Washington DC

Review: ‘The Finger’ at Venus Theater

Ambiguous loss that binds two people together while pushing them apart. Incompatible paths of grief that alienate each other’s only source of connection. The dominating presence of someone who is...

Review: Book ‘The Book Club Play’ at Silver Spring Stage

Whether you’re an avid reader or a theater buff or both, there’s a supersmart, superfunny show up in Silver Spring that should be on your short list. Marking its 52nd anniversary (!), community...

Review: ‘Cats’ at The Kennedy Center Opera House

Andrew Lloyd Webber catapulted to unprecedented West End and Broadway success with his musical extravaganza Cats, based on a 1939 collection of light verse by the otherwise modernist poet, T.S. Eliot....

Review: ‘Jitney’ at Arena Stage

When the opening moments of a play are a super loud blast of bluesy music and a checkers game on the verge of anarchy, you know you are in for a lively ride. But it was the acting in Jitney, Arena...

First look at the fierce performers of ‘School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play’… and their fabulous dresses

DC Theater Arts spent a day at rehearsal with the cast of Round House Theatre Company’s season opener: School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. Not only is this play a fabulous female-centered...

Review: ‘NSO Pops: Maxwell: A Night at the Symphony’ at the Kennedy Center

There’s something way-cool seeing a full classical orchestra accompany a cornrowed, ponytailed R&B crooner in a bow-tied tux on the stage of the hallowed Concert Hall of the Kennedy Center. These...

Maria Manuela Goyanes on ‘Fairview,’ race, and what’s next at Woolly Mammoth

I saw Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview opening night at Woolly, and I cannot stop thinking about its originality—not only in form but in intent. I’m not writing about the production—my colleague Amy...

Ed Gero Delivers Stunning Performance as Falstaff in Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV Part I’ at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre

Henry IV Part I, which opened at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre last week, is superb. (Click here for DCMTA’s review.) This production, starring Ed Gero, is equal to any I’ve seen. In fact, it is...

Review: ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ at the Colonial Players of Annapolis

Should you see Colonial Players’ production of Arsenic and Old Lace in old town Annapolis before it closes? That depends. Are you opposed to comedy, physical, situational and verbal? Don’t go. Do you...

Review: ‘Life is a Dream’ at GALA Hispanic Theatre

In our world-class DC area, the GALA Hispanic Theatre continues to be a beacon with a mission to produce playwrights and plays often unknown to English-speaking audiences. GALA is a National Center...

Review: A Simmering Production of ‘The Gulf’ at Peter’s Alley

Silences speak loudly in the first Maryland production of The Gulf by Audrey Cefaly at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. This professional production by Peter’s Alley Theatre group, features two...

REACH Report: DC Playwrights Forum

It’s true. The DC area has moved into the forefront of the nation’s theater communities. A recent report from Actors’ Equity Association named DC the “fastest-growing theater city.” It was in the...

Review: ‘Meatballs and Music’ at Creative Cauldron

“Sing your song… be someone big on earth” is one of the centering lyrics that Tom Sweitzer sang in his one-actor, cabaret-like performance of Meatballs and Music on September 13 & 14, 2019 at Creative...

Review: Pulitzer-Winning ‘Fairview’ Jump-Starts Woolly Mammoth’s New Season

The Woolly Mammoth Theater Company has rocket-launched its 40th anniversary season with a searing production of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama....

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ by The Arlington Players

After a highly successful animated film, a long-running Broadway show, a live-action movie version, various spin-offs, and innumerable theme park, cruise ship, and school productions, the Disney...

Review: ‘Surfacing’ at Expats Theatre Depicts the Desperation of the Displaced

It isn’t every day you see a play that merges Becket and Martha Graham. That’s my takeaway from watching the hybrid form of Surfacing play out at the Atlas: Three actors are strictly circumscribed in...

Review: ‘The Girls of the Garden Club’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

The Girls of the Garden Club, written by John Patrick, directed by Larry Simmons and produced by Maureen Rogers, is presently playing at Laurel Mill Playhouse located on historic Main Street in...

