Reviews

Review: ‘Funny Girl’ at Kent County Theatre Guild in Dover, DE

Mead Hunter once said that if you want to be a genius in the theatre you should start a company and wait twenty years. When I heard that the Kent County Theatre Guild (KCTG) of Dover, Delaware was in...

Review: ‘8 Stops’ at Unexpected Stage Company

I’ll be frank: for much of 8 Stops, Deb Margolin’s newest solo performance piece, now at Unexpected Stage Company, I was bored. I didn’t necessarily want to commit suicide, as Margolin said she has...

Review: ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival in Center Valley, PA

Scholars, theatergoers and activists have been debating The Taming of the Shrew for about four centuries. Just what was Shakespeare, with his tale of the warring lovers Katherina and Petruchio, saying...

Review: ‘The Music Man’ at Candlelight Theatre, in Wilmington, DE

This one is a total slam-dunk. Kudos belong to everyone in every arena of theater with The Music Man at Delaware’s Candlelight Theatre. Under the direction of Peter John Rios, the sets, costumes...

Review: ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ at The FrederickTowne Players

The FrederickTowne Players’ latest production of Bye Bye Birdie highlights their forty-seventh season with the always popular story of a rock-and-roll heartthrob, star struck teens, fifties...

Review: ‘The Marcy and Zina Show’ at Signature Theatre

Amidst the sweltering summer humidity, Signature Theater’s “Sizzlin’ Summer Nights” cabaret series more than lived up to its name with songwriters Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich as they performed...

Review: ‘The Addams Family’ at The Ritz Theatre Company in Haddon Township, NJ

They’re ba-ack! If you’re a fan of the macabre clan from the 1960s black-and-white TV show, inspired by Charles Addams’ series of single-frame cartoon drawings for The New Yorker beginning in 1938,...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Adolescence 2.0’

Dixie Lee Mills takes the stage at the extremely tight quarters of upstairs at The Argonaut Tavern on H Street NE. The first words that come out of her mouth: “So I was at my yearly check up….” and...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Romanov’

Romanov, at Flashpoint Mead Theatre Lab, is a show that will pull you in different directions, musically (electro-pop opera?) and emotionally (did wrong or done wrong?)—and leave you sitting straight...

Review: The Hypocrites’ Production of ‘The Mikado’ at Olney Theatre Center

Everything old really is new again in the The Hypocrites‘ innovative production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at Olney Theatre Center. When I entered the theater 30 minutes before show time the...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Human Algorithm’

She’s been described as a stand-up comic, a multilingual humorist, a playwright and a director. But mostly CJ, as she likes to be called, is a master storyteller whose ability to laugh at herself—and...

Review: ‘Twelfth Night’ at Synetic Theater

What is Shakespeare without his words? Answer: a rollicking good time! Synetic Theater, known for its dynamic and often wordless productions of Shakespeare and other classics, have another hit on...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘Fat Kids are Harder to Kidnap’

If you’ve seen Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind—the innovative devised theater work by Chicago-based company Neo-Futurists—then in a significant way you have already seen Fat Kids are Harder to...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Seven Windows’

In keeping with the theme of several shows in this year’s festival, Philadelphia-based SHARP Dance Company’s Seven Windows is another piece focusing on the power of dreams, death, and reincarnation....

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Dial R for Robot’

Dial R for Robot is a mash-up of Hitchcock’s film Rope and the film Blade Runner, with some references to Hitchcock’s spy thriller Torn Curtain. The funk-rock opera is an immersive multi-media sci-fi...

Review: ‘The Magnus Effect’ at The Greenfield Collective in Philadelphia

Take five folks with aviophobia, fear of flying, then multiply that by the individual’s various phobias and anxieties connected to flying, combine that with timely comedy plus intense drama, an...

Review: ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ at Princeton Summer Theater in Princeton, NJ

Spoiler Alert: The two main characters in this play die. Well, you probably figured that out, given that the play they’re in is called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Or maybe you figured it...

Review: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Britches and Hose Theatre Company

The many works of William Shakespeare were never meant to be read sitting down in a classroom. Shakespeare would have dreaded the idea of high school students sitting in desks, silently reading Romeo...

Review: ‘The Last Five Years’ at Robinson High School’s Rambunctious Theatre Company and West Potomac High School’s Beyond the Page Theatre Company

Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years is not your average love story. It showcases the ups and downs, successes and failures of any relationship but hearing each side of the story told going...

Magic Time! ‘Blood, Sweat & Fears: A Grand Guignol Sick Cabaret’

As the local go-to theater company for carrying on the Grand Guignol tradition, Molotov Theatre Group mounts some of the most interesting combos of style and substance in town. There are a few other...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘SpookyMsgPlsFwd!’

If you’re looking for an adult comedy featuring a unicorn, funny dialogue and wicked costumes SpookyMsgPlsFwd! is a show for you! This fast-paced comedy imagines a world 60 years after the election of...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘TARGET GOLDBERG (HELP! ROGUE GOVERNMENT AGENTS ARE TRYING TO FRAME ME!)’

A “show” was presented by one “David J. Goldberg”, purporting be a “theater piece” about a secret cabal of heartless corporations/rogue government agents/reptilized Masons who aim to incite fear in...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Yes, And’

‘Yes, And’ explores the history of improv Yes, And… directed by Jeff Quintana and expertly written and acted by Playwright Zack Myers is a quirky bit of work that questions the nature of improv comedy...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Jamie and Duncan’s Glorious Suicide at the End of the World’

How do you survive the apocalypse? You don’t, obviously, but before the apocalypse can get you, you might as well go out the way you want. The only problem is trying to figure out what a fitting way...

