Mosaic Theater

Report: ‘Yoga Play’ at Mosaic Theater Company Workshop Series

Yoga Play, a new work by Dipika Guha, was presented as part of Mosaic Theater Company’s 2018 Workshop Series at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on Monday, January 29th. The play was commissioned and...

Erika Rose Lights Up the Stage in ‘Queens Girl in Africa’ (Women’s Voices Theater Festival)

It’s no coincidence that Queens Girl in Africa—Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ semi-autobiographical one-woman play now at Mosaic Theater Company of DC—was chosen to kick off the Women’s Voices Theater...

Magic Time!: “Claim All of Your Selves”: Caleen Sinnette Jennings on Her ‘Queens Girl’ Plays (Womens’ Voices Theater Festival Productions)

Erika Rose’s performance in Queens Girl in Africa is awesome to behold. She plays the playwright’s teenage self, named Jackie, plus her parents, school friends, and others, with an incandescence that...

Review: ‘Queens Girl in Africa’ at Mosaic Theater Company (Women’s Voices Theater Festival Production)

Playwright Caleen Sinnette Jennings serves up an ace with the world premiere of Queens Girl in Africa – a riveting, semi-autobiographical account of her experience living in Ibadan, Nigeria in the...

Magic Time!: ‘The Birds and the Bees: Unabridged’ at Mosaic Theater Company

“Let’s rethink sex” has suddenly become a thing. Well, not suddenly maybe. But it certainly has new pertinence in this era of full-frontal disclosure. Which made the themes of The Birds and the Bees:...

Magic Time!: Life Lessons of ‘The Real Americans’: A Q&A with Playwright-Performer Dan Hoyle

Dan Hoyle’s extraordinary solo show The Real Americans is based on his travels through small-town America and the folks he met, many of them part of Trump’s so-called base. When I reviewed the show, I...

Review: ‘Draw the Circle’ at Mosaic Theater Company

Draw the Circle is no ordinary one-man show. Nor is it an ordinary autobiographical play. Because Mashuq Mushtaq Deen—its transgender playwright and solo performer—has a singularly fascinating life...

Interview: Beyond ‘Seinfeld,’ Brian George Moves From Sitcom to Stage in ‘Vicuña’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Chances are you’ve seen him before, either as an angry Pakistani cook on Seinfeld or a benign Indian doctor on The Big Bang Theory. That’s because Brian George – the character actor now dazzling...

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...

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: ‘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...

News: Two Years After Launching Mosaic, Ari Roth Reflects

This piece, “Two Years After Launching Mosaic, Ari Roth Reflects” by Marilyn Millstone was originally published on HowlRound, a knowledge commons by and for the theatre community, on September 12,...

Page-to-Stage New Play Festival: ‘Queens Girl in Africa’ at Mosaic Theater

Any doubts about the future of the American Theatre were put firmly to rest on Labor Day Weekend, when more than 60 DC-area companies presented excerpts from some of their newest plays at The Kennedy...

Spine: Bessie Smith and ‘The Devil’s Music’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Fresh from World War I and a devastated Europe, The Roaring Twenties indeed roared across America. In the midst of a raging economic boom fueled in no small part by the advent of film and radio,...

Review: ‘The Devil’s Music’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

It’s no coincidence that The Devil’s Music – the show that celebrates the life and song of Bessie Smith – blew into Washington’s bustling H Street district at roughly the same time that Hurricane...

Magic Time!: ‘The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith’ at Mosaic Theater Company

In what is surely the most badass, take-no-prisoners performance by a musical artist on a DC stage in recent memory, Miche Braden brings her sensational star turn as Bessie Smith to H Street, belting...

Magic Time!: ‘The Return’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Inside this taut and provocative two-character play—which vividly evokes the political tension between the Israeli state and its Palestinian citizens—there is a startling sex scene, one that vividly...

Interview: Playwrights Hanna Eady and Edward Mast on ‘The Return,’ Now in US Premiere at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Seeing The Return – the stunning new play that has just burst upon the stage at Mosaic Theater Company of DC – is like watching fireworks up close. In fact, the heat from this drama is so intense that...

