Washington DC

In the Moment: Report on ‘Declassified’ with Ben Folds and Sara Bareilles at The Kennedy Center

Under the masterful, musical code-switching curation of National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) Artistic Advisor Ben Folds, the future for new audiences finding their way to the usually buttoned-up, High...

Review: ‘The Humans’ National Tour at the Kennedy Center

Lights rise on The Humans and there, center stage, is Erik Blake (Richard Thomas), a fish out of water Pennsylvanian Dad in a New York apartment. What is he doing there? And why is he in an apartment...

Review: ‘Wit’ at Silver Spring Stage

Wit, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by Margaret Edson and directed at Silver Spring Stage by Jeff Mikoni, graces the stage with a darkly comedic tale of a strict university professor dying of...

Magic Time!: “Claim All of Your Selves”: Caleen Sinnette Jennings on Her ‘Queens Girl’ Plays (Womens’ Voices Theater Festival Productions)

Erika Rose’s performance in Queens Girl in Africa is awesome to behold. She plays the playwright’s teenage self, named Jackie, plus her parents, school friends, and others, with an incandescence that...

Review: ‘On Your Feet!’ National Tour at the Kennedy Center

The rhythm is gonna get you! Expect to find yourself dancing in your seat, because the energy from this show is infectious. On Your Feet! at the Kennedy Center is electric, and audience members...

Preview: Washington Improv Theater’s ‘Wintry Mix’ at DC Arts Center

Now through February 4, Washington Improv Theater (WIT), the District’s oldest and only nonprofit long-form improv theater, presents Wintry Mix, a four-week medley of improv shows at the DC Arts...

In the Moment: ‘Passport to the World Festival’ at The Creative Cauldron

In the midst of its ninth year producing and presenting live theater and music at its ArtSpace Fall Church venue, the Creative Cauldron has just opened its annual, mid-winter Passport to the World...

Diverse City: Interview with Artistic Director and Activist Elena Velasco

Welcome to the very first Diverse City column on DC Theater Arts. My name is Darby DeJarnette and I created this column to highlight, through interviews, the different experiences of individuals from...

Review: ‘Guilt, an opera without music’ at Scena Theatre

With its teasing, click-bait provocative subtitling, “an opera without music,” John Shand’s Guilt, having its world premiere by DC’s Scena Theatre, is a meaty, passionately provoking tale. Overall,...

Review: ‘Queens Girl in Africa’ at Mosaic Theater Company (Women’s Voices Theater Festival Production)

Playwright Caleen Sinnette Jennings serves up an ace with the world premiere of Queens Girl in Africa – a riveting, semi-autobiographical account of her experience living in Ibadan, Nigeria in the...

Review: ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ at The American Pops Orchestra

Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days is a classic novel that has stood the test of time–one hundred and forty-five years, to be exact–and been adapted into multiple media forms since its original...

Preview: ‘Mamma Mia’ Opens Tomorrow at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

The Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia is excited to be the first regional theater in the D.C. metropolitan area to present Mamma Mia, starring Betsy Padamonsky as...

Review: ‘House.’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

Reality TV shows have been described with many different words since they have pervaded the airwaves over the past two decades – crass, stereotypical, unreality. Maryland-based playwright Daniel...

DC Theater Arts Kicks Off ‘Women’s Voices Theater Festival’ Coverage

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival kicks off this week, and DC Theater Arts is excited to cover this important event. For the Women’s Voices Theater Festival, 24 plays penned by female playwrights...

Review: ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ at The Montgomery Playhouse

Barely two months ago, the call went out for auditions to this cast. This is worth mentioning because in that short time, considering all the holiday distractions and scheduling challenges, the...

In the Moment: Arts Council of Fairfax County Announces 2018 grant awards

As we well know, funding for the arts from all levels of government sources are under assault. Government funding is either static, or in worse cases has been reduced. As government revenue has still...

Interview: Meet the Playwright of ‘House.’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

The new year brings the opening of the original play by Daniel Johnston, House., to Laurel Mill Playhouse in Laurel, Maryland. House. is directed by Susan Brall – a reviewer at DCMTA – and produced by...