Review: ‘Helen on Wheels’ at Best Medicine Rep

The central character in Best Medicine Rep’s (BMR) DC-area premiere of Cricket Daniel’s Helen on Wheels, Helen Wheeler (Liz Weber), is a 74-year old Oklahoma widow full of vim, vigor, and strong drink...

REACH Report: Renée Fleming, Angélique Kidjo, and Jason Moran

Two of the world’s biggest voices blended beautifully Thursday night on the Main Stage at the Kennedy Center’s REACH Opening Festival, demonstrating the power of song to unify and inspire disparate...

Signature Theatre Announces Plays Selected for SigWorks: Monday Night New Play Reading Series

Signature Theatre continues its commitment to new work and developing local talent by presenting the fifth season of SigWorks: Monday Night New Play Reading Series. This season Signature is proud to...

The August Wilson Society Introduces August Wilson Lecture Series at Howard University

The August Wilson Society (AWS) is thrilled to announce the September 19, 2019 launch of the August Wilson’s Ground Annual Lecture Series, a forum whose mission is to advance August Wilson Studies by...

REACH Report: ‘The Just and the Blind’ Aims to Save Black Sons

“How does a black boy become an American?” asks spoken word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph. “How does he learn his role to play?” For Joseph the question is personal and visceral. In The Just and the...

Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre To Host Free Staged Reading of ‘Mids and Johnnies’ on September 20

Looking for an uplifting original musical? Check out Mids and Johnnies, a new musical about life in Annapolis. The plot revolves around Roman, a Ruritanian foreign-exchange student at St. John’s...

Review: Raise a Glass to ‘The Smuggler’ at Solas Nua

The bar is open and there’s 100-proof theater on tap. It’s a stirring play about an Irish immigrant bartender, and it’s shaking up a classy new cocktail bar where only 30 patrons at a time can see it....

Review: ‘Love Sick’ at Theater J Offers a Contemporary Look at the Biblical Song of Songs

Celebrating the lushness of love without shying away from the moody darkness that might befall lovers, Theater J opens its new season with the East Coast premiere of the musical Love Sick. Love Sick...

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts Presents ‘Annie’

Leaping Lizards! Riverside Center for the Performing Arts is thrilled to be presenting Annie, starring Sally Struthers as Miss Hannigan, opening Wednesday, September 25 and running until Sunday,...

REACH Report: ‘Storytelling for Seniors with Candace Wolf’

More than 50 seniors crowded into a storytelling circle inside one of the Kennedy Center’s new REACH buildings on Monday, and I, as a card-carrying member of the reduced-fare generation, squeezed in...

Review: ‘1 Henry IV’ at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre

1 Henry IV at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, directed by Rosa Joshi, is perfectly cast and beautifully executed. Edward Gero is a superb Falstaff, and he is surrounded by gifted actors and strikingly...

REACH Report: ‘The Second City and Kennedy Center’s Jazz Comedy Experiment’ at The REACH at The Kennedy Center

The Opening Festival of the new REACH complex at The Kennedy Center featured a plethora of live performances and films, including the laugh-until-you-break-your-funnybone The Second City and Kennedy...

Review: ‘Souvenir’ at Rep Stage

Rep Stage presents a strong introduction to their 2019/2020 season with a charming production of Stephen Temperley’s Souvenir, directed by Joseph W. Ritsch. This play details the meteoric rise of...

REACH Report: ‘Spotlight on Jazz’ Events at The REACH at The Kennedy Center

DCMTA joined the teeming crowd at the Kennedy Center’s “unprecedented new expansion,” the REACH, on the second day of a 16-day multi-genre festival to check out the spotlight on jazz. From the morning...

Review: ‘Doubt: A Parable’ at Studio Theatre

In 2003, John Patrick Shanley started writing a play about an America full of opinionated people, people who were certain they were right, people who shunned intellectual debate. From Shanley’s point...

Review: ‘A Few Good Men’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

OORAH and HOOYAH! Integrity and a code of honor is at the heart of the play A Few Good Men, showing now at The Little Theatre of Alexandria. Many Marines and a few Naval officers share the focus of...

