DC

Review: ‘The River’ at Spooky Action Theater

Jez Butterworth’s The River does not yield itself to easy interpretations. Uncertainty flows through the story, jostling us repeatedly. Its questions about truth and morality are specific and seismic...

Magic Time! ‘The River’ at Spooky Action Theater

A man has a remote rustic fishing cabin. There are lot of fish in the water nearby. He’s a rugged, outdoorsy guy and he loves to fish. In a Hemingway novel he would not be a fish out of water. This...

Review: ‘Baby Screams Miracle’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

What does one say about a play that has a Superstorm as its protagonist? With Clare Barron’s Baby Screams Miracle, now showing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, just such a storm is nature’s supreme...

Review: Mariinsky Ballet’s ‘The Little Humpbacked Horse’ at The Kennedy Center

Movement and merriment abound in Mariinsky’s The Little Humpbacked Horse Restraint and sutlety are generally not traits associated with Russian comedy ballet, and that proved true last evening at The...

Spine: Love and Wit in ‘As You Like It’ at the Folger Theatre

Now playing at the Folger Theatre, a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch and produced in association with Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, is sure to...

Interview: Co-Directors Serge Seiden and Vaughn Ryan Midder on ‘Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies,’ Now in World Premiere at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

I first encountered Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies five months ago, when it was presented at The Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival. Hearing the play at that first public reading was an...

In the Moment: ‘As You Like It’ at Folger Theatre

Gaye Taylor Upchurch’s appealing direction gives Folger Theatre’s As You Like It a warm flirtatious essence with buffoonery galore masking over Shakespeare’s initial soulful melancholic core. With...

Review: ‘Hooded, Or Being Black for Dummies’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

There is a laugh track with this show. As in a prerecorded TV sitcom where the studio audience was cued to be amused, there’s an overhead LAUGH sign that flashes intermittently accompanied by canned...

Review: ‘Mason Bates’ KC Jukebox: Ravishment’ at The Kennedy Center

Virginia’s own Mason Bates is the current composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center and now playing the second season of his collaborative KC Jukebox series. The series presents out-of-the-box...

Review #1: ‘As You Like It’ at Folger Theatre

An updated classic that rocks! Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It, is the icing on the Folger Theatre’s 25th season and its observance of the 400th anniversary of The Bard’s passing. This show,...

Review: ‘Last Train to Nibroc’ at Washington Stage Guild

On a train rumbling eastward from Los Angeles in 1940, a young man in uniform invites himself to sit down next to a pretty young woman absorbed in her book. As it turns out, they are both from...

Magic Time!’ ‘LIZZIE: The Musical’ at Pinky Swear Productions

Don’t groan but this is a bloody good show. It rocks, it roils, it’s saucy and sassy, it’s effin in-your-face. The story is gory as you might expect. It’s about the legendary 1892 axe murder of Lizzie...

Review: ‘Hamlette’ at The Keegan Theatre

Being a teenager is never easy, especially if your mother has just married your uncle, who also happens to have murdered your father, and nobody can accept the fact that you’re a girl. Add in a visit...

Review: ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ at Ford’s Theatre

A sampling of the audio from the packed house should serve as ample description for Ford’s Theatre’s stunning new production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: raucous laughter, groans...

Spine: ‘Mack, Beth’ a ‘Macbeth’ for the Cyber Age at Keegan Theatre

Mack, Beth by Chris Stezin, now playing at The Keegan Theatre, is a Macbeth for the Cyber Age. Set in a world where death by dagger is replaced by death by fake news, Mack, Beth makes a person’s brand...

In the Moment: A Chat With Ethan Van Slyke on His Career and Understudying For ‘Watch On the Rhine’ at Arena Stage

A joy for a theater writer is to bring notice to young up-and-coming actors. In the past year I have the good fortune to see Ethan van Slyke perform with several professional theater companies in the...

Review: ‘Mack, Beth’ at The Keegan Theatre

Chris Stezin’s adaptation of Macbeth, presented by Director Matt Ripa at The Keegan Theatre, is a daring attempt to bring one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies into the modern day. In this...

Review: Washington Performing Arts Presents The Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Conductor

It is easy to understand why The Philadelphia Orchestra has tapped Yannick Nézet-Séguin to be their music director and conductor of such a prestigious institution. Yannick exudes charisma and delivers...