In the Moment: The National Symphony Orchestra at The Hamilton Live This Thursday, January 4th, 2018

Ready to un-compartmentalize your music tastes? Open to thinking differently about what some may call stodgy “High Art” for the well-fixed? Ready to have some new musical experiences that fuse classic...

Review: ‘Salute to Vienna New Year’s Concert’ at Strathmore

Salute to Vienna New Year’s Concert, conducted by Maestro Bernhard Schneider and featuring the vocal talents of German tenor Tilmann Unger and soprano Micaëla Oeste, waltzed in to The Music Center at...

Review: Comedy at The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage with Gary Vider and Sara Armour

Now in its 21st year, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage is the Center’s gift to everyone in the Washington area, offering live entertainment at no cost every single day. It’s also a great way to...

Report: Keegan Theatre’s ‘An Irish Carol’ Performance on December 29 to Benefit Nonprofit Shatterproof

The holidays are a difficult time for those with loved ones fighting with the effects of addiction. The Keegan Theatre will be holding a benefit performance of An Irish Carol this Friday, December 29,...

Review: Tom Teasley and Seth Kibel present Tiny Planet at Strathmore

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole...

Review: ‘Foolish Fairytales’ at Faction of Fools Theatre Company

If you have yet to experience a Faction of Fools Theatre Company production, then you are missing out on something truly brilliant and one-of-a-kind. With a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Emerging...

Review: ‘Les Misérables’ at the National Theatre

One does not simply review Les Mis—at least, not when it’s this stunning revival of the epic that took the world by storm when the novel debuted in 1862 and again when the musical premiered in London...

Preview: ‘Salute to Vienna New Year’s Concert’ Promises to Transport Modern Audiences with Dazzling Old World Charm

Salute to Vienna has been a staple of the holiday season for more than 20 years in North America, and Washington welcomes it back for a 17th year on December 30, 2017. Based on the Vienna...

Magic Time!: Inside ‘Amazing Grace’ at the Museum of the Bible: A Q&A with Performer Joshua Simon

When I saw the musical Amazing Grace I praised it to the skies. A blurb being used to promote the show is lifted from my review: “A gorgeous production of a glorious musical! Heart-stopping,...

Review: ‘Holiday Cheer!’ at National Chamber Ensemble

The National Chamber Ensemble’s Holiday Cheer! on December 16 was a celebration of great music. The charming and witty Artistic Director and leading violinist, Leonid Sushansky, sees each performance...

In the Moment: ‘Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush’ at MetroStage

Brimming with heart, musical numbers to elicit smiles, a unique wit, some audience sing-alongs, and moments that disrupt theatrical norms, MetroStage’s Christmas at the Old Bull and Bush is a charmer....

Review: ‘An American in Paris’ at the Kennedy Center

Glistening The Kennedy Center’s lush Opera House with feted Hollywood glitz and glamour, the national tour of the 2015 multi-Tony-winning musical, An American in Paris, debuted Tuesday for a...

Review: ‘The Christmas Revels: A French-Canadian Winter Celebration’ at Washington Revels

Washington Revels presents us with a festive holiday offering for a 35th year. This season, we take a trip to the winter wonderland of Quebec in The Christmas Revels: A French-Canadian Winter...

Review: ‘An Irish Carol’ at Keegan Theatre

Now in its seventh year, the Keegan Theatre’s annual production of Matthew J. Keenan’s An Irish Carol has become a favorite Washington DC holiday tradition. It’s easy to see why. A quintessentially...

Magic Time!: ‘The Birds and the Bees: Unabridged’ at Mosaic Theater Company

“Let’s rethink sex” has suddenly become a thing. Well, not suddenly maybe. But it certainly has new pertinence in this era of full-frontal disclosure. Which made the themes of The Birds and the Bees:...

Magic Time!: Life Lessons of ‘The Real Americans’: A Q&A with Playwright-Performer Dan Hoyle

Dan Hoyle’s extraordinary solo show The Real Americans is based on his travels through small-town America and the folks he met, many of them part of Trump’s so-called base. When I reviewed the show, I...

