Reviews

Review #2: ‘Straight White Men’ at The Studio Theatre

If your empathy for straight white men was strained by last week’s elections, go see Young Jean Lee’s 2014 play at The Studio Theatre. You’ll be privy to a rare, funny and poignant look under the fig...

Review: ‘One Singular Sensation – A Celebration of the Music of Marvin Hamlisch’ at Live Arts Maryland

One Singular Sensation, presented by Live Arts Maryland, was a loving tribute to the life and work of Broadway and film composer Marvin Hamlisch. J. Ernest Green led the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra...

Review: ‘Let’s Misbehave! True Confessions of GMCW’ at The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC

I can’t vouch for the truth of the confessions, at Let’s Misbehave! True Confessions of GMCW (The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC), but having each performer bare a bit of his soul as lead in to...

Review: The Washington Chorus Presents Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 5

On Sunday, November 13, 2016, the pulsating, transcendent and visionary music of the modern musical giant of minimalist music, Philip Glass —came to vivid life in a unique and powerful concert event....

Review: ‘Urinetown’ at Wilson Theater at Woodrow Wilson High School

Urinetown,The Musical, the totally odiferous sounding but truly entertaining musical, comes up smelling like a rose in its production by the students and faculty at Woodrow Wilson High School. The...

Review: ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ at The US Naval Academy’s Masqueraders

The Masqueraders’ production of Much Ado about Nothing at the United States Naval Academy, directed by Dr. Megan Geigner, is an inventive twist on Shakespeare’s classic comedy. Set in New Mexico at...

Review: ‘The Waiting Room’ at Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center

Inside Montgomery College (MC) Online advertised The Waiting Room by Lisa Loomer as, “a dark comedy about the timeless quest for beauty–and its cost.” Director Dennis Mulligan masterfully animates...

Review: ‘Disney’s The Little Mermaid’ at Mount Vernon Community Children’s Theatre

Mount Vernon Community Children’s Theatre opened their production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid this weekend, and I had the pleasure of seeing their show with my three young boys. The musical is...

Review: ‘Dublin by Lamplight’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company

The founding of The Abbey Theatre in 1904 was one of the pivotal events in Irish history. The Abbey championed the perspective of Irish playwrights and actors, and its founding was the moment that the...

Review: ‘A Delicate Balance’ at Peace Mountain Theatre Company

Laurie T. Freed knows Edward Albee’s work and has directed his plays several times. Her brilliant direction is evident in the exceptional moving and powerful production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A...

Spine: ‘Straight White Men’ by Young Jean Lee at The Studio Theatre

Young Jean Lee’s theatre, entitled Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company (2003-2016), was dedicated to producing “shows written and directed by Young Jean Lee.” The company produced 12 of Ms. Lee’s...

Review: ‘Pericles’ at Delaware Shakespeare Festival

Thousands of years ago, people gathered in the great hall of a palace to hear a bard, like Homer, tell a magical tale of heroes undergoing a journey. Accompanied by a simple lyre, and a poem filled...

Review: ‘Oliver Twist’ at Creative Cauldron

Creative Cauldron presents Oliver Twist, an original adaptation based on Charles Dickens’ classic novel. Directors Laura Connors Hull and Ellen Selby and tailored this production for the performers of...

Review: ‘Straight White Men’ at The Studio Theatre

In these jagged days immediately after the election, Studio Theatre’s richly revealing production of Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee is bracing, to say the least. It deserves our attention no...

Review: ‘What’s Going On: Life, Love, and Social Justice’ at Dance Place

Walking into Dance Place for the world premiere of choreographer and dancer Vincent Thomas’s What’s Going On: Life, Love, and Social Justice, an homage to Marvin Gaye, the great Northeast D.C. native...

Review #2: The Washington National Opera’s ‘The Daughter of the Regiment’ at The Kennedy Center (Cast #2: Sunday, 11/13/16)

Sometimes a relationship between a child and a parent is truly uplifting. Multiply those emotions times twenty, and you experience the heartwarming plot of The Daughter of the Regiment. Broadway...

