Baltimore

Review: ‘Charley’s Aunt’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre

At 126 years old and still going strong, Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas has lost none of its power to tickle an audience’s funny bone. Fells Point Corner Theatre’s production keeps the energy and...

Review: ‘A Christmas Story, The Musical’ by Charm City Players

A more dazzling display of heart-warming family entertainment and memories may not be found this Christmas Season than Charm City Players’ A Christmas Story, The Musical. With deft direction by...

Review: ‘L’amico Fritz’ at Baltimore Concert Opera

The Baltimore Concert Opera has every reason to be proud as it moves into its 10th season of operations. From the concert hall at the Engineers Club, the company provides a unique experience for local...

Review: ‘the end of things.’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

by Ciahna Heck Three Princes Theatre presents the end of things. at the Charm City Fringe Festival, a daring new piece of theater which touches on the termination of multiple relationships and the...

Review: ‘Mt. Rushmore’ at The Charm City Fringe Festival

Mt. Rushmore, activist-artist Monica Hunken’s one-woman show at the Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival through Sunday, has it all: badass women, time travel, punk rock, political activism,...

Review: ‘Crankie Cabaret’ at The Charm City Fringe Festival

Listening to Katherine Fahey recount personal memories, ghost stories, and a lovely tale about Baltimore’s arabbers while grouped around The Lantern Sisters’ gorgeously adorned crankie box, feels as...

Review: ‘Forgive Us, Gustavito!’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

For a play about a hippo, it’s pretty dark. Forgive Us, Gustavito! is bookended by the primal howling of a grieving animal, as the audience is enveloped in a blackout. This is not to say, however,...

Review: ‘The Male Gaze’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

The title of BlueShift Dance’s show, “The Male Gaze,” refers to the objectification of women by cis-hetero men. The idea of the “male gaze” isn’t new to women. The premise is “what happens when ‘the...

Review: ‘Songs for a New World’ at Spotlighters Theatre

It’s about one moment – the moment before it all becomes clear. Jason Robert Brown succinctly sums up his own production in this line from the opening number of Songs for a New World, now playing at...

Review: ’50 Shades of Gay’ at The Charm City Fringe Festival

By Kylie Miller Fringe Festivals are a great platform for shows that push boundaries and challenge the norm. 50 Shades of Gay does exactly that. Ike Avelli, a 52-year-old single gay man, is the star...

Review: ‘NURSE!’ at The Charm City Fringe Festival

Lisa Hayes brings one of her acclaimed one-woman shows to Baltimore with NURSE!, a compelling story of a labor strike from a variety of perspectives. Embodying numerous distinct characters, Hayes...

Review: ‘Un-a-parent’ at The Charm City Fringe Festival

By Kylie Miller The play on words of the show’s title, Un-a-parent, perfectly sets up this comedic solo show. The life experiences of Joe Minchik, the writer and performer, are both hilarious and...

Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival – How to Fringe 2018

What is Fringe? Today begins the Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival, a celebration of new and emerging independent theatre that will continue through November 11th. The festival offers 22...

Review: ‘King of the Yees’ at Baltimore Center Stage

“You don’t have use? You don’t have power? They will erase you from your own story.” -Larry Yee Lauren Yee has a problem. And it’s kind of a big one. Not Lauren Yee the writer, whose very funny but...

Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival: What to See and Where to See It

The Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival is taking place in the Bromo Arts District from November 1 through November 11, 2018. Here’s a listing of all the shows. Get fringing! Fringe Shows with...

Review: ‘Sweat’ at Everyman Theatre

Lynn Nottage last year became the first woman to win a second Pulitzer Prize for Drama thanks to her play Sweat, a dramatization of the collapse of the American unskilled labor market circa 2000, now...

Desdemona Chiang Directs ‘King of the Yees’ at Baltimore Center Stage

If you haven’t already heard, Baltimore Center Stage is producing Playwright Lauren Yee’s King of the Yees. And in case you weren’t aware, this play is kind of a big deal. The story, which takes place...