Interview: Playwright Chris Stezin on ‘Mack, Beth,’ Playing Now at The Keegan Theatre

Chris Stezin is a playwright, actor, and director whose work—on and off the stage—has brightened the marquees of DC theatres for more than two decades. The author of roughly 25 plays in as many years,...

Spine: Consciousness, Conscience, and ‘The Hard Problem’ at The Studio Theatre

Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem isn’t so much about consciousness and the existence of subjectivity, “the hard problem” elucidated by contemporary Australian philosopher David Chalmers, as it is about...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2016 #16: Best Direction, Musical Direction, and Design in Musicals and Plays in Philadelphia, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey

The DCMetroTheaterArts Staff’s Best of 2016 Direction in Productions in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and DE are: BEST DIRECTION Carl Andress for Charles Busch’s The Divine Sister at Bucks County...

Review: ‘Roe’ at Arena Stage

The title of Lisa Loomer’s riveting play Roe refers to both the pivotal Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade and the person known as Jane Roe who was the plaintiff in it. Loomer dramatizes both stories—why...

Review and Article: The Dover Quartet at the Kennedy Center Family Theater

Lord knows there are a lot of young string quartets out there trying to make an impact on both classical music and the cultural scene generally. They even have their own competitions to try to sort...

Review: Pianist Lise de la Salle at the Phillips Collection

Picking through bombastic music to extract the musical message and leave a lingering impression of something other than bombast is a skill to be cherished among pianists on the international stage....

Meet the Three Young Actors in ‘Watch on the Rhine’ at Arena Stage: #3 Lucy Breedlove

Lucy Breedlove makes her professional debut playing the middle of three siblings in Lillian Hellman’s 1941 play Watch on the Rhine. In the childhood they are having, the bogeyman is all too real. Set...

In the Moment: The Studio Theatre’s ‘The Hard Problem’

Studio Theatre’s production of The Hard Problem by Tom Stoppard charmed me with its intellectual and ideological turmoil fueled by verbal fierceness. With a shiny, contemporary veneer and Stoppard’s...

Review: ‘Elf The Musical JR.’ at Aldersgate Church Community Theater

We all know a person (or two, or twelve) who still have their Christmas lights up as we head into February. If you’re not quite ready to let go of the Christmas glow, then Aldersgate Church Community...

Review: ‘The Hard Problem’ at The Studio Theatre

No shrinking violet when it comes to exploring humanity’s most complex questions, playwright Tom Stoppard takes a deep dive into the frontiers of neuroscience, human nature, and the existence of God...

Review #2: The American Pops Orchestra Presents ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade: 75 Years Of Streisand’ at Lisner Auditorium

8-track tape: It’s the only medium of Barbra Streisand recordings that I do not own. LP, cassette, VHS, CD, DVD, mp3, mp4 … I have purchased some of Streisand’s work in two or three (for some movie...

Review: ‘LIZZIE: The Musical’ at Pinky Swear Productions

Fresh off their Capital Fringe Best Overall Show and Best Musical Theatre or Opera wins for 2016’s Over Her Dead Body, Pinky Swear Productions (PSP) rips onto the stage of Anacostia Playhouse with...

Here Are This Year’s WATCH AWARD Nominations

Announcement of Nominations 16th Annual Washington Area Theatre Community Honors THE WATCH AWARDS Nominations Announced January 15, 2017 – 7:30 pm at The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA Award Ceremony...

Review: National Symphony Orchestra: Stravinsky’s ‘The Firebird’ and Ravel’s ‘Left Hand’ Concerto

With a program packed with masterpieces from Russian and French composers, Sir Mark Elder conducted the National Symphony Orchestra. Sir Mark Elder opened the night sharing some words on the program...

Best of 2016 #15: Best Performances in Plays in Community Theatres in DC/MD/VA

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2016 #15: Best Performances in Plays and Ensembles in Community Theaters in DC/MD/VA Area Area Mark T. Allen as John Barrymore in I Hate Hamlet at Laurel Mill Playhouse....

