DC

Report: ‘The 33rd Annual Helen Hayes Awards’ at the Lincoln Theatre

The glammed-up, black tie crowd began arriving at the historic Lincoln Theatre in U Street, NW, 90 minutes before show time. Most of the men were in tuxedos or dark suits. Some of the suits were...

Review: ‘Timon of Athens’ at Folger Theatre

Undone by his own goodness? Ha! That is not what I took away as director Robert Richmond succeeded masterfully with his contemporary, blasting grenade of an interpretation for Shakespeare’s rarely...

Here Are The Recipients of the 2017 Helen Hayes Awards

Here are the 2017 Helen Hayes Recipients in RED. __ Outstanding Choreography, Musical-Hayes Christopher d’Amboise, Evita, Olney Theatre Center Kelly Devine, Come From Away, Ford’s Theatre Parker Esse,...

Review: ‘The Father’ at The Studio Theatre

Some plays are more difficult to watch than others; some plays activate your imagination and pull you into their stories whole-body: those plays pull you into the psychological realities they portray....

Who’s in Town?: Morgan James Performing at the Hamilton, Thursday, May 18 at 7:30pm

Morgan James has one versatile voice. It is a voice that that can slip effortlessly from light lyric coloratura to Broadway belting, to Soul singing. Take a look at her career: James earned a coveted...

Review: ‘The Man Who’ at Spooky Action Theater

Curious questions tease the brain during this peculiarly provocative production. One is: Is this theater? Another is: What are we to make of it? The Man Who, just opened at the estimably idiosyncratic...

Review: ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at Synetic Theater

Haunting is the word that quickly came to mind as I sat, mesmerized, rediscovering a classic of literature I thought I knew from reading print on a page and from the movies. But, oh my, Synetic...

The 2017 Helen Hayes Awards Recipients to be Announced Tonight

Nominations for the 2017 Helen Hayes Awards Outstanding Choreography, Musical-Hayes Christopher d’Amboise, “Evita,” Olney Theatre Center Kelly Devine, “Come From Away,” Ford’s Theatre Parker Esse,...

Review: ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at Parlor Room Theater

Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie is an American theater classic. At its center a story about a shattered family, the show is timeless in its themes. Parlor Room Theater (PRT) Director Dillon...

Magic Time!: ‘Outside Mullingar’ at The Keegan Theatre

How does a play that starts out about real estate for gosh sake—adjacent farms in rural Ireland—become a heart-wrenching story of adjacent lost souls who fall in love late in life? How does a play...

Report: The 2017 ‘Kennedy Center Arts Summit’

Two-hundred and fifty artist citizens, teachers, members of arts non-profits, business executives, scientists and technologists from around the world, came together for a full day at the fourth annual...

Review: ‘Protest’ at Alliance for New Music-Theatre

DC site-specific theater of resistance reached a new height last night—also a new low—as Alliance for New Music-Theatre’s arresting staging of Václav Havel’s Protest became the first play performed...

Review #1: ‘Outside Mullingar’ at The Keegan Theatre

Theatre-lovers searching for a sequel to Doubt—John Patrick Shanley’s prize-winning (and frequently revived) play about nuns and priests in an Irish-American enclave of New York—will be surprised to...

Review: ‘Come Together:  A Celebration of John Lennon’ at The Kennedy Center

At a time when we can only imagine a world without walls of division and exclusion, the Annual Kennedy Center’s Spring Gala concert, Come Together: A Celebration of John Lennon, reached for the stars...

Dangereuse: ‘A Macbeth for the 21st Century’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that seeing Edmund Kean play Shakespeare was like “reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.” Acclaimed Director Liesl Tommy brings us Shakespeare torn asunder by...

Review: ‘The Arabian Nights’ at Constellation Theatre Company

One Thousand and One Nights, the collection of classic Islamic tales upon which Mary Zimmerman built The Arabian Nights, now playing at Constellation Theatre Company, could not have a more violent...

Review: ‘Madame Butterfly’ at The Kennedy Center

Gorgeous, ravishing arias by the legendary Puccini, an ethereally beautiful performance by Soprano Ermonela Jaho as Cio-Cio San (Butterfly), and an exceptionally ingenious concept and stage design by...