Review: ‘The Return’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC, Part of the 2017 Voice From a Changing Middle East Festival

Mosaic Theatre Company of DC concluded their 2017 season with a riveting, deeply provocative examination of a State’s National Security apparatus on dissident individuals living and loving beneath it....

Review: ‘Ulysses on Bottles’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Near the beginning of this transporting play, the actor Sarah Marshall, wearing a man-tailored white suit, unrolls a map of Gaza and lays it on the floor. She then dumps onto it 200 tiny plastic toy...

Spine: ‘Ulysses on Bottles’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC, Part of the 2017 Voice From a Changing Middle East Festival

Last night, Gilad Evron’s Ulysses on Bottles opened the Mosaic Theater Company’s 2017 Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival. Described as an allegory, Evron’s Ulysses challenges contemporary...

Magic Time!: Homoeroticism and the Mother in ‘Blood Knot’: A Q&A with Director Joy Zinoman

Until I saw Blood Knot at Mosaic Theater Company, I knew the work of Director Joy Zinoman only by reputation. I had come to her legend late. And the production blew me away. Set in apartheid South...

Spine: ‘A Human Being Died That Night’ at Mosaic Theater Company

About midway through Mosaic Theater’s A Human Being Died That Night, Eugene de Kock, serving two life sentences for murder and assassination, turns to his interviewer, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, and...

Review: ‘A Human Being Died That Night’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

There are moments in this gripping, challenging, and deeply thought-provoking drama when the smallest of gestures by the two actors say what the play is about more than words can. A Human Being Died...

Review: ‘Blood Knot’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

South African playwright Athol Fugard’s early masterpiece, Blood Knot, has finally returned to DC. And, judging by the roaring ovation on opening night, those who can see this production during its...

The 2017 Helen Hayes Award Nominations To Be Announced Tonight/A Look Back at The 2016 Recipients

The 2017 Helen Hayes Awards nominations will be announced TONIGHT during a festive gathering beginning at 7 pm on Monday, February 6, 2017, in the Helen Hayes Gallery of Washington’s historic National...

Interview: Co-Directors Serge Seiden and Vaughn Ryan Midder on ‘Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies,’ Now in World Premiere at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

I first encountered Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies five months ago, when it was presented at The Kennedy Center’s Page-to-Stage Festival. Hearing the play at that first public reading was an...

Review: ‘Hooded, Or Being Black for Dummies’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

There is a laugh track with this show. As in a prerecorded TV sitcom where the studio audience was cued to be amused, there’s an overhead LAUGH sign that flashes intermittently accompanied by canned...

‘Charm’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Just opened at Mosaic Theater Company in a thrilling and vibrant production directed by Natsu Onoda Power is a play that puts on stage some of what National Geographic just called the gender...

Spine: ‘Charm’ at the Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Philip Dawkins’ Charm takes on a high order: it wants to charm you. And to do that its lead character, Mama, has to be more than charming. She has to charm your disbelief, your cynical 21st century...

Review: ‘Charm’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

If you think teaching manners to a group of outcast runaways sounds like a joke—ridiculous at best, and irrelevant or possibly dangerous at worst—then think again. Because the idea of offering lessons...

‘Take A Bow!’ Part 1: The Staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ DC/MD/VA Fall 2016 Favorite Performances/Directors/Designers

Here is the staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ first series of ‘Take A Bow!’ Fall 2016 honorees: ____ Edwin Aparicio, as Choreographer, Flamenco Dancer, and Co-Director of Salvador, at GALA Hispanic...

Call for Proposals for the 2017-2018 Theater Season at the Arts Barn

Arts on the Green, the City of Gaithersburg’s home for the performing and visual arts which includes the Kentland’s Mansion and Arts Barn, is now soliciting production proposals for the theater season...

Meet the Cast of Avant Bard’s ‘TAME.’ Part 4: Madeline Burrows

In Part 4 of a series of interviews with the cast of Avant Bard’s production of TAME., meet Madeline Burrows. Joel: Where have local audiences seen you perform recently on stage? Madeline: Most...