Dangereuse: She Will Rock You: ‘TAME.’ at WSC Avant Bard

One of Shakespeare’s greatest gifts is the inspiration he offers to other artists. In the case of Tame., playwright Jonelle Walker has captured the essence of Shakespeare’s Kate in The Taming of the...

‘Marisol’ at Villanova Theatre

José Rivera’s Marisol is a dystopian look at a post-apocalyptic time when a war among machine gun-toting angels, part of a heavenly rebellion against a God pronounced senile, has caused devastation as...

Review #1: Washington National Opera’s ‘The Daughter of the Regiment’ (Opening Night Cast-11/12/16)

If your operatic desire is to hear one glorious aria after another sung by two operatic voices that would make the gods envious –set against a deliriously “light-as-air” comically sentimental soufflé...

Review: The American Pops Orchestra Presents ‘I’ll Be Seeing You: A World War II Love Story’ at Lisner Auditorium

I’ll Be Seeing You is a delightful portrait of the love and sacrifices of a newlywed couple separated by military service during World War II. The letters between Spark and Charley while Charlie is...

Review: ‘Broadway Bound’ at 1st Stage

As self-conscious plays go, Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound is both a self-fulfilling prophesy and a cross-examination of the creative process. The play, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a...

Review: ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’ at Georgetown Day School

If the idea of “sophisticated family entertainment” sounds like a contradiction in terms—an oxymoron if ever there were one—then Peter and the Starcatcher, which just opened for a quick run at...

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘Yo, You Be Trippin! An Incomplete but Not Inaccurate Story of LSD in the USA’

LBJ took the IRT down to Fourth Street USA Having participated in the Charm City Fringe Festival (“Fringe”) last year, Chad Short – a soon-to-be graduate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County...

Review: ‘Little Thing, Big Thing’ at Solas Nua

The DC premiere of Donal O’Kelly’s Little Thing, Big Thing, playing now at Solas Nua performing at Flashpoint Mead Theatre Gallery, is an impressively entertaining dark Irish comedy. A cast of two...

Review: ‘Black Violin’ at Strathmore

‘Black Violin’ serves up a musical potpourri at Strathmore “This is a party!” said Wil B (Wilner Baptiste) one half of the group Black Violin, which performed a genre-mashing amalgam of hip hop and...

Review: ‘Almost, Maine’ at Quince Orchard High School

“If needed, use additional sheets.” I remember always being curious how anyone writing a High School exam essay could ever write enough to need additional sheets. Then I had the opportunity to review...

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘God: The One Man Show’

Can I Get an Amen?! Have you been looking for a show that combines laughter, wisdom, magic and miracles? Your prayers have been answered! This weekend, God: The One Man Show (“God”) is playing the...

Review: ‘Children of Eden’ at Damascus Theatre Company

Parent-child relationships have been a perennial issue throughout history, even “In the Beginning.” Damascus Theatre Company’s production of Children of Eden takes the audience on a musical journey...

Review: ‘War Virgin’ at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop

In honor of Veterans’ Day, I took in a showing of War Virgin. I first met the playwright, West Point grad and Iraqi War veteran Laura Westley, at the Army/Navy game in Philadelphia several years ago....

Magic Time: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ at The Keegan Theatre

Having been watching a con man on the national stage for too long now, I found myself last night watching a con man on a local theater stage from an unusually timely point of view. To put it simply:...

Review: ‘Marat/Sade’ at Temple University

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade is perhaps the world’s longest title for a play,...

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘One Man Apocalypse Now’

Martin Sheen Always Wins I’m just going to get this out of the way up front, because time is of the essence. Chris Davis’ One Man Apocalypse Now is playing at the Charm City Fringe Festival and you...

Review: ‘Carousel’ at Arena Stage

Life happens. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s, Carousel, is a timeless interlude that explores the human spirit’s indomitable will to go forward no matter life’s circumstances. Director Molly Smith’s...

