Reviews

‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

I cannot think of a more perfect way to celebrate the Halloween season than with this Laurel Mill Playhouse production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. With music and lyrics by...

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ at Curio Theatre Company in Philadelphia

As I walked through the narrow passageway leading into Curio’s space, I entered into a spacious, deteriorating church to an ominous red lit stage, hearing that it was a two hour and ten minute...

‘Antigone’ at The Kennedy Center

Renowned Belgian director Ivo van Hove is famous for his radical re-imagining of classical works, and his rendition Sophocles’ Antigone is no different. Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche stars as...

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival ‘Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End’ at Arena Stage

A Wonderful “Mom-ologue” Many Baby Boomers’ earliest memories were of their stay-at-home mothers laughing at a risque line in an Erma Bombeck column, carefully cutting the column out – then glaring at...

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘The Dealer of Ballynafeigh’ at The Keegan Theatre

When a particular company and a particular playwright hit it off such that they keep knocking it out of the park—as have The Keegan Theatre and Belfast-born Rosemary Jenkinson—theirs has to be a match...

‘Mozart and Friends’ at The National Chamber Ensemble by J.M. Greig

The National Chamber Ensemble opened its ninth season in style at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre on Saturday with a program entitled Mozart and Friends. After introductory remarks by guest host and...

‘The American Pops Orchestra Presents Stairway to Paradise: A Gershwin Spectacular’ at Lisner Auditorium

The American Pops Orchestra presented Stairway to Paradise: A Gershwin Spectacular, starring Christine Ebersole, directed by Nathan Brewer, at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium on...

‘The Taming of the Shrew’ at The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre

Nobody can seethe like Jenna Kuerzi. As Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew, Kuerzi reacts to every slight from her unwelcome suitor Petruchio with rage. Her nostrils flare. Her eyes bulge. Her...

‘The Music Man’ at 2nd Star Productions

Second Star’s current production of The Music Man takes its audiences back a full century to the (fictional) town of River City, Iowa in 1912. This classic tale of a con-artist who wins over skeptical...

‘As You Like It’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

As You Like It, currently in production at Annapolis Shakespeare Company, lends a more updated version of William Shakespeare’s comedy. Circa 1930s bluegrass, this cast is widely diverse and...

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘Gimme and Band, Gimme a Banana! The Carmen Miranda Story’ at Pointless Theatre Company

Say the name Carmen Miranda and your mind instantly conjures images of a flashy showgirl, red painted lips, feathers and sequins, and, most of all, bananas. For many, little else exists about the...

‘Damn Yankees’ at The Heritage Players

The Tony Award-winning musical Damn Yankees, with Book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, and Words and Music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, opened this past weekend at the Heritage Players at...

‘Aladdin JR’ at Kensington Arts Theatre Second Stage

I walked into the Gaithersburg Arts Barn for Aladdin JR as I often do when I review a play. I picked up my two tickets, went to my seat, and started to flip through my program. However, this time, I...

‘Animal Farm’ at Luna Theater Company in Philadelphia

Even though you probably read Animal Farm in high school, seeing Luna Theater Company’s Animal Farm will evoke a completely different sensory experience. The theatricality of the play offers the...

‘The Mandrake’ at Quintessence Theatre Group in Philadelphia

Sex sells, and this certainly true of Quintessence’s The Mandrake. Their 6th season starting off a “Love and Lust” theme, The Mandrake certainly fulfills the quota for lust, and then some. Originally...

‘Shrek The Musical’ at Reston Community Players

Reston Community Players’ production of Shrek The Musical (Book and Lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire and Music by Jeanine Tesori) is just as fun as the movie it is based on, with the added bonus of...

‘Side Man’ at The Colonial Players

They say that art is the decoration of space, but music is the decoration of time. More than mere decoration, though, music captures time, preserves it, wrapping a lifetime of memories in the space of...

