2015

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Girl With Two Belly Buttons’

The Girl With Two Belly Buttons, written and directed by Jeryl Parade, is a heartwarming story. A woman, Izzy, suffers from a rare muscular disorder which requires that she use a feeding tube. When it...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘How to Be a Good Mom… When You’ve got a Schizophrenic Mother for a Role Model’

With a title like How to Be a Good Mom… When You’ve Got a Schizophrenic Mother for a Role Model, Pamela Meek’s storytelling piece can seem intimidating at first. But spend 45 minutes with this...

‘Let Them Eat Chaos’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Remember that now-classic line from Jerry Maguire? “You had me from hello!” That’s how the audience felt about one minute into The Second City’s new production Let Them East Chaos, onstage at the hip,...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘After Eleven’

Once the lights are up, After Eleven is relentless. With persistent intensity, Rebecca Roy delivers a monologue that switches from a mother character to that of a child who suffers with mental...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Ambien Date Night’

From the moment I entered Atlas’ Lab II, I was primed to laugh and have a great time. An overly-friendly brunette demanded my attention and directed me toward my friend who was saving our seats. As...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Giant Turnip’

Beech Tree Puppets The Giant Turnip is a gentle retelling of an old Ukrainian folk tale, presented by two classically trained singers with a flare for lyrics and miniature sets. Using rod puppets and...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘War and Peas’

By far one of the most politically incorrect terms of my 80’s childhood – that I can remember – was the use of the word “vegetable” to describe an inanimate person. Something about likening a human...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Great Awkward Hope’

The Great Awkward Hope displayed both the good, funny aspects of awkward, and the bad aspects of the word. The play follows a man, Jeff, as he tries to write a play about himself writing a play in...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Breaking Character’

From The Breakfast Club and Mean Girls to High School Musical and Glee, high school stereotypes have been the popular subject of numerous writers. But often this exploration is missing a very...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Domestic Animals’

“I have trouble distinguishing things that are real from things imagined.” This is the reality we enter when we meet Lori, the “lone wolf” of the deeply moving Domestic Animals. Beautifully directed...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Interconnected’

Written and directed by Brian Schwartz and Karen Snyder, Interconnected tells the twisted and complex story of three intertwined families. It is ripe with dramatic turns worthy of the soap operas but...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘It’s a Circus Out There’

Written and directed by Kevin Finkelstein, the Bringling Brothers Circus appoints a new CEO (Leila Blaze, played by Stefanie Garcia) with a tremendous business background, but she is like a fish out...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Death and the Mermaid’

HalfMad Theatre delivered an evening of love, heartbreak, mortality, and struggle deep in the belly of W.S. Jenks & Son hardware store. The three performers entered the stage and engaged the audience...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Roger (Not His Real Name)’

Did you know that Edward Snowden actually worked for NASA, not the NSA (the misunderstanding stems from a typo in a Washington Post article)? How about the fact that the Cold War was actually caused...

‘Venus in Fur’ at Silver Spring Stage

Venus in Fur directed by John Dellaporta opened last night at Silver Spring Stage, literally with a bang. The play opens during a thunderstorm that is a metaphor of the action to come, and takes place...

‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’ at Rockville Musical Theatre

“Just lots of goodwill and maybe one small thrill, but there’s nothin’ dirty goin’ on!” This concluding line from the honky-tonk song, “Lil Ol’ Pissant Country Place” perfectly captures the theme of...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Wombat Drool’

If you are not quite aware of what you are getting into before watching Uncle Funsy’s production of Wombat Drool, you may be a bit confused as the retired Zookeeper David S. Kessler begins to talk...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Tomato Beard’

Raunchy, irreverent, and just plain silly, Tomato Beard is a series of skits much like those early Saturday Night Live spoofs. This Pennydog production, billed as a “rock musical,” is a work in...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Neda Wants to Die’

You never expect to sympathize with the murderer and rapist. You expect to be repulsed and disgusted by them. That, however, would do a disservice to the complexity of life, particularly in war-torn,...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Paper Game’

Let’s play a game. The Game. It has an extensive set of rules. The point system is arbitrary. One of the rules is that all the rules can be broken. And you really cannot win. Sound like fun? Welcome...

2015 Capital Fringe Preview # 49: ‘The Movement’

Award-Winning Performer Returns to Fringe with One-Man Show: The Movement DC native and Emmy Award-winning actor Ron Jones will debut his new show The Movement: 50 Years of Love and Struggle at the...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘It’s What We Do: A Play About the Occupation’

As a medium for understanding what has been going on in the Israel-occupied territories, the art of theater can do something that other media cannot. Theater can narrate events and tell stories, of...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Out of Silence: Stories from the 1 in 3 Campaign’

Abortion: A ten-ton word that sends shockwaves rumbling across a twenty food radius wherever it is uttered. But why? It’s a contentious political issue for sure, perhaps the most contentious, but it’s...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Paper Glass’

Movie star Bette Davis used to say that she always wanted a crack at playing the title character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. Davis thought Alice a spitfire like herself, not a sweet demure...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘DC Trash – Recycled!!’

In DC Trash – Recycled!!, the charismatic Ron Litman, star of this two man show, delivers a stirring commentary on the changes this city has gone through since his upbringing as the son of Deli owners...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘And Then I Woke Up’

Kris Noteboom is incredibly endearing. The fluffy, neurotic figure at the heart of And Then I Woke Up establishes very quickly that there’s little space between Kris the artist and Kris the character....

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Winter’s Tale’

Read a description of The Winter’s Tale, and you may think William Shakespeare imbibed a little too much while writing it. The absurdity of events seems outlandish, even for a man whose vast oeuvre...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘ALICE’

Alice was colorful, in every sense of the word. And that was good. Adapted from Lewis Carroll’s book, Alice in Wonderland, Alice, directed by Haley Murphy was an explosive version of the story we all...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Witches’

Brookland Artspace’s intimate dance studio-turned theater mythically transforms into medieval mayhem. The real life heroes and sorcerers at Red Knight Productions’ conjure up Witches, a fractured...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘How to Quit Your Day Job’

Memo to Star Johnson, mastermind of OpenStage’s How to Quit Your Day Job: Quit your day job. It’ll be OK. Johnson’s merry musical comedy — staged bohemian-style in the Eastern Market home of sculptor...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Poe Whitman’-‘Song of Myself: The Walt Whitman Project’

“Stop and possess this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,” Walt Whitman demands of his readers of his most famous work, Song of Myself. Robert Michael Oliver and the...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Hello Girls: Unknown Heroines of WWI’

Thank God for plucky women. While our society today continues to struggle with the question of gender equality, we sometimes forget to look back at the times when women were truly invisible. Hello...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Insanity of Mary Girard’

The Insanity of Mary Girard is a play showing Mary Girard’s descent into insanity as she comes to term with her admittance to an insane asylum by her jealous and hateful husband. This version,...

‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at Howard County Summer Theatre

As a child, I spent many hours in my grandparents’ kitchen, as I visited with them, ate meals or finished homework. Occasionally, my grandmother would take a decorative bronze dustpan down from the...

‘Once’ at The Kennedy Center

Brilliantly blending theatricality and intimacy, the 2012 Tony Award-winning best musical Once officially opened last night at The Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, championing the awe-inspiring...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘A Family Reunion’

The words “family reunion” are bound to evoke mixed memories, no matter whose family it is. That said, I’d wager there are few whose mixture is as experientially eclectic—and as psychologically...

‘The Wiz’ at Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre

Ease on down the road to Winchester and join Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre for a fast-paced, campy, fun, and ultimately heart-warming journey down the yellow brick road with The Wiz, now playing...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Baba’

Whether you are looking for an interesting evening of theatre or a high end New York City apartment, Alex Mahgoub will not disappoint. As Mahgoub takes the stage in his solo show Baba, he hands out a...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Graceless’

Politics may be all about power, but who is really in control? In Graceless, written by Tom Slot and performed by Original Bindings Productions, it is pretty clear that Aaron Berniger, the Mayor of...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Squares’

Dog and Pony DC’s Squares, developed and scripted by Shannon Davies Marcus, Rachel Grossman, Danielle Mohlman, and Aaron Mosby, with Tyrone Giordano, is completely interactive theatre at its finest....

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Tammy Faye’s Final Audition’

Tammy Faye’s Final Audition is a whirlwind about a woman whose iconic eyelashes, televangelical devotion, and legal scandal have secured her a place in brightly lit pop culture heaven. The play is all...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Priest/Penitent’

Bob Lohrmann brings Wally K. Daly’s monodrama, a two-sided exploration of the world of Catholic confessionals, to the Capital Fringe this year. The play is a thoughtful, entertaining, and clever...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Experimental’

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” and Anne is Nan and Nan is Anne, but only on the west coast. This is Hollywood after all, and things can get a little crazy. XY Players’ comedy, Experimental,...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘I Am the Gentry’

The air is cool, the metro rumbles within earshot, and the buzz of people talking fills the space. A woman offers me a glass of water— a red solo cup filled from a plastic pitcher in her hand. She...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Dishwasher’

We all come as audience to any performance with our own personal histories and experiences through which we encounter the work, but rarely does the work come to visit at home- to do our chores. Brian...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Stuff’

Upon entering the Eastman Studio Theatre venue at Gallaudet University, I did not quite know how to respond as I was handed a book entitled Daybreak in Korea by Robert L. Sheldon. As I looked around,...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom’

Even casual horror fans will recognize the setup: An idyllic suburban neighborhood, populated by working dads, stay-at-home moms, and hormonal teenagers, soon becomes the setting for unspeakable...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘mostly the VOICE: a black lesbian journey’

There are many delightful and poignant moments in mostly the VOICE: a black lesbian journey. This engaging autobiographical amalgam of poetry, original music, and storytelling—written and performed by...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘IMPROV WARS’

IMPROV WARS is exactly what it sounds like. Ok – maybe it’s not exactly what it sounds like. No one is improvising a war onstage. Nor are any improvisers actually fighting to the death. However, Laugh...

2015 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Our Lady of the Clouds’

Exile, home, memories – these fundamentals are dreamily explored in an inventive interpretation of Argentinian playwright Aristides Vargas’ play, Our Lady of the Clouds, or Nuestra Senora de las...