Reviews

Review: ‘Robin Hood’ at Victorian Lyric Opera Company

Rob from the rich, give to the poor ̶ a theme with universal and enduring appeal, at least among 99% of us. The centuries-old legend of benevolent British outlaw Robin Hood has pranced across diverse...

Review: ‘Red’ at Walnut Street Theatre Independence Studio 3 in Philadelphia

Mark Rothko, the acclaimed abstract expressionist painter returns to Philadelphia in Red, the Tony Award-winning play by John Logan, at the tiny Independence Studio black box of the Walnut Street...

Review: ‘In the Heights’ at Montgomery College

Montgomery College’s current production is The Tony Award-winning musical In The Heights, with book by Quiara Alegria Hudes and music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Many may be familiar with...

Review: ‘Women Without Men’ at The Mint Theater Company in New York City

Playwright Hazel Ellis is not a name that comes readily to mind. Her play, currently running at City Center under the auspices of the Mint Theater Company, was first produced in her native Ireland by...

In the Moment: Gin Dance Company at Atlas’ INTERSECTIONS Festival on March 5th at 5 PM

Gin Dance Company (GDC) is a Metropolitan DC/Northern Virginia based performing arts modern dance company. Founded in Reston, Virginia in 2011 by Artistic Director Shu-Chen Cuff, GDC performs works...

Review: The Mariinsky Ballet’s ‘Raymonda’ at The Kennedy Center

Marius Petipa’s, Raymonda, still continues in ballet for the 118th year since its world premiere on January 7th, 1898. This week, the romantic ballet, set in three acts, is brought to the Opera House...

Review: ‘Pippin’ at The Academy of Music in Philadelphia

When walking into the house of Philadelphia’s historic Academy of Music for Pippin, what could, at first, be the theatre’s fire curtain, or possibly the outer edge of a circus tent conceals the stage....

Report on: ‘Suddenly Last Summmer’ and ‘Justice Disordered’ Readings at Rainbow Theatre Project

One of Tennessee Williams’ bleaker, darker plays,– the one-act dramatic cry of despair, Suddenly Last Summer (which was expanded beyond its more compressed scope in the famous Elizabeth Taylor film of...

Review: ‘Kabarett & Cabaret’ at The In Series

Like Liza Minnelli’s in Cabaret, the unforgettable image of Marlene Dietrich hovers over Kabarett & Cabaret, a production of the 2015-16 In Series at the Source Theatre. Kabarett & Cabaret: An Evening...

Review: ‘Boeing Boeing’ at The Colonial Players of Annapolis

Boeing Boeing is a real trip back to the swinging 60s, when men dressed in jackets and ties around the house, flight attendants (only women) were called stewardesses, and were hired more for their...

Review: ‘Road Show’ at Signature Theatre

First things first. One should not miss a chance to discover, or for some re-discover, a rarely produced Stephen Sondheim work. This is especially true for an appealing musical production called Road...

Review: ‘Into the Woods’ at Catholic University’s Benjamin T. Rome School of Music

Decades before Angelina Jolie played Maleficent or Idina Menzel defied gravity in Wicked, lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim was fracturing a whole slew of fairy tales for his witty and Tony...

Review: ‘Spine’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company in Philadelphia

When we meet Amy in the opening moments of Clara Brennan’s Spine, she’s homeless, bewildered, and defensive. She’s a London teenager with a violent temper and a surly attitude. Over the course of a...

Review: ‘God: The One-Man Show’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

God: The One-Man Show is a comedic hurricane that leaves audiences pondering the mysteries of the universe between laughs. Written and performed by Rich Potter, the show takes the audience from the...

Review: ‘Valentine’s Day Concert: Armenian Musical Treasures’ at National Chamber Ensemble

Whenever I need a ‘pick-me-up’ I head down to the Rosslyn Spectrum to see a National Chamber Ensemble (‘NCE’) concert. This year’s Valentine’s Day Concert filled the air with L-O-V-E and wonderful...

