Washington DC

Rep Stage radio play ‘Ghost/Writer’ is some mind-blowing writing

Playwright Dane Figueroa Edidi mixes romance and vengeance and packs volumes of truth into stunning poetic dialog.

Best Medicine Rep to go live in June with dark vax comedy ‘Variant Strains’

“It’s hilariously sinister,” says Playwright John Morogiello, “kind of like Mamet meets Shaw meets me.”

Monumental adopts landmark policy against discrimination and harassment

Monumental Theatre Company takes “a definitive, proactive step to empower its community members and create a culture of safety, equity, and inclusivity.”

NextStop’s ‘First Date’ is a show to fall in love with

This small show with a big heart is smart, funny, and moving.

Dane Figueroa Edidi’s ‘Ghost/Writer’ to premiere as Rep Stage radio play

A virtual visit to the intersections of race and gender and the ghosts of the past.

In a child’s voice, a magical and moving portrait of the South from Round House

Beth Hylton solos as a fourth-grader in Lucy Alibar’s poetic and comic ‘Throw Me on the Burnpile and Light Me Up.’

Olney’s outdoor summer programming to uphold its anti-racism pledge

Ten weeks of live performance—much of it free—curated by Olney Theatre Center’s new BIPOC artist advocate, Kevin McAllister.

Strathmore announces new open-air summer concert series

Full season of concerts kicks off at the new Patio Stage on the Music Center’s Trawick Terrace.

Love-triangle comedy by Shaw coming next from Washington Stage Guild

The Washington Stage Guild continues its series of online presentations with a delectable Shavian bon bon to whet audience appetites for a return to in-person production in the fall. Following...

All the tuneful fun of ‘Urinetown’ done with puppets by Landless Theatre

If there was ever a Broadway show that could be done justice as a puppet musical melodrama, it’s Urinetown. The script and songs of this beloved cult musical are the same. The only difference in this...

A daughter’s family dramas drive a hilarious and moving ‘2.5 Minute Ride’

“2.5 minutes is a really long time on a roller coaster if you are having a good time. If you think it’s killing your father it’s a really, really long time.” —Lisa Kron in 2.5 Minute Ride The first of...

Uplifting music we need right now, from the APO and a starry cast

DC’s own American Pops Orchestra (APO), under the baton of Maestro Luke Frazier, will bring to the nation a program of musical uplift, joy, and comfort that could not be more pitch perfect for these...

‘Blindness’ in darkness at Shakespeare is a brilliant beacon of theater

On this Kentucky Derby weekend, wondering what theatrical “horse” will nose ahead and augur well for a new world of theater when we can emerge from the pandemic, I’m placing my bet on Blindness at...

Making actor-centric art, new Virtual Repertory Theater Collective goes ‘Wilde’

“I wanted to give actors the chance to have a real creative say.” —Founding Artistic Director Kari Kitts

Poignant memories of love in Signature’s vibrant ‘Midnight at The Never Get’

In the hidden back room of a 1960s Greenwich Village bar is the stage for a past, hidden love at the center of Midnight at The Never Get now streaming from Signature Theatre. Trevor, a colorful and...

GALA to stage sci-fi Latino sendup of anti-immigrant bias

José Torres-Tama performs his solo show ‘Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers’ live, May 14 and 15.

Solas Nua brings back live theater with ‘In the Middle of the Fields’ in a park

Solas Nua, DC’s award-winning Irish arts organization, stages an outdoor, live theater production May 20 to June 12, 2021. Recognized for the excellence of its site-specific work, Solas Nua will mount...

Virtual musical from NextStop Theatre to poke fun at dating game

A musical comedy about two young singles who have been set up on a blind date and are having dinner in a restaurant. What could possibly be more exciting after the past year? As its first full-scale...

Three emerging theater artists confront whitewashing of Black stories

While our country was taking a collective sigh of relief after the guilty verdicts convicting George Floyd’s murderer last week, systemic racism continued to flaunt itself in our society. Manifesting...

Live at last at GALA, a boldly comic ‘Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter’

Trudging up the two flights from the rainy street-level pavement to GALA Hispanic Theatre’s auditorium entrance felt like a pilgrimage. (Yes, I could have taken the elevator, but who would have wanted...

An outlawed gay love gets set to music in ‘Midnight at The Never Get’

Midnight at The Never Get—the Off-Broadway smash hit and third production in the Signature Features 2021 Season—will stream April 30 through June 21, 2021, in HD on Marquee TV. With book, music, and...

A summer of live performances coming from American Shakespeare Center

American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia, will reopen in May 2021 with a repertory season of three Shakespeare classics. With programming selected, cast and directed by a cohort of actor...

Theater Alliance draws together four dramas from a disparate District

Continuing a season of online content, Theater Alliance presents the world premiere of City in Transition: The Quadrant Series. The full-length evening of digital theater, drawing inspiration from...

Brave Soul Collective to celebrate 15 years of Black Queer artistry

Local HIV/AIDS outreach and arts organization Brave Soul Collective (BSC) kicks off its 15th year and virtual performance season with BSCFifteen, a week-long artist residency at The Kennedy Center...

In ‘Blindness’ at STC, the audience is live, with not an actor in sight

Shakespeare Theatre Company will open the doors of Sidney Harman Hall for the first time in over a year for the Donmar Warehouse’s sound and light installation Blindness. Prior to ReOpen DC’s...

A white cop’s shots at Black man echo through ‘Until the Flood’ at Studio

Dael Orlandersmith’s Until the Flood, now an on-demand production from Studio Theatre, brings the viewer into the conversation. You couldn’t be more active as a listener in this simple, seamless...

