Washington DC

Review: ‘Misterman’ at Solas Nua

A tour de force performance by Thomas Keegan and masterful stage arts combine to make Solas Nua’s Misterman a jaw-droppingly good show. Directed and choreographed by Artistic Director Rex Daugherty,...

Review: ‘Charlotte’s Web’ at Imagination Stage

If you’re on the lookout for an engaging, kid-friendly activity this holiday season, look no further than the classic tale of Charlotte’s Web at Imagination Stage. Based on the renowned children’s...

Review: ‘St Nicholas’ at Quotidian Theatre Company

Make no mistake, St Nicholas at Quotidian Theatre Company is not a Christmas play. Conor McPherson’s one-man-show starring Steve Beall and directed by Jack Sbarbori is a Gothic meditation on power,...

Review: ‘The Book of Merman’ at DC Arts Center

Review by Jason Williams Playfully tagged as a less expensive alternative to The Book of Mormon, which it satirizes, The Book of Merman quickly moves beyond just being a parody of the aforementioned...

Review: ‘The Ugly One’ at Nu Sass Productions

The gutsy woman-centric theater company Nu Sass is notable for producing works that feature women in major roles, onstage and off, typically in a tiny second-floor space on F Street that seats only 30...

Review: ‘Annie’ at Olney Theatre Center

The musical Annie is 40 years old this year, and thanks to the Olney Theatre Center’s cheerful new production, a whole new generation of theater goers will get the chance to travel back in time to...

Review: ‘Nina Simone: Four Women’ at Arena Stage

After the Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church bombing of 1963, Nina Simone turned her singing career toward the Civil Rights’ struggle. After a decade of singing mostly popular music, and building a...

Review: ‘The Love of the Nightingale’ at The Catholic University of America

A play from the 1980s about revenge for a rape, based on an ancient story from Greek mythology, comes alive in a student production as though it was about now. As though everything in it about how...

Review: ‘The Pillowman’ at George Mason University

Last night, the Mason Players opened another excellent student-directed play at George Mason University. Following strong performances of Deadman’s Cell Phone and 1984 earlier this semester, The...

Review: ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ at Arden Theatre Company

The list began after her first attempt. A list of everything brilliant about the world. Everything worth fighting for. If I were to make a list of every brilliant thing about the world, audience...

In the Moment: ‘Crazy for You’ at Signature Theatre

What a giddy, joyful afterimage of mouthwatering kinetic alchemy. Under the confident direction of chemistry-setter Mathew Gardiner, Signature Theatre has produced an irresistible Crazy for You. It is...

Magic Time!: ‘Republic For Which We Stand’ at United States Capitol Visitor Center

For anyone who is more than a little unnerved that President Trump might go off half-cocked and trigger a war—which he could do with as little thought as he puts into a tweet—this civic-minded play...

Review: ‘Nothing to Lose (But our Chains)’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

When the Born Again have the opportunity to witness, they do it before their congregation, and everyone shouts “Hallelujah!” When the Stand Up Comics have that same opportunity, they do it before...

News: Capital Fringe Announces Venue Change and Application Details for the 2018 Capital Fringe Festival

Registration is now open for the 13th Annual Capital Fringe Festival. Those wishing to participate in the festival can apply from now through January 16th, 2018. The 2018 Capital Fringe Festival will...

Review: Pinchas Zukerman Performs Bach at The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

We learned, shortly after 8 p.m., that half the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was stuck on 495. Traffic unites people with weak social bonds; it gives us something communal to commiserate about....

Review: ‘Crazy for You’ at Signature Theatre

I have a perpetual soft spot for Crazy for You, which was the first show I ever saw on Broadway. What with George and Ira Gershwin songs, Tony-winning choreography by Susan Stroman, and the wonderful...

In the Moment: Arena Stage and USO “Annual Military Thanksgiving”

It is a season of thanksgiving and spending time with family and friends. But, untold numbers of D.C. and Baltimore area military families spend the Thanksgiving holiday away from loved ones serving...