‘All My Sons’ at Peace Mountain Theatre Company

If you crave a compelling production of a classic 20th century drama, look no further than Peace Mountain Theatre Company’s production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, directed by Laurie T. Freed. This...

‘Lovecraft: Nightmare Suite’ by Molotov Theatre Group at DC Arts Center

Molotov Theatre Group’s new production, Lovecraft: Nightmare Suite, an adaptation of six of the old spook master’s stories by Dan Spurgeon and the first play of Molotov’s 2015-16 season, appeals to...

Aaron Copland’s ‘The Tender Land’ at The In Series

In their Americas season, the In Series tackles the quintessentially American composer Aaron Copland and his only and almost entirely unknown opera The Tender Land. Horace Everett wrote the libretto...

‘Something’s Afoot’ at Vagabond Players

On a dark and stormy night, six weekend guests, three servants, and a stranger find themselves trapped in a dead man’s country estate. And as the evening progresses, their numbers begin to dwindle....

‘Zombie Prom’ at Spotlighters Theatre

This musical comedy goes nuclear! Zombie Prom, with Music by Dana P. Rowe, and Book and Lyrics by John Dempsey, currently stalking the underground stage of Spotlighters in Baltimore, is a howl that...

‘Julius Caesar’ at Prince William Little Theatre

It’s 1991, and Julius Caesar, General Secretary of the Communist Party and, for the past year, President of the Soviet Union, is letting his successes and the adulation of the people go to his head....

Barbara Cook’s Spotlight: Terri White’s Farewell Performance at The Kennedy Center

The ebullient, sassy, brassy and joyously life-affirming Broadway and cabaret star Terri White (resplendent in a stylish, sharply-edged purple pantsuit) launched into her ninety minute show at The...

‘From a Black Egg’ at Yellow Sign Theatre

Yellow Sign Theatre’s mission promises “pranks with a B-movie aesthetic” and low art, and usually they deliver productions that are unapologetic, kitschy fun. Surprisingly, however, their current...

‘The Gin Game’ at The John Golden Theatre in New York City

Donald L. Coburn was born in 1938 in Baltimore to parents who were divorced two years later. His early life was unexceptional; he graduated from high school in 1957, then served in the U.S. Navy until...

‘Tru’ at the Greenbelt Arts Center

The Greenbelt Arts Center has provided the community with the truly unique opportunity to spend an intimate evening in the living room of the acclaimed author and flamboyant celebrity personality...

‘9 to 5’ at Silhouette Stages at Slayton House

9 to 5 is based on the 1980 movie of the same name, with Music and Lyrics by Dolly Parton, and Book by Patricia Resnick. Parton not only was one of the stars of the movie (her costars were Jane Fonda...

‘Song for the Disappeared’ at Passage Theater Company in Trenton, NJ

Passage Theater Company bears the title of the only professional theater in Trenton, New Jersey. They open their 30th Season by producing T clan and close friends amidst a family crisis, Songs for the...

‘Latin Heat’ at The Washington Ballet

Latin Heat does what the Washington Ballet does best: spotlight its dancers’ strengths and individual personalities. However, Latin Heat also illumines the WSB unhinged and unrestrained. Never before...

‘The Basilisk of Barnagasso’ at The George Washington University Department of Theatre and Dance

An exuberant troupe of seven players (and some ad-libbing stage hands) fabricated a screwball, madcap adventure of star-crossed lovers and lost fortunes, vagabonds, soldiers, bandits, hired thugs and...

‘Vincent’ at the Workhouse Arts Center

“I want to get to the point where people say of my work that man feels deeply,” wrote Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo. For only a few performances, a DC area, favorite painter, Vincent Van Gogh,...

‘African Americans’ at Howard University

Are customs and cultures completed eradicated and evaporated when people from other continents, countries and cultures come to this great land we call “America?” I had the distinct pleasure of seeing...

