Signature Theatre

Review: ‘Passion’ at Signature Theatre

Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, now playing at Signature Theatre, has two of the greatest songs in the composer’s brilliant portfolio – “I Wish I Could Forget You” and “Loving You” – and three complex,...

Eric Schaeffer Discusses Signature Theatre’s Upcoming ‘Passion’

Starting August 14, Stephen Sondheim’s musical Passion will play at Arlington, Virginia’s Signature Theatre, starring Natascia Diaz (West Side Story) as Fosca and directed by Associate Artistic...

Review: ‘Why is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me? A Love Story’ by UrbanArias

Getting audience attention these days with a title few likely know is no easy task. So know that once again UrbanArias has found a terrific little musical gem: a chamber opera called Why is Eartha...

Playwright Audrey Cefaly Wins Lambda Literary Award for ‘The Gulf’

Washington, DC-based Playwright Audrey Cefaly is the winner of this year’s Lambda Literary Award in the category of LGBTQ Drama for her play The Gulf which had its world premiere at Arlington,...

Magic Time!: ‘The Scottsboro Boys’ at Signature Theatre

The musical The Scottsboro Boys tells a true story of heinous injustice driven by race hate, and the theatrical form is a minstrel show—bouyant upbeat dancing, rousing melodic singing, and buffoonish...

Review: ‘The Scottsboro Boys’ at Signature Theatre

“Strip me naked. Take my name. Make me an animal. So you can kill me. Then forget all about me. Like I never happened. Like I don’t matter.” No, those unsettling words are not reactions to a racially...

Remembering Joel Markowitz on His Birthday

We at DC Theater Arts are taking time today to remember Founder and Editor Joel Markowitz on what would have been his 61st birthday. Joel remains in our hearts every day as we strive to keep his...

In the Moment: ‘Girlfriend’ at Signature Theatre

Girlfriend is a sensitively constructed and gracefully performed coming of age musical about two late teen boys having an unexpected first crush that turns into love between them. Girlfriend’s arc is...

Review: ‘Girlfriend’ at Signature Theatre

The rock musical Girlfriend celebrates the tentativeness and exuberance of a budding romance between two gay teens in a small town Nebraska in the 1990s. Just after graduating from high school, Will,...

Review: ‘SOON’ at The Highwood Theatre

Depending on whom you ask, climate change is either ongoing, its devastating progression towards the inevitable oblivion of life on Earth all but inarguable, or a hoax perpetrated by the ignorant or...

In the Moment: ‘John’ at Signature Theatre

Taking in Annie Baker’s John at Signature Theatre gives me the rare opportunity to use a word I have always wanted to, but haven’t before–the word “anhedonia.” Yes, Baker’s play John has a full share...

Review: ‘John’ at Signature Theatre

An eerie sense of the supernatural combined with an almost ritualistic sense of the minutiae of daily living combine to form the aesthetic ambiance of playwright Annie Baker’s haunting and disarming...

In the Moment: Interview with Joe Calarco about ’12 Million Footsteps’

For nearly two decades, the inventive Signature in the Schools education program has exposed Arlington County public high school student actors to highly-charged, real-world issues well beyond the...

Review: ‘Light Years’ at Signature Theatre

How does someone pay honor to a deceased parent whom they loved dearly? How does a son give thanks to his father? And when does a son really come to learn what a father went through, in those many...

Review: ‘4,380 Nights’ at Signature Theatre (Women’s Voices Theater Festival)

4,380 Nights is a raw, emotionally charged political theater production that makes the movie Zero Dark Thirty look timid. That is my trigger warning about a new play by Annalisa Dias that explores...

Interview: Annalisa Dias, ‘4,380 Nights’ Playwright (Women’s Voices Theater Festival)

Have you ever met someone who left you feeling as though there is nothing you can’t do? I got that feeling each time I sat down with four playwrights and a director who identify as women of color from...

In the Moment: Interviews with Women’s Voices Theater Festival playwrights – Part 1

This is the first part of a multi-part series of interviews with Women’s Voices Theater Festival playwrights. In this series, I asked the same questions to a number of Women’s Voices Theater Festival...

