The Clarice

Pianist Lara Downes and the mainstreaming of fully American music

Imagine if great music by diverse composers were presented not as special but rather as totally normal.

Upbeat ‘Little Women: the Broadway Musical’ uplifts at UMD

An evening of delightful entertainment by the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.

Women wow in all-female production of ‘A Doll House’ at the University of Maryland

Director Kathryn Chase Bryer’s bold staging of A Doll House—beginning with the alternative translation of the traditional title of this classic by Henrik Ibsen—transforms a 19th-century firebrand of a...

‘Flyin’ West’ Soars to the Clarice UMD’s School of Theatre, Dance, & Performance Studies

By Kyle Starling The School of Theatre, Dance, & Performance Studies (TDPS) and The Clarice at the University of Maryland, College Park will be premiering their main stage production of Flyin’ West by...

Review: ‘The Heidi Chronicles’ at The Clarice

The University of Maryland’s Production of The Heidi Chronicles, by playwright Wendy Wasserstein and directed by Scot Reese, leads the audience through the productive life of protagonist Heidi...

Review: ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ by Maryland Lyric Opera

The Maryland Lyric Opera’s stated raison d’etre is to find and nurture good singers, then give them a place to test their mettle on masterworks such as those by Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, and the like....

Review: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

It’s the heartwarming story of a hapless boy and his exotic plant. No, wait, it’s a cautionary sci-fi allegory about human desire. Correction: it’s a fun doo-wop musical packed with archetypical...

Review: Ahamefule J. Oluo’s ‘Now I’m Fine’ at The Clarice

It takes bravery to decide that your story is worth telling. It’s even more admirable to have the courage to tell your story onstage with a 16-piece orchestra. That’s what Ahamefule J. Oluo did at The...

Review: ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

Oscar Wilde’s final show is subtitled “a trivial comedy for serious people,” and when it premiered in 1895, it was comparatively trivial. Two men, each pretending to be a man named Ernest, two women...

Maryland Opera Studio to Premiere University of MD’s Opera Composition Contest Winner ‘The Young King’ on Friday, 2/10@7:30 PM at The Clarice

The first-year members of the Maryland Opera Studio present a semi-staged New Work Reading every year, but this year’s reading is unique. On February 10, the Maryland Opera Studio premieres the...

Review: “Romeo and Juliet” at The Maryland Shakespeare Players at The Clarice

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, The Maryland Shakespeare Players’ Romeo and Juliet, expertly directed by Vera Belaia, was a fantastic voyage into both Shakespeare’s tale of forbidden love, and a...

Review: ‘The Rape of Lucretia’ by the Maryland Opera Studio at The Clarice

There’s a saying that says, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia most definitely fulfills that second requirement. Based on the myth...

‘Our Place in the Universe’: An Interview with Flying V’s Jason Schlafstein

Founded in 2011, Flying V Theatre strives to inspire people to live life more through theater that unites high concepts and intimate moments. This year, the company was chosen as a NextLOOK artist...

Review: ‘The Wild Party’ at the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

Dim lights, warm hues and the soft murmur of conversation and clanking glasses lured us into Queenie’s – the decadent speakeasy formerly known as The Clarice’s Kogod Theatre. Waiters greeted guests,...

Review: ‘The Call’ at University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

Annie and Peter, a white married couple, haven’t been able to conceive a child of their own so they decide to adopt a child from Africa. Rebecca and Drea, a newly married African American lesbian...

Inbal Pinto Speaks on Shimon Peres and her ‘Wallflower’

The eyes of the world have turned to Israel this week following the death of Shimon Peres. Twice the prime minister of Israel and a member of the Israeli parliament for more than thirty years, Peres...

Manifesting Premieres Works by Mauceri, Graf, and Reid at NextNOW Festival at The Clarice

On Saturday, September 9, 2016, at the University of Maryland’s NextNow Festival, three playwrights premiered first drafts of new commissioned works. The plays were commissioned by the University of...