‘Disgraced’ at Philadelphia Theatre Company

Disgraced is a play that pushes people’s buttons. Almost every character says something that is guaranteed to outrage somebody. But when you push too many buttons, a show can feel mechanical – and...

‘Travels with My Aunt’ at The Clurman Theatre in New York City

In 1969 Graham Greene published a light novel with this title, which was in the vein of earlier romps such as The Egg and I, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and most particularly – Auntie Mame – all of...

‘Hooked!’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company in Philadelphia

If there’s one thing the Irish are good at, it’s keeping – and creating, and gossiping about – secrets. (My Irish grandmother practically turned it into an art form.) In Hooked!, playwright Gillian...

‘Antigone’ at The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia

The Wilma is a theater known for being original and taking risks, and Antigone is no exception. As part of the larger Unburied Bodies project, this production of Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy...

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘Salomé’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Turn aside all you think you know about the fabled Salomé and her brief mythic encounter with John the Baptist. Acclaimed Director Yael Farber has boldly and confidently reconstructed the...

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘The Magic Tree’ at The Keegan Theatre

Four lost young people in a deserted beach house, in Dublin, late at night. There is a thunderstorm beating down. This is the evocative opening scene of The Magic Tree, in its American premiere at The...

A Report on ‘En Garde! The Art of Fight Choreography’ at The Smithsonian’s Dillon Ripley Center

As I strolled into the Smithsonian’s S. Dillon Ripley Center (shared with the Sackler Museum of Asian Art and the National Museum of African Art), I was surprised to see over 100 people eagerly...

‘Shipwrecked!’ at Walnut Street Theatre Independence Studio on 3 in Philadelphia

At the beginning of Shipwrecked!, Greg Wood bounds onto the stage of the Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio and greets the audience: “Hello,” he says, “and welcome to this temple of...

‘Point A to Point B’ at Arts on the Horizon

Arts on the Horizon is a wonderful establishment dedicated to creating live theater for young audiences, ages 0-6. Their website points out that they are “the first theatre company in the country to...

‘Bug’ at SeeNoSun OnStage (Review #2)

Bug by Tracy Letts is not a show for anyone with a weak stomach. Blood, violence, nudity, and drugs are rampant in this dark comedy but, being October, this production will be exactly what many thrill...

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘Cake Off’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s Cake Off, is an appetizingly savory musical petite-four disguised as a mere head-turning sugary iced cutie. It is a whiz-bang production full of high-flying, screwball comic work...

‘Fool For Love’ at Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City

This play by Sam Shepard was first presented by Circle Rep in 1983; it was a great success for them with Ed Harris and Kathy Baker playing Eddie and May. It transferred from their home base to the...

Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘The Long Way Around’ at The Highwood Theatre

What happens when you realize that the person everyone thinks you are is not the person you really are, and the cost becomes too great to bear? When you’re young, to be sure, your future is, by...

‘Romeo and Juliet’ by Aquila Theatre at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts

It is a body-felt joy of the senses to hear and see Aquila Theatre’s new production of Romeo and Juliet, directed and adapted by Desiree Sanchez, which played at George Mason University’s Center for...

‘Bug’ at SeeNoSun OnStage at Anacostia Arts Center (Review #1)

When I saw the SeeNoSun OnStage production of Tracy Letts’s first play, Killer Joe, a year ago June, I wrote a rave and called it “a powerful knockout of a show.” So it was with keen anticipation that...

‘Margaret Cho: The PsyCHO Tour’ at Warner Theatre

Renowned three-time Grammy and Emmy-nominated comedian, actress and singer Margaret Cho tackled tough timely topics like police brutality, female empowerment, death and racism in The PsyCHO Tour, her...

‘Intimate Apparel’ at the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

While cleaning out her grandmother’s house, Lynn Nottage found a sepia passport photograph of her great-grandmother holding her two daughters. Nottage knew her great-grandmother had been a seamstress...