Review: ‘[gay] Cymbeline’ at Theatre Prometheus

Queering Shakespeare may be gilding the lily. And if so DC these days has seen quite a few such embellished flowers. Like, golden nosegays for days. One of the best and freshest in the bunch is...

Review #1: ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade: 75 Years of Streisand’ at The American Pops

Streisand came to DC for a quick pre-inauguration visit. Well almost, but not quite. Well, maybe my first sentence is a little bit of a “fake news” headline. I am writing about a blissful, musically...

Review: ‘Recent Tragic Events’ at St. Mark’s Players

The American theater has generated some great plays prompted by the tragic events of 9/11. I remember vividly Neil LaBute’s powerful 2002 drama The Mercy Seat, in a production LaBute directed...

Review: ‘Image China: Confucius’ at The Kennedy Center

It seemed fitting somehow during a full moon, on Friday the thirteenth, to be attending Confucius on the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Kong Dexin, a 77th-generation direct descendent of Confucius...

Review: ‘Bud, Not Buddy’ at The Kennedy Center

Last night, The Kennedy Center presented an inspiring world premiere commission of Bud, Not Buddy. Kirsten Greenidge created the fast-paced and touchingly funny script, based on the book from...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2016 #14: Best Design in Professional and Community Theaters in DC/VA/MD

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2016 #14: Best Design in Professional and Community Theaters in DC/VA/MD Are: John Alexander for his lighting for Blackberry Winter at Forum Theatre. John Alexander for his...

Magic Time! ‘Someone Is Going to Come’ at Scena Theatre

Someone Is Going to Come is a comedy of menace with a roiling undercurrent of sexual tension. It evokes ominous noirish goings-on in a scary remote locale told in stark idiosyncratic dialogue. And...

Meet the Three Young Actors in ‘Watch on the Rhine’ at Arena Stage: #2 Tyler Bowman

Tyler Bowman makes his Arena Stage debut playing the youngest of three siblings in Lillian Hellman’s 1941 play Watch on the Rhine. The children have traveled with their mother and father to Georgetown...

‘Charm’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Just opened at Mosaic Theater Company in a thrilling and vibrant production directed by Natsu Onoda Power is a play that puts on stage some of what National Geographic just called the gender...

Meet the Three Young Actors in ‘Watch on the Rhine’ at Arena Stage: #1 Ethan Miller

Ethan Miller makes his Arena Stage debut playing one of the three children in Lillian Hellman’s 1941 drama Watch on the Rhine. It’s not what you’d call a kid’s show. Set in 1940, the play echoes with...

Review: ‘The Gabriels’ at the Kennedy Center

For those who are familiar with Richard Nelson’s 4-play cycle, The Apple Family Plays, his The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family, now on stage at the Kennedy Center’s Lab Theatre, will...

Spine: ‘Charm’ at the Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Philip Dawkins’ Charm takes on a high order: it wants to charm you. And to do that its lead character, Mama, has to be more than charming. She has to charm your disbelief, your cynical 21st century...

Review: ‘Someone Is Going to Come’ at Scena Theatre

Scena Theatre’s Someone Is Going to Come is a tightly wound riddle about danger; the lightly concealed danger lurking in a couple’s push-pull of a relationship that is further inflamed with an...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2016 #13: Best Direction and Musical Direction in Musicals and Best Direction of Plays in Community Theatres in DC/MD/VA

The staff of DCMetroTheaterArts Best Direction and Musical Direction in Musicals and Best Direction of Plays of 2016 in Community Theatres in DC/VA/MD Are: BEST DIRECTION AND MUSICAL DIRECTION IN...

Review: ‘Copenhagen’ at Theater J

Strange to watch a play unfold and wish that it did not feel so chillingly relevant. Or that the past it depicts never happened. Or that the moral and material uncertainty at its core did not portend...

Review: ‘Charm’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

If you think teaching manners to a group of outcast runaways sounds like a joke—ridiculous at best, and irrelevant or possibly dangerous at worst—then think again. Because the idea of offering lessons...

Review: ‘Irving Berlin: A Simple Melody. A Tribute in Song’ at The In Series

How fortunate we are to have the In Series the past 2+ decades presenting a smart set mix of: innovative Pocket Opera, intimate Cabaret, and intriguing Latino programming. [from the company’s...