Washington DC

Magic Time!: On Acting with a Conscience: A Q&A with Lianne Harvey, now appearing in ‘An Inspector Calls’

The character Lianne Harvey plays in J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, Sheila Birling, really fascinated me. Sheila stands out as no ordinary ingenue. During the course of the play, Sheila goes...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas’ at Olney Theatre Center

The entryway to the Muritz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab at the Olney Theatre Center is lined with holiday lights and garnish. The cozy lobby is adorned with electric candles and sprigs of holly, creating a...

Magic Time!: ‘How to Keep an Alien’ by Solas Nua

I can’t recall seeing another play by someone who came to playwrighting from standup, but I’ll not soon forget how I laughed my feckin head off at Sonya Kelly’s How to Keep an Alien. Kelly, an Irish...

Review: ‘How to Keep an Alien’ at Solas Nua

Love is unique. It is an intense bond of emotion, desire, and care between two people, deeply special to one another, that for them cannot be duplicated anywhere on Earth. Bureaucracy must routinize...

Review: ‘Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas’ at Adventure Theatre

If you are looking for some holiday merriment that is fun for all ages, dance and sing your way over to Adventure Theatre’s Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas. Fancy Nancy, with book by Cara Lustik...

‘Hamilton’ Front and Center at 2018 Kennedy Center Honors

A mini Hamilton reunion took place at the Kennedy Center last night as actors from Hamilton’s original Broadway cast took part in the 41st Kennedy Center Honors Awards that recognized the co-creators...

In the Moment: ‘Indecent’ at Arena Stage

“Why must every Jew on stage be a paragon?” A key question asked without bombast by one of the fictional characters created by playwright Paula Vogel for Indecent, her daring stage play composed of...

Review: ‘Les Misérables: School Edition’ at Ovations Theatre

At a time when we are marching for our rights, a show like Les Misérables feels only too appropriate. If you don’t hear the people sing, then you have cotton in your ears. The outstanding senior...

Review: Paula Vogel’s ‘A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration’ at 1st Stage

A Civil War Christmas at 1st Stage is a strong addition to plays that connect with the holiday season. Playwright Paula Vogel embraces and examines provocative themes in this piece, looking at all of...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

I never feel like I’m fully in the Christmas spirit until I’ve donned an ugly sweater, had a gingerbread cookie and watched a production of A Christmas Carol. Little Theatre of Alexandria’s annual...

Review: ‘The Crater Sisters’ Christmas Special’ at Best Medicine Rep

You can skip your one-hundredth viewing of A Christmas Carol or The Nutcracker this holiday season and, instead, laugh the evening away at the delightfully original musical comedy, The Crater Sisters’...

Review: ‘Woman of No Importance’ at Scena Theatre

The first thing you notice about Scena Theatre’s Woman of No Importance is Alisa Mandel’s lush costume design. Like an unnamed character, her costumes define the characters nearly as much as the...

Review: ‘Watergate…with Puppets’ by AnyStage Theater

Fans of zany humor might remember when AnyStage Theater popped up in the Capital Fringe Festival with its ridiculous (and mostly fact-free) takes on Margaret Thatcher and Amelia Earhart. The...

Review: ‘Indecent’ at Arena Stage

The controversial scene that ends this “true story of a little Jewish play” has been foretold at length throughout the show and mentioned in much publicity, so it’s no spoiler to report that we all...

Review: ‘Operetta Wonderland: The Magic of Victor Herbert’ at The In Series

It’s hard to resist the charm and humor of a good operetta. Though the form has been less popular recently, The In Series is doing its part to revive the legacy of Victor Herbert—one of the genre’s...

Review: ‘Beautiful – The Carole King Musical’ at the National Theatre

Beautiful – The Carole King Musical is a delightful, heavenly-sounding, Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical about Carole King, who “wrote the soundtrack to a generation.” With a hit parade of King’s...

Interview: Jordan Friend Previews NextStop’s ‘A Kosher Christmas Cabaret’

Northern Virginia’s NextStop Theater has announced a very special cabaret event for the Holiday season. It is called A Kosher Christmas Cabaret. The performance is a follow-on to NextStop’s big summer...

