Washington DC

Review: ‘Fabulation’ at Mosaic Theater Is an Outright Joy

It takes a certain talent to turn topics that are no laughing matter into laugh-out-loud comedy that doesn’t condescend, doesn’t ridicule, and yet imbues life with meaning as only art can. That kind...

Review: ‘Beehive’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Let yourself drift back and be carried away to another time–the time when music with its rhythms was the center of a young life. Now with that thought, take yourself to the vibrant, energetic...

The REACH Opening Festival at The Kennedy Center: How Not to Be Overwhelmed

The Opening Festival of the new REACH at The Kennedy Center is truly exciting, but it’s a lot. All those buildings, all the goings-on. What’s a newbie to do? There’s no dearth of info about the...

Casting Director Kelly Crandall d’Amboise on Signature Theatre’s ‘Assassins’

The splendid, bone-chilling darkness of Signature Theatre’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins is lifted into reality by a most unexpected source: a 10-year-old character named Billy. He does...

Ray Anthony Thomas Discusses August Wilson and Playing Turnbo in ‘Jitney’ at Arena Stage

He has had major stage roles in everything from The Crucible to Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow. He has appeared in films as different as “Isn’t It Romantic?” and “Shutter Island.” Now...

Review: An Audacious and Urgent ‘Assassins’ at Signature Theatre

Nearly thirty years after its premiere, Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins still astonishes. An audacious meet-up of nine successful and would-be presidential assassins – from the narcissist John Wilkes...

Teatro de la Luna: Providing Spanish-Language Theater to DC Since 1991

Nucky Walder and Mario Marcel are household names to many Spanish-speaking residents of Washington, DC. For more than 60 years, Marcel, who is from Argentina, has dedicated himself to acting, theater...

News: Arena Stage Kicks Off 2019/20 Season with Free Community Day and Props Sale

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater kicks off the 2019/20 Season with a free Community Day and Props Sale on Saturday, August 24, 2019 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Mead Center (1101...

Providence Players’ Julie Janson Previews Pop-Up Production of ‘Bobby Gould in Hell’

With the success of their first pop-up theatrical venture, the Providence Players of Fairfax are ready for a second pop-up production. This time the Providence Players, a Northern Virginia staple for...

Review: ‘Ephemeral Fatale’ by Area Woman

Area Woman is a group of four local DC artists who came together to premiere their “comedydramadance,” Holon!, for the 2018 Capital Fringe Festival. This August at various venues throughout DC, they...

American Shakespeare Center Announces 2020 Programming

In a Sunday presentation broadcast from the stage of Staunton, Virginia’s Blackfriars Playhouse – the world’s only recreation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre – American Shakespeare Center (ASC)...

Review: ‘Betrayal’ at 4615 Theatre Company

Betrayal, one of Harold Pinter’s finest works, will open on Broadway September 5 after an extended run in London’s West End. Thanks to 4615 Theatre, a young professional company, you can see a...

News: ‘The Woman in Black’ by Shakespeare Theatre Company at the Lansburgh Theatre

Shakespeare Theatre Company announced this week that one of London’s most popular and long-running plays will join a season of classical theatre as a special presentation: The Woman in Black at the...

Review: ‘Diagnosed’ at Theater Alliance

I know what it feels like to not want to take a shower for three days. I know how the aches and pains of depression make you crawl into the fetal position and want to close out the world. I am...

Lighting Designer John H. Purnell Discusses ‘Mamma Mia’ at Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre

John H. Purnell is the Lighting Designer for Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre’s sold-out production of Mamma Mia! He has done the lighting design for many shows in the Annapolis area, including a A New...

Review: ‘Enron’ at 4615 Theatre Company Is an Excellent Investment

Back in 1998, the official Enron vision and values statement had a line in it that said: “Ruthlessness, callousness, and arrogance don’t belong here.” Two years later, as the company’s stock...