Magic Time! ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company

This beautiful play about black teenagers with bleak futures left me with such a melancholy sadness that two days later (on what was then Election Day), it had not gone away. I share that not to keep...

Spine: ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company

America is but an expensive iPhone. If you’ve got that, and its Pink with a sexy ringtone, then you’re in, as in the “in” crowd. Now, all you need is a baby. Or so seems the mind-set of Margie,...

Review: ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Milk Like Sugar, the Obie Award-winning play that just opened at Mosaic Theater Company of DC, starts off as badass comedy, the kind where the word “shit”—repeated like an “amen” at the end of each...

Craig Wallace on Playing Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong in ‘Satchmo at the Waldorf’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

He is one of my favorite actors and now Craig Wallace has received rave reviews and standing ovations for his riveting and tour de force performance as Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong in Terry Teachout’s...

Page-to-Stage New Play Festival: ‘Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Mosaic Theater Company of DC Unveils Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies. Full Production Set for World Premiere in January 2017 One of the most highly anticipated new plays of the 2016-17...

In the Moment: ‘Satchmo at the Waldorf’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Satchmo at the Waldorf, at Mosaic Theater Company of DC, is not timid. Nor should it be. With a script by Wall Street Journal arts critic Terry Teachout, the strong hand of Eleanor Holdridge guiding...

In the Moment: An Interview With Rick Davis on ‘Arts By George!’ on Saturday, September 24, 2016 at George Mason University’s Center for The Arts

These are times of increasing emphasis on STEM as the seemingly set future direction for American students; when there is serious discussion that college bound students and their parents be presented...

Magic Time! ‘Satchmo at the Waldorf’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

It is the morning after I saw a compelling and telling bioplay about Louis Armstrong just opened at Mosaic Theater Company, Terry Teachout’s Satchmo at the Waldorf. I have my earbuds in; I’m logged...

Review: ‘Satchmo at the Waldorf’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

It’s poignant and painful, funny and moving. Yet most of all, Satchmo at the Waldorf—the beautifully-wrought one-man show that opened to a packed house Monday night—is vastly entertaining. As such,...

Meet the Cast of Hard Bargain’s ‘Radio Golf’: Part 2: Baakari Wilder

In Part 2 of interviews with the cast of Hard Bargain Players’ Radio Golf, meet Baakari Wilder. Joel: Please tell our readers where they may have seen you appear on our local stages and the roles you...

2016 ‘Page-to-Stage’ Schedule for September 3-5, 2016 at The Kennedy Center

The 15th Annual Page-to-Stage New Play Festival Schedule Saturday, September 3 to Monday, September 5, 2016 PERFORMANCE CALENDAR-UPDATED 8/19/16 SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2016 11 AM–12:20 PM ISRAELI...

Magic Time! Theater Against Type: A Q&A With Actors Jeremy Keith Hunter and Shravan Amin About Performing ‘When January Feels Like Summer’

After I saw When January Feels Like Summer—Cori Thomas’s counter-stereotypical romantic comedy at Mosaic Theater Company—I found myself thinking back to what happens between two particular characters....

Review: ‘When January Feels Like Summer’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

The weather, like the five characters in Cori Thomas’ tender romantic comedy When January Feels Like Summer, is in crisis. Attribute the unpredictable climate to global warming, but it’s nothing a...

Magic Time! ‘When January Feels Like Summer’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Mosaic Theater Company of DC tops off its prodigious first season with an improbably romantic comedy by Liberian-American playwright Cori Thomas. It’s about people from different cultures who you...

Spine: Becoming Leila Buck’s ‘Hkeelee’ at Mosaic Theater Company

In The Protean Self, Robert Jay Lifton explores the wonders of human resilience in times of profound disturbance and change. In Hkeelee (Talk to Me), a theatrical memoir of sorts, writer and performer...

‘Talking Shop and Taking Stock With Ari Roth’ by John Stoltenberg and David Siegel

There was a buzz of high energy as we walked into Ari Roth’s office at the Atlas Performing Arts Center to meet with the Founding Artistic Director of Mosaic Theater Company of DC. We wanted to talk...