Washington DC

Review: ‘Come Together:  A Celebration of John Lennon’ at The Kennedy Center

At a time when we can only imagine a world without walls of division and exclusion, the Annual Kennedy Center’s Spring Gala concert, Come Together: A Celebration of John Lennon, reached for the stars...

Dangereuse: ‘A Macbeth for the 21st Century’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that seeing Edmund Kean play Shakespeare was like “reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.” Acclaimed Director Liesl Tommy brings us Shakespeare torn asunder by...

Review: ‘The Arabian Nights’ at Constellation Theatre Company

One Thousand and One Nights, the collection of classic Islamic tales upon which Mary Zimmerman built The Arabian Nights, now playing at Constellation Theatre Company, could not have a more violent...

Review: ‘Barnaby Rudge’ at Lumina Studio Theatre

Of Charles Dickens’s fifteen novels, there are few, if any, that are less well-known than his first historical, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty—and few, with its forty-plus characters and...

Review: ‘Book of Days’ at Rockville Little Theatre

Written in 1998, Book of Days is one of the final writings from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson. The play is set in a fictional rural Missouri town of 4,500 or so residents, and...

Review: ‘Master Class’ at MetroStage

Welcome to the rehearsal hall. You are a student at a prestigious school for the performing arts. You have mastered your technique, but you are young. You have not thought through the circumstances,...

Review: ‘5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche’ at Monumental Theatre Company

Much to my tickled surprise, last night I found myself shouting out that I am a lesbian—I along with an entire audience in Lab One at The Atlas Performing Arts Center! Really, all of us, about equally...

Review: ‘Madame Butterfly’ at The Kennedy Center

Gorgeous, ravishing arias by the legendary Puccini, an ethereally beautiful performance by Soprano Ermonela Jaho as Cio-Cio San (Butterfly), and an exceptionally ingenious concept and stage design by...

Report: CityDance’s 2017 DREAMscape Benefit Gala

Moments into a dimmed house at the historic Lincoln Theatre, an off-stage voice over a loudspeaker made a promise to a buzzing audience: “We’re going to light up the night sky, so dance!” CityDance’s...

Review: ‘Hairspray JR.’ at the Bowie Community Theatre Youth Theatre Program by Sharon Preator

Tracy Turnblad reminds us that “You gotta think big to be big” as Bowie Community Theatre (“BCT”) delivered a big success with Hairspray JR. for their Youth Theatre Program’s first production. This...

Review: ‘Laura Bush Killed a Guy’ at The Klunch

I didn’t know that Laura Bush had killed a guy. It really had never crossed my mind. Well, after seeing Ian Allen’s Laura Bush Killed a Guy, now playing at the Klunch at Caos on F Street (according to...

Magic Time!: ‘Laura Bush Killed a Guy’ at The Klunch

Who’da thunk that our current administration’s dysfunction would prompt nostalgia for our eight years worth of W.? But that indeed is the curious takeaway from watching Lisa Hodsoll’s poignant...

Review: ‘Private Lives’ at Reston Community Players

Some plays are like peeping through your eye doctor’s phoropter — layer upon layer of filters. Say, a playwright of the Roaring Twenties borrows a style of the 1660s English Restoration period that...

Review: ‘Evita’ at St. Mark’s Players

The classic musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Evita comes to life again with the latest production at St. Mark’s Players. The revival comes at a perfect time, as the production delves into the flawed...

Review: ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

H.M.S. Pinafore, Gilbert and Sullivan’s famous operetta, directed by Michael Hartsfield and produced by Maureen Rogers, opened on April 28, 2017 at the Laurel Mill Playhouse on Main Street in historic...

Review: The 22nd Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival: Abbey Lincoln Tribute at The Kennedy Center

The music of Abbey Lincoln was The Kennedy Center’s choice for its 22nd Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival. Showcasing the best in old and new jazz artistry, this year’s tribute presented Jazz...

Magic Time!: On Being Seen as “Angry Black Man”: A Q&A with Jaysen Wright About His Role in ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage

I remember thinking after I first saw Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People at Arena that the character Jaysen Wright plays, Jackson Moore, has an important and particular role in how whole the play plays,...