Review: ‘Holiday Follies’ at Signature Theatre

It’s that time of year again. Signature Theatre opened their annual Holiday Follies this week. The seasonal cabaret is packed with a set of over twenty songs including Christmas classics, tunes from...

In the Moment: ‘Crazy for You’ at Signature Theatre

What a giddy, joyful afterimage of mouthwatering kinetic alchemy. Under the confident direction of chemistry-setter Mathew Gardiner, Signature Theatre has produced an irresistible Crazy for You. It is...

Review: ‘Crazy for You’ at Signature Theatre

I have a perpetual soft spot for Crazy for You, which was the first show I ever saw on Broadway. What with George and Ira Gershwin songs, Tony-winning choreography by Susan Stroman, and the wonderful...

Review: ‘An Act of God’ at Signature Theatre

I was healed. Aches and pains of the day disappeared. Headaches from paying too close attention to Presidential tweets vanished. I might have been saved too. Not sure of that just yet. Will have to...

Magic Time!: ‘An Act of God’ at Signature Theatre

Rarely have I enjoyed such a perfect union of comic writing, acting, and staging with such non-stop hilarity. Just opened in the intimate Ark theater at Signature. An Act of God, had me doubled over...

In the Moment: ‘A Little Night Music’ at Signature Theatre

Opening in 1973, A Little Night Music was part of the muscular turbulence of those well-remembered primal days of rage. Rage that bred inhaled cynicism like a needed eye-opening drug into the arts for...

Review: ‘A Little Night Music’ at Signature Theatre

If you are eager to get away from the turbulent news cycle, August humidity, annoying traffic, a mostly undone to-do list, disorder in your immediate circle, or fractures at a global or microscopic...

Review: ‘Independence Eve’ at UrbanArias

The two men stand at opposite ends of an urban park, on a day that is a mere heartbeat away from the landmark midpoint in the calendar year. Summer and it is an evening to capture the heat that won’t...

Magic Time!: ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at Signature Theatre

There’s an extraordinarily tender and touching moment in Signature Theatre’s ebullient Jesus Christ Superstar when Mary Magdalene (Natascia Diaz), after singing her gorgeous ballad “I Don’t Know How...

Review: ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar is an impressive beauty of a rock opera. It successfully takes a Biblical phrase such as, “Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in...

In the Moment: ‘Midwestern Gothic’ at Signature Theatre

The premise seems full of possibilities. With its moody Twin Peaks-like, arched eyebrow attitude, Midwestern Gothic tackles wasted lives, a randy adolescent woman who is questioning the “why” of her...

Review: ‘Midwestern Gothic’ at Signature Theatre

A native Midwesterner myself, I was eager to see Midwestern Gothic, Signature Theatre’s new show that is being touted as Misery meets Fargo, a thriller musical in the vein of Sweeney Todd set “in the...

Review: ‘Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing’ at Signature Theatre

With gentleness and clear affection for an unexpected heroine, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner James Lapine has written and directed with a disarming touch an endearing new play “with music”;...

Review: ‘Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose’ at The Loft at the Davenport Theatre

There is a delightful surprise in store for any of you who can manage to get to the Davenport’s 75-seat Loft Theatre to watch Ed Dixon’s one-man play in which he brings to vivid life the late great...

Meet the Three Young Actors in ‘Watch on the Rhine’ at Arena Stage: #2 Tyler Bowman

Tyler Bowman makes his Arena Stage debut playing the youngest of three siblings in Lillian Hellman’s 1941 play Watch on the Rhine. The children have traveled with their mother and father to Georgetown...

In the Moment: Signature Theatre’s Epic ‘Titanic’ and its Backstage Unsung Heroes

Epic refined splendor comes to mind after seeing and hearing Signature Theatre’s production of the Tony Award-winning musical Titanic. Director Eric Schaeffer’s vision and implement of such a...

Review: ‘Titanic The Musical’ at Signature Theatre

There’s something fundamentally spiritual about the legend of RMS Titanic. Just as there are no atheists in a foxhole there are few to be found aboard an ocean liner going down fast in icy waters but...

Review: ‘Silver Belles’ at Signature Theatre

I needed it. A lot. A musical that reminded me that “life is a gift.” A new holiday musical with heart, humor, and great new tunes. A most-welcomed and pleasant swift sleigh ride during these dark...