Review: ‘A Chaste Maid in Cheapside’ by The Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

Moved by an impulse analogous to the original instruments movement in early music, Baltimore Shakespeare Factory (BSF) is dedicated to mounting the Bard’s plays and those of his contemporaries in the...

Review: ‘Barnum’ at The Heritage Players

Hey kids, let’s go see a show! “Come Follow The Band” with The Heritage Players at Thomas Rice Auditorium in Catonsville to see Barnum, the story of a man and his life-long love affair with illusion...

Review: ‘The Addams Family’ by Silhouette Stages

It’s all together ooky, The Addams Family. That’s a good thing, of course. Save for one flaw, Silhouette Stages’ production of the show is a comic delight, well sung and danced by a talented cast. The...

Review: ‘Spring Awakening’ by StillPointe Theatre

Ryan Haase, the wunderkind behind StillPointe Theatre Initiative, ends the pre-show announcement for his current production of the musical Spring Awakening by urging us to “forget the craziness...

Baltimore Concert Opera Delivers Glamour, Grandeur and Stunning Performances at Unique Historic Venue

From the time you enter the historic Garrett-Jacobs Mansion, also known as the Engineers Club, you feel as though you have taken a step back in time. Chandeliers, English Oak, Tiffany glass windows,...

Review: ‘Night, Mother at the Strand Theater

In his classic acting guidebook Audition, Michael Shurtleff observed, “A murderer kills just one. A suicide kills the whole world.” Marsha Norman acknowledges as much in her Pulitzer Prize-winning...

Review: ‘She Stoops To Conquer’ at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company

Hurry to see a vibrant and uproariously funny production of a classic comedy. Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, “at home” in a converted downtown bank building, which, for historic reasons, retains...

Review: “Ain’t Misbehavin'” at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

The joint is jumping, and the stars are strutting to legendary jazz great Thomas “Fats” Waller’s exuberant melodies at Toby’s Dinner Theatre with an all-embracing musical revue of 30 soul-stirring...

Review: ‘Lysistrata’ at Spotlighters Theatre

Baltimore City is home to a lovely nest of small, historic theatre companies, housed in lovely historic buildings, in lovely historic neighborhoods where parking can be tight. Among these, in Mount...

Review: ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may boast of owning “twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile,” but in Center Stage’s comparably rich...

Review: ‘Sex With Strangers’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre

The summer heat lingers well into fall with Fells Point Corner Theatre’s season-opening production of Sex with Strangers, a provocative two-hander romantic comedy/drama by Laura Eason (writer/producer...

Review: ‘Putin On Ice (that isn’t the real title of this show)’ by Single Carrot Theatre and The Acme Corporation

By Brandon Block We’re in a long, dark, monastic chamber. A white marble bust of Putin sits against dark red drop-banners that are just barely not swastikas, instead featuring a black outline of a...

Review: ‘Luther’ at Arena Players

By Cybele Pomeroy “My name is Luther and I’m going to sing every song I know. Come on, y’all, let’s have a party.” — Tamba Giles as Luther Vandross in Luther. It’s a brick building in an area between...

Review: ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ at Everyman Theatre

True magic happens not when we’re convinced that an illusion is true, but when we realize that it can’t be so yet still refuse to believe it isn’t. Such a spell is cast over the audience at Everyman...

Review: ‘Consent’ at Spotlighters Theatre

As audience members enter the Spotlighters Theatre to attend the Baltimore Playwrights Festival’s world premiere of Glennyce Lynn’s Consent, they pass signs warning against medical contamination, as...

Review: ‘Variations on Sacrifice’ by Rapid Lemon Productions at Baltimore Theatre Project

Last night I had the immense pleasure of seeing eleven new plays by thirteen authors in Variations on Sacrifice. The Variations Project is an annual curated event produced by Rapid Lemon Productions...

Review: ‘King John’ at Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

King John of England was not a popular ruler, and Shakespeare’s play about him is not, to put it mildly, among his most popular works; indeed, it hasn’t been performed in Baltimore since 1781. The...

