Kennedy Center

An upcoming auction of ‘Stage & Screen’ memorabilia to benefit The Actors Fund

In partnership with two-time Tony Award-winning actress Christine Baranski and Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers, The Actors Fund – providing human services for the performing arts and entertainment...

Roaring back: Noseda returns to lead NSO in four filmed concerts

Gianandrea Noseda has returned to the podium of his beloved National Symphony Orchestra, awakening the sleeping giant that is the sound he has crafted as the ensemble’s music director since the...

Throughout the Broadway shutdown, ‘Hamilton’ continues to inspire

Although, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, live performances with an in-person audience at Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre have been shut down for more than a year, since March 12, 2020,...

In Matthew Bourne’s ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the lovers are teens in juvey

“For never was there a tale of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” Who doesn’t know the tragic ending of star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet? Yet we continue to be besotted by the...

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to play composers silenced by Nazis

Four composers who died in Nazi concentration camps are known to have written entire compositions while imprisoned there, and the Washington–Baltimore region deserves its share of credit in bringing...

Essential Theatre to mark MLK Jr. Day with Rosa Parks play

In celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday, The Essential Theatre Performances in Cyberspace will present Rosa Parks: Such a Time. Written and performed by Gwendolyn Briley-Strand,...

Taylor Mac puts on the glitz in ‘Holiday Sauce’ on demand

Taylor Mac is an acquired bad taste, and fans who remember fondly Taylor Mac’s over-the-top Holiday Sauce—which played live one-night-only last year at The Kennedy Center—will be gladdened to know a...

COVID cancelations to cost Kennedy Center over $80 million

Responding to the mounting COVID-19 pandemic, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has canceled all previously scheduled programs through April 25, 2021. Additionally, Washington...

Opera Lafayette takes a French comic classic to the Old West

Take any decent road trip through the American West and you’re bound to pass half a dozen old opera houses in varying states of disrepair, or repair — if there happens to be a local renaissance...

How the Kennedy Center is keeping live performance alive (cautiously)

Update November 18, 2020: COVID cancelations to cost Kennedy Center over $80 million Scheduled performances through April 25 are off; Broadway musical tours are postponed; Kennedy Center Honors are...

Next Ice Age dancers carve out haunting moves

Looking for something really cool to do this Halloween weekend? Check out The Next Ice Age (NIA), an amazing ice dancing troupe that will provide both tricks and treats. The company performs its...

If you missed ‘What the Constitution Means to Me,’ now’s your chance

This tense election season has been made all the more nerve-wracking by our president’s persistent dissing of the Constitution he swore to uphold. Short of a landslide shellacking, Heidi Shreck’s What...

The new bio ‘Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm, and Race’ recounts the life and times of an American music legend

Authors and music specialists Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom present a densely packed, meticulously researched, and painstakingly incisive portrait of a jazz icon and his times in their recently...

Vanessa Williams and Renée Fleming sing in a new era at the Kennedy Center

It goes without saying that things haven’t quite gone as planned this year in the DC performing arts scene. The recent pandemic shuttered many of the region’s stalwart venues in March and continues to...

Tony-winner John Lloyd Young of ‘Jersey Boys’ livestreams the songs of Broadway from Las Vegas

UPDATE: Following the success of his October livestream concert discussed below, it was just announced that John Lloyd Young will return to The Space, Las Vegas with John Lloyd Young’s Vegas Holiday...

New study: Theatergoers are averse to returning but woke to racism

Shugoll Research, a national marketing research company in Bethesda, Maryland, has released findings from a Wave 2 online survey it conducted with 743 DC-area theatergoers about three pressing areas...

Weekend update: New releases of songs and stories

This weekend’s top online offerings include a new album release of a cabaret concert from a favorite downtown nightclub, a virtual variety show featuring a roster of luminaries from the New York...

The Kennedy Center introduces multiple social impact initiatives

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has recently revealed a plan for several ongoing and long-term social impact initiatives—and the urgency and importance of this work has only grown...