Review: ‘Freaky Friday’ at Signature Theatre

In its world premiere at Signature Theatre, the musical Freaky Friday is a warm, sweet, accomplished family-friendly confection with a progressive message. It is a contemporary musical about...

Magic Time! ‘The Gulf’ at Signature Theatre

One measure of the quality of a play is how it stays in one’s mind the next few days. Or the next weeks or months or years. Not just how it plays on stage. How it remains in the brain. There are no...

Review: ‘The Gulf’ at Signature Theatre

Signature’s premiere of The Gulf written by Audrey Cefaly is a daring dark venture about two women entwined with heartache and sadness. It is a scorching two-hander character study that takes place in...

Magic Time! “I Think About How Badly I Can Break a Heart Today”: A Q&A with Audrey Cefaly, Author of ‘The Gulf’ at Signature Theatre

John: I first discovered your writing when I saw Maytag Virgin during the Women’s Voices Theater Festival, and as I said when I interviewed you back then, “it was one of those experiences of an...

‘Take A Bow’ Part 3: The Staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ Favorite Spring/Summer 2016 Performances

Here’s Part 3 of the staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ favorite Spring/Summer 2016 performances. To our honorees: TAKE A BOW! _____ Christopher Broughton, DeMoya Watson Brown, DeWitt Fleming, Jr., V. Savoy...

The 9:30 PM ‘Summer Hummer V: Champions’ at Signature Theatre

Last night, Signature Theatre presented their fifth annual Summer Hummer benefit, Summer Hummer V. Champions. Stronger. Harder. Longer. And was it ever. The event’s proceeds go to Taking Care of Our...

The 7:30 PM ‘Summer Hummer V: Champions’ at Signature Theatre

Theater folks and fans alike reveled in last night’s Summer Hummer V: Champions – the Washington Theater Community’s annual one-night-only benefit for theatreWashington’s ‘Taking Care of Our Own’ at...

“Summer Hummer V: Champions” Takes Off Tonight at Signature Theatre at 7:30 PM and 9:30 PM to Benefit “Taking Care of Our Own”

Signature Theatre and theatreWashington present this year’s Summer Hummer to benefit Taking Care of Our Own TONIGHT, AUGUST 22ND at 7:30 and 9:30 pm. AT SIGNATURE THEATRE-4200 Campbell Ave. IN...

Review: ‘Spring Awakening’ at Metropolitan Youth Theatre

The inevitability of change defines the human experience. We are all subject to our desires, even when we don’t fully understand them. And curiosity and the intrinsic want and need to feel emotions...

Review: ‘The Marcy and Zina Show’ at Signature Theatre

Amidst the sweltering summer humidity, Signature Theater’s “Sizzlin’ Summer Nights” cabaret series more than lived up to its name with songwriters Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich as they performed...

Review: ‘Make ’em Laugh’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre finishes out their 2015-2016 cabaret series with the uproarious and uplifting Make ‘em Laugh Cabaret, featuring Happy McPartlin and Tracy Lynn Olivera. The duo brings new meaning to...

In the Moment: ‘La Cage aux Folles’ at Signature Theatre: New Meaning in the Midst of the Orlando Massacre and a Spoiled Son

Signature Theatre’s production of La Cage aux Folles under the sure hands of Director/Choreographer Matthew Gardiner is a fabulously fun-rendering. There is simply no way to leave the production...

Review: ‘La Cage aux Folles’ at Signature Theatre

What is a family? Is it all about biology or does it have much more to do with love? Surely, it’s the latter, and this lesson has never been more sensitively, humorously, and colorfully presented than...

2016 Capital Fringe Festival Preview #1: ‘Before The Lights Go Up’ by Bucky Mitchell

To begin our 2016 Capital Fringe series of Previews, Bucky Mitchell introduces us to his show Before The Lights Go Up. Joel: What is Before The Lights Go Up? Bucky: Before The Lights Go Up is a story...

Richard Seff and the 2016 Winners of The Richard Seff Award: Lois Smith and Bill Camp

DCMetroTheaterArts’ beloved NYC critic and columnist Richard Seff has an award named after him: The Richard Seff (Seffie) Award, and yesterday the 2016 recipients were honored: Lois Smith and Bill...