Maryland

Review: ‘Fruit of the Sea’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

FLORIDA MAN DRESSES UP 13-FT ALLIGATOR IN NOVELTY HAT AND SUNGLASSES FOR HALLOWEEN. News stories about the tragic exploits of Florida Man and Florida Woman are the first thing to greet you when you...

Review: ‘Smack ‘Em in the Snout’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

Confession: I saw the audition notices for Smack ‘Em in the Snout, written and directed by Rufus Drawlings, a few months ago and I thought to myself, “Wow, what a strange concept for a show!” Now,...

Review: ‘You’re in Danger’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

You’re in Danger, written and performed by Lucius Robinson, is an absolute delight for those who enjoy creepy tales. Lucius commits fully to the role of middle-aged Mitchell Barnes, telling his...

Review: ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ at Sandy Spring Theatre Group

I heard Kris Kringle (played by Harley Venton) tell little Susan Walker (Leah Packer): “…Imagination is a place all by itself. Now, you’ve heard of the French nation? … And the British nation? … Well,...

Review: ‘The Pink Hulk’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

The Pink Hulk, written and performed by Valerie David and directed by Padraic Lillis, with artwork by Rebecca Kalant, is not your typical sad cancer story. After surviving lymphoma and breast cancer,...

Review: ‘Origin of Species’ at The Strand Theater

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun – “Time,” by Pink Floyd...

A Tribute to Joel Markowitz, Founder and Editor Emeritus of DC Theater Arts

We in the theater community lost a great friend with the passing of Joel Markowitz. As many know, Joel was diagnosed with ALS in March of this year. Since then, he dedicated himself to continuing his...

Members of the Theater Community Reflect on What Joel Markowitz Meant to Them

Tributes and expressions of affection and appreciation for Joel have been pouring in. This is a space for us to celebrate and remember our friend, Joel Markowitz. Use the comments to share feelings,...

DC Theater Arts Sadly Announces the Passing of Founder and Editor Emeritus Joel Markowitz

The DC Theater Arts family is devastated to announce the loss of our Founder and Editor Emeritus, Joel Markowitz. Joel passed away at 2:40 pm this afternoon from the effects of ALS. A fighter until...

Review: ‘A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order’ at Studio Theatre

Daniel Kitson is an acquired taste. In the premiere of his newest one-actor creation, A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order at Studio’s Metheny Theatre, Kitson’s stage...

Interview: Michael Brush & Zachary Michel of Charm City Fringe Fest 2017

DC Theater Arts was excited to speak to Charm City Fringe Festival founders Zach Michel and Michael Brush last week at the Lexington Market. We enjoyed a nice chat over crab cakes and local beer. Here...

In the Moment: Interview with Desiree Sanchez, Executive Artistic Director, Aquila Theatre

Shedding new light on Hamlet by William Shakespeare is what Aquila Theatre aims to do with its upcoming production at Fairfax’s Center for the Arts. Hamlet has been recognized for centuries as one of...

Review: ‘The Hairy Ape’ at Spotlighters

The Hairy Ape, written by Eugene O’Neill and directed at Spotlighters Theatre by Sherrionne Brown, is a testament to the human condition. Written in 1922, this expressionist play is about a man that...

Interview: Nine Dollar Bill Theatre, performing ‘THEM’ at the Charm City Fringe Festival Nov 8-12

The Sixth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival, running through November 12 in the Bromo Arts District, has a ton of fantastic stuff happening. One of the things I am most looking forward to is a show...

Review: ‘Barriers’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

Barriers, conceived by Trajectory Dance Project, a Baltimore-based dance ensemble, is a beautiful series of five pieces focusing on human connections, and how those connections can break down:...

Review: ‘Clinically Happy’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

“It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.” — Naomi Shihab Nye, “So Much Happiness” If there’s anything other people feel entitled to explain to you, it’s your own happiness: what you...

