Arena Stage

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...

2019 Capital Fringe Applications Now Open!

Applications are now open for the 2019 Capital Fringe Festival! See below for application details. OPTION 1: FRINGE RUN VENUE Participation in the Fringe Festival is an opportunity for you to develop...

The American Pops Orchestra ‘You’ve Got a Friend: A Singer-Songwriter Celebration’ at Arena Stage

The American Pops Orchestra kicked off its fourth season with You’ve Got a Friend: A Singer-Songwriter Celebration featuring a diverse lineup of local and national talent at Arena Stage. Maestro Luke...

Review: ‘Turn Me Loose’ at Arena Stage

Long before Hannah Gadsby premiered her anti-comedy stand-up special Nanette, in which she lambasts the sexist entertainment industry and forces audiences to reckon with their own complicity, there...

Magic Time!: ‘Dave’ at Arena Stage

You know those big live TV versions of blockbuster musicals that get broadcast decades after the show was a hit on the stage? Like, not until generations have come and gone? Well in the case of Dave,...

Review: ‘Dave’ at Arena Stage

The real news getting you down? Do you have a plentitude of cares and woes hanging over your head? Are you an addicted MSNBC watcher who wants to get off the couch and away from the cell for a few...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘up your aesthetic’

Although it is aesthetically pleasing—beautifully designed and performed—up your aesthetic has nothing to do with aesthetics, per se. Instead, the production—which opened at the Blind Whino SW Arts...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Perfecting the Kiss’

This comedy about bad theater and inappropriate backstage behavior is just gobsmacking good. Laugh-a-minute is an underestimation. Don’t miss it. Perfecting the Kiss, a production from New York...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Chlamydia dell’Arte: MORE Sex-Ed Burlesque’

by Jill Kyle-Keith Two unconventional beauties take us on a wild ride through sex, politics, and the politics of sex. As the title implies, Chlamydia dell’Arte is a sort-of burlesque, with a sort-of...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘How’s That Workin’ Out For Ya?’

By Ellie Milewski Four intelligent and gifted female playwrights/directors, three bold female actors and their marvelous male partner in crime, and a wonderful crew, walk into Arena Stage to perform...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘God is Dead and April is Getting Married’

God is Dead and April is Getting Married: A show title that promises a lot and absolutely delivers. Written by A. A. Brenner, this Capital Fringe jewel opens with El (Anna Shafer) and Elliot (Colton...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War’

2000FeetUp Theatre Company is a new Iranian-Canadian theatre helmed by director Siavash Shabanpour. The company is based in Toronto and has brought Romanian-French playwright Matei Visniec’s 1997 work...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Dragon Hunting Support Group’

The theater students at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD, are a plucky bunch. When the school had no funds for production, they organized as a club and got a budget from the Student...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘A Slow Bullet’

I am so, so glad we’re finally talking about mental illness and suicide. According to the most recent CDC statistic, there are 800,000 suicides a year in the United States alone (that’s 123 people a...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Spook’

Actor-Writer-Revolutionary Meshaun Labrone has done it again. Two years ago he brought back Power! to Fringe. That drama about Stokely Carmichael I called “one of the best-written, best-acted, and...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Deadlie Affairs: Arden of Faversham’ by Guillotine Theatre

Aaaahhh, DC. The theatre town we love to pretend we hate. A city saturated with classically-trained talent whose bread and butter is day-player bits on true crime dramas – the ones I used to...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘O Monsters’

Against a background of black timber walls, a beautiful dark-haired woman stretches out languorously on a table. Dressed in a skimpy black nightgown, she moves like a dancer. On the floor, three...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The City Of…’

By Beatrice Loayza Directed by Patrick Pearson and written by Matthew Capodicasa, The City Of . . . is an ambitious work self-described as inspired by the metaphysical wrestlings of Jorge Luis Borges,...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘America’s Wives’

A main point of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow is that the oppression of people of color in the U.S. cannot be explained as a matter of mean-spirited bigots lashing out at African-Americans or...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Andromeda Breaks’

Andromeda Breaks, written by Stephen Spotswood and directed by Nick Martin, takes the initial form of a police interrogation. At the outset, Andromeda (Billie Krishawn) sits handcuffed to a metal...

Get Ready, DC: The 2018 Capital Fringe Festival Opens This Weekend

Get ready Washington, DC: July is hot and about to get even hotter. The always spicy Capital Fringe Festival opens this weekend, delivering 80-some experimental, mostly self-produced shows to the...

Capital Gazette Shooting Victim Was Also A ‘Humorous, Witty’ D.C. Theater Reviewer

By Rachel Kurzius Wendi Winters was one of five staff members murdered while working at the Capital Gazette newsroom on June 28. But in addition to her thrice-weekly columns as a staff writer for the...