Review: ‘The Country Wife’ at The Rude Mechanicals

In 1675 William Wycherley wrote The Country Wife, a bawdy comedy of manners that pushed back against an 18-year stage ban instituted by a Puritan government. With the Restoration of the English...

Review: An Emotionally Gripping ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ at the Kennedy Center

Some musicals are all about the entertainment. You expect to see some awesome dancing, amazing singing, and leave the theater smiling (see my review of Disney’s Aladdin, also currently playing at the...

Review: ‘Treasure Island’ at Synetic Theater

If you’re a fan of swashbuckling pirate tales, you’ll love Synetic Theater’s charming and atmospheric spin on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island. Directed by Tori Toletino and adapted by...

‘In Your Shoes’: A Theatrical Experiment in Fostering a Democratic Ethos at Georgetown University

In the Devine black box theater at Georgetown University’s Davis Performing Arts Center, nine casually dressed undergraduate students, seated in chairs or on the floor take turns telling the story of...

Magic Time!: ‘Blank’ at Theater Alliance

“There are holes in the script!” would be the deathblow for any more conventional work of theater, but in Nassim Soleimanpour’s Blank, the gaps are where the action’s at. As with Soleimanpour’s hugely...

Vocalists Add a Narrative Twist to Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Volta’

Cirque du Soleil’s Volta is a rush of energy and hand-over-mouth gulps of emotions. Currently decamped in Fairfax County, a quick saunter from the raised Metro Silver Line station at Tysons II, Volta...

Review: ‘Legally Blonde’ at the Keegan Theatre

In this summer of our discontent – what with unchecked climate change, racist politics, and mass murders – a bit of cheer in the form of a frothy tale of a privileged white girl who, through dint of...

Theater Alliance Announces Third Annual ‘Word Becomes Action Festival’

The third annual Word Becomes Action Festival launches Theater Alliance’s 2019-2020 season with six new works that ask us to confront the revolutions and moments of resilience within our daily lives....

Review: ‘Or,’ by Theatre Prometheus at Capital Hill Arts Workshop

Liz Duffy Adams’s play Or,—which premiered in 2009 at the Women’s Project in New York—is a deliciously literate feminist farce. A radical mashup of dichotomies (among them straight and gay, male and...

Review: ‘Mamma Mia!’ at Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre

Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre’s production of Mamma Mia! is a colorful, fun-filled spectacle. With Music and Lyrics by Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Book by Catherine Johnson, the musical,...

Review: ‘Young Frankenstein’ by Other Voices Theatre

IT ALIVE! Other Voices Theatre brings not only a monster, but also a fantastic evening of laughter, to life with their production of Mel Brooks’ musical Young Frankenstein. If you love Mel Brooks’...

Review: ‘Generations: A Series of One Acts’ at The Colonial Players of Annapolis

Generations: A Series of One Acts, at Colonial Players, is a touching, thoughtful evening of three brand-new one-act plays, each about 30 minutes long, by three playwrights well-known in the Annapolis...

Magic Time!: A Love Letter to ‘Dear Evan Hansen’

When Dear Evan Hansen debuted at Arena Stage four years ago, I was so moved by the show I wrote it a love letter, republished below. Now a Broadway hit, it returns to DC for a run at Kennedy Center...

In The Moment: Kimberly Gilbert Is King In ‘Bootleg Shakespeare, Richard III’

Once again, Taffety Punk Theatre Company has succeeded at challenging the theatrical status quo. This time, it was with a mesmerizing Bootleg Shakespeare Richard III. Under the open-eyed, “the...

National Players To Offer Low or No Cost Shows at Olney Theatre Center

National Players, America’s longest-running touring company and the hallmark outreach program of the Olney Theatre Center, presents its three-play repertory with a series of pay-what-you can previews...

Review: ‘South Pacific’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. The winner of multiple Tony awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, South Pacific continues to charm...