Review: ‘Buyer & Cellar’ at Bucks County Playhouse

Say what you will about Barbra Streisand – whether you love her massive talent or ego, or not, you have to admit there’s no one else like her. And few people can say that with as much authority as...

Review: ‘In My Body’ at Flying Bulldog Productions

Flying Bulldog Productions provided a immersive, positive and uplifting evening with their message of self-love in their production of In My Body. The world-premiere musical is a theatrical...

Review: BSO at Strathmore: Mahler Symphony No. 6

Some critics go to music performances as a modern day Shakespearean Brutus: They come to bury the performance, not praise it. And, bury it they do with raised pinky, off-putting, arcane phraseology...

Review: ‘South Pacific’ at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts

Annapolis Opera’s production of South Pacific was a fun, charming musical. Based on James Michner’s novel Tales of the South Pacific, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics and book by Oscar...

Review: ‘Salvador’ by Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company at GALA Hispanic Theatre

There’s good news and bad news floating out of GALA Hispanic Theatre this week. First, the bad news. Salvador—the full-length autobiographical dance drama, choreographed by the great Flamenco dancer,...

Review: ‘Tame.’ at Avant Bard

Audiences of all generations and emerging Millennial-aged playwrights should rejoice at Avant Bard’s production of DC playwright Jonelle Walker’s TAME. Avant Bard took a risky budgetary and audience...

Magic Time! ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company

This beautiful play about black teenagers with bleak futures left me with such a melancholy sadness that two days later (on what was then Election Day), it had not gone away. I share that not to keep...

Spine: ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company

America is but an expensive iPhone. If you’ve got that, and its Pink with a sexy ringtone, then you’re in, as in the “in” crowd. Now, all you need is a baby. Or so seems the mind-set of Margie,...

Review #2: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ at The Keegan Theatre

In John Guare’s wonderfully enigmatic and slightly precocious play, Six Degrees of Separation, now playing at The Keegan Theatre—the ripples of interconnection run rampant as the author intended. This...

Review: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ at The Keegan Theatre

We’ve all heard of this idea before—that there are six degrees of separation between everyone in the universe, from the president of the U.S. to a “gondolier in Venice.” John Guare’s play, named after...

Review: ‘Where Words Once Were’ at The Kennedy Center

This past weekend, The Kennedy Center opened a newly commissioned show for young audiences from Playwright, Finegan Kruckemeyer. The piece titled, Where Words Once Were, touches on the often...

Review: ‘Working: a Musical’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre

Working isn’t a typical musical. There’s no plot, no resolution, no love story. Yet the tale it tells is an absorbing one. By using words and music to examine the relationship of people to their jobs,...

Review: ‘Falsettos’ at The Walter Kerr Theatre in NYC

We must thank Andre Bishop and his staff at Lincoln Center Theatre for gifting us with a very early Christmas present called Falsettos, composer William Finn’s musical with a book he co-wrote with...

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘The Shoemaker’s Holiday’ at Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

The Shoemaker’s Holiday: A Firking Funny Production at BSF This weekend, I had the good fortune to be at Baltimore Shakespeare Factory (“BSF”), as part of the first audience ever to see The...

Review: Sheila Jordan at the KC Jazz Club

Sheila Jordan loves jazz. Sheila Jordan loves singing. Sheila Jordan really loves jazz singing. And we feel truly blessed to have spent an evening in the presence of that love. For those who have not...

Review: ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Milk Like Sugar, the Obie Award-winning play that just opened at Mosaic Theater Company of DC, starts off as badass comedy, the kind where the word “shit”—repeated like an “amen” at the end of each...

Review: ‘The Wild Party’ at the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

Dim lights, warm hues and the soft murmur of conversation and clanking glasses lured us into Queenie’s – the decadent speakeasy formerly known as The Clarice’s Kogod Theatre. Waiters greeted guests,...