Exploring Sondheim’s ‘Finishing the Hat’ on ‘Poetry in America’ with The Sheen Center

To continue this year’s milestone celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday, Off-Broadway’s The Sheen Center is teaming up with Poetry in America – a new series produced by Verse Video...

Washington Performing Arts does pandemic planning with patron feedback

Better days may be coming. Some restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic may be easing. But there is not yet a definitive date when DMV performing arts venues might reopen across three different...

Lessons in creative coping during COVID-19: Bowie State University theater and dance faculty tell how it’s going

With university campuses closed because of COVID-19, how is student education continuing forward? This is a critical question, especially for higher education theater and dance departments—where...

‘Hamilton’ and other shows postponed as Kennedy Center delays re-opening through August 9

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced today the postponement of all scheduled ticketed performances through August 9, 2020, due to the ongoing effects of COVID–19. The Center’s...

Artists Who Inspire! #5: Patrick Flynn

Playwright Patrick Flynn was on a roll before Coronavirus brought American theater to a standstill. His adaptation of The Velveteen Rabbit, produced by Adventure Theatre MTC, earned him a 2019 Helen...

The Kennedy Center and NSO reach new agreement in the face of COVID-19

After several days of collaborative discussions, Kennedy Center leadership and the musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) have reached a new agreement, a significant step in stabilizing...

A new pocket anthology of ‘Sondheim: Lyrics’ to commemorate his 90th birthday

This month marked the 90th birthday of Broadway icon Stephen Sondheim (b. March 22, 1930, NYC). The milestone in the life of the eight-time Tony award-winning composer and lyricist of the stage and...

Financial help for theaters and individuals to offset COVID-19 losses

During these difficult, uncertain times of the COVID-19 pandemic, we at DCMTA want to inform the theater community about financial relief that becomes available to nonprofits and individuals in the...

Artists Who Inspire #1: Tia Shearer Bassett

Welcome to the first installment of Artists Who Inspire! During this unprecedented shutdown of live theater, DCMTA will use this space to lift up local theater artists who are finding ways to remain...

Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence Mo Willems to host ‘Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems’

(WASHINGTON)— The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ first-ever Education Artist-in-Residence, Emmy Award®–winning writer and New York Times best-selling author and illustrator Mo...

Fearless feminist dance takes the stage in Martha Graham Dance Company’s ‘The EVE Project’

On the eve of the day we learned that we still can’t elect a woman as qualified as Elizabeth Warren president, the Martha Graham Dance Company returned to the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater with...

WNO’s ‘Don Giovanni’ signals the cultural and healing power of Washington’s arts scene

The Washington National Opera’s current production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni confirms two important ideas. The first is that while opera is most effective when it entertains, its intrinsic value is...

New theater company in Takoma Park announces inaugural season and open auditions

There’s a new theater in town. Encore Theater Company, a new nonprofit theater based in the Takoma Park community, has announced its inaugural season. The 2020/21 season will feature two intimate,...

J’Nai Bridges’ debut in ‘Samson and Delilah’ is a dream come true

When J’Nai Bridges made her triumphant debut in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah Sunday night, it was the fulfillment of a dream. The young mezzo-soprano’s star has been rapidly rising — this...

Broadway phenom Norm Lewis delivers at the Kennedy Center

Norm Lewis is an icon. This is an indisputable fact. There are few others who have made such an impact on the way we view certain roles. His impressive bio includes such credits as the first African...

Washington National Opera stages a vocally stirring, visually arresting ‘Samson and Delilah’ at The Kennedy Center

Tales of wars, slaughters, betrayals, competing tribes and religions, and a few dominant women make the Book of Judges one of the more colorful segments of the Hebrew Bible. Camille Saint-Saëns and...

Washington Performing Arts and Alfred Street Baptist Church present reverent evening of musical performance with ‘I Am a Man’ at The Kennedy Center

A reverently curated evening by the Artistic Director of Washington Performing Arts’ Men and Women of the Gospel Choir, Theodore Thorpe III, I am a Man: Reclaiming Brilliance in the Midst of...