Review: ‘Ghostchasers’ at Mount Vernon Community Children’s Theatre

Mount Vernon Community Children’s Theatre presents Tim Kelly’s Ghostchasers. Directed by Kaitlin Kemp, this play is full of surprises– the first and biggest being that despite popular belief, this...

Review: ‘The Maid’s Tragedy’ at Brave Spirits Theatre

Death abounds in The Maid’s Tragedy. Be prepared for an avenging angel with a message and actions against the vicious power of a King and lascivious misogynist cultural values in Brave Spirits...

A Report on ‘Black Lives Black Words’ at The Columbia Festival of the Arts

The Columbia Festival of the Arts stretched its more traditional boundaries to bring Black Lives Black Words on Saturday, February 20, 2016. This was a dramatic reading of Black playwrights’ works...

Review: ‘Mary Poppins’ at Reston Community Players

Mary Poppins Flies Into Reston CenterStage For A Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Treat Reston Community Players’ production of Mary Poppins is a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious treat for the...

Review: Washington Performing Arts Presents Chris Botti at The Kennedy Center

Washington Performing Arts Produces an Eclectic and Entertaining Musical Evening with Chris Botti I went to a Chris Botti concert and Cirque du Soleil and Led Zepplin broke out. Saturday night’s...

Review: ‘Prodigal Son’ at Manhattan Theatre Club

John Patrick Shanley is a prolific and gifted playwright who’s had a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony for his hugely successful play Doubt. He also wrote its screenplay and directed the film which was...

Review: ‘Animals Out of Paper’ at Silver Spring Stage

Animals Out of Paper by Rajiv Joseph, produced by Star Johnson and directed by Brandon Rashad Butts, is now playing at Silver Spring Stage, the perfect venue for this intimate drama which also...

Review: ‘Antigone Project : A Play in 5 Parts’ at Rep Stage

The fabulously theatrical set for Rep Stage’s Antigone Project: A Play in 5 Parts is so overwhelming you might not realize for a time that the play itself belongs to a more recent tradition — the...

Review: Il Volo at The Kennedy Center

I’ve always known that the mix of pop music and classical singing is one of the most popular music styles in Italy. What I didn’t know until last night’s Il Volo concert was that it is “Fan Girl” (Fan...

Review: ‘Let’s Get Personal’ at Baltimore Theatre Project

Let’s Get Personal, the new one-woman show playing this weekend at Baltimore Theatre Project, takes two things that typically get a bad rap – self-help workshops and audience participation – and turns...

Review: ‘RIOT’ at The Highwood Theatre

Last night in a small, tucked-away space in Silver Spring, I watched a “real time” drama so exciting and original, so drop-dead funny and knock-out suspenseful, that I left the theater dazed and...

Review: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Synetic Theater

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet opens with a chorus announcing the fate that will befall the title characters in just two hours’ time. Synetic Theatre’s wordless Romeo and Juliet, distills that...

Magic Time! ‘Promised Land’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

At a point in Mosaic Theater’s Promised Land—a powerhouse of a play performed inside an intimate space that’s more like a concrete bunker than a black box—we see the searing image of people fenced...

Review: ‘Promised Land’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

On rare occasions the world of theatre and the world in which we live converge: the subject of the theatre we witness on the stage and the subjects we hear on the streets and on the news harmonize,...

Review: ‘Clybourne Park’ at George Washington University’s Department of Theatre and Dance

There are good reasons why Bruce Norris’ 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Clybourne Park has been staged no less than five times in the past four years by local companies.First, it is a superbly...

Review: ‘Cyrano’ at Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society at Georgetown University

Long before singles misrepresented themselves in their Tinder profiles or cribbed others’ memes online, there was Cyrano de Bergerac— the man who would be Romeo, if not for that monstrous appendage....

Review: ‘BSO: An Evening with Sutton Foster’ at The Music Center at Strathmore

It may be chilly outside, but Sutton Foster was most warmly welcomed as she performed tonight, Thursday, February 18, 2016 at the Music Center at Strathmore with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under...

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at The Academy of Music in Philadelphia

The new touring production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, now playing at the Academy of Music, doesn’t offer many surprises. But for the show’s devoted fans – and judging from the throng of old and...

