Scena Theatre

Scena Theatre’s ‘The Dead’ presents quiet desperation at Christmastime

Based on a renowned short story by James Joyce, The Dead, now being presented by Scena Theatre, is a slice of the lives of polite, quiet desperation lived by genteel middle-class Dubliners in the...

What’s Beneath the ‘Sea’ at Scena Theatre?

“It feels unknown. This is nowhere somehow,” says a character in this intriguingly cryptic poetic play by the acclaimed Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse. Indeed, where are we? And what is going on?...

2019 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Amelia’

By Rebecca Kurtz There is a lot to love about historical fiction, and writer/director Robert McNamara chose a good branch of history with the beautifully open-ended story of Amelia Earhart’s...

Dangereuse: Brecht and the History Behind ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) left Berlin in February 1933, the day after the Reichstag fire, an attack on the home of the German Parliament. President Paul von Hindenberg had named Hitler Chancellor on...

Review: ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ by Scena Theatre

I love Brecht. My heart and soul were ready for Scena Theatre’s production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (written during World War II but not produced in America until the late 1950s) – a play...

Review: ‘Beckett Trio, Part 2’ by Scena Theatre

Ready for your Samuel Beckett fix? A fix for the lesser-known, very short-form works by the winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature? If you are the least bit curious and open to a quieter form...

Review: ‘Pinter Rep’ by Scena Theatre

When Pinter is performed with precision, with exacting attention to the text—as is the case with Scena Theatre’s razor-sharp Pinter Rep—the effect can be both unnerving and exhilarating. The tension...

Review: ‘Submission’ by Scena Theatre

Go with no preconceived notions to best absorb Scena Theatre’s Submission, the American premiere theater adaptation of the 2015 European best-selling novel by French author Michel Houellebecq. Adapted...

Review: ‘Woman of No Importance’ at Scena Theatre

The first thing you notice about Scena Theatre’s Woman of No Importance is Alisa Mandel’s lush costume design. Like an unnamed character, her costumes define the characters nearly as much as the...

Interview: Actress Gayle Carney Discusses her Off-Broadway show ‘The Promised Land’

Gayle Carney has played a myriad of roles in her many years as an actress. She’s been seen most recently in The Dog Must Die at Highwood Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. That play is a dystopian...

Review: ‘1984’ by Scena Theatre

Big Brother. Newspeak. Thoughtcrime. Doublethink. Orwellian. Those words have floated around the public lexicon for years, and at a time when the political zeitgeist contains phrases like “alternative...

Review: ‘The Beckett Trio’ at Scena Theatre

Nanna Ingvarsson is so phenomenal in these three harrowing short plays by Samuel Beckett that one can easily imagine the Nobel Prize-winning minimalist—notoriously persnickety about his stage...

Magic Time!: ‘Guilt’ at Scena Theatre

Sex and guilt were linked in superstition before institutional Christianity came on the scene, but thanks to the medieval Catholic Church they got hooked up with theology too. It was in the runup to...

Review: ‘Guilt, an opera without music’ at Scena Theatre

With its teasing, click-bait provocative subtitling, “an opera without music,” John Shand’s Guilt, having its world premiere by DC’s Scena Theatre, is a meaty, passionately provoking tale. Overall,...

Review: ‘Julius Caesar’ at Scena Theatre at the Atlas Performing Arts Center

Diamond Julesy Gets It Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar has recently become a cause célèbre. When Caesar was portrayed in a Public Theater production with a Trump-like costume and wig, there were protests....

Review: ‘Fear Eats the Soul’ at Scena Theatre

As part of its 30th anniversary season, Scena Theatre has offered a stage adaptation of late German film auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1974 film Fear Eats the Soul, translated and adapted by...

In The Moment: ‘The Sound is the Kicker’ in Scena’s ‘The Night Alive’

Another superior night with Irish playwright Conor McPherson, this time at Scena Theatre under Robert McNamara’s illuminating, layered direction of McPherson’s earthy, sideward glance at damaged...

Review: ‘The Night Alive’ at Scena Theatre

Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s The Night Alive is a story of lost souls seeking redemption, of searching for a light in the darkness. Presented by Scena Theatre, the characters’ cheeky banter...

Magic Time! ‘Someone Is Going to Come’ at Scena Theatre

Someone Is Going to Come is a comedy of menace with a roiling undercurrent of sexual tension. It evokes ominous noirish goings-on in a scary remote locale told in stark idiosyncratic dialogue. And...

Review: ‘Someone Is Going to Come’ at Scena Theatre

Scena Theatre’s Someone Is Going to Come is a tightly wound riddle about danger; the lightly concealed danger lurking in a couple’s push-pull of a relationship that is further inflamed with an...

Review: ‘Report to an Academy’ at Scena Theatre

Scena Theatre opens the company’s 30th Anniversary Season with Report to an Academy, an emotionally powerful drama. Report to an Academy is based on the 1917 classic short story by Franz Kafka....

Review: ‘War of the Worlds’ at Scena Theatre

Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds is infamous for having incited a mini UFO panic due to its vivid and realistic descriptions of a fictitious Martian invasion. The iconic actor...

‘The Cripple of Inishmaan’ at Scena Theatre

Scena Theatre’s comedy through the lens of small-town folk in a small Aran Islands community named Inishmaan, off the coast of Ireland. The year is 1934, and we catch a glimpse of all the archetypal...

Magic Time! The Women’s Voices Theater Festival: A Report on ‘Lady Lay’ at Scena Theatre

As you take your seat at Scena Theatre’s production of Lady Lay, don’t be surprised to see the spitting image of Bob Dylan in the house. It’s the actor Ron Litman, who will pop into the play anon....

‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at Scena Theatre

Scena Theatre has brought back its hit 2011 production of The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of errors, and DC’s summer just got wittier and sweeter. In Scena’s delectable...

Donate to Help Director Gabriele Jakobi With Her Medical Bills

In June 2015, Theater Director Gabriele Jakobi (Gabi) suffered a serious stroke while preparing to direct Chekov’s The Three Sisters for Scena Theatre in Washington, DC. As a result, her medical bills...

‘Handbag’ at Scena Theatre

In the past week, I’ve had the mixed blessing of seeing some very good shows that put the very bad side of human nature on gruesome display. The characters in Scena’s Handbag, a daring pitch black...

An Interview with Scena Theatre’s ‘Handbag’ Director Robert McNamara and Cast Members Anne Nottage, Amanda Forstrom, and Haely Jardas

I had the honor of interviewing Director Robert McNamara and cast members Anne Nottage, Amanda Forstrom, and Haely Jardas from Scena Theatre’s Handbag, which begins performances tonight. Michael:...

‘Molly’ at Scena Theatre

Scena has gone green, and I’m not talking about reusable grocery bags. Concurrent with their production of Conor McPherson’s Shining City, Scena is mounting the world premiere of Molly, an original...

‘Shining City’ at Scena Theatre

Conor McPherson loves the supernatural. His plays exude an otherworldliness that seeps into the dialogue and infects the players. But, his plays aren’t about the supernatural. They seem to highlight...

Capital Fringe 2014 Review: ‘Report to An Academy’

(Best of the Capital Fringe) Welcome to Franz Kafka’s bizarre and tortured world, in which the desperate fight for survival turns men into animals and animals into men, and in which, “human freedom is...

‘Happy Days’ at SCENA Theatre

Rejoice, Beckett fans! Short of an actual festival, it’s rare to have the opportunity to see two productions of the same Beckett play in a single season. SCENA Theatre’s latest production of Happy...

Scena Theatre Presents a Staged Reading of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ This Monday, November 18th at 7 PM at Warehouse Theater

SCENA Theatre presents a special staged reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray! THIS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18TH AT 7 PM AT WAREHOUSE THEATER (CLICK PHOTO FOR HORRIFIC DETAILS) FEATURING: Danielle Davy, Buck...

Why Tonight You Must See the Final Performance of Scena Theatre’s ‘The Marriage of Maria Braun’ by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins

From Fassbinder to Scena Theatre: ‘The Marriage of Maria Braun Survival, security, and success – What would you do to fulfill your life’s ambition? For Maria Braun, the heroine of The Marriage of...

‘The Marriage of Maria Braun’ at SCENA Theatre by Emily Cao

“My time is just beginning.” Truer words have never been spoken by any character. Maria Braun’s straightforward declaration is the essence of Robert McNamara’s The Marriage of Maria Braun at SCENA...

Magic Time: Oscar Wilde’s Salomé at Scena Theatre by John Stoltenberg

There’s some wondrous strange stuff in the Bible, but for out and out bizarro it’s hard to top the tale of the king Herod’s pervy thing for his stepdaughter (Salomé) and his macabre beheading (upon...

Oscar Wilde’s Salomé at SCENA Theatre at Atlas Performing Arts Center by Derek Mong

Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, directed by Robert McNamara, rounds out SCENA Theatre’s 25th anniversary season with its second production of this controversial, yet classic, biblical tale. Billed as a “tale of...

Tomorrow Night @ 7pm: Join Scena Theatre for THE ILIAD: Book I, The Wrath of Achilles at The Embassy of Greece

THE ILIAD: Book I, The Wrath of Achilles Join Scena Theatre tomorrow night at The Embassy of Greece for a dramatic reading, delicious refreshment, and fascinating conversation. Robert McNamara will...

‘A Clockwork Orange’ at Scena Theatre by Sydney-Chanele Dawkins

Good. Is being good truly good if it is not by choice? Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Evil. Which is worse, chosen evil or forced good? “A man who cannot...

‘Mein Kampf’ at Scena Theatre by Grace Kim

Having had a long tough week, a play billed as a dark comedy sounded like just the thing to end my Friday night with. And Mein Kampf, written by the illustrious George Tabori and directed by Robert...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘Mein Kampf’ by Tzvi Kahn

According to a press release and other advertising, Scena Theatre’s production of George Tabori’s Mein Kampf constitutes a “daring,” “savagely funny,” and “in-your-face dark comedy,” not to mention a...

‘The Seafarer’ at Scena Theatre by Kevin O’Connell

In Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, Richard Harkin says of his brother, Sharky, “It’s a well-known fact in this whole area that my brother has that rare gift which is, unfortunately, the opposite of...