Opera Lafayette debuts sophisticated recreation of Beethoven’s ‘Leonore (1805)’

Thanks in part to the bold addition of a missing tenor aria, Opera Lafayette’s elegant production of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leonore (1805), last night at The Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater,...

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with Broadway’s Mauricio Martinez

A native of Monterrey, Mexico, and resident of New York City, Mauricio Martinez’s ongoing “fifteen minutes of fame” have spread like wildfire throughout his native country and the US with his...

NSO: Noseda’s homecoming mints the ‘NSO sound’ in spectacular Mahler’s Fifth Symphony

Even though being a classical music reviewer often feels like a gig too good to be true, I don’t recall ever forgetting my purpose for attending a performance. There’s a first for everything, however,...

West-Eastern Divan Ensemble’s first American tour features Kennedy Center performance

The world is so full of intractable political and cultural issues, with deep chasms making understanding, let alone peace, seem so far away. But the venerable Washington Performing Arts (WPA)...

Megan Hilty and Cheyenne Jackson in NSO Pops: Broadway and Beyond at the Kennedy Center

If your ideal Valentine’s date is cheerful, charming, and looks fantastic in formal wear, then get thee to the Kennedy Center to spend an evening with Megan Hilty and Cheyenne Jackson. The Broadway,...

‘Heroine’ at The Kennedy Center tells the searing true story of a woman’s rape in the U.S. Army

Post-Play Palaver is an occasional series of conversations between DC Theater Arts writers who saw the same performance, got really into talking about it, and decided to continue their exchange in...

The power of romantic love endures in American Ballet Theatre’s ‘Giselle’

After almost two centuries of gracing the ballet world, American Ballet Theatre’s Giselle, sometimes called the Hamlet of ballet, still has the redemptive power to transform a story of deception and...

Megan Hilty on her upcoming Kennedy Center concert, ‘Smash,’ and love

Football and musicals rarely overlap, but it was eight years ago this month – in the coveted slot right after the 2012 Super Bowl – that Smash, the NBC series about developing a Broadway musical,...

Pianist Ahmad Jamal celebrates seven decades of playing ‘American Classical Music’ in Kennedy Center performance

Nothing speaks louder about a musician’s accomplishments than receiving a standing ovation and cheers from the audience before he plays a single note. NEA Jazz Master and recipient of the Officer de...

Cliff Cardinal’s solo ‘Huff’ at Kennedy Center offers a theatrical high

At the start of this brave performance, we see on a dark stage a young man who is making a suicide attempt. He is wearing cargo pants, a tee, and sneaks and has a food-storage bag over his head. The...

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater kicks off a week long run at the Kennedy Center

Looking for a respite from the political chaos that surrounds us? Care to leave your troubles behind? How about an escape to the world of energizing, uplifting dance? Catch America’s favorite dance...

Visionary Bill T. Jones creates a community in ‘What Problem?’ at George Mason University

Known internationally as a visionary man of the theater, Bill T. Jones has built a reputation over the past 38 years for his ability to visualize the human condition through choreography and dance....

‘Grey Rock’ at the Kennedy Center spotlights the extraordinary in the ordinary

In Grey Rock, Playwright-Director Amir Nizar Zuabi invites us into the home of an ordinary Palestinian family in a small West Bank village. We soon recognize the extraordinary in the ordinary — the...

‘Next to Normal’ makes a triumphant DC return at the Kennedy Center

In 2020, isn’t all of DC just trying to get by with something “next” to normal? We’re going about our daily lives while there’s an impeachment trial going on. A foreign leader was recently...

The Kennedy Center’s Alicia Adams on playwright Femi Osofisan’s ‘Not All Canoes Sail Back Home’ and the 2020 ‘Boundless: Africa’ series

There was revolution in the air. Decolonization of Africa was taking shape. The world was on fire. And The Kennedy Center’s World Stages will be providing audiences a taste of those times. “The World...