Review: ‘Follies’ at the National Theatre in London

I was most anxious to see Follies in its current production at the National Theatre in London. Somehow news of it had escaped me, but Imelda Staunton is a great favorite of mine, and she’s in it, so I...

Review: ‘The Real Americans’ at Mosaic Theater Company

“Why am I a stranger in my own land?” the preternaturally talented actor-writer Dan Hoyle asks during his solo excursion into the heartland of America. Having set forth several years ago by van from...

In the Moment: Interview with Theater Photographer Teresa Castracane

Often, images of a theatrical production help establish the initial interest and expectations for a potential audience. Photographs can draw an audience into a production even before reviews or...

Review: ‘Binomio’ at GALA Hispanic Theatre

Binomio, a flamenco show making its U.S. premiere at the GALA Hispanic Theatre, begins with two solo dances by Francisco Hidalgo and Anabel Moreno. The two dancers command the stage as they beat a...

Review: ‘The Little Mermaid’ at Damascus Theatre Company

Both “Under the Sea” and in “The World Above,” Damascus Theatre Company brings us a truly charming production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Based on the Hans Cristian Andersen story and the Disney...

Review: ‘Pioneers of Avant-Garde Piano’ at The Barnes Foundation

The Barnes Foundation presented an unusual recital of avant-garde music composed by Henry Cowell, John Cage and George Crumb. These three giants of experimentation remind us of Albert Barnes’s...

Review: ‘The Dog in the Manger’ at We Happy Few Productions

Lope de Vega, the author of We Happy Few Productions’ current offering at The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, was one of the most prolific writers in world history. Hundreds of plays and thousands of...

Review: ‘The Infinite Wrench USNA Style’ at the United States Naval Academy

The United States Naval Academy Masqueraders’ production of The Infinite Wrench USNA Style is an unusual show, with lots of humor and some thought-provoking observations. Composed of 30 two-minute...

Review: ‘A Little Princess’ at Creative Cauldron’s Learning Theatre

Creative Cauldron’s Learning Theatre has put on an original version of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess. Ellen Selby, who co-directed the show, wrote the book, with music by Matt Conner and...

Magic Time!: ‘A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order’ at Studio Theatre

He might have had an interesting idea for a solo show. He hadn’t written it yet. but he told Studio Theatre, which had booked him, that its title would be A Short Series of Disagreements Presented...

Review: ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ at Sandy Spring Theatre Group

I heard Kris Kringle (played by Harley Venton) tell little Susan Walker (Leah Packer): “…Imagination is a place all by itself. Now, you’ve heard of the French nation? … And the British nation? … Well,...

Magic Time!: ‘Vicuña & The American Epilogue’ at Mosaic Theater Company

“Even monsters need clothing,” says the bespoke tailor Anselm, an Arab Jew and immigrant, defending why he will sew a vicuña suit for a Republican presidential candidate whom his intern Amir, a...

Review: ‘Top Girls’ at Keegan Theatre

Only the indubitable Caryl Churchill could, in a play about a contemporary dysfunctional British family, give us an opening restaurant scene that includes the likes of: Dull Gret (a warrior peasant...

Review: ‘The Pajama Game’ at Arena Stage

The Pajama Game is a classic, a Broadway mega-hit with themes and tunes as timely as today’s news. The show is currently a wonderfully realized, dynamic production at the Fichandler Theater in the...

Review: Isley Brothers at The Kennedy Center

The Isley Brothers rocked into The Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall this last Sunday night. Though the Hall is still standing, it may never be the same. Since their founding in 1955, the Isley Brothers...

News: Mount Vernon Community Children’s Theatre Stages its 100th Production ‘Grease: School Version’

Thirty-seven years and more than 550 performances stand between Mount Vernon Community Children’s Theatre’s (MVCCT) first foray onto the stage with Winnie the Pooh in 1979 and their 100th production...