Review: ‘James and the Giant Peach’ at Adventure Theatre MTC

The world of Roald Dahl is a fantastical place that stretches the boundaries of imagination. One of his best known works, next to Charlie and Chocolate Factory, is James and the Giant Peach. Adventure...

Review: ‘Troilus and Cressida’ at the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies

Most of Shakespeare’s plays can be classified as comedies or tragedies, where everyone gets married or everybody dies, but Troilus and Cressida toes the line. It has its moments of levity, but it also...

Reviews: ‘All the Way’ and ‘Ah, Wilderness!’ at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida

As a way of plugging in to the national conversation addressing issues of change in the United States, this highly regarded regional not-for-profit theatre has put several plays in to its current...

Review: The Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour at the The Columbia Festival of the Arts

The Columbia Festival of the Arts under Executive Director, Todd Olson, continues to bring the Howard County Area some of the greatest performers of our time. Since the Festival started 30 years ago...

Review: ‘You, Or Whatever I Can Get’ at Flying V and National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts

You don’t have to work very hard to find your way from the box office to the theater in Flying V Theatre and the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts’ new co-production of You, or Whatever I Can...

Review: ‘Cabin in the Sky’ at Encores! at City Center in New York City

I’d seen the film, but never the musical on which it was based. The original, with a score by Vernon Duke and John LaTouche, opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway in 1940 and only managed a...

Review: ‘Finian’s Rainbow’ at Live Arts Maryland

When Finian’s Rainbow opened on Broadway in 1947, it was a scandal. White and black performers shared the same stage, it argued that blacks were full citizens (with rights!), and that whites and...

‘Mary Poppins’ Flies Into Reston CenterStage This Friday, February 19th through March 12th

Mary Poppins will be flying into Reston CenterStage February 19-March 12, 2016 as the Reston Community Players present the seven-time Tony Award nominated musical. Mary Poppins combines the charm of...

Review: ‘Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs’ at Strathmore

The sign in the Strathmore ticket booth said a lot about Alan Cumming’s appeal. “SHOW SOLD OUT!” it blared. An hour before the show, the place was filling up with people eager for the doors to open....

Review: ‘Constellations’ at The Studio Theatre

Nick Payne’s Constellations embraces String Theory and its multiverses as it takes its intimate, in-the-round, Stage 4 audience on an emotional rollercoaster ride through the courtship, breakup,...

Magic Time! ‘Constellations’ at The Studio Theatre

We enter a mini coliseum and take our seats on cushions of many colors on one of several rows of blue benches encircling the blank stage. The dim lighting feels hallowed; the music, reverential. There...

Review: ‘Collaborators’ at Spooky Action Theater

In these days of a re-igniting Cold War between Russia and the United States, those old grainy black-and-white films of a long thought dead dictator, Comrade Joseph “Uncle Joe” Stalin are being dusted...

Review: ‘Lost in the Stars’ at Washington National Opera #2

One of the most powerful musical dramas of the 20th century has just opened at The Kennedy Center, home of the Washington National Opera, for a one-week run. And theater lovers who long for the...

Review: ‘Our Town’ at the Apollo Civic Theatre

One of the American theatrical classics, Our Town, written by Thornton Wilder, and well-directed by Amanda Hartman, comes to life in a charmingly simplistic and emotionally resonant production at the...

Review: ‘A Wonderful Noise’ at Villanova Theatre

When’s the last time you saw a musical about the competitive world of barbershop quartet singing? I’m not positive, but I think A Wonderful Noise may be the first show of its kind. (Truth to tell, the...

Review: ‘Carmen: An Afro-Cuban Jazz Musical’ at Olney Theatre Center

Carmen: An Afro-Cuban Jazz Musical, in its world premiere at The Olney Theatre Center, is worthy of an endless stream of accolades including ‘dazzling,’ ‘amazing,’ ‘stupendous,’ ’emotional’, and...

Review: ‘The Way We Were’ at The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC

Yesterday, I was privileged to see the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC’s extremely intimate, engaging and musically creative concert of songs entitled The Way We Were. This stimulating and...