Report: CityDance’s 2017 DREAMscape Benefit Gala

Moments into a dimmed house at the historic Lincoln Theatre, an off-stage voice over a loudspeaker made a promise to a buzzing audience: “We’re going to light up the night sky, so dance!” CityDance’s...

Review: ‘Laura Bush Killed a Guy’ at The Klunch

I didn’t know that Laura Bush had killed a guy. It really had never crossed my mind. Well, after seeing Ian Allen’s Laura Bush Killed a Guy, now playing at the Klunch at Caos on F Street (according to...

Review: ‘Evita’ at St. Mark’s Players

The classic musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Evita comes to life again with the latest production at St. Mark’s Players. The revival comes at a perfect time, as the production delves into the flawed...

Review: The 22nd Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival: Abbey Lincoln Tribute at The Kennedy Center

The music of Abbey Lincoln was The Kennedy Center’s choice for its 22nd Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival. Showcasing the best in old and new jazz artistry, this year’s tribute presented Jazz...

Magic Time!: On Being Seen as “Angry Black Man”: A Q&A with Jaysen Wright About His Role in ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage

I remember thinking after I first saw Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People at Arena that the character Jaysen Wright plays, Jackson Moore, has an important and particular role in how whole the play plays,...

Who’s in Town?: Debbie Allen Discusses Hosting the CityDance DREAMscape Gala on Saturday, May 6th at 8pm

Folks looking for a good cause and a night of show-stopping entertainment need look no further than CityDance’s annual DREAMscape Gala. This Saturday, May 6, donors can expect performances from the...

Review: ‘Quatuor Danel’ at the Phillips Collection

Complex 20th century “classical music,” or more properly serious art music as opposed to various forms of popular music, seems to be a gamble. It’s never just as interesting to an audience as...

Review: ‘Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs’ at The Kennedy Center

Wearing his heart on his sleeve throughout, entertainer extraordinaire Alan Cumming (Tony-award winner for Cabaret, regular on the hit television series The Good Wife, concert and recording star,...

Review: ‘The Jungle Book’ at Imagination Stage

Imagination Stage presents The Jungle Book, based on the classic story by Rudyard Kipling and adapted for the stage by Greg Banks. Janet Stanford directs a small cast of five in this production who,...

Review: ‘Macbeth’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Blood will have blood—so go the grim words of Macbeth as it dawns on him that murder is not as simple as he once thought. When it comes to battling and bloodshed, Shakespeare Theatre Company’s...

Review: ‘Russians in Paris’ at the Russian Chamber Art Society

The French and the Russians evoke very different images in the American mind, but they have one thing in common: an affinity for each other’s culture. Many Russian writers and composers lived a good...

DC Favorites ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and ‘Come From Away’ Vie for Best Musical as the 2017 Tony Award Nominations Are Announced

DC Mega-hits Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away, which wowed audiences during their sold out runs at Arena Stage and Ford’s Theatre, will be vying for Best Musical, as the 207 were Tony Award...

Review: ‘Building the Wall’ at Forum Theatre

The dystopia delineated in Building the Wall is predicted by the playwright, Robert Schenkkan, to happen in America very soon. By the time the play is set, in the year 2019, the two characters are...

Review: ‘Forgotten Kingdoms’ at Rorschach Theatre

There are mysteries of belief and faith beneath this fascinating parable of a play, roiling like the seawater that churns below the wooden house where its action takes place. This house is built on...

Review: ‘Passion & Struggle’ at The In Series

Poetry can be the seed of music, and music the seed of love. Music may even be used as a form of protest—and ultimately a promoter of peace. This is evidenced by the music of composers and performers...

Review: NSO Pops: LeAnn Rimes at The Kennedy Center

International multi-platinum selling acclaimed singer and ASCAP award-winning songwriter LeAnn Rimes returned to DC Friday night, joining the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) at The Kennedy Center...

Review: ‘Three Sisters’ at Maly Drama Theatre at The Kennedy Center

Anton Chekhov’s classic play Three Sisters is being given a superb rendering by the Maly Drama Theatre (from St Petersburg, Russia) at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. Director Lev Dodin...

