DC

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...

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...

Enter by Tomorrow at 11 AM to Win a Free Pair of Tickets to Dakshina Dance 2/27 or 3/5 Performance

Enter to win a pair of tickets to Dakshina’s performances Dakshina is giving away 5 pairs of tickets to the performances at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on: Saturday February 27th at 9 pm OR...

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: 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: 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...

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: ‘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...

Magic Time! A Conversation with Manu Kumasi About ‘Lost in the Stars’

“The situation in 1940s apartheid South Africa is very similar to what was seen in 1940’s America, 1960’s America, 1980’s America, and even what we see in the present day.” I was talking with Manu...

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: ‘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...

Review: ‘Br’er Cotton’ at The Catholic University’s Department of Drama

It is exciting when new works of theater appear by young and promising playwrights. Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, whose Br’er Cotton premiered last night at The Catholic University of America’s Hartke...

Meet The Cast of Spooky Action Theater’s ‘Collaborators’: Part 1: Paul Reisman

In Part 1 of our series with the cast of Spooky Action’s Collaborators, meet Paul Resiman. Joel: Please introduce yourself and tell our readers where they may have seen you perform on the stage? Paul:...

All Performances Saturday 2/13 and Sunday 2/14 at WSC Avant Bard, Peter’s Alley Productions, and The Arlington Players Are On

All performances today, Saturday, February 13th and Sunday, February 14th Are On for: WSC Avant Bard Peter’s Alley Productions The Arlington Players

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

In the scorching, emotional and honest opera of man in search of redemption, the opera–Lost in the Stars, now playing as part of the Washington National Opera series at the Kennedy Center —is a...

Review: ‘Legacy Street’ at The Catholic University’s Department of Drama

Legacy Street, a new play by Lauren Jane Redmond, an MFA Playwriting candidate at The Catholic University of America, premiered last night at the Callan Theatre. A gritty look at violence in the...

Review: ‘Big Love’ at American University

The cast of American University’s Big Love, written by Charles L. Mee and directed by Isaiah M. Wooden, was masterful in communicating the big and complex issues raised in the play. Without harangues...

Review: ‘Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet’ at Howard University

Last night I had the great satisfaction of watching Howard University students take on the challenge of a certifiably risk-taking play—Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet—and with...

Nibbles and Sips Around Town: Pudding it Together: ‘Valentine’s Day Recipes to Charm Your Sweetheart’

Valentine’s Day Recipes to Charm Your Sweetheart These recipes from Nielsen-Massey are too delicious not to share. For the Decadent Chocolate Pudding be sure to use only the best semi-sweet chocolate...

Jay Gilliam on The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC’s ‘The Way We Were’ at Atlas on 2/12 & 13

Jay Gilliam tells us about the upcoming performances of The Way We Were at The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC at Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Lang Theatre this Friday, February 12th at 8 PM and...

In the Moment: Megan Graves as Snug in Folger Theatre’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’

Ha! Minor role indeed. It’s only Snug one of the Rude Mechanicals in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But special fan’s props are due to the gentle, shy Snug in the current Folger Theatre...

Magic Time! ‘Backstage with the Women of ‘The Sisters Rosensweig’ at Theater J’

When I recently read Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig, which opened in 1992, I sensed it was written in response to the women’s movement at the time. Wasserstein’s 1988 The Heidi Chronicles,...

Review: ‘Senorita y Madame’ at GALA Hispanic Theatre

The rivalry between Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden—two women who actually invented the cosmetics industry—is largely forgotten today. Yet the story of these feminist icons, who at one time...

Tim Gillham on The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC’s ‘The Way We Were’ at Atlas on 2/12 & 13

Tim Gillham tells us about the upcoming performances of The Way We Were at The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC at Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Lang Theatre on February 12th at 8 PM and on...

Review: ‘OLIVÉRio: A Brazilian Twist’ at The Kennedy Center’s Theater for Young Audiences

The Kennedy Center has produced yet another world premiere production for this season’s Theater for Young Audiences. This time, they have taken Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and brought the story to...

