Washington DC

‘Searching for the Perfect Nanny: Meet the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Children of SSMT’s Magical Premiere of Mary Poppins’: Part Two: Ella Schnoor and Tyson Francis

Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre opens the regional premiere of the practically perfect musical Mary Poppins, this Wednesday, July 23. In part two of a three part interview series, we meet two of the...

‘Once Upon A Mattress’ at Encore Stage & Studio

Encore Stage & Studio presents Once Upon A Mattress, a hilarious musical adaptation of the famous fable involving a princess, a pea, and a stack of mattresses. With Music by Mary Rogers, Lyrics by...

‘Lionel Richie with Special Guest: CeeLo Green: ‘All The Hits All Night Long’ at Wolf Trap

At Wolf Trap last night, after the charismatic, and energetic CeeLo Green and his band of amazing musicians warmed up the audience into a frenzy, out came the music legend Lionel Richie. Hit after hit...

‘Gidion’s Knot’ at Forum Theatre

At the core of this inexorable and engrossing drama by Johnna Adams is a disturbing enigma: A fifth-grade boy named Gidion, suspended from school under suspicious circumstances, has shot himself in...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: Capital City Showcase #2: July 20, 2014

One of the most enticing incentives to attend Capital Fringe is for the often rare opportunity to experience new, unusual, and different experiences For most, such Fringe encounters are enlightening...

‘Good Good Trouble on Bad Bad Island’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Sometimes good things come in small packages. And sometimes they come in big ones, just to the wrong place. In NextStop Theatre Company’s Good Good Trouble on Bad Bad Island, directed by Danny Tipett,...

‘Abominable’ at The Hub Theatre

There’s no question: puberty can be a bitch. Or, more to the point, a beast… It is the latter metaphor that is explored extensively in The Hub Theatre’s intriguing new play, Abominable. Playwright and...

‘The Tempest’ at Aldersgate Community Church Theatre

Aldersgate Church Community Theater presents Shakespeare’s The Tempest, directed by Amanda Coffin. For this production, Aldersgate ditches the elaborate sets and costumes in favor of a minimalist...

‘The Tempest’ at Olney Theatre Center

How beauteous mankind is! Particularly the beauty found in those willing to brave the natural tempest of Maryland’s summer weather at Olney Theatre Center this summer season. A fantastical stormy...

‘A Live Presentation of 2001: A Space Odyssey’ With the National Symphony Orchestra, Emil de Cou, conductor, and Woodley Ensemble, Frank Albinder, Music Director

After a week of cramped and un air conditioned Fringey-ness, it was a pleasure to step into the cavernous Filene Center at Wolf Trap last night. The massive open air space, illuminated by starlight...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Mandarin Orange’

The cute and clever title and a quick read of Kate Robards’one woman show synopsis can’t help but put a smile on your face. Mandarin Orange, directed by Jill Vice, is an earnest, heartwarming...

The 2014 Ruby Griffith Award Winners Announced

Last Sunday, July 13, 2014, The 2014 Ruby Griffith Award winners were announced at a ceremony at Bretton Woods Recreation Center in Germantown, MD. The awards honor the best productions in Community...

Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) Review: ‘Dead and Breathing’

Despite the deus ex machina that ends the show—the miracle that I don’t mind mentioning because playwrights that resort to miracles as conclusions should have their audiences warned in advance—Dead...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Self-Portrait of a Sinner’

Self Portrait of a Sinner is a one-woman show performed by Veronique MacRae. The play goes through the seven deadly sins by presenting a character who represents some aspect of the sin in a way you...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘DATELINE: Macbeth’

The Quattro Gatti Theatre Company is down from Brooklyn for DC Fringe this year. Andy Hopper writes, directs and stars in DATELINE: Macbeth, a fast-paced, funny, genre-defying reimagining of...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘The Human Algorithm’

The Human Algorithm is a solo performance piece that resembles less of a play and more of a standup comedy routine performed by your drunk aunt at Thanksgiving. While writer and performer CJ claims to...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Ligature Marks’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) Ligature Marks presented by Gideon Productions playing at Redrum – Fort Fringe as a part of Capital Fringe 2014 is a bit tricky to describe without giving it away. The 75...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review RagnaPOP (or She’s Got the Bomb)

(Best of the Capital Fringe) Your Pal Pete is here to present RagnaPOP (or She’s Got the Bomb), the concert to end all concerts… And all time. He’s here with his band to perform a final review of his...

Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) Review: ‘North of the Boulevard’

North of the Boulevard is not for the faint of heart; neither is it for the prudish or the overly sensitive; nor is it for those who require anything close to political correctness. North of the...

Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) Review: ‘The Ashes Under Gait City’

How does one create a social movement? How does one create a community? How does one create a mecca for a movement and a community? New play The Ashes Under Gait City by Christina Anderson concerns...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review ‘Love Letter Lost’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) Love Letter Lost, presented by Tut’Zanni Theatre Company, is everything a Fringe show should be: fast paced, highly entertaining, and a wonderfully comic way to spend an...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Wistaria’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) I must confess, when I was picked up as a reviewer here at DC MetroTheaterArts for this year’s Fringe I got in a little late to the game. Joel and Brett were already well...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Killer Quack’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) James Judd’s Killer Quack is one of those rare moments in the theatre that moves the audience along the spectrum of emotion. For fifty-five minutes, Judd walks an...

Capital Fringe Scene Stealers #1-July 18, 2014

Here are our first list of honorees for DCMetroTheaterArts ‘Best Scene Stealers of the 2014 Capital Fringe Festival’ ______ Devin Gaither, as Joey, in Rock Bottom [A Rock Opus] Reacting to Blood...

