DC

Spooky Action announces three plays for live reopening

The imaginative company’s 2021–22 season launches October 7 with Will Eno’s ‘The Realistic Joneses.’

Keegan Theatre delays ‘Good People’ two weeks as COVID precaution

Season opener by David Lindsay-Abaire rescheduled to prepare policies and procedures that comply with safety guidelines and regulations.

Faction of Fools embraces collaboration with new season of ‘Foolish Fridays’

In the summer of 2020, Faction of Fools Theatre Company bravely forged into the world of virtual Commedia dell’Arte with the first season of Foolish Fridays, a series of dynamic, short, fun videos...

Washington Stage Guild revives Shaw’s ‘Devil’s Disciple’ with simplicity and skill

Many well-made and renowned plays are rarely seen onstage. Extensive staging requirements, such as multiple locations or an expansive cast of characters, often give theater companies pause when...

Black Artist Coalition begins in the DMV

Announced today, the Black Artist Coalition (BAC) has formed in response to the increasing awareness of both macro- and microaggressions that have more often than not tainted Black artists’ experience...

New season of ‘Shakespeare Hour LIVE’ returns in September

Shakespeare Theatre Company will continue its online program Shakespeare Hour LIVE! in September with episodes devoted to Shakespeare and the Law (September 9), Shakespeare & Film (September 16),...

Arena Stage announces new season to begin in January 2021

In a swift pivot, Arena Stage has recently announced an upcoming season that reflects their commitment to compelling, dynamic work packed with drama, humor, music, and first-class storytellers. The...

The Kennedy Center introduces multiple social impact initiatives

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has recently revealed a plan for several ongoing and long-term social impact initiatives—and the urgency and importance of this work has only grown...

DMV theaters take a knee and take a stand

Beyond mourning and outrage, these DC Metro performing arts institutions have gone on the record with commitments to make a difference and be accountable. (Last updated June 12, 2020, 3:30 pm.: added...

Solas Nua puts ‘Being Here’ on pause to address protests for racial equality

From Artistic Director Rex Daugherty June 9, 2020: Dear friends of Solas Nua, I wanted to let you know that we are pausing our production of BEING HERE to give the artists more time to make the...

Studio Theatre welcomes ten new commissioned artists

Building on over 40 years of producing powerful contemporary theater, Studio Theatre is embarking on the largest round of commissioning in its history. They are awarding grants to ten...

Faction of Fools Theatre Company announces new Co-Directors

At a time when theater companies around the country must push back production schedules, their missions are amplified to plan future productions that will uplift, transform, and heal. At Faction of...

Lessons in creative coping during COVID-19: Bowie State University theater and dance faculty tell how it’s going

With university campuses closed because of COVID-19, how is student education continuing forward? This is a critical question, especially for higher education theater and dance departments—where...

IN Series produces first ever fully digital opera performance season

As performing arts organizations worldwide struggle to schedule live performance seasons in the midst of a global pandemic, DC’s IN Series leads the charge onto the digital stage by programming an...

Mosaic Theater Company promises provocative 2020–2021 season

In the face of global crisis and economic uncertainty, Mosaic Theater Company of DC draws inspiration for its new season from a nucleus of towering yet under-appreciated figures in history. These...

Local playwrights write short scripts you can download for free

In the wake of COVID-19 theater closures, DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Baltimore Center Stage, Connecticut’s Long Wharf Theatre, The Public Theater of NYC, and The Repertory Theatre of St....

Shakespeare Theatre Company hosts ‘Twelfth Night’ viewing party

Shakespeare Theatre Company invites audiences to celebrate William Shakespeare’s birthday by attending a viewing party of the National Theatre of London’s 2017 production of Twelfth Night on Thursday,...

Mosaic Theater welcomes Psalmayene 24 as playwright-in-residence

Mosaic Theater Company and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation have announced the illustrious recipient of their National Playwright Residency Program Grant—Veteran DC playwright, director, and Helen...