Review: ‘Bootleg Shakespeare: Richard III’ by Taffety Punk Theatre Company at the Folger Theatre

Taffety Punk’s Bootleg Shakespeare, a beloved DC tradition, is like attending a party with dozens of friends you never knew you had. The lines are long. The audience is enthusiastic. And the acting is...

Review: ‘The Producers’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

Funny Boy, a musical version of Hamlet, A Breaking Wind, She Schtups to Conquer–could anyone predict how much those fictional plays would wow audiences? The Little Theatre of Alexandria’s The...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Starcrossed’

Starcrossed is a re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet with a new pair of starcrossed lovers: Mercutio and Tybalt. Worked seamlessly within the dialogue and story of the original work, these...

In ‘Aladdin,’ Iago Is The Perfect Sidekick: And No, He’s Not a Parrot Anymore

LA-based character actor Reggie De Leon brings comedic flair to the beloved Disney character Iago. ‘Aladdin’ is playing at the Kennedy Center through September 7th.

Review: ‘Disney’s Newsies’ by Encore Stage & Studio at Kenmore Middle School Theatre

Encore Stage & Studio’s “Theatre by Kids, for Kids!” is currently showing the Disney musical, Newsies. Based on the 1992 movie, and inspired by the real-life newsboy strike in 1899, the story takes...

Feature: Directing ‘Ann’ at Arena Stage

Ann Richards, the late governor of Texas, and the first woman in that state to be elected in her own right, would be howling with glee if she could see the pandemonium unleashed in government today....

Review: ‘Aladdin’ at The Kennedy Center

Ever since The Lion King took the Broadway world by storm back in 1997, Disney has been recreating its beloved animated films for the stage, with successful runs by The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the...

Dispatches from Mike Daisey’s ‘A People’s History,’ Chapters 1 to 18

Over 16 days in Washington, DC, in July 2019, Mike Daisey gave 18 different performances, each about an hour and 45 minutes long, of his epic look at America’s past, present, and future. He drew from...

Review: ‘The Mousetrap’ by Thunderous Productions

Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is a serious whodunit in which strangers are thrown together at a remote place and cut off from the outside world, with a police inspector unlocking a murder mystery in...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Inferno the Musical’

“Heaven is so boring.” That’s the complaint of a modern-day version of Dante Alighieri in Inferno the Musical, a look at the vagaries of life and love and the inevitability of fate. Written and...

Review: ‘Tiger Style!’ at Olney Theatre Center

Buy your ticket today for a rich palette of cultural and political satire. Olney Theatre Center’s Tiger Style! is the best stage comedy I’ve seen in 2019. Directed by Natsu Onoda Power, a major theme...

Review: ‘Annie’ by Prince William Little Theatre

From toe-tapping numbers, to adorable orphans, there are few things as purely wonderful for the soul as a production of Annie, and Prince William Little Theatre delivers a production like no other....

Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting Presents Three Plays in Rep

Where can you find one of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies, most passionate “problem plays,” and most famous tragedies, performed with conviction and flair? At the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy...

In the Moment: ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’ at 1st  Stage

With a return visit to The Happiest Place on Earth, new gemstones are uncovered, adding complexity and currency to its bittersweet tale about dreams that a heart makes. In its current incarnation as...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘SPEAK*Girls Presents’

The true critic of this year’s second annual SPEAK*Girls Presents is a thirteen-year-old young woman, who shared at the rousing end of this year’s production, “I’m hard to impress, and I loved it.”...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘If These Balls Could Talk’

There’s plenty of beef in Carolann Valentino’s one-woman musical, If These Balls Could Talk, about her life as a young actress from Texas working at a steakhouse in New York. This was not just any old...

Review: ‘Ann’ at Arena Stage

If you are a fan of Ann Richards, the straight-talking, liberal Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995, or alternatively, if you were living on the opposite side of the globe and somehow missed coverage...

Review: ‘Hamlet’ at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Free for All

Hamlet is the most produced play in the world. It is said that Hamlet is being performed somewhere every single minute of every single day. Now, the Shakespeare Theatre Company is presenting a superb...