NextNOW is the Final Arts Festival of the Summer at The Clarice September 9-10

For many of us, summer means hot evenings out attending arts festivals. Music fans travel hundreds, even thousands, of miles to attend big music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo. And locally, the...

Capital Fringe Review: ‘Fat Kids are Harder to Kidnap’

If you’ve seen Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind—the innovative devised theater work by Chicago-based company Neo-Futurists—then in a significant way you have already seen Fat Kids are Harder to...

2016 Capital Fringe ‘Elephant in the Room’

There is an ancient Indian story that tells the tale of blind men unknowingly encountering an elephant. Based on which part of the elephant they touch, each man proposes that the animal is something...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Concrete Devotion’

Fringe performances tend to fall into one of the following categories: shows that make you cringe, shows that make you feel, or shows that make you think. Concrete Devotion, from well-established...

2016 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Hunt’

Jean P. Bordewich’s political drama Hunt turns back the clock to a divisive time in American politics – the early 1950s of Joseph McCarthy – but the characters and issues resonate in today’s political...

Review: ‘Regina’ by The Maryland Opera Studio at The Clarice

Marc Blitzstein’s Regina is a hard show to characterize. Some call it an opera; others might call it a musical. After a paltry 56-show run on Broadway in 1949, the show finally succeeded in a 1953...

Review: ‘Baltimore’ at The University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember. — Countee Cullen, “The Incident” It’s interesting how one negative incident can...

Review: Filter Theatre’s ‘Twelfth Night’ at The Clarice

Everything about Filter Theatre’s Twelfth Night, playing at University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, is unconventional. It’s part-musical, part-performance art, part-audience...

Review: ‘Troilus and Cressida’ at the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies

Most of Shakespeare’s plays can be classified as comedies or tragedies, where everyone gets married or everybody dies, but Troilus and Cressida toes the line. It has its moments of levity, but it also...

A Report on A New Works Reading of ‘Another Country’ by Maryland Opera Studio

The annual Maryland Opera Studio New Works Reading has a twofold mission – to give young artists the opportunity to collaborate with living composers and to give the composers an opportunity to have...

Review: ‘The 33rd Annual Choreographers’ Showcase’ at The Clarice

The 33rd Annual Choreographers’ Showcase presented by The Clarice and The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) and adjudicated by notable choreographers and teachers Zvi...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2015 #20: University Productions, Performances, and Ensembles

The staff of DCMetroTheaterArts is honored to announce that their 2015 Best Productions, Performances, and Ensembles honors in University productions go to: UNIVERSITY PRODUCTIONS: A Funny Thing...

New Video Highlights Added: ‘Jekyll & Hyde in Concert’ at Young Artists of America at The Clarice

If ever anyone is in doubt of the future of the arts, go and see a production by the Young Artists of America (YAA). Celebrating its 5th anniversary this coming year, YAA took on the chilling tale of...

WAPAVA Offers Free Showing of Olney’s Smash Hit “Colossal’ on Monday 12/14@7:30 PM @The Clarice at U of MD in College Park;Panel DIscussion Follows by Karen Shod

Fellow theatre-football-dance enthusiasts — Exciting one-night-only opportunity: This Monday, December 14th @ 7:30 at UMD, WAPAVA inaugurates a new “movie night” series with a FREE showing of its...

‘Jekyll & Hyde in Concert’ at Young Artists of America at The Clarice

If ever anyone is in doubt of the future of the arts, go and see a production by the Young Artists of America (YAA). Celebrating its 5th anniversary this coming year, YAA took on the chilling tale of...

‘Tartuffe’ at The University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

“Charges which you now repudiate you may find credible at a later date.” No, this isn’t a comment on the 2016 presidential candidates – it’s a smirky statement by Tartuffe, the titular character in...

‘Intimate Apparel’ at the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

While cleaning out her grandmother’s house, Lynn Nottage found a sepia passport photograph of her great-grandmother holding her two daughters. Nottage knew her great-grandmother had been a seamstress...