The Kennedy Center and NSO reach new agreement in the face of COVID-19

After several days of collaborative discussions, Kennedy Center leadership and the musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) have reached a new agreement, a significant step in stabilizing...

Arena Stage’s ‘Celia and Fidel’ explores the influences on Cuba’s revolutionary leader

Part of Arena Stage’s ongoing Power Plays, the world premiere of Celia and Fidel transports the audience back to a time when Fidel Castro was not just a name in the history books, but a feared...

4615 Theatre’s world premiere ‘Museum 2040’: An extraordinary immersive installation

Museum 2040, a world premiere written by Playwright Renee Calarco and directed by Artistic Director Jordan Friend, is an extraordinary immersive installation, which confirms 4615 Theater Company’s...

Ancient mysteries astonish and delight at IN Series’ Women Composers Festival

‘Here Be Sirens’ is the phrase cartographers used for many centuries to warn sailors of marine dangers. Composer Kate Soper borrowed the name for her musically complex, theatrically rich opera, her...

Behind the lines: A pre-opening peek at 4615 Theatre’s ‘Museum 2040’

When Jordan Friend, the highly inventive founder of 4615 Theatre Company, invited me to attend a rehearsal of Museum 2040 a few weeks ago, I jumped at the opportunity. The show, billed as an...

Plenty to chew on in ExPats’ thoughtful production of ‘Einstein’s Wife’

Ready for a dandy production about the complicated life with a child-like diva who happens to be a genius? Then consider Einstein’s Wife from ExPats Theatre. Written by Serbian playwright Snezana...

Fearless feminist dance takes the stage in Martha Graham Dance Company’s ‘The EVE Project’

On the eve of the day we learned that we still can’t elect a woman as qualified as Elizabeth Warren president, the Martha Graham Dance Company returned to the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater with...

‘Bandstand’ at the National Theatre is a musical love letter to veterans and their families

Bandstand, a heart-wrenching musical about a group of veterans returning home from World War II, with music by Richard Oberacker, and book and lyrics by Rob Taylor and Oberacker, is at The National...

J’Nai Bridges’ debut in ‘Samson and Delilah’ is a dream come true

When J’Nai Bridges made her triumphant debut in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah Sunday night, it was the fulfillment of a dream. The young mezzo-soprano’s star has been rapidly rising — this...

Washington National Opera stages a vocally stirring, visually arresting ‘Samson and Delilah’ at The Kennedy Center

Tales of wars, slaughters, betrayals, competing tribes and religions, and a few dominant women make the Book of Judges one of the more colorful segments of the Hebrew Bible. Camille Saint-Saëns and...

Taffety Punk’s ‘suicide.chat.room’: A unique, haunting, and compelling dance play

Highly recommended. An unsettling dance play. The phrase “sorry you’re here” takes on new meaning. It is not typical for me to write “highly recommended” at the top of an article. However, Taffety...

A formidable production of ‘The Wanderers’ at Theater J

“Isn’t it OK to sometimes be selfish?” asks a character in Anna Ziegler’s cunningly devised The Wanderers. With Amber McGinnis’ discerning, sympathetic direction, Theater J’s production provides...

NSO: Noseda’s homecoming mints the ‘NSO sound’ in spectacular Mahler’s Fifth Symphony

Even though being a classical music reviewer often feels like a gig too good to be true, I don’t recall ever forgetting my purpose for attending a performance. There’s a first for everything, however,...

James Baldwin’s ‘Amen Corner’ bears witness to the Beloved Community

Corners can be safe spaces for hiding. There’s comfort in corners because they’re out of sight and out of danger. In The Amen Corner, James Baldwin’s dilemma is whether to embrace the inner life of...

West-Eastern Divan Ensemble’s first American tour features Kennedy Center performance

The world is so full of intractable political and cultural issues, with deep chasms making understanding, let alone peace, seem so far away. But the venerable Washington Performing Arts (WPA)...

Despite killer performances, ‘Shipwreck’s’ political message falters

Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017, the new play by Anne Washburn in its US premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, summons the dread and dysphoria of primarily white liberals following the 2016...