Members of the Theater Community Reflect on What Joel Markowitz Meant to Them

Tributes and expressions of affection and appreciation for Joel have been pouring in. This is a space for us to celebrate and remember our friend, Joel Markowitz. Use the comments to share feelings,...

Review: ‘A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order’ at Studio Theatre

Daniel Kitson is an acquired taste. In the premiere of his newest one-actor creation, A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order at Studio’s Metheny Theatre, Kitson’s stage...

Review: ‘Vicuña & The American Epilogue’ at Mosaic Theater Company

It’s roughly a year ago to the day that Vicuña—a political satire of presidential proportions—had its first showing in Los Angeles. At the time, audiences laughed themselves silly over the idea that a...

Review: ‘A Short Series of Disagreements Presented Here in Chronological Order by Daniel Kitson’ at Studio Theatre

Living in the modern world, we are constantly the bystander to, or observer of, the life events of others. Be they consequential and indelible, or fleeting and forgettable, these seemingly...

Review: ‘Alcina’ at The Washington National Opera

The Washington National Opera is now offering opera lovers the rare treat of a disarming and whimsical baroque opera, Alcina, by Composer George Frideric Handel. An opera, by default, is often a...

Review: ‘A Tuna Christmas’ at Bowie Playhouse

Satire can be both salve and mirror in tough times and in good. A Tuna Christmas, written by Tony-nominated Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard, satirizes small-town American life, leaving few...

Review: ‘Flamenco Extranjero’ at GALA Theatre

When a technician noticed a lighting cue had come later than planned (the dancing took over), Aleksey Kulikov, co-director of Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company, explained to the crew member: “That’s...

Review: ‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill’ at Rep Stage

It took way too long for Baltimore gal Billie Holiday to make the 20-odd mile trip out to Howard County for a live performance. It was a hard trip, too, judging from the bruised and fragile state we...

Review: ‘In the Red and Brown Water’ at Howard University

The wonder-filled stories that wend their way through In the Red and Brown Water were located by the playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney in “the distant present” in a fictional town in Louisiana. But in...

Who’s in Town?: Tony Award-Winner Cynthia Erivo to Perform at the Kennedy Center This Saturday, November 4th, 2017

In my mind, Cynthia Erivo’s name is synonymous with strength and confidence. But it’s not just me. “Diva,” “lion,” and “dragon slayer” are just a few of the ways people have described her since she...

Review: ‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’ at Little Theatre of Alexandria

The Little Theatre of Alexandria’s most recent production, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang, is an interesting look at family dynamics and the lingering effects that being a...

In the Moment: Billie Krishawn and ‘Emilie’ at Avant Bard

Avant Bard’s Emilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight with Sara Barker in the role of the whip-smart 18th century very real Emilie is a clear knock-out for critics and audiences alike....

Review: The Bentzen Ball Comedy Festival: Andrea Gibson and Amber Tamblyn

Amber Tamblyn and Andrea Gibson were heard loudly and clearly at The Kennedy Center this past weekend. Washington, D.C. and the Terrace Theater welcomed the two poets as part of the Comedy at The...

News: DC Performing Arts Organizations Rally to Support Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria

When Hurricane Maria struck the island of Puerto Rico on September 20th, the storm left millions of American citizens with no electricity, drinkable water, cell service, or a roof over their heads. A...

Review: ‘Mystery School’ at The Edge of the Universe Players 2

We are all connected. There are forces at play in the universe that are not seen, but felt. Within the realm of spiritual consciousness, we find Mystery School, a play by Paul Selig currently on view...

Review: ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ at Kensington Arts Theatre

“For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’,” wrote poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The themes of “what might have been” and “what if” were prominent in The Bridges...

Review: ‘Lost In Yonkers’ at Peace Mountain Theatre Company

I had a Great Aunt whose fourth floor walk-up apartment was very much on display when I entered the performance space at Har Shalom. I wondered if set designers Maggie Moddig and Steven Leshin had...