’s Media Theatre...

Spine: Love and Wit in ‘As You Like It’ at the Folger Theatre

Now playing at the Folger Theatre, a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch and produced in association with Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, is sure to...

Review: ‘Treasure Island’ at Children’s Theatre of Annapolis

Children’s Theatre of Annapolis’ production of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure story Treasure Island is a rollicking, exciting spectacle. Adapted by Ken Ludwig and directed by Jeff Miller,...

Review: ‘Our Town’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of Our Town, their first show at their new location on West Street, is a thoughtful, creative take on Thornton Wilder’s classic American play. Directed by...

In the Moment: ‘As You Like It’ at Folger Theatre

Gaye Taylor Upchurch’s appealing direction gives Folger Theatre’s As You Like It a warm flirtatious essence with buffoonery galore masking over Shakespeare’s initial soulful melancholic core. With...

Review: ‘Hooded, Or Being Black for Dummies’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

There is a laugh track with this show. As in a prerecorded TV sitcom where the studio audience was cued to be amused, there’s an overhead LAUGH sign that flashes intermittently accompanied by canned...

Review: ‘Mason Bates’ KC Jukebox: Ravishment’ at The Kennedy Center

Virginia’s own Mason Bates is the current composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center and now playing the second season of his collaborative KC Jukebox series. The series presents out-of-the-box...

Review: ‘The Lion in Winter’ at The Arlington Players

This past weekend, The Arlington Players opened a solid production of the dark comedy, The Lion In Winter, by Playwright James Goldman. For those unfamiliar with the play, it is a work of fiction but...

Review #1: ‘As You Like It’ at Folger Theatre

An updated classic that rocks! Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It, is the icing on the Folger Theatre’s 25th season and its observance of the 400th anniversary of The Bard’s passing. This show,...

Review: ‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’ at Castaways Repertory Theatre

Blue Herons and Other Good Omens Come to Roost in the Castaways Repertory Theatre’s Current Comic Delight If you aren’t familiar with Christopher Durang’s popular comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and...

Review: ‘Boeing Boeing’ at The Highwood Theatre

When is too much of a good thing, too much of a good thing? Is romantic love the most reliable form of love? These questions and more arose in The Highwood Theatre’s production of the classic French...

Review: ‘Love for Sale’ at the Huron Club at SoHo Playhouse

Now in its American premiere after performing in London and Edinburgh, Love for Sale takes us to Paris, 1934, for a “cabaret-play” woven around the music of Kurt Weill and contemporary songwriters...

Review: ‘The Tempest’ at The Baltimore Annex Theater

It’s only the end of January and, with its production of The Tempest, The Baltimore Annex Theater (“Annex”) has already set a very high bar for my 2017 theater viewing. Founding Artistic Director Evan...

Review: ‘Last Train to Nibroc’ at Washington Stage Guild

On a train rumbling eastward from Los Angeles in 1940, a young man in uniform invites himself to sit down next to a pretty young woman absorbed in her book. As it turns out, they are both from...

Review: ‘Marcus/Emma’ at InterAct Theatre Company

Marcus Garvey and Emma Goldman were known for their stirring, provocative speeches. But I doubt that, in any of her speeches, Goldman ever said anything as provocative as “Solidarity is sexy! Yeah!”...

Review: ‘Jerry Blavat’s Gospel, Soul and Doo Wop Reunion’ at The Kimmel Center

Jerry Blavat, “a Philadelphia borne dancer, radio and television disc jockey, performer, entertainer, producer and nightclub owner” (according to the program insert), produced his 38th show at The...

Magic Time!’ ‘LIZZIE: The Musical’ at Pinky Swear Productions

Don’t groan but this is a bloody good show. It rocks, it roils, it’s saucy and sassy, it’s effin in-your-face. The story is gory as you might expect. It’s about the legendary 1892 axe murder of Lizzie...