In brilliant ‘Children of Medea,’ a Korean American girl hopes to cope

Conformity can be difficult for some of us at the best of times. But it is especially difficult in adolescence for a girl. Cynthia, 17, the main character in Sue Jin Song’s brilliant Children of...

A prickly take on marriage rocks ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’ at Silver Spring Stage

Lucas Hnath’s sequel to Ibsen’s classic raises thoughtful contemporary questions.

The Reclamation Project holds space to heal past harm in theater

The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political uprisings resulting from the anti-Black violence that killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade last year (as well as the...

In eye-opening ‘The Jam: Only Child,’ a son and grandson tells it like it was

In The Jam: Only Child — now streaming on demand from Signature Theatre — Tony Award nominee Daniel J. Watts recounts his life as the only child of a single mother: a latchkey kid who grows up with...

Woolly’s powerful father-son convo ‘This Is Who I Am’ in rerun

(This review, first published December 14, 2020, was written about the original livestream run. The production is now streaming on demand through April 25, 2021.) Woolly Mammoth’s production of This...

A Chekhov trio from Workhouse Arts is an intellectual tickle

Chekhov is not a feel-good story teller. His plays tell a brutal truth about people: their motivations, their weaknesses, and their duplicity. The Workhouse Arts Center is currently streaming Chekhov...

A fresh look at a hookup in ‘Frankie and Johnny’ from MetroStage

MetroStage continues its exploration of the works of the late multi-Tony Award winning playwright Terrence McNally with a virtual reading of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. Directed by Stefan...

KenCen puts on puppet show and kids try it at home

I had the opportunity to watch Leonardo and Sam: The Terrible Monster and the Most Scaredy-Cat Kid in the Whole World, Respectively with my daughters (aged 7 and 9). The show is adapted from two Mo...

Tuyet Thi Pham reclaims her family origin story in ‘Motherland’ at Atlas

What can be discovered if we find the time and ability to have a conversation with our parents about the time before we existed? Think of what we might learn. Think of the unremembered or...

Audrey Cefaly’s ‘Maytag Virgin’ is a joy to see at Colonial Players of Annapolis

Maytag Virgin is Colonial Players of Annapolis’s first show since the pandemic forced theaters to close. Directed by Edd Miller, it is offered livestreamed as well as to limited, masked, and...

Live onstage again: a coming-of-age comedy at GALA Hispanic Theatre

Having implemented strict safety precautions in keeping with the Mayor’s plan, GALA Hispanic Theatre reopens its 45th-anniversary season live with Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (Tía Julia y el...

Shots from the vaccination site at Arena

Arena Stage has partnered with DC Health and MedStar Health to support and provide an accessible and safe location to help steadily vaccinate DC residents. The site will operate Thursdays to Sundays...

A personal relationship to America’s racial reckoning wraps up Arena Riffs

A More Perfect Union—a new concept-album-inspired music piece written and conceived by award-winning composer and lyricist Rona Siddiqui (Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfgan, One Good Day)—will be the...

Landless Theatre Company tries its hands at a sock puppet ‘Urinetown’

Pandemic life may have shut down live theater, but DC’s Landless Theatre Company has always had a knack for making lemonade out of lemons. They found their own digital theater solution hiding in the...

A theater fan tests Synetic’s impressive new streaming service

The award-winning Synetic Theater is known for innovative interpretations of classic stories, most notably for their Wordless Shakespeare adaptations. As theaters pivoted to virtual performances and...

Black actors face grief of pandemic in hip-hop musical from Arena

Arena Stage is now streaming the second installment in its Arena Riffs series: a pandemic-era hip-hop musical written, directed, and performed by award-winning playwright, director and, actor...

‘A Boy and His Soul,’ heartwarming and buoyant, from Round House

Playwright Colman Domingo has no time for stereotypes. A Boy and His Soul, his one-man, autobiographical play, is a living, breathing example of real life, real love, and real Black experience. In an...

Woolly’s nifty ‘Rich Kids’ twits excess, whizzes by

You got a fast car I want a ticket to anywhere Maybe we make a deal Maybe together we can get somewhere Any place is better… Is it fast enough so we can fly away?… Leave tonight or live and die this...

How Asolo Rep has weathered COVID and committed to BIPOC representation

As the run of Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer came to a rousing close on March 3, 2021, Artistic Director Michael Donald Edwards and Managing Director Linda DiGabriele made themselves...

Young CityDance Conservatory Dancers win highest honors

CityDance School & Conservatory received the Outstanding School Award at the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) Boston Regional Semi-finals March 19 – 21, 2021, at the Hanover Theatre in Worcester, MA....

Woolly Mammoth begins digital spring with a social-media show

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company announces its digital spring line-up that features an interactive and innovative play that repurposes social media; the return of two Woolly on Demand productions; an...

Trans Lives and Theater as Change Agent: A Q&A with Dane Figueroa Edidi and Natsu Onoda Power

In observance of the the 12th annual International Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31, 2021), we republish this in-depth conversation with two leading lights in DC-area theater. —John...

Studio Theatre’s raw, audacious ‘Cock’ is one big deal

Set me free why don’t cha babe Get out my life why don’t cha babe ‘Cause you don’t really love me You just keep me hangin’ on These unflinching lyrics floated through my brain as I took in Studio...

One-woman ‘Children of Medea’ to power Electric Impulses at Constellation

Constellation Theatre Company kicks off Season 14: Electric Impulses with Sue Jin Song’s powerful one-woman show, Children of Medea. The production will be fully staged and filmed at CulturalDC’s...