The University of Maryland Wind Orchestra and Concert Choir Perform Anton Bruckner’s ‘Mass in E Minor’ at The Clarice

When you think of a 19th century Mass, you might imagine a grandiose piece of music, featuring a large orchestra, lengthy solos and dynamic percussion. Anton Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor, composed in...

‘NextNow Fest’ Runs Today Through Saturday at The Clarice

NextNOW Fest 2015 is a multi-day, multi-arts festival of fun and discovery that brings artists and audiences together in surprising and intriguing ways! This year, Reggie Watts—the larger-than-life...

‘Ode to Peace: A Symphonic Choral Concert’ at The Clarice

Lights dim as the sirens of an air raid swarm the area. A sea of blue gowns dazzle up top, while black and white tuxedos populate an expansive auditorium. A moment of silence brings memories of fallen...

‘Roméo et Juliette’ at Maryland Lyric Opera

Boy meets Girl. Girl meets Boy. They fall in love – at first sight – in spite of the enmity between their warring families, the Capulets and the Montagues. This timeless, tragic love story, penned...

At War With Ourselves – A Visual Response to the Racial Legacy of the Civil War

The first thing you notice are the spent bullet casings embedded in a spiral against the red and white stripes of the American Flag. Then you notice the pearls in the place of stars, “tears” according...

‘The Human Capacity’ at University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

“Everyone is born with the capacity for cruelty and for mercy.” It’s what we do with that capacity that defines our fate. The University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies’...

‘Crime and Punishment’ at Maryland Opera Studio at The Clarice

The many faces of “Crime and Punishment”at Maryland Opera Studio Part of the beauty of performing opera is having the opportunity to make a role one’s own. To make sure the nine second-year students...

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra at The Clarice

Not just any conservatory or university school of music can mount a concert featuring Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. It may not have familiar tunes, but Mahler’s Fifth is a landmark composition from...

‘The Lost World’ at the University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at The Clarice

There’s something about dinosaurs that fosters common ground — children and adults alike are fascinated by the extinct creatures. They’re the stars of the University of Maryland School of Theatre,...

‘Juiced’ at The Clarice

Tia Nina’s Juiced rocked the Dance Theatre at The Clarice for a solid hour on Saturday, February 7, 2015. This trio of fearless performers, Leah Curran Moon as J Van Stone, Ilana Silverstein as Sammy...

The 32nd Annual Choreographer’s Showcase at The Clarice

The 32nd Annual Choreographer’s Showcase at The Clarice offered up an evening of dance ranging from the outwardly exuberant, to the internally nuanced, and emotions in between. The evening’s...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2015 #20: University Productions, Performances, and Ensembles

The staff of DCMetroTheaterArts is honored to announce that their 2015 Best Productions, Performances, and Ensembles honors in University productions go to: UNIVERSITY PRODUCTIONS: A Funny Thing...

‘Collidescope: Adventures in Pre-and Post-Racial America’ at Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

On the eve of a grand jury’s decision on the killing of Ferguson’s Michael Brown, Collidescope: Adventures in Pre-and Post-Racial America is a boldly courageous indictment on the origins of racial...

‘The Me Nobody Knows’ at University Of Maryland School Of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

The plight of urban youth took a contemporary turn in the University Of Maryland School Of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies’ opening night revival of the 1970s Broadway hit, The Me Nobody...

Pointless Theatre Premieres 2 Puppet Spectacles Tomorrow at 7 PM Through Residency with The Clarice and Joe’s Movement Emporium by Emily Schweich

One might think that puppets are just for kids. Not so. Pointless Theatre Company, a D.C. company founded by UMD School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) alumni, blends puppetry,...

Remembering Dick Cerri: A Celebration in Song at Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

For those who are fans of folk music, there was only one place to be in the Washington, DC Metro area on Saturday night in order to be folkin down memory lane. The World Folk Music Association (WFMA)...