Review: ‘Jacques Brel: Songs From His World’ at Source Theatre

Time has not dimmed the impact or abundant love for the musical works of Jacques Brel; even now, nearly 40 years since his untimely death. That is apparent from the audience response and my own...

Review: ‘Amok Monologues: All Pucked Up’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

“Everyone has at least one story that can break your heart.” – Claudia Shear, “Blown Sideways Through Life” Fringe festivals offer a bumper crop of one-person shows – monologues that invite us to...

Review: ‘Magnificent Machines & Astonishing Tales’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

Steampunk fans! Your moment has arrived on the deck of a time traveling airship in Night Watch Paradox’s Magnificent Machines & Astonishing Tales. With lead singer Kaya Kismet weaving her spell over...

Review: ‘Godly Chaos’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

Oh, gosh. What to say about Godly Chaos? This show, produced by QuaQuaQua, is highly ambitious. It takes place, primarily, on a large screen where the movements of the artist/actor are captured in a...

Review: ‘A Tuna Christmas’ at Bowie Playhouse

Satire can be both salve and mirror in tough times and in good. A Tuna Christmas, written by Tony-nominated Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard, satirizes small-town American life, leaving few...

Review: ‘Cody Clark: A Different Way of Thinking’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

Cody Clark is obsessed with magic. At the start of Cody Clark: A Different Way of Thinking, the audience is handed a Rubik’s cube to play with. Everyone passes it around and, when Cody comes on stage,...

Review: ’Foodless Food’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

For every good ad there are a hundred bad ones. This is where Foodless Food by BlueShift Dance starts. The projections of advertising for unhealthy food products takes us from the advent of television...

Review: ‘The Big Thank You’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

“and I mean, though often forget, to give thanks, to faint down by the kitchen table in a prayer of rejoicing” — Anne Sexton, “Welcome Morning” Every day for a year, playwright Alan Kreizenbeck posted...

Review: ‘Don’t Come In’ at Charm City Fringe Festival

It’s best to start with the description of Don’t Come In from the catalog: Love is scary. And it just might kill you. Stubborn lovers Em and Missy, unable to express their true feelings for one...

Review: ‘Little Women’ at Annapolis Opera

Little Women, composed and with a libretto by Mark Adamo and based on the book by Louisa May Alcott, sweeps into the Annapolis Opera with gusto. This opera, directed by Artistic Director and Conductor...

Review: ‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill’ at Rep Stage

It took way too long for Baltimore gal Billie Holiday to make the 20-odd mile trip out to Howard County for a live performance. It was a hard trip, too, judging from the bruised and fragile state we...

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

The Sixth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival is in full swing! Today alone (11/4/17), there are TEN different shows for you to enjoy. And after that, there are two Fringe After Dark events. Here’s a...

Review: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ at Vagabond Players

The timing of Vagabond Players’ production of Little Shop of Horrors is fortuitous, opening Halloween weekend when thoughts turn to the spooky and macabre, and running through November 25, before the...

News: DC Performing Arts Organizations Rally to Support Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria

When Hurricane Maria struck the island of Puerto Rico on September 20th, the storm left millions of American citizens with no electricity, drinkable water, cell service, or a roof over their heads. A...

Review: ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ at Kensington Arts Theatre

“For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’,” wrote poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The themes of “what might have been” and “what if” were prominent in The Bridges...

Review: ‘Lost In Yonkers’ at Peace Mountain Theatre Company

I had a Great Aunt whose fourth floor walk-up apartment was very much on display when I entered the performance space at Har Shalom. I wondered if set designers Maggie Moddig and Steven Leshin had...

Review: ‘Omnium Gatherum’ at Silver Spring Stage

In keeping with performing plays from five different decades in celebration of their 50th Anniversary Silver Spring reached back to right after Sept. 11, 2001, to do Omnium Gatherum by Alexandra...