Review: ‘Dancing at Midnight’ at Wolf Pack Theatre Company

Some plays invite audiences to ask themselves vexing questions: What is the meaning of life? How long is a life well-lived? As King Solomon wrote in the Old Testament: I have seen all the things that...

Who’s in Town?: Debbie Allen Discusses Hosting the CityDance DREAMscape Gala on Saturday, May 6th at 8pm

Folks looking for a good cause and a night of show-stopping entertainment need look no further than CityDance’s annual DREAMscape Gala. This Saturday, May 6, donors can expect performances from the...

Review: ‘Quatuor Danel’ at the Phillips Collection

Complex 20th century “classical music,” or more properly serious art music as opposed to various forms of popular music, seems to be a gamble. It’s never just as interesting to an audience as...

Review: ‘Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs’ at The Kennedy Center

Wearing his heart on his sleeve throughout, entertainer extraordinaire Alan Cumming (Tony-award winner for Cabaret, regular on the hit television series The Good Wife, concert and recording star,...

Review: ‘The Jungle Book’ at Imagination Stage

Imagination Stage presents The Jungle Book, based on the classic story by Rudyard Kipling and adapted for the stage by Greg Banks. Janet Stanford directs a small cast of five in this production who,...

Review: ‘Macbeth’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Blood will have blood—so go the grim words of Macbeth as it dawns on him that murder is not as simple as he once thought. When it comes to battling and bloodshed, Shakespeare Theatre Company’s...

Review: ‘Russians in Paris’ at the Russian Chamber Art Society

The French and the Russians evoke very different images in the American mind, but they have one thing in common: an affinity for each other’s culture. Many Russian writers and composers lived a good...

Joel Markowitz’s Acceptance Speech Upon Receiving the Gary Maker Award

I am very honored to receive the Gary Maker Award, and I want to thank the committee for this incredible Lifetime Award. Gary Maker was such a mensch and he fought a dreadful disease with such courage...

Review: ‘Building the Wall’ at Forum Theatre

The dystopia delineated in Building the Wall is predicted by the playwright, Robert Schenkkan, to happen in America very soon. By the time the play is set, in the year 2019, the two characters are...

Review: ‘Forgotten Kingdoms’ at Rorschach Theatre

There are mysteries of belief and faith beneath this fascinating parable of a play, roiling like the seawater that churns below the wooden house where its action takes place. This house is built on...

Review: ‘Passion & Struggle’ at The In Series

Poetry can be the seed of music, and music the seed of love. Music may even be used as a form of protest—and ultimately a promoter of peace. This is evidenced by the music of composers and performers...

Review: NSO Pops: LeAnn Rimes at The Kennedy Center

International multi-platinum selling acclaimed singer and ASCAP award-winning songwriter LeAnn Rimes returned to DC Friday night, joining the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) at The Kennedy Center...

Review: ‘Dorian’s Closet’ at Rep Stage

Strong and dramatic – the two words that continuously came to my mind as I watched Dorian’s Closet at Rep Stage last night. This production is the world premiere of the new musical based on the life...

Review: ‘Adam & Anthony Live’ at Strathmore

Suppose your two best friends were really talented and you invited them over to sing and tell stories and a few of your other friends found out and showed up to listen and it turned out to be a really...

Review: ‘Three Sisters’ at Maly Drama Theatre at The Kennedy Center

Anton Chekhov’s classic play Three Sisters is being given a superb rendering by the Maly Drama Theatre (from St Petersburg, Russia) at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. Director Lev Dodin...

Spine: ‘Three Sisters’ by the Maly Drama Theatre at The Kennedy Center

With the Maly Drama Theatre’s Three Sisters, playing through April 30 at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre, theatre lovers will feast on every slow motion wonderment, every long glance into...

Interview: Jazz Chanteuse Changamiré

I met jazz chanteuse Changamire’ at a networking event. She quickly warmed up to me and gave me her latest jazz album “Love” to listen to. I was blown away. In our interview she shared how she got...