Review: ‘Hamlette’ at The Keegan Theatre

Being a teenager is never easy, especially if your mother has just married your uncle, who also happens to have murdered your father, and nobody can accept the fact that you’re a girl. Add in a visit...

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at Ovations Theatre

Ovations Theatre has enchanted its way into the hearts of its audiences once again with a children’s production of Beauty and the Beast. This young and energetic cast, directed by Darnell Morris,...

Review: ‘Bells Are Ringing’ at The Fredericktowne Players

The Fredericktowne Players have just opened their revival of the classic musical Bells Are Ringing. This is an infrequently performed work from the 1950s, that has many charms. Musical theatre...

Review: LiveConnections Presents Nicholas Photinos + Florent Ghys at World Cafe Live

Nicholas Photinos’ and Florent Ghys’ evening of “string innovations” was another successful pairing for LiveConnections Presents’ ambitious curator Mary Wheelock Javian. Her 2016-17 season “is focused...

Review: ‘Hello! Sadness!’ at FringeArts

Mary Tuomanen’s fiercely political solo performance Hello! Sadness! dreamily jolts through time and space. It blends together disparate historic figures and fictional characters, from Joan of Arc and...

Review.’Driving Miss Daisy’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre

Atlanta 1948: “Negro Policemen to Patrol City Streets—They are ordered not to arrest white people” This is an actual headline featured in the multimedia of Bristol Riverside’s Driving Miss Daisy. It...

Review: ‘Laughter on the 23rd Floor’ at Walnut Street Theatre

A special recipe for a belly full of laughter awaits at the Walnut Street Theatre. Take a bunch of madcap comedy show writers, mix with mayhem and a kooky secretary, add a tinge of McCarthyism, shake...

Review: ‘Spring Awakening’ at Zemfira Stage

By Leonard Hughes The plucky Falls Church-based Zemfira Stage has taken on the Tony Award-winning Spring Awakening, a far cry from the company’s joyous summer performance of The Wizard of Oz....

Review: ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ at Ford’s Theatre

A sampling of the audio from the packed house should serve as ample description for Ford’s Theatre’s stunning new production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: raucous laughter, groans...

Review: Bedlam: ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Saint Joan’ at McCarter Theatre Center

There’s nothing extravagant about the two shows playing at the McCarter Theatre. Both are presented on a stage stripped to its bare essentials: we can see all the way back to the building’s rear wall....

Spine: ‘Mack, Beth’ a ‘Macbeth’ for the Cyber Age at Keegan Theatre

Mack, Beth by Chris Stezin, now playing at The Keegan Theatre, is a Macbeth for the Cyber Age. Set in a world where death by dagger is replaced by death by fake news, Mack, Beth makes a person’s brand...

Review: American Ballet Theatre’s ‘Swan Lake’ at The Kennedy Center

American Ballet Theatre Offers Magical Moments of Escapism The grey cloud of uncertainty that hovers over all, especially dance, lifted last evening at The Kennedy Center Opera House, if only for a...

Review: ‘Mack, Beth’ at The Keegan Theatre

Chris Stezin’s adaptation of Macbeth, presented by Director Matt Ripa at The Keegan Theatre, is a daring attempt to bring one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies into the modern day. In this...

Review: ‘Surviving Twin’ at People’s Light

Well-known to audiences for his offbeat 1972 novelty song “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)” and his appearances as the singing guitar-playing Captain Calvin Spalding on the popular TV series...

Review: ‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’ at The Hippodrome Theatre

Little Carol Klein of Brooklyn, New York, did herself proud when she blossomed into songwriter Carole King. In 2013 her hit-parade of a life came to Broadway as Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. A...

Review: Carla Cooke at the Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club

There was a fabulous, swinging party on this past Sunday night and it all happened at the wonderful Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club as the dynamic and talented singer Carla Cooke paid tribute to her...

