Washington DC

An Afternoon With Clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera and the Harlem Quartet at the Phillips Collection

For decades, the Sunday afternoon concert series at the Phillips Collection has maintained primacy of place in Washington’s classical musical firmament. But like leaders in all fields who want to...

‘The 39 Steps’ by the St. Mark’s Players is a delightfully crafty, if uneven production

First things first for those expecting an honest adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller of the same name. This latest production by the St. Mark’s Players might benefit from a...

A musical job unlike any other: A talk with Angel Gil-Ordóñez of the PostClassical Ensemble

Correctly predicting what kind of serious art music would and would not be presented on American concert stages in 2019 would have fooled – even baffled – the most prescient of musical observers from...

Crashing the Party: Pink Martini Celebrates 25 Years With a Kennedy Center Blowout

If the invitation would have been to see the genre-bending Portland-based cabaret-style self-described ‘little orchestra,’ Pink Martini, featuring China Forbes with special guest star Meow Meow, that...

Theater and Policy Salon’s 2019-2020 season kicks off this weekend

The 2019-2020 Theater and Policy Salon season will start on October 18 at 3 pm with a Salon at New York University’s Washington DC campus at 1307 L Street, NW in downtown DC. The conversation will...

Prologue Theatre’s ‘Dog Sees God’ Guaranteed to Get You Talking

Now in its second season, Prologue Theatre’s mission is simple: They want to start conversations. They will undoubtedly accomplish this with their take on Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage...

Creative Cauldron announces “Bold New Musical Voices” competition for women composers and writers

Creative Cauldron announces an open call for submissions for its new “Bold New Musical Voices” Festival, to be held from April 27 – May 6, 2020. The festival seeks new and innovative musical works by...

U.S. premiere of ‘White Pearl’ by Anchuli Felicia King to premiere at Studio Theatre

In her U.S. premiere, rising Thai-Australian playwright Anchuli Felicia King takes a scathing look at the ugliness of the beauty industry in White Pearl, beginning November 6, 2019, at Studio Theatre...

Review: India.Arie at Strathmore Music Center

India.Arie is music therapy for the soul – part mindfulness meditation through song and part groove-funk to keep it real. Authenticity is her brand essence, but her performance is much more than a...

Review: Theater Alliance’s ‘Day of Absence’ by Douglas Turner Ward

Two clowns open a suitcase. In that suitcase lies a rope. A long rope. They start to play with it, tug-of-war stuff, with the loser pretending he’s winning. Lotsa yuks. Then the twist. And the painful...

Review: ‘Broadway Center Stage: Footloose’ at The Kennedy Center

Footloose, the 1984 movie starring everybody’s friend, Kevin Bacon, was a hit for many reasons, but one stood out over the others: dancing means life, and dancing gives meaning to life. This...

Review: The Mariinsky Ballet’s ‘Paquita’ at the Kennedy Center

Ballet, like opera, has a love-hate relationship with its 19th-century repertoire. Contrived plots, truly embarrassing cultural stereotypes, crowd-pleasing but horribly dated choreography that simply...

Internationally Acclaimed Cellist Amit Peled to Perform Free Concert

Internationally acclaimed cellist Amit Peled joins Peabody Conservatory alumna Allison Freeman for a free concert this Sunday, October 13, 2019, at 4:30pm at St. Edward the Confessor Church in Bowie,...

Review: Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Escape to Margaritaville’ at The National Theatre

Four years ago, I walked into what was then the Barnes & Noble in downtown Bethesda and asked for a sales clerk’s assistance locating one of Jimmy Buffett’s greatest hits CDs. She was stymied. Would...

Appropriate or Appropriation? PostClassical Ensemble and The Lakota Music Project Frames Debate on Indigenous Music

If this summer’s Baltimore Symphony Orchestra labor dispute underscored that remonstrating over the sustainability of American symphony orchestras is pointless if we don’t clarify whether they should...

Storm Large Is in Charge at AMP by Strathmore

Ah, an evening of cabaret in an intimate venue in the swanky Pike and Rose complex. Elegant artists dressed to the nines singing and playing sophisticated classics from the Great American Songbook...