Who’s in Town? A Conversation with Adam Pascal, Performing in Concert with ‘Rent’ Costar Anthony Rapp at Strathmore This Friday, April 28th at 8pm

Rent fans are in for a treat as Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp team up for a one-night-only concert event at Strathmore this Friday, April 28th at 8 PM. Pascal and Rapp are forever joined in the hearts...

Review: ‘Taking Sides’ at Port City Playhouse by Wesley Cobaugh

Taking Sides by Ronald Harwood is a stark look at post-war process and what is really meant by getting at the truth of what happened, why, who knew and when. Director Mary Ayala-Bush has crafted a...

In the Moment: ‘Roar: True Tales of Women Warriors’ to Benefit National Network to Prevent Domestic Violence

Launching an anthology of stories entitled Roar: True Tales of Women Warriors to benefit the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the professional story-telling group, Better Said Than Done will...

The Kennedy Center Announces Its 2017-2018 Theater Season: ‘Hamilton,’ ‘The Humans,’ ‘The Color Purple,’ ‘In the Heights,’ ‘An American in Paris,’ ‘On Your Feet,’ ‘The Book of Mormon,’ and More

From The Kennedy Center: 2017–2018 Theater Season: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced programming for its 2017–2018 theater season in an event on the famed Opera House...

Review: ‘The Fabulous Lipitones’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

Written by John Markus and Mark St. Germain, whose previous writing credits include The Cosby Show, The Fabulous Lipitones is a light comedy that deals with deeper issues with the absolute certainty...

In the Moment: ‘In the Heights’ (Spanish Version) at GALA Hispanic Theatre

New theater voices, heard in their own language and accessible to a wide audience. In a world-class area full of strivers like the DC metro area, it is about time. This admiring column is based...

Review: ‘Hairspray, Jr.’ at Ovations Theatre

Ovations Theatre hits another one out of the park with their production of Hairspray, Jr. performed entirely by 3rd through 9th graders. With a book by Marc O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, music my Marc...

Conversations with Five Makers of ‘Forgotten Kingdoms’ at Rorschach Theatre

RANDY BAKER, Playwright Michael: Introduce yourself, Rorschach, and the play Forgotten Kingdoms in under 140 characters. Go! No, just kidding…just tell us something about yourself and about this crazy...

Review: ‘Ballet Across America’ at The Kennedy Center Opera House

What does 21st-century ballet look like? For The Kennedy Center’s Ballet Across America program, principle dancer and celeb ballerina Misty Copeland, 34, and 29-year-old New York City Ballet dancer...

Review: ‘Tribute’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

Scottie Templeton is dying. And with that deadly diagnosis, Tribute, by Bernard Slade, now playing at the Greenbelt Arts Center, poignantly considers what’s really important in life and the...

Review: ‘In the Heights’ (Spanish Version) at GALA Hispanic Theatre

Those looking to add “a little bit of cinnamon” to their theatergoing should head to GALA Hispanic Theatre’s current production of In the Heights. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2008 Tony Award-winning musical...

Magic Time!: ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater

Racism, presumed in polite circles to be no laughing matter, gets a hilariously smart deconstruction in Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People. Arena Stage has given this 2016 play its DC premiere in a nifty...

Who’s in Town?: Luis Salgado, Director and Choreographer of GALA Theatre’s Spanish Language ‘In the Heights’

¡No pare, sigue, sigue! Hamilton lovers rejoice! Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2008 Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights premieres tonight at GALA Hispanic Theatre in the show’s first Spanish-language...

Review: ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage

As soon as the lights come up on Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People, now playing at Arena’s Kreeger Theater, the focus is clear. Or is it? Are four really “smart” people, who are only trying to save the...

My Battle with ALS and My Interview on Fox 5 DC Which Aired Last Night

I was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) 2 months ago. Since then my world has been turned upside down. I have accepted the grim news that this is one battle I might not win because there is...

Interview: A Q & A with Laurel Mill Playhouse’s ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ Producer and Cast: Part One: Maureen Rogers and Tania Rosa Bindhoff-Frieswyk

Laurel Mill Playhouse is presenting Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore from April 28-May 21, 2017 at the Laurel Mill Playhouse, 508 Main Street, Laurel MD. H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a...