Jarrod Bennett on The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC’s ‘The Way We Were’ at Atlas on 2/12 & 13

Jarrod Bennett tells us about the upcoming performances of The Way We Were at The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC at Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Lang Theatre on February 12th at 8 PM and on...

Review: ‘Guards at the Taj’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Although it is never seen, not even a glimpse of one of its four minarets or gleaming domes, the Taj Mahal looms large as a monument of beauty and death as it haunts Rajiv Joseph’s poetic morality...

Review: ‘Barenaked Comedy’ at Bier Baron

In the Venn Diagram of your brain on burlesque and your brain on standup, Barenaked Comedy is the intersection. It made for an interesting energy flow at BNC’s first show in their new home, the Bier...

Spine: ‘Guards at the Taj’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj, now playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, provokes its audience with grand flamingo visions, with horrific buckets of blood, with aesthetic debate on the role of...

Review: ‘Bizet’s Carmen in Havana’ at The In Series

The In Series wows again with one of their trademark reimaginings: Carmen in Havana, which takes the essential scenes from Bizet’s classic and adds the Latin rhythms of the Caribbean with iconic Cuban...

Review: ‘The City of Conversation’ at Arena Stage

In the daring new play about Washington politics and the halcyon days of genteel social hostesses, The City of Conversation, (now playing at Arena Stage) the word “conversation “ is most decidedly a...

Review: ‘Une Education Manquée’ at Opera Lafayette

Opera Lafayette’s second offering of the season, Emmanuel Chabrier’s Une Education Manquée, is a far cry from the massive spectacle many people assume is synonymous with opera. This little known...

Review: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at The Kennedy Center

Only Worldviews coexisted within the remembrance of spirit, while timeless historical context filled the John F. Kennedy Center Opera House on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016. The Alvin Ailey American...

Review: ‘Agents of Azeroth’ at The Washington Rogues at Flashpoint

Now, in DC theatre, video games are hot. From Rorschach’s She Kills Monsters to Flying V’s The Oregon Trail and Molotov’s Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, audiences (and Artistic Directors) can’t...

Here Are The 2016 Helen Hayes Award Nominations And A Look Back at The 2015 Nominations & Recipients

______ Outstanding Choreography in a Musical-HAYES Production Parker Esse West Side Story Signature Theatre Michele Lynch Kiss Me, Kate Shakespeare Theatre Company Tommy Rapley Carousel Olney Theatre...

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Folger Theatre

What continually impresses me about the Folger Theatre is that it takes on Shakespeare plays and that nothing is off limits from experimentation or adaptation. They are masters at unlocking new levels...

Review: Dance Place’s 35th Year Reunion

Dance Place Reunion Celebrates 35 Years When Dance Place marks a milestone, invariably by the evening’s end its Founding Artistic Director Carla Perlo has more people on stage than in the audience....

A Report on ‘Sanctuary (An American Psalm)’ at Arena Stage

There is a moment when Director and performer John Moletress and Jocelyn Kuritsky are dancing on stage left. Caridad Svich is singing her original song “Low Valley” on stage right. As the dancers...

Review: ‘St. Nicholas’ at Washington Stage Guild

Theater critics can sometimes be vicious and bloodthirsty…… and that’s before one of them gets employed by a bloodsucking vampire in the Washington Stage Guild production of St. Nicholas. This...

Magic Time! ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at Ford’s Theatre

What’s the best way to stage a modern classic that is both reverential and revelatory? How does one mount a production that is respectful of the author’s intent yet freshly insightful. How can a...

Review: ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at Ford’s Theatre

Possibly the most lyrical and sentimentally poignant of all the plays written by Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie still holds up as one of Williams’ most well-written plays....

Spine: “I Shall Not Hate” Mosaic Theater’s Journey to the Gaza Strip

Visit the Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Sprenger Lang Theatre over the next few weeks and you’ll find Gaza. “He who looks at the sea does not know the sea, He who sits on the shore does not know the...

Review: ‘I Shall Not Hate’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

It was a record-setting blizzard, not prescient season planning, that resulted in Mosaic Theater Company’s rescheduling the opening of I Shall Not Hate to last night, International Holocaust Memorial...