A Personal View of the Coming Apocalypse: Caryl Churchill’s ‘Escaped Alone’

What a play! Escaped Alone is full of dramatic presentations announcing a coming apocalypse; an end of days. The production at Signature Theatre is receiving rightful praise (read my colleague Barbara...

Review: ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show’ at Imagination Stage

Shadow puppets, sock puppets, masked performances, large scale festival puppets, and marionettes appear in cultures around the world. Enduring over the centuries, puppetry is an art, in multiple...

Review: ‘Carrie, The Musical’ at Workhouse Arts Center

It’s that time of year again, when there’s a bit of Pumpkin Spice in everything and Halloween themes are taking over. The Workhouse Arts Center is doing its part to add a bit of horror into the air...

Review: ‘All That Jazz!’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

All That Jazz! at Annapolis Shakespeare Company is an original musical revue of classic songs from old Broadway shows, in collaboration with Unified Jazz Ensemble. Conceived and directed by Sally...

Review: ‘Disenchanted’ at Creative Cauldron

Snow White is bossy. Cinderella is a ditzy dim bulb. Sleeping Beauty not only sleeps a lot but snores. Belle is going nuts from talking to inanimate objects. Mulan likes girls. Just what kind of...

A Wild Tale Wags ‘My Barking Dog’ at Caos on F

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Review: ‘Escaped Alone’ at Signature Theatre

British playwright Caryl Churchill is a revolutionary playwright. In her career, she has upset theatrical expectations many times over. She plays with gender and fools with time. She invents unusual...

Review: ‘And Then There Were None’ by Providence Players of Fairfax

Providence Players of Fairfax present Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, based on her book of the same name. By one of the world’s most decorated crime writers, And Then There Were None...

Review: ‘Pride and Prejudice’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Love is a game—or deadly serious—or both at once, depending on which character you ask in NextStop Theatre Company’s production of Pride and Prejudice. The game motif is evident early on, as the cast...

Review: ‘The Winter’s Tale’ by The Wheel Theatre Company

Suddenly and immovably convinced his wife has been unfaithful, a jealous king’s actions result in the death of his queen and son, the abandonment of his infant daughter, and a cheery start to The...

Magic Time!: A #MeToo Memory Animates ‘I Am Her’

Midway through this taut, fraught drama about sexual trauma, a woman named Ana, a wife and young mother, is suddenly triggered. We are not told exactly why. It might be the Kavanaugh hearings...

Review: ‘Merce Cunningham at 100, Beach Birds and BIPED’ at the Kennedy Center

What a pleasure to celebrate the centenary of modern dance master Merce Cunningham with a pair of works that demonstrates his formidable vision for dance, imbued with clarity of form and generosity of...

Review: ‘West by God’ at The Keegan Theatre

The economic and social plight of America’s white rural working class has been the subject of recent blockbuster books from J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy to Educated, by Tara Westover. Now this...

Review: ‘Fences’ at Ford’s Theatre

As seen through the simple symbolism of a wooden fence, Ford’s Theatre’s season opener of August Wilson’s Fences is a brilliant and searing exploration of the tragi-conflicts and heroic triumphs of...

Highwood Theatre Founder Fired Amid Accusations of Criminal Conduct Against Minors

On Friday, September 26, 2019, Washington City Paper reported on serious allegations facing the former executive director and founder of the Highwood Theatre, a children’s theater company based in...

‘My Barking Dog’ Explores Wildness and Uncertainty at Caos on F

Building on its mission to produce “exciting yet profound theatre in greater Washington, DC” The Edge of the Universe Players 2 is presenting My Barking Dog, a play about “A woman. A man. A wild...

Review: ‘Hamlet’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet is a wonderful way to kick off their new season. Directed by Sally Boyett, the show sets Shakespeare’s classic play in modern dress, combining...

Review: ‘Annie’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Annie, the beloved Broadway darling that has enchanted audiences through generations! With its Book by Thomas Meehan, Music by Charles Strouse, and...