Review: ‘A Tuna Christmas’ at Parlor Room Theater

Classic holiday productions, like Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, always show up around the theater circuit this time of year. But there are also many modern...

Report: Arena Stage’s Molly Smith and Playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle Discuss ‘Sovereignty’ and Why Plays by Native American Women Are More Vital Than Ever

In 1839, Mary Kathryn Nagle’s great-great-great grandfather, Cherokee statesman John Ridge, was assassinated for signing the Treaty of New Echota. In 2017, Nagle wrote a play about her family’s...

Report: Violinist Tessa Lark in the Phillips Collection’s Sunday Music Concert Series

Nothing is quite as draining as endless discussions in the classical music world about how concerts “should” work to recapture their prominence in the cultural fabric. So nothing is quite as...

Review: ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at Compass Rose Theater

Compass Rose Theater’s production of Fiddler on the Roof is a lovely revival of the classic 1964 musical. With book by Joseph Stein, music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and directed by...

Interview: Jazz Singer Sara Jones

“I don’t perform ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’ that often,” jazz singer Sara Jones admits. “I mean, the song’s a real downer. You have lyrics in that song like ‘lips that taste like tears’ or ‘lose...

Review: ‘An Operetta Holiday’ at The In Series

The In Series’ An Operetta Holiday, written and directed by Nick Olcott, is a charming aural journey through the era between opera and musicals. Four male and four female singers delivered a wonderful...

Review: ‘Duke Ellington’s Neighborhood’ from The In Series performing at Gala Hispanic Theatre

Engaging, sophisticated entertainment and education that didn’t talk down to the intended audience; children who may not have been familiar with the grand musical and cultural figure, DC’s very own...

Interview: ‘You and My Mother Can Purchase Sweaters for Obese People to Your Heart’s Content’ – A Conversation with Cameron Folmar

David, the character Cameron Folmar plays in The Santaland Diaries (now at Drafthouse Comedy Theater in DC through December 23), struggles with compartmentalizing his identity as a Macy’s Elf with...

Who’s in Town?: ‘The Piano Guys’ Performing at The National Theatre December 13th through 16th

The Piano Guys might just be one of the 21st century’s most notable social media success stories. Now a successful musical group known for their lush videos of classical and contemporary compositions...

Review: ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’ at Providence Players of Fairfax and The Young Hearts

Need a break from Christmas music? Providence Players of Fairfax and The Young Hearts’s production of The Phantom Tollbooth delivers all the joy of the holiday season without the jingle. Based on the...

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at The British Players

Director Robert Leembruggen and The British Players have created a delightfully funny and energizing interactive theater experience that is a not-miss this holiday season. Get thy backside to this...

Review: ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ at Silver Spring Stage

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is not your typical holiday story. Adapted from the best-selling book by Barbara Robinson, this rendition is laced with hilarity, mischief, and wonder. Andrea Spitz...

Review: ‘Madagascar—A Musical Adventure’ at Red Branch Theatre Company

Chalk up one more cartoon feature making a dash for freedom under the footlights. Madagascar—A Musical Adventure is now filling the intimate Red Branch Theatre with a veritable Noah’s Ark of singing,...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Wolf Pack Theatre Company

Who isn’t familiar with the story of Ebenezer Scrooge? Wolf Pack Theatre has retold the familiar story of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, in a different way each year, for the past four years....

News: This Monday Don’t Miss ‘Holidays, Hearts, and Home,’ a One-Night Benefit Concert for Puerto Rico at Arena Stage Starring Ed Gero and Natascia Diaz

This Monday, December 11th, a one-night-only concert to benefit the victims of Hurricane Maria entitled Holidays, Hearts, and Home brings a not-to-be-missed roster of whos-who performers to Arena...

Review: ‘Holiday Memories’ at HCC Art’s Collective

Holiday Memories plays this weekend only at Howard Community College in the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center’s Studio Theatre produced by the Howard County Arts Collective and directed by...

Review: ‘Twist Your Dickens’ at Second City

If you’re yearning to kick off your holiday season with goodnatured hilarity, get thee to the Kennedy Center and grab a seat at the Theater Lab, where The Second City’s Twist Your Dickens is holding...