2016 Capital Fringe ‘Elephant in the Room’

There is an ancient Indian story that tells the tale of blind men unknowingly encountering an elephant. Based on which part of the elephant they touch, each man proposes that the animal is something...

Review: Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF): ‘The Wedding Gift’

Chisa Hutchinson’ The Wedding Gift takes its audience into a fascinating world: an exotic “paradise” where matriarchy rules and the white / black power dynamic is turned on its head, where the...

Review: Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF): ‘The Second Girl’

Ronan Noone’s The Second Girl received its second chance opening at the Contemporary American Theater Festival last weekend and, like its hardscrabble characters, it’s a well-deserved second chance....

Review: ‘The Little Mermaid’ at Charm City Players by E. Lee Nicol

Disney Magic rarely disappoints and the same can be said for Charm City Players. Their latest full production of The Little Mermaid can be seen now through July 17, 2016 at the gorgeous Harry and...

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Sally Boyett and Donald Hicken, is the perfect combination of play and space. Performed in the garden of the...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Trial of Mrs. Surratt’

The world of 1865 Washington, DC is living and breathing in The Wandering Theatre Company’s production of The Trial of Mrs. Surratt. Lanie Robertson’s script explores the events surrounding the...

Review: Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF): ‘Not Medea’

Bags and umbrella in hands, a young woman arrives late for the theater, apologizing profusely and comically all the while. She notices the “live” caged bird on stage while proclaiming what a joy it is...

Review: ‘Cabaret’ at Prince William Little Theatre

The musical Cabaret is one of those shows that checks all of the standard musical theater boxes, of dancing girls, show-stopping songs, and love stories, but also carries with it such a beautiful and...

Review: ‘Hand to God’ at The Studio Theatre

Hand to God at Studio is truly outlandish; a joyfully “blasphemous” production just as The Studio Theatre marketing material shouts out in a bold headline. With immersion staging in its intimate...

Review: Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF): ‘20th Century Blues’

Susan Miller’s 20th Century Blues, which opened last weekend at Shepherdstown’s Contemporary American Festival, speaks right from the heart of successful, east coast boomer women. Four 60-something...

Review: ‘Blood, Sweat, & Fears: A Grand Guignol Sick Cabaret’ at Molotov Theatre Group

Critics do our best to stay rational and objective, to reflect on the goals and execution of a given piece of theatre, and thus evaluate the work on its own terms, with as little of our personal...

Review: `Boeing Boeing’ at Hedgerow Theatre in Rose Valley, PA

Hedgerow Theatre revives Marc Camoletti’s farce Boeing Boeing, leaving its audience aloft with laughter! Set in Paris, circa the mod `60’s, Bernard (Andrew Parcell), a swinging archictect has built...

Review: ‘Roseburg’ at New City Stage in Philadelphia

Roseburg examines two incidents that took place a few miles, and several decades, apart. Yet they’re connected in a tragic way, through America’s fixation on guns. And while the show is focused on...

Review: ‘The Dixie Swim Club’ at Aldersgate Church Community Theater

Aldersgate Church Community Theater presents The Dixie Swim Club, a Jones Hope Wooten comedy directed by Eddie Page. Following the bond of five southern women over the span of three decades, this...

Review: Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF): ‘pen/man/ship’

The Contemporary American Theater Festival opened Friday, July 8, 2016, for the 26th time: five new plays with five new stories to tell. In Chistina Anderson’s pen/man/ship at the in-the-round...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Timon 2016’

If Shakespeare is your bag, Timon 2016 will be just what you are looking for, but with a modern air. Directed and adapted by Katie Wanshura, this play is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Timon...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The House of Yes’

Think about your worst family Thanksgiving ever, then amp up its bizarre agonies a thousand fold. Even then, you will not come close to the dysfunction displayed by the Pascal family of McLean,...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ’35mm: A Musical Exhibition’

The idea of matching music to photographs is not new, but in 35mm—now having its DC premiere at the Atlas Performing Arts Center as part of this year’s Capital Fringe—the approach gets an energetic...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Ten Principles )'(‘

Ten Principles )’( is storytelling in its purest form: friends getting together to talk about their favorite adventures. Ten Principles is simple at its core. Get people who have experienced the...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Song Reader the Musical’

In 2012 music artist Beck released a song book titled “Song Reader.” The book included sheet music for a collection of 20 songs. He hoped to create an album that could only be listened to by playing...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Root of All Knowledge’

The Root of All Knowledge, written by Gabriel Hudson and directed, choreographed, and composed by Justin Jarod Bell, is an interesting mixture of existentialism and hope. It uses bodies to present a...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘A Midsummer’s Burlesque Dream’

Burlesque Classique’s mission is to reclaim the meaning of burlesque, not as something sleazy and demoralizing as many people assume, but as an energetic and titillating exaggeration of a story. Their...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Prison Break, Incorporated’

Nathan (Andrew Flurer) is a 30-year-old, washed-up druggie who lives in a boarding house. Ellie (Karen Elle) is a life coach just trying to help Nathan out. And now they’re both in jail thanks to...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ’15 Villainous Fools’

Shakespeare can be difficult to keep up with, but maybe it’d be easier if there were hashtags and visual aids. In The 601 Theatre Company-presented play, 15 Villainous Fools, there is a flurry of...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Paul Gonsalves on the Road’

The Arthur Luby-penned illustration of jazz’s legendary, tenor saxophonist, Paul Gonsalves is a novelistic approach at conveying Duke Ellington’s troubled, selfish – sultry – musical wingman. One of...

Review: ‘Footloose’ at McLean Community Players

No self-respecting 80’s playlist would be complete without Footloose, and for good reason – the single was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Original Song as well as won the Grammy for...