News: Alliance for New Music-Theatre to Present Free Pop-up Rehearsal of ‘Protest’

Last year, Alliance for New Music-Theatre performed Protest in Dupont Underground. Regular theatergoers and people who had never been to theater alike were struck by the power of Václav Havel’s words...

DCMTA Partners with Kennedy Center on ‘Hamilton’ Sing-Along

Don’t throw away your shot! Sing Hamilton songs with some of DC’s favorite musical theater performers this Friday, November 30th on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. The Kennedy Center and DC...

Review: ‘Barber Shop Chronicles’ at The Kennedy Center

“To let one’s hair down” is to open up, be freer than usual, be willing to share. The idiom is apt for what transpires in Barber Shop Chronicles, an extraordinary exploration of black masculinity, in...

Call for Proposals for the 2019-2020 Theater Season at the Arts Barn

Arts on the Green, the City of Gaithersburg’s home for the performing and visual arts which includes the Kentlands Mansion and Arts Barn, is now soliciting production proposals for the theater season...

2018 DC Queer Theatre Festival Runs December 7 and 8

The 2018 DC Queer Theatre Festival is presenting performances of 7 ten minute plays on Friday, December 7, at 7:30 pm and Saturday, December 8 at 3:00 pm and 7:30 pm at DC Arts Center. With the...

Review: ‘An Inspector Calls’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, as directed by Stephen Daldry, represents the best of international theatre. The play combines the chocolate-box delights of an Agatha Christie mystery with deeper...

Artistic Director Alex Levy on Bringing Paula Vogel’s ‘A Civil War Christmas’ to 1st Stage

With the holiday season upon us- whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or New Year’s- the performing arts calendar is full of productions that help connect an audience to the larger, diverse...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of A Christmas Carol is a delightfully faithful adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel. Co-written by Donald Hicken and Sally Boyett, and directed by...

Magic Time!: ‘An Inspector Calls’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

J. B. Priestley’s classic An Inspector Calls—a drawing-room drama set in England in 1912 and written there in 1944—has landed in DC with uncanny currency. Now at Sidney Harman Hall in a touring...

Review: ‘A Christmas Story’ by Rockville Little Theatre at the Arts Barn

SMOKE! That raises the alarm that there’s been another “Clinker” episode from the diabolical furnace in the basement of the Parker home as the Gaithersburg Arts Barn hosts an entirely entertaining and...

Cyber Monday Ticket Deals Extended to Noon Today!

Love a good deal? Want to take your schnookie out for the holidays? Tired of buying theater tickets you really can’t afford? You’re in luck! We’ve teamed up with TodayTix to offer our readers some...

Interview: Playwright Sonya Kelly on ‘How To Keep an Alien’ at Solas Nua

Can love really cut through red tape and conquer all even when there are stringent immigration rules? D.C.-area audiences will find out in Solas Nua’s upcoming production of How to Keep an Alien from...

Review: ‘Oliver!’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, produced by Maureen Rogers and directed by John Cusumano, is strutting its stuff across the boards of the Laurel Mill Playhouse. The iconic musical is based on Charles Dickens’...

Report: ‘Jingle ARRGH the Way’ by Encore Stage and Studio

Nothing says Christmas like Pirates, am I right?! Well, Encore Stage & Studio’s production of Jingle ARRGH the Way follows Captain Braid Beard and his crew as they sail to the North Pole in search of...

Review: Aquila Theatre presents Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ at George Mason University Center for the Arts

New York-based Aquila Theatre has been hailed by The New Yorker for its innovative staging of the classics. Founded in London in 1991, the company has a regular season of productions as well as a...

An Interview with Jeffrey Higgins of ‘Jeffrey Higgins: A Deafening Sound’

Jeffrey Higgins: A Deafening Sound is an apt title for the anguish and turmoil that singer and pianist Jeffrey Higgins went through after being fired as a singer in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC...