Review: ‘Butterfly’ by the IN Series Presents a Radical Restructuring of the Original Puccini

While considered one of the classics in opera’s storied canon, Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini is simultaneously acknowledged to be one of the most problematic for its depictions of race and...

Alliance For New Music-Theatre Will Be First Theater-in-Residence at Dupont Underground

Alliance for New Music-Theatre (ANMT) is delighted to announce it has been named Dupont Underground’s first Theatre-in-Residence. The residency coincides with the launch of its 2019-2020 season. It is...

Review: ‘Bobby Gould in Hell’ by Providence Players of Fairfax

Eternal questions are being hotly debated in the back room of the Italian Café in Falls Church, where the Providence Players of Fairfax have once again set up shop for a “pop-up production” of a David...

Review: Jennifer Hudson and the NSO at Wolf Trap

Gracious, engaging, and a powerhouse of a voice, Jennifer Hudson brought the house down and left the audience standing and cheering while in concert with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap...

Feature: Good news, bad news and coming attractions at 4615 Theatre

First, the bad news. Enron, the farcical, scary and all-but-unbelievable romp through the biggest fraud in corporate history, has closed. The good news is that there’s still time—four more...

Ruben Santiago-Hudson on Directing August Wilson’s ‘Jitney’

Perhaps it is his distinctive voice or the fact that he has been called the “best storyteller of his generation” that makes Ruben Santiago-Hudson the apparent inheritor of the body of work produced by...

Review: ‘A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn’ at Anacostia Playhouse

Director Stephawn Stephens has deep family roots at the Dew Drop Inn, having started as a performer in A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn. When asked how he pulled off the latest edition he said he simply...

Open To All: The Kennedy Center’s New Addition Encourages Community Engagement

Sensuous and just a bit sly, the smooth white pavilions of the Kennedy Center’s new REACH complex wink at us amidst undulating grassy berms. One rises up from the green lawn, curling like an oncoming...

Page to Stage Festival 2019: Tastings from a Buffet (Part Two)

Kennedy Center’s annual Page to Stage Festival is always chock full of tempting offerings, and the challenge of deciding what to see is daunting. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet…except you really...

Shakespeare Theatre Company To Air National Theatre Live’s “Fleabag” as Part of Film Series

Shakespeare Theatre Company is delighted to announce the lineup of three National Theatre Live screenings in anticipation of the 2019/20 Season: FLEABAG, ANTONY & CLEOPATRA, THE LEHMAN TRILOGY, and...

News: Woolly Mammoth Theatre Names Emika Abe as New Managing Director

After a nationwide search run by Greg Kandel, David Mallette, and Management Consultants for the Arts, Woolly Mammoth will welcome their new Managing Director, Emika Abe, on October 7, 2019. Abe...

Page to Stage Festival 2019: Tastings from a Buffet (Part One)

Kennedy Center’s annual Page to Stage Festival is always chock full of tempting offerings, and the challenge of deciding what to see is daunting. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet…except you really...

Review: Olney Theatre Center’s ‘Cabaret’ Is Among the Show’s Best Productions

It’s been 54 years since Cabaret first opened on Broadway, but this season is the first time the Olney Theatre Center has staged the show. I have always loved this Kander and Ebb masterpiece, but of...

‘Fabulation’ Brings a Tale of Comic (and Cosmic) Comeuppance to Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Although it sounds serious on the surface, Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine, is one of the funniest plays ever to grace a DC stage. That’s the opinion of my colleague, John...

The 2019 Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosts its 18th annual Page-to-Stage New Play Festival from Saturday, August 30, 2019 through Monday, September 2, 2019. The festival is a free...

Round House Theatre Unveils Major Renovation

Round House Theatre reopened this week after an eight-month renovation that revamped nearly every aspect of the Bethesda, MD theater space. What began as a desire to improve the acoustics in the...

Fall for These Theater Week Discounts!

Ah, autumn in DC. The temperatures fall, the leaves fall, and the ticket prices fall at dozens of theaters! Theatre Week, a program of theatreWashington, celebrates the beginning of each new theater...