Review: ‘The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice,’ presented by the Taffety Punk Riot Grrrls

The all-female production of Othello at Taffety Punk, directed by Kelsey Mesa, is a breath of fresh air. Because all the characters are played by women, you forget that they are female after a few...

Review: ‘The Tempest’ at Synetic Theater

What an inspired creative jewel. What a brave new world. What a daring technical and artistic production. That is Synetic’s The Tempest; Shakespeare’s tale of shipwreck and magic, power grab and...

Washington Stage Guild Refreshes Shaw’s ‘Candida’

George Bernard Shaw published Candida in 1898. Though it was not performed in London until it was a hit in New York in 1903, where it inspired what Shaw called “Candidamania,” the play’s American...

The Sorrow Beneath the Surface of ‘School Girls’ at Round House Theatre

Can one laugh heartily at a satirical comedy—be thoroughly engaged by the entertaining characters, story, and performances—and then after it’s over mourn what it was about? That was for me the...

A Last-Minute Program Change Helps Showcase NSO’s Evolving Signature Sound

The National Symphony Orchestra’s third season opener signaled a distinctively bright and cohesive sound is developing under Maestro Gianandrea Noseda. Noseda explained to the crowd that his...

Review: ‘The Giver’ at Aldersgate Church Community Theater

In The Giver, Eric Coble’s adaptation of the Newberry Award-winning novel by Lois Lowry, Aldersgate Church Community Theater offers a family-friendly production about a future society that has gained...

Review: ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ at Rockville Little Theatre

Although three murders, or “helping lonely men to find peace,” as the aunts see it, take place in the first two minutes, Rockville Little Theatre’s current presentation of Joseph Kesselring’s classic...

Review: ‘Unexpected Turbulence’ at The Fridge DC

What a charmer is the fringy play Unexpected Turbulence. It’s an engaging, first-class “flight” with personable service provided by flight attendant Crystelle Desjardins (Alexander Burnett) who is on...

‘The Willard Suitcases’ Starring Nancy Anderson To Have World Premiere at American Shakespeare Center

The Willard Suitcases, a new musical by Julianne Wick Davis, will make its world premiere debut at the American Shakespeare Center on October 4, directed by Ethan McSweeny and featuring Nancy Anderson...

Review: ‘Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical’ at Wolf Pack Theatre Company

Wolf Pack Theatre Company gives audiences a reason to explore the darker depths of the human mind with season-opener Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical. With book and lyrics by Leslie Briscusse and music by...

Review: ‘Mike Birbiglia’s The New One’ at The National Theatre

Mike Birbiglia’s The New One is at The National Theatre in DC for just a few nights so let’s cut to the chase: go see it. Those not wildly familiar with Birbiglia’s work might be confused. Am I going...

Review: ‘School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play’ at Round House Theatre

Teenage girls can be mean – just ask Broadway’s Tina Fey. But if you ask Jocelyn Bioh, the award-winning playwright of off-Broadway’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, you’ll get an...

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Musicians Reach One-Year Agreement: Concert Season to Open This Weekend

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Inc. (BSO) and members of the Orchestra and the Musicians’ Association of Metropolitan Baltimore, Local 40-543, announced at a joint press conference on September 23,...

Review: “Elephant & Piggie’s ‘We Are In A Play!'” by Adventure Theatre & ATMTC Academy

Elephant and Piggie, two delightful characters based on the Elephant & Piggie books by Mo Willems, come to life in Adventure Theatre’s musical theatre production, Elephant & Piggie’s “We Are In A...

Review: The American Pops Orchestra ‘Coat of Many Colors: The Music of Dolly Parton’ at Arena Stage

Luxurious! No rags here, only riches. Luke Frazier, the Pops’ magnificent maestro, once again wove a rich tapestry of talent to compose APO’s Coat of Many Colors: The Music of Dolly Parton. If you...

Review: ‘Trying’ at 1st Stage Tysons

You could approach Trying at 1st Stage as a realistic, two-character play about a real-life character, Judge Francis Biddle, and his new secretary, Sarah Schorr. Born to a life of wealth and...