Review: ‘The Choir of Man’ at The Kennedy Center

If you’re in a mood for some boisterous joy this holiday weekend—some soul-rousing solos and heartbreaking harmonies in the tenor/bass range—nab a ticket to The Choir of Man. The touring concert show,...

Magic Time!: ‘Cry It Out’ at Studio Theatre

Cry It Out—an exhilaratingly funny and touching comedy about new parenthood—is a joyous reminder that when a playwright of Molly Smith Metzler’s skill and compassion writes “close to home,” as she...

Review: ‘All Save One’ at the Washington Stage Guild

It was another time. It was a time of high anxiety. Even private lives were far from private in the treacherous, early 1950’s with the likes of Senator Joseph McCarthy and columnist Hedda Hopper...

Review: ‘Running on Glass’ at Venus Theatre

Cynthia Cooper’s Running on Glass, playing at Laurel’s Venus Theatre, celebrates six pioneering female athletes, all of whom had to overcome barriers not only of gender but of race, class, illness, or...

Review: ‘Cry It Out’ at Studio Theatre

In the bleak Long Island backyard that serves as their coffee-klatch confessional, neighbors Lina and Jessie chat daily about the alternately hilarious and heart-wrenching emotional terrain of new...

Raymond O. Caldwell Named Theater Alliance’s Next Producing Artistic Director

Theater Alliance announced today that Raymond O. Caldwell would be the company’s next producing artistic director. Caldwell currently serves as Theater Alliance’s Associate Artistic Director. He...

Review: ‘Elf the Musical’ at Olney Theatre Center

The Holidays are upon us and with them comes the rush of themed movies, music, and theater. Olney Theatre Center welcomes the holiday season with their production of Elf the Musical. Based on the 2003...

Review: ‘A Rap on Race’ at George Mason University

The intersection of dance and drama is intentionally harsh in A Rap on Race, the fused performance created by luminaries Anna Deveare Smith and Donald Byrd. Scripted from a 1970 public conversation...

Review: ‘Machinal’ at George Mason University

Taut and remarkable is the production of Sophie Treadwell’s expressionistic play Machinal (1928), performed by George Mason University School of Theater and Mason Players. A student production,...

Interview: Ken Kemp, ‘A Christmas Story’ Director at Rockville Little Theatre

You’ll shoot your eye out! Get ready fans of holiday fun, Rockville Little Theatre is bringing A Christmas Story to the Arts Barn just in time for the holiday season. Based on the 1983 movie, A...

Commemorate Armistice Day with The Washington Chorus This Sunday

This November, as Americans prepare for Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday season, arts organizations across the Washington area will commemorate a more somber occasion: the 100th anniversary...

“I Never Expected to See a Shakespearean Lover Like Me”: An Actor Declares

By Ezra Tozian Editor’s note: In Avant Bard’s production of Illyria, or What You Will—freely adapted from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night by Jonelle Walker and Mitchell Hébert—the character of Cesario...

Review: ‘Anything Goes’ at Arena Stage

“De-Lovely” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Arena Stage’s production of Anything Goes is as close to musical theater heaven as you can get. Cole Porter’s classic melodies and innuendo-laden lyrics, a...

Review: ‘As You Like It’ at Keegan Theatre

The paradise in Shakespeare’s Arden Forest, a beautiful place where everybody is happy, communal, and fed, doesn’t exist in reality. But if it did, you’d want to be there. And since you can’t, here’s...

In the Moment: Looking Forward to ‘A Night of Suffrage Theater’ at Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument

It has been 100 years since suffrage pickets began in front of the White House for women to have the legal ability to vote in the United States. Over 70 of the suffrage picketers were arrested and...

Review: The Welders’ ‘In This Hope: A Pericles Project’ at Spooky Action Theater

From the moment the audience enters the large square room that is Spooky Action Theater’s church basement home, Environmental Designer Colin K. Bills has already communicated to the audience for In...

Review: ‘Silent Night’ at the Kennedy Center Washington National Opera

The Washington National Opera’s current production of the opera Silent Night is a shattering indictment of the futility and waste of war set during the historical truce that occurred during World War...