Review: ‘Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean’ at Cockpit in Court

By Bill Kamberger On September 30, 1975, twenty years to the day after the car crash that took the life of movie legend James Dean, six of his female fans gather at a convenience store in a...

Review: ‘Be a Good Little Widow’ at Unexpected Stage

It’s anybody’s guess what goes through a person’s mind in their final moments. Most of us are very familiar with what goes through the mind of a person who has lost someone. This grief, in all of its...

Review: ‘The Little Mermaid’ at Cockpit in Court

By Bill Kamberger Ironically enough for a story that is propelled by sibling rivalry and longing for a better life, the stage adaptation of The Little Mermaid has always been a bit of a neglected...

Review: ‘Late Night Double Feature Improv Show’ by Fells Point Corner Theatre

By Bill Kamberger Improv is life; after all, we do it every day. And since many would claim that theater is life, performing improv in a theater seems only natural. There’s a reason, though, that even...

Review: ‘James and the Giant Peach’ by the Heritage Players

By Kylie Miller The Heritage Players began their run of James and the Giant Peach this weekend. Based on the book written by Roald Dahl, with lyrics and music by Justin Paul and script by Timothy...

Review: ‘Urinetown’ by Stillpointe Theatre

Baltimore-based Stillpointe Theatre’s trademark is taking cult and non-mainstream musicals, and with bare-bones resources and the absolute best local talent, delivering productions that make you go,...

Review: ‘Judy and the General’ at Spotlighters Theatre

It’s a rare and special treat to see the world debut of a new musical, and I was lucky enough to have the privilege of seeing the first public performance of Judy and the General at The Audrey Herman...

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by Chesapeake Shakespeare Company

Who can resist entertaining theater on a warm, summer night? An outdoor performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is especially apropos for such nights, and Chesapeake Shakespeare Company...

Review: ‘The Quickening’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre

By Andy Arnold Amanda Spellman, a DC-area theater veteran, is sensational as pregnant wife Beth Wells in The Quickening, now playing its world premiere at Fells Point Corner Theatre. Beth had to...

Review: ‘The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity’ at Cohesion Theatre

Talk about a political farce! The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity might as well be titled Divided America in the Time of Trump as Analogized Through TV Wrestling. Cohesion Theatre’s production of the...

Review: ‘The Book of Joseph’ at Everyman Theatre

With the advent and popularity of exploratory DNA tools like 23andMe and Ancestry.com to unearth family lineage, people are increasingly fascinated with discovering who they are and where they come...

Review: ‘Incredibly Dead!’ by the Baltimore Rock Opera Society

The Baltimore Rock Opera Society’s latest creation, Incredibly Dead!, is a damn good time. From the flying severed heads to the ridiculous collection of characters, the B-horror original musical spoof...

Review: ‘Big Fish’ by Silhouette Stages at Slayton House

Big Fish, directed by TJ Lukacsina, opened this weekend at Slayton House in Columbia, Maryland. With the musical, music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and book by John August, Big Fish opened on Broadway...

Review: ‘SOUL The Stax Musical’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Holy Mother of all that is funky! SOUL The Stax Musical is the most fun I’ve had as a reviewer. A musical this magnificent comes around once in many a shady blue moon. SOUL The Stax Musical has a...

A Modern Classic Takes on Epic Proportions: Constellation Theatre Brightens Brecht’s Manifesto, Adds Musical Makeover to ‘Caucasian Chalk Circle’

Last week, I decided to venture off my usual path and check out the Constellation Theatre, which performs at Source in the lively 14th Street corridor. What lured me there was the chance to see a new...

Review: ‘Peter Pan: Wendy, Peter. Peter, Wendy’ at Single Carrot Theatre

The idea behind Single Carrot Theatre’s Peter Pan: Wendy, Peter. Peter, Wendy. is one of the most interesting and exciting concepts in recent Baltimore theater history. The company commissioned writer...