Megan Hilty and Cheyenne Jackson in NSO Pops: Broadway and Beyond at the Kennedy Center

If your ideal Valentine’s date is cheerful, charming, and looks fantastic in formal wear, then get thee to the Kennedy Center to spend an evening with Megan Hilty and Cheyenne Jackson. The Broadway,...

A fascinating rendering of ‘The King’s Speech’ at the National Theatre

Given that so many plays and films these days are based on, drawn from or inspired by each other, it is worth examining the differences between these media and the treatments they require. The King’s...

The New Orchestra of Washington presents a love so powerful it hurts in ‘A Poet’s Love: It’s Complicated’

While much of the city is abuzz with romantic romping this Valentine’s Day weekend, the New Orchestra of Washington will concern itself with the transformative power of love and loss when it presents...

Shakespeare Theatre Company rescues James Baldwin’s ‘Amen Corner’ from the vault

In May 1955, when Howard University staged James Baldwin’s play, The Amen Corner, Washington Post reviewer Richard L. Coe deemed it a “fine play that merits not only your attention but also future...

‘1001 Black Inventions’ continues The Essential Theatre’s free presentations for young audiences

The Essential Theatre rings in the New Year by continuing an 18-month celebration of the 30th anniversary of its founding. In partnership with the District of Columbia Public Library System the...

Playwright Jonathan Spector on the shadows that lurk behind the laughter in ‘Eureka Day.’

There’s no doubt about it. Eureka Day is a very funny play. The show, now having its DC debut at Mosaic Theater, features five perfectly-attuned actors, a director who understands comedy, a script...

A ‘My Fair Lady’ for today at the Kennedy Center

The character arc that carries Lerner and Loewe’s classic My Fair Lady belongs to Eliza Doolittle, as she rises from flower girl at Covent Garden to the belle of the embassy ball, from feral street...

Isabella Star LaBlanc, who plays Tiger Lily in ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company, on why Native stories matter

When Playwright Lauren Gunderson took on the challenge of adapting J. M. Barrie’s 1904 Peter Pan, she knew she had to fix what she has called the “deeply harmful misrepresentation of Indigenous people...

‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ at Shakespeare wows with wonder in a woke dream

J. M. Barrie imagined a lot when he wrote his 1904 play about the boy who wouldn’t grow up, but he could not have imagined how many childhoods have been etched by its enchantment. Now in Peter Pan and...

Family-friendly Tennessee Williams puppet show pops up for the holidays

After two sell-out previews and a spectacular run at the Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown, The Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers pops up at the trendy Shaw-neighborhood speakeasy...

Thoughtful ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ at Arena Stage

How do you put a human face on a difficult, complex subject the natural habitat of which may more likely be a law review article than a stage? Such is playwright Sharyn Rothstein’s task in Right to be...

‘Protest/Vaněk Unleashed’ heads underground in upcoming Alliance for New Music-Theatre production

In partnership with the Embassy of the Czech Republic’s Mutual Inspirations Festival, and in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, the Alliance for New...

Shakespeare Theater Company’s ‘Everybody’ flirts with death, but falls short of greatness

There’s really only one thing that all of us – that everybody – has in common. Death, whether we’re ready or not, will come for us. All our failures and triumphs, our relationships and desires, can...

LA TI DO presents Natalie Weiss: Live in DC

Join LA TI DO for an intimate evening with YouTube sensation Natalie Weiss at Union Stage at The DC Wharf featuring Natalie Weiss with a live band. Where: Union Stage, 740 Water St, SW Washington, DC...

Review: ‘A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn’ at Anacostia Playhouse

Director Stephawn Stephens has deep family roots at the Dew Drop Inn, having started as a performer in A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn. When asked how he pulled off the latest edition he said he simply...

Teatro de la Luna: Providing Spanish-Language Theater to DC Since 1991

Nucky Walder and Mario Marcel are household names to many Spanish-speaking residents of Washington, DC. For more than 60 years, Marcel, who is from Argentina, has dedicated himself to acting, theater...