Sixth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival: What It Is, How It Works

What is Fringe? This weekend marks the beginning of the Sixth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival, a celebration of new and emerging independent theatre that will continue through November 12th. There...

Review: “Inherit the Wind” at Compass Rose Theater

Compass Rose Theater’s production of Inherit the Wind is a powerful work of theater. Written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee in 1955, it dramatizes the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925, in...

Review: ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ at Other Voices Theatre

For a fantastic evening of dark comedy with hysterical individual performances that bring quirky characters to life, don’t miss Arsenic and Old Lace at Other Voices Theatre! Nicely directed by Ray...

Review: ‘The Sea Voyage’ at Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

Ask most theater lovers if they have heard of Jacobean-era playwrights such as John Fletcher and Philip Massinger and you would probably receive a confused “no.” Fletcher and Massinger, who wrote The...

Review: ‘Intimate Apparel’ at Everyman Theatre

In 2015, Everyman Theatre produced an acclaimed run of Playwright Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Ruined. Tazewell Thompson directed and actors Jade Wheeler, Bueka Uwemedimo, and Resident...

Review: ‘Yellowman’ at Arena Players (closing tomorrow!)

This is what my mother/her mother before her believed / they believed had they been born “rich and high yella,” they wouldn’t have suffered. Clear your calendar, call the sitter and postpone your plan...

Review: ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ at Iron Crow Theatre

“Don’t dream it, be it!” Iron Crow Theatre brings back their annual fundraising production of The Rocky Horror Show with music and lyrics by Richard O’ Brien, directed by Sean Elias, to benefit...

Review: ‘Shakespeare In Love’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Many people are already familiar with Shakespeare In Love from the 1998 Academy Award-winning movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes, but in many ways a stage production of the piece is a...

Interview: Cole Sitilides Discusses Peace Mountain Theatre Company’s ‘Lost in Yonkers’

Please give us your name, and a brief description of your theatrical background. My name is Cole Sitilides, and I will be playing Jay Kurnitz in the upcoming production of Lost in Yonkers. I started...

Interview: Jade Wheeler and Bueka Uwemedimo from Everyman Theatre’s production of ‘Intimate Apparel’

Intimate Apparel is the story of a woman named Esther. In 1905, Esther is a 35-year-old woman who lives in a rooming house with other single ladies. She is a skilled seamstress who makes her living...

In the Moment: ‘ReDiscovery Series’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

It was a festive, most satisfying evening of high-end arts entertainment and education. And it was totally free. What was it? It was a recent Monday evening at The Lansburgh with the Shakespeare...

Review: ‘Poe…And All the Others’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s special production of Poe…And All the Others is an imaginative and chilling spectacle, with a creative use of space. With just two actors, a chair, and lighting...

Review: ‘Electra’ at 4615 Theatre Company

Back in ancient times, tragedy was prized for its cathartic experience; fear, rage, pity, the whole range of human emotions would run through you, and on a grand scale, too, with thousands packed into...

Review: ‘Hello, My Name Is…’ at The Welders

Challenging theatrical conventions, Hello, My Name Is… by Deb Sivigny, directed by Randy Baker, and produced by The Welders is like no other theater production I have taken in, in recent memory. The...

Review: ‘Heathers: the Musical’ at Chesapeake Arts Center

The production company known as How Do You Like Me Now Productions and its sister organization Erase Hate Through Art were founded with the specific intention of provoking dialogue and action aimed at...

Review: ‘ 33 Variations’ at Colonial Players of Annapolis

Colonial Players’ production of 33 Variations is a musical and visual delight. Written by Moises Kaufman and directed by Terry Averill, it is a mix of a biographical play about Beethoven, and the 21st...

In the Moment: Interview with Lighting Designer Andrew F. Griffin

Folger’s production of Antony and Cleopatra directed by Robert Richmond has garnered its rightful share of critical acclaim. Its lighting design is a critical component of the production’s striking...