Signature Theatre

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with Lauren Marcus of ‘Be More Chill’ fame

Sheltering in place hasn’t kept actress/singer/songwriter Lauren Marcus from creating, performing, and entertaining audiences everywhere with her talent, passion, and commitment. Just in time for the...

Signature Theatre postpones ‘Mamma Mia!’ at The Anthem until 2021

Mamma Mia! at The Anthem DC will not run June 25 – July 5, 2020 as previously scheduled. Signature Theatre has worked with our sponsors Amazon and Max Productions and our partners at The Anthem and...

Announcing the winners of the 35th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Off-Broadway

Winners of the 35th annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway were announced tonight in a virtual ceremony beginning at 7 pm. Produced by the League of Off-Broadway...

Nominations for the 2020 Off Broadway Alliance Awards

The Off Broadway Alliance (OBA) – an organization comprised of Off-Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals, with annual awards honoring the best in...

Nominations are announced for the 65th Annual Drama Desk Awards

Nominations for the 65th annual Drama Desk Awards, founded in 1955 to celebrate outstanding achievements in on, off, and off-off Broadway theater, were announced this afternoon by hosts Seth Rudetsky...

Nominations are in for the 35th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Lucille Lortel Awards, founded by the eponymous actress and producer in 1986, to recognize excellence in New York’s Off-Broadway theater. Nominations for...

Signature Theatre’s ‘Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes’ now available for streaming

Beginning Monday, March 30, 2020, Signature Theatre patrons will have the ability to watch the world premiere production of Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes by DC playwright Dani Stoller from their...

“I want to make space for women who make mistakes”: A Q&A with Dani Stoller, author of ‘Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes’ at Signature Theatre

Dani Stoller’s world-premiere comedy Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes is funny and witty and in its own quirky way quite deep. Plus it puts the screw in screwball. Discovered in the SigWorks...

All under one roof in Signature Theatre’s ‘Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes’

Marian’s cheery Florida home – an over-decorated retirement nest she shares with second hubby Richard – has become a tropical haven for two adolescents in crisis. Richard’s pregnant niece Kitty, whose...

‘The Boy Detective Fails’ is a charming success at American University

“I’m good at finding out the truth,” says Billy Argo (Spencer Coben), the boy-prodigy detective, near the beginning of this clever, quirky, and quite touching musical. So observant of clues is Billy...

Who is Black? Signature Theatre’s ‘Gun & Powder’ hits a national nerve

It may surprise you (as it did me) that the title of this melodic world-premiere musical does not refer to gunpowder. The word gun means there’s a pistol (which gets dramatically deployed). But the...

Signature Theatre’s commanding ‘Gun & Powder’ pulls no punches

Raw one moment, richly comic the next. Subtle in one scene, directly challenging the audience the next. The world premiere musical Gun & Powder at Signature Theatre is strikingly effective...

2020 Helen Hayes nominations are announced

At a February 3, 2020 celebration honoring theatre excellence on stages across the Washington area, theatre artists, administrators, patrons, and special guests gathered in the National Theatre’s...

Director Stevie Zimmerman on the rewards of going outside of comfort zone

Professional theaters in the DMV have been at the forefront of making diversity a critical watchword and action step. During the past several years, the DMV has hosted two Women’s Voices Theater...

‘A Motown Christmas’ at the Signature Theatre brings soulful cheer

The scene was a cozy cabaret at Signature Theatre. The enthralled patrons sat at small, circular, red tables and swayed to “Give Love on Christmas Day” performed by The Motown Three, which consisted...

Signature’s ‘A Chorus Line’ proves musicals can evolve in the right creative hands

“A Chorus Line is still one of those musicals you will sing about to your grandchildren,” wrote theater and dance critic Clive Barnes in his 1975 New York Times review for A Chorus Line. Barnes had an...

Signature Theatre’s “A Chorus Line” is a singular sensation

In the theater world, a performer who is a true triple threat – one with the ability to perform at the highest levels as an actor, singer, and dancer all at the same time – is rare. Luckily, Signature...