‘I Do! I Do!’ at Infinity Theatre Company

Marriage is a very good thing, though it is far from easy. Rounding out their fifth season in Annapolis, the Infinity Theatre Company presents a timeless musical classic with a bit of a revamped twist...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Feisty Jew’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) There are story tellers. There are actors. There is a difference between the two. In one we find a desire to live the character. To be a new person on stage so that the...

Straight No Chaser at Wolf Trap

There’s something magical that happens when you take ten talented male vocalists, put them in matching slim-fitting blazers, and get them to sing out loud in perfect harmony and a synchronous...

Capital Fringe 2014 Preview: ‘Contrafact of Freedom’ by Jordan Kaplan

Disillusionment in the capability of the US government to make things happen, our country in a war that few approve of or even understand the reasons for, people honestly questioning whether America...

Capital Fringe 2014 Preview: ‘Rock the Warehouse’: Interviews with the Writer/Directors of CapFringe’s ‘Rock Bottom [A Rock Opus]’ and ‘The 27 Club’

The Warehouse Theater seems to be the performance space that won’t die. A main venue for the Capital Fringe Festival since its inception, it’s also been home to countless performances for a variety of...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Cabaret XXX: Everybody F*cking Dies’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) Lets start off with a little history: Pinky Swear productions has had one of the best productions at the Fringe three years running, with their Cabaret XXX series. Their...

The Fray, Barcelona, and Oh Honey at Wolf Trap

Wolf Trap bills them as a “piano-driven pop rock quartet with impassioned smash hits.” Blurt magazine praises them for “the way they seek out views of the world—and not just about their own lives—and...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘You, or Whatever I Can Get’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) On Wednesday, July 16, 2014, the magic of live theatre was alive at the opening night performance of You, or Whatever I Can Get at the Baldacchino Tent Bar at Fort Fringe,...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review ‘Empress of the Moon: The Lives of Aphra Behn’

Without tragedy we would all just be living in a play. The characters existing inside of Empress of the Moon: The Lives of Aphra Behn, a production being mounted by Forearmed Productions (based in...

An Interview with Moses Kamai Director of The Northern Virginia Ukulele Society

Moses Kamai is the Director and Organizer of the Northern Virginia Ukulele Society, for the past 5 and a half years in Reston, Virginia. He organizes, plans, teaches, and performs with members of the...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Contrafact of Freedom’

History Made Interesting: Contrafact of Freedom We’ve all heard “The Star Spangled Banner” sung at sporting events. Most of us know that the national anthem was written by Francis Scott Key? But who...

Capital Fringe Review 2014: ‘Medea’s Got Some Issues’

In this one woman show the character of Medea is ripped right off the classic Greek pages of Euripides’ play and plunked down straight into the warehouse theatre. Make no mistake, Medea is completely...

The Playwright’s Playground: The Playmakers CATF 2014: Ed Herendeen & Peggy McKowen Discuss the Development of CATF Plays

This Special Edition of The Playwright’s Playground introduces The Playmaker Series: CATF 2014. In a series of in depth conversations, I speak with the artistic teams associated with the the plays at...

Jennifer Nettles From Sugarland and Special Guest Brandy Clark at Wolf Trap

On a Hot Scorching July night, Jennifer Nettles, one half of the Grammy-award winning duo, Sugarland, set the stage on fire! While the night temperature did lower significantly, due to the arrival of...

‘Carrie: The Musical’ at The Studio Theatre

There are horrific and spellbinding moments aplenty to savor in Studio Theatre’s SecondStage current production of the alternately beloved and reviled camp, cult classic musical Carrie. Based on the...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Big A: Scenes From a Vanishing Landscape’

Grown children often have to care for aging parents. This is hard enough when the parents retain the mental faculties, but can be gut-wrenching when parents can no longer recognize their own children....

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘The Other Day’

About an hour into The Other Day as performed at The Shop, a Dutch airport clerk named Steven (played by a very dashing Dash King), shows a young American named Mark (a puppy-dog-sweet Matthew...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Porch’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) What a pleasure to happen upon this gem of a show. Featuring three exceptionally truthful and touching performances on a plain platform with next-to-no production values...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Breast in Show’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) At last. A show that has taken the Capital Fringe Festival 2014 theme to heart: Move Me. Breast in Show, conceived and produced by Eileen Mitchard, is arguably the best...

Dana Carvey and Dennis Miller at The Kennedy Center

Dana Carvey and Dennis Miller performed at the Kennedy Center on Saturday night, and what I expected to hear and see was right on! These guys are on top of their game, relevant, and funny as hell! No...

Karen Mason at NextStop Theatre Company

They say a truly great performer has the power to transform a song that you might have heard a million times before into a new experience—to take a classic and make it his or her own while still doing...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘Luv, American Style’

Are there any fans of the sitcom Love, American Style out there? If you count yourself as one, then you should certainly see Infinite Jest’s Luv, American Style, which is essentially a modernized and...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Waiting for Armageddon’

In DC Trash’s Waiting for Armageddon, Ron Litman and Composer Tom Pile string together a series of songs and stand-up comedy, all producing the same message: The end of days is upon us. The question...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Tango, Cabaret, Love!’

Tango, Cabaret, Love! is not for the faint of heart nor lack of appetite. Conceived, directed by and starring Cecilia De Feo, Laura Quiroga and Lorena Sabogal, the show is a bilingual escapade mixing...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Ten Principles )'(‘

(Best of the Capital Fringe) “There are so much worse things to be greeted with than warm silliness.” TD Smith grins as he utters this mantra. In AWoL Productions’ 10 Principles )'(, TD recounts the...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Isis and Vesco Investigate the Curious Death of Dr. Freud’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) Longtime DC theater company Guillotine Theatre mounts a new play by Monique LaForce that is a crazy mash-up between Egyptian gods, the fathers of psychology, and the NYPD....