Spine: ‘Three Sisters’ by the Maly Drama Theatre at The Kennedy Center

With the Maly Drama Theatre’s Three Sisters, playing through April 30 at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre, theatre lovers will feast on every slow motion wonderment, every long glance into...

Interview: Jazz Chanteuse Changamiré

I met jazz chanteuse Changamire’ at a networking event. She quickly warmed up to me and gave me her latest jazz album “Love” to listen to. I was blown away. In our interview she shared how she got...

In the Moment: ‘In the Heights’ (Spanish Version) at GALA Hispanic Theatre

New theater voices, heard in their own language and accessible to a wide audience. In a world-class area full of strivers like the DC metro area, it is about time. This admiring column is based...

Conversations with Five Makers of ‘Forgotten Kingdoms’ at Rorschach Theatre

RANDY BAKER, Playwright Michael: Introduce yourself, Rorschach, and the play Forgotten Kingdoms in under 140 characters. Go! No, just kidding…just tell us something about yourself and about this crazy...

Review: ‘In the Heights’ (Spanish Version) at GALA Hispanic Theatre

Those looking to add “a little bit of cinnamon” to their theatergoing should head to GALA Hispanic Theatre’s current production of In the Heights. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2008 Tony Award-winning musical...

Magic Time!: ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater

Racism, presumed in polite circles to be no laughing matter, gets a hilariously smart deconstruction in Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People. Arena Stage has given this 2016 play its DC premiere in a nifty...

Who’s in Town?: Luis Salgado, Director and Choreographer of GALA Theatre’s Spanish Language ‘In the Heights’

¡No pare, sigue, sigue! Hamilton lovers rejoice! Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2008 Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights premieres tonight at GALA Hispanic Theatre in the show’s first Spanish-language...

Review: ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage

As soon as the lights come up on Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People, now playing at Arena’s Kreeger Theater, the focus is clear. Or is it? Are four really “smart” people, who are only trying to save the...

Review: ‘Fun Home’ at The National Theatre

I never made it up to New York to see Fun Home. I did the same thing with The Ramones; it just always seemed like there’d be time to do it later. Fortunately for me – and unlike my gaffe with Joey,...

Spine: ‘Or,’ not as in Either, at Round House Theatre

First of all, for theatre lovers, there is nothing as delightful as watching three top notch actors have fun on stage, and with Holly Twyford, Gregory Linington, and Erin Weaver you’ll see three of...

Review: Ballet Across America Showcases a New Day in Dance at The Kennedy Center

Since its debut in 2008, The Kennedy Center’s Ballet Across America series continues to showcase the best of ballet from regional companies across the nation. This fourth time around, there are the...

Who’s in Town?: Alan Cumming Discusses His Upcoming Cabaret Show ‘Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs’ at The Kennedy Center on April 29th

If you are like me, you would have given your right arm for an invitation to “Club Cumming,” the nightly party Alan Cumming held in his dressing room at Studio 54 after performances of Cabaret, the...

Review: Geoffrey Keezer Trio with Special Guest Gillian Margot at the KC Jazz Club

As soon as the Trio finished Thelonius Monk’s “Brilliant Corners, the KC Jazz Club exploded in applause. Some music is not listened to: it is experienced, your body vibrating like a window to the...

Review: ‘Henry V’ at We Happy Few Productions

What’s the impact of war on the common man? Do the sins of leaders trickle down to their soldiers? Is patriotism dead? What does it mean to be a leader? These are just some of the themes explored in...

Magic Time!: ‘Off the Leash: A Journey Into Reality One Black Life at a Time’ at Woolly Mammoth Rehearsal Hall

After I watched eleven B.F.A. candidates in Howard University’s Class of 2017 perform a program of self-scripted audition pieces—character-rich monodramas, actually—I had one overwhelming urge: I...

Review: ‘A Conversation with Alec Baldwin’ at Smithsonian Associates

A sold out crowd Wednesday night enthusiastically enjoyed the Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actor, writer, producer, comedian, and political activist Alec Baldwin’s...