Local Playwright Audrey Cefaly’s ‘Alabaster’ to receive record breaking ten-city rolling world premiere

National New Play Network, the country’s alliance of nonprofit theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays, announces its 91st Rolling World...

Signature Theatre to present ‘Mamma Mia!’ at DC’s Anthem

Signature Theatre announced today that it will produce Mamma Mia! this summer at The Wharf, Washington, DC’s newest concert venue. Mamma Mia! will run for two weeks from June 25 to July 5, 2020. With...

A theater buff auditions the GalaPro app (updated)

How does that new GalaPro app work? How well does it work? And what’s it like to watch a show with it? This inquiring theatergoer wanted to know. Many Deaf and hard of hearing people are already...

A Personal View of the Coming Apocalypse: Caryl Churchill’s ‘Escaped Alone’

What a play! Escaped Alone is full of dramatic presentations announcing a coming apocalypse; an end of days. The production at Signature Theatre is receiving rightful praise (read my colleague Barbara...

Review: ‘Escaped Alone’ at Signature Theatre

British playwright Caryl Churchill is a revolutionary playwright. In her career, she has upset theatrical expectations many times over. She plays with gender and fools with time. She invents unusual...

Review: A Simmering Production of ‘The Gulf’ at Peter’s Alley

Silences speak loudly in the first Maryland production of The Gulf by Audrey Cefaly at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. This professional production by Peter’s Alley Theatre group, features two...

Signature Theatre Announces Plays Selected for SigWorks: Monday Night New Play Reading Series

Signature Theatre continues its commitment to new work and developing local talent by presenting the fifth season of SigWorks: Monday Night New Play Reading Series. This season Signature is proud to...

Casting Director Kelly Crandall d’Amboise on Signature Theatre’s ‘Assassins’

The splendid, bone-chilling darkness of Signature Theatre’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins is lifted into reality by a most unexpected source: a 10-year-old character named Billy. He does...

Review: An Audacious and Urgent ‘Assassins’ at Signature Theatre

Nearly thirty years after its premiere, Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins still astonishes. An audacious meet-up of nine successful and would-be presidential assassins – from the narcissist John Wilkes...

Signature Theatre Announces ‘Assassins’ Cast and Creative Team

Signature Theatre has announced the full cast and creative team for Assassins with music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman and directed by Signature Theatre Artistic Director Eric...

Review: ‘The Juliet Letters’ by UrbanArias

UrbanArias delivers a physical, aural, and emotional journey in their brilliant interpretation of Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet’s The Juliet Letters. Based upon imagined love letters written...

Mark G. Meadows Wants To Change the World

In 2016, after the presidential election that put Donald Trump in the White House, musician Mark Meadows felt lost. He believed that his voice, and the voices of other artists “weren’t heard and...

Review: ‘Blackbeard’ at Signature Theatre

I have no idea who the “real” Blackbeard might have been. But I raise a cup (and maybe a cutlass) to Signature Theatre’s epic, cheeky vision of the dude and his derring-do. Envisioned by Signature...

Dressed To Plunder, and Maybe Kill: Costuming Signature’s ‘Blackbeard’

When the actor playing Blackbeard first appears on stage at the Signature Theatre in the new musical bearing his name, smoke literally curls out of his matted black hair. It’s a terrifying look and...

Got Plans for the Tony Awards? Now You Do!

I am through being a lonely theater geek, locking myself in my bedroom and shushing non-interested family members throughout the Tony Awards broadcast! This year, I’ve decided to throw myself a party....

Review: ‘Spunk’ at Signature Theatre

Since 1990 when New York’s Public Theater first staged George C. Wolfe’s adaptation of three short stories by Zora Neale Hurston into the play Spunk, audiences have gleaned the creative mind of one of...

Signature Theatre Announces 2019-2020 Season

Signature Theatre Announces 30th Anniversary Season, including new and inventive stagings of: ASSASSINS A CHORUS LINE HAIR NIJINSKY’S LAST DANCE The DC Premiere of: CARYL CHURCHILL’S PLAY ESCAPED...