Review: ‘Let’s Misbehave: Cole Porter After Dark’ with The American Pops Orchestra at Arena Stage

What does the American songbook mean to you? For many, I’m sure it brings to mind those delightful tunes of old with their lilting melodies, simple lyrics, and squeaky clean imagery. If you are of...

Review: ‘Snow Child’ at Arena Stage

The Russians have a folktale called Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden). Prominent in the 19th Century, many versions of the Snow Maiden folktale centered around the appearance of a young girl who served as...

From ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Evita’ to ‘Snow Child’ at Arena Stage, Bronx-Born Singer Natalie Toro Has Built a Career Belting Out Broadway Hits (Interview)

When Natalie Toro steps onto the Arena Stage in the world premiere of Snow Child this week, she’ll be adding a whole new role to the worldwide musical repertoire. But while the part is new, the...

Review: ‘Two Trains Running’ at Arena Stage

There’s simplicity in truth. Arena Stage’s Two Trains Running is August Wilson’s simple truth about the African American experience during the 1960s urban renewal of inner-city Pittsburgh. But simple...

Review: ‘Hold These Truths’ at Arena Stage

There is a dramatic moment in Hold These Truths that comes as no surprise yet comes as a heart-stopping shock. We know going in that this moment is going to happen. We know that the U.S. Supreme Court...

Review: ‘The Great Society’ at Arena Stage

Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 margin of victory – nearly 16 million popular votes and a lopsided total of 486 electoral votes – is almost unimaginable today. Armed as well with a 68-32 majority in the Senate,...

Magic Time!: Gloria Steinem Talks About ‘Sovereignty’ at Arena Stage (Women’s Voices Theater Festival)

“What Mary Kathryn Nagle has given us on stage tonight is the history we don’t learn,” said renowned feminist author and activist Gloria Steinem during one of the most buzzed-about talkbacks of the...

Review: ‘The Very Last Days of the First Colored Circus’ at Restoration Stage

Inspired by the lives of his great-great-grandparents Ollie Thomas and Ruby Dyson, playwright Steven A. Butler Jr. brings their legacies to life in The Very Last Days of the First Colored Circus. Set...

Interview: Kyla Garcia on Playing Sarah Ridge Polson in ‘Sovereignty’ at Arena Stage (Women’s Voices Theater Festival)

Kyla Garcia is starring as Sarah Ridge Polson in Sovereignty at Arena Stage. Sovereignty, by Mary Kathryn Nagle, tells two stories. One is of a modern Native woman (played by Garcia) fighting for her...

Review: ‘Sovereignty’ at Arena Stage

Sovereignty, the long-heralded new play by Mary Kathryn Nagle – a member of the Cherokee Nation and one of barely a dozen Native American playwrights writing today – has arrived. Inspired by a Supreme...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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: ‘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...

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...

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: ‘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: ‘The Price’ at Arena Stage

Arthur Miller is best known for his two American classics: Death of a Salesman and All My Sons. American high schoolers still know him for his third significant work, The Crucible. Although The Price,...

Review: ‘Native Gardens’ at Arena Stage

Native Gardens is a bloomin’ hysterical comedy at Arena Stage Need something to boost you up? Perhaps something to make you, temporarily, forget the current political and social climate? Or, the...

Review: ‘Respect! A Tribute to Aretha Franklin’ at the American Pops Orchestra

Five fabulous divas joined the innovative new American Pops Orchestra to celebrate the music of Aretha Franklin at the Arena Stage’s Fichandler Stage on September 16. An energized audience sang,...

Review: The American Pops Orchestra Presents ‘Season 3 Opening Celebration! With Marilyn Maye’ at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater

Luke Frazier, American Pops Orchestra founder and Music Director, kicked off the Orchestra’s third season with a delightful concert featuring acclaimed jazz legend, Marilyn Maye. Maye was backed by a...

Review: ‘The Originalist’ at Arena Stage at The Mead Center for American Theater

The original The Originalist returns to Arena in a much larger house (The Kreeger, not the Kogod Cradle where it debuted in 2015). This is fitting. The play, the performances, and the production are...

2017 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Exit Carolyn’

I love Fringe. And like many theatergoers, I head off each day with tolerance and hope. The tolerance is for shows that are long on ambition, and the hope is for something more. Imagine my surprise at...

DC Mega Hits ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and ‘Come From Away’ Honored at The Tony Awards

DC Mega Hits Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away were honored at last night’s Tony Awards. The shows had sold-out runs at Arena Stage and Ford’s Theatre. Dear Evan Hansen was victorious in six...

Review: ‘All Shook Up’ at Act Two at Levine

Seeing All Shook Up at Act Two at Levine last weekend was like an adventure in time travel. The show, which played for one weekend only, offered a glimpse of a long-ago world—1955, when Elvis Presley...

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,...