Review: Washington Performing Arts Presents The Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Conductor

It is easy to understand why The Philadelphia Orchestra has tapped Yannick Nézet-Séguin to be their music director and conductor of such a prestigious institution. Yannick exudes charisma and delivers...

Review: ‘Yours Unfaithfully’ at the Mint Theater Company

I regret to say that until I saw Mint Theater Company’s production of Miles Malleson’s comedy Yours Unfaithfully, I wasn’t aware of the author, hadn’t heard of him. A great lack on my part, because as...

Review: ‘Broadway Up Close: Vanessa Williams’ at the Kimmel Center

Continuing the exciting season of Broadway Up Close concerts on Saturday at the Kimmel Center, Seth Rudetsky hosted Broadway and recording star Vanessa Williams for an evening of her career highlights...

Review: ‘Samsara’ at Single Carrot Theatre

Samsara isn’t a person’s name (despite seeming like a blend of “Sam” and “Sara.”) It is defined as either the process of coming into existence as a differentiated, mortal creature (Buddhism) or the...

Review: Soprano Ailyn Pérez at The Barns at Wolf Trap

There’s no business like show business, but does that include opera? If in a few years people finally agree that opera is genuinely another form of musical theater, it may be because of the current...

Review: ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

On December 4, 1956, four young performers found themselves participating in an impromptu jam session in the recording studio of Sun Records in Memphis, TN. Enjoying the early stages of their...

Review: ‘The Producers’ at the Washington County Playhouse Dinner Theater and Children’s Theater

Excellently directed by Laura J. Martin with crisp musical direction from Mat Levine, Mel Brooks’ The Producers at the Washington County Playhouse Dinner Theater is an exceptional evening of musical...

Review: ‘Jitney’ at Manhattan Theatre Club at The Samuel J Friedman Theatre

A remarkable new production of August Wilson’s play Jitney is now available to us all, thanks to the Manhattan Theatre Club, which has staged it on Broadway as the last of the Wilson 10 play cycle to...

Review: ‘Memphis’ at Ritz Theatre Company

“How could people be so bad that make me feel so good?” That is the rhetorical question posed by white DJ Huey Calhoun, a 9th-grade dropout with an eccentric style, a profound passion for black R&B...

Review: ‘The Full Monty’ at the John W. Engeman Theater at Northport

The John W. Engeman Theater at Northport rarely disappoints, and true to form their newest production, The Full Monty, is remarkably well done. This ten-time Tony nominee has a book written by...

Review: ‘LEAR’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

On the night of the J20 Art Strike, a protest movement asking that “business . . . not proceed as usual in any realm” of the creative arts on Inauguration Day, I felt a little guilty attending a play....

Review: ‘Constellations’ at The Wilma Theater

In Constellations, what happens is just as important as what might have happened. Nick Payne’s play concerns two young people who meet, fall in love, quarrel, break up, reunite, get engaged, and deal...

Review: ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Zestful. Savvy. Crafty. Satisfying Director Abigail Isaac Fine’s feisty NextStop production of Shakespeare’s battle-of-wits, romantic-comedy Much Ado About Nothing is a stimulating, adult-depth...

Review: Aaron Tveit at The Barns at Wolf Trap

Aaron Tveit returns to his Broadway roots on Saturday evening during his debut at the Wolf Trap. Tveit (Next to Normal, Grease Live!) has not performed on a Broadway stage since his 2011 starring role...

Review: ‘Rock of Ages’ at Eagle Theatre

It’s back to the ‘80s at Hammonton’s Eagle Theatre, for an absolutely hilarious revisiting of the decade of big hair, tacky fashions, and bad-ass music–or just bad, if you’re not of that...

Review: ‘Show Boat’ at Toby’s The Dinner Theatre of Columbia

Can’t help lovin’ that Show Boat at Toby’s Dinner Theatre. Modern audiences are still likely to find the miscegenation drama that sets the story in motion more dramatically engaging than much of what...