Review: ‘Grand Hotel’ at Signature Theatre

Time may be running out for the denizens of Berlin’s swanky Weimar era Grand Hotel who wonder if life has passed them by. But Signature Theatre’s roaring, non-stop rendering of the musical Grand Hotel...

DCMTA Exclusive: Helen Hayes Award Winner Iyona Blake Announces Upcoming EP ‘Timeless’

On a recent warm Monday evening, Helen Hayes Award recipient Iyona Blake announced her next musical venture, an EP (extended play) of some of her favorite songs. The album will be called “Timeless.”...

Review: ‘Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ at Signature Theatre

Arresting and compelling are two words that describe Signature Theatre’s fiery production about survival in a society racked by long-term natural disasters and deadly human-made upheavals. Playwright...

Signature Theatre Announces Recipients of Inaugural SigWorks: Signature Theatre / Yale Composer Partnership

Signature Theatre announced today that Mark Sonnenblick and Scott Feiner will both receive workshops of their new musical theater works as part of the SigWorks: Signature Theatre/Yale Composer...

Signature in the Schools Premieres ‘The Spoken Word’ February 22

Regional Tony Award recipient Signature Theatre continues its singular Signature in the Schools program with another original production written and directed by Joe Calarco. Calarco is the Resident...

In the Moment: One Song Lifts ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ from Jukebox Musical Status

By all means, go, have a great time at Signature Theatre’s grandly jaunty Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show, a musical revue centered upon the prolific composer Fats Waller (1904-1943)...

Review: ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Signature Theatre

Outside, the Polar Vortex reigned. Inside, the jazz was hot and smoky and funny and sexy. Ain’t Misbehavin’, celebrating the work of Fats Waller, brought his music and the feel of his life and times...

Tracy Lynn Olivera To Perform One-Night Cabaret at BlackRock This Friday, Feb 1

BlackRock will be kicking off its jam-packed February with Broadway Gold, a musical cabaret spun together by Signature Theatre’s own Tracy Lynn Olivera. On Friday, February 1 at 8 PM, Olivera and her...

Local Favorite Margo Seibert Comes Home for Signature Theatre Concert

Fans of Margo Seibert – the Broadway star of Rocky and In Transit – may face some unusual competition for tickets to her upcoming concert at Signature Theatre. That’s because metro DC is no touring...

Review: ‘Judy Garland: A Star Is Born’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s Cabaret Series is a relaxed affair. Pull up a chair and put your elbows on the table because Awa Sal Secka and Katie Mariko Murray are going to make you feel right at home. The two...

Review: ‘Billy Elliot’ at Signature Theatre

Signature’s Billy Elliot the Musical soars with expressive, youthful dance energy and a liberating message of doing what you need to do to be who you want to be. Directed and choreographed by Matthew...

William L. Hopkins And The Estate Of Richard B. Anderson Announce The 2018 Anderson-Hopkins Award For Excellence In Theatre

Washington, DC: The Anderson-Hopkins Award for Excellence in the Theater Arts presented six awards Monday night at Signature Theatre, October 8. The award was presented to actors Will Gartshore, Ted...

In the Moment: ‘Heisenberg’ at Signature Theatre

With notes at the top of his work Heisenberg, playwright Simon Stephens gives undecorated, clear direction to theater companies for his expectations when producing the play: The present day. The stage...

BlackRock Center for the Arts Presents “Signature Theatre Cabaret: Streisand Songbook”

Barbra comes to BlackRock with Signature Theatre Cabaret’s Streisand Songbook BlackRock Center for the Arts officially kicks off its versatile 2018-19 season with Streisand Songbook, from the...

Review: ‘Heisenberg’ at Signature Theatre

Simon Stephens’ Heisenberg, now playing at Signature Theatre, begins with two souls in hiding. Georgie Burns (Rachel Zampelli) hides whatever pains and losses she has suffered behind her frenetic...

In the Moment: ‘Passion’ at Signature Theatre

Leaving Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, directed by Matthew Gardiner, I found one word to describe my reaction: Believable. Yes, believable. This Signature Theatre production of Passion took me inside its...