2016

Review: ‘Naughty & Nice’ at Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC

Jumpstart your holiday spirit with Naughty & Nice, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington’s warmhearted, sassy and sexy extravaganza. For traditionalists, there’s Irving Berlin’s “Snow,” “The Dreidel...

Review: ‘Murder for Two: Holiday Edition’ at Bucks County Playhouse

When I found out that the creators of the musical comedy Murder for Two were premiering a special Christmas-themed version at Bucks County Playhouse, I was intrigued. After all, the show has been a...

Review: ‘Wilde Tales’ at Quintessence Theatre Group

Brightened by a beautiful glittering garden backdrop, several of Oscar Wilde’s fabled fairy tales, smartly adapted and directed by Jeremy Bloom, convey the childlike spirit to an enchanting world...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Delaware Theatre Company

The Delaware Theatre Company (DTC) is offering a time-honored classic for the holiday season: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Only Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of the beloved tale is not your...

Review: ‘Dot’ at Everyman Theatre

There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays. When Everyman Theatre (“Everyman”) Founding Artistic Director Vincent M. Lancisi left the Humana Festival of New Plays in Louisville, Kentucky last year,...

Review: ‘Camelot’ at Compass Rose Theater

Is all fair in love and war? As Compass Rose Theater’s production of Camelot shows, both can leave hearts broken. Produced and Directed by Lucinda Merry-Browne, this iconic musical infused with...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at McCarter Theatre Center

I cried while watching Adam Immerwahr’s revamped production of A Christmas Carol for McCarter Theatre Center. Immerwahr’s redo is less opulent, more spare, and aims for more intimacy and realism, but...

Review: ‘Fully Committed’ at MetroStage

Tom Story is a knockout in his one-actor, effortlessly frenetic, tour de force performance as 40 different characters who comprise the charming “controlled” frenzy of MetroStage’s Fully Committed....

Review: The Washington Chorus’ ‘A Candlelight Christmas’ at The Kennedy Center

Once the energized crowd was seated and ready, Guest Conductor Andrew Clark, (Director of coral activities at Harvard), had us all stand up for some vocal warm ups. Moans, laughter and hearty Ho, Ho,...

Meet the Cast of ‘The Second Shepherds’ Play’ at Folger Theatre Part 1: Ryan Sellers

In part 1 of a series of interviews with the cast of Folger Theatre’s The Second Shepherds’ Play, meet Ryan Sellers. Sophia: Please introduce yourself to our readers. Where have we seen you recently...

Eddie’s Travel Picks: Milton Inn, Cunningham’s, and Citron

If you’re not hungry now, you will be when you reach the end. We are about to embark on a visit to three rather upscale restaurants. We’ll begin in Sparks Maryland. Here located on York Road is the...

‘A Christmas Carol’ at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company

Refreshing Charles Dickens’ beloved family holiday classic with a Baltimore-centric twist, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) spices up A Christmas Carol with local cultural history, festive music...

In the Moment: ‘Sleeping Beauty’ at Synetic Theater

Sleeping Beauty, Synetic Theater’s new dialogue-free production, is gorgeous, entertaining, and illuminating. This Sleeping Beauty is more than a fanciful, “white bread, white washed” Disney-like take...

Magic Time! ‘Into the Woods’ at The Kennedy Center

The acclaimed Fiasco Theater production of Into the Woods has come to the Eisenhower Theater at Kennedy Center for the holidays—I am tempted to say for a spell, because the show is enchanting as a...

Review: ‘Seussical’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

Greenbelt Arts Center’s Seussical (The Musical), directed by Jon Gardner, is a magical spectacle. With lyrics and book by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and musical direction by Mac Fancher,...

Review: ‘La Cage aux Folles’ at City Theater Company

Wilmington’s City Theater Company ushers in its 23rd season with lots of glitter for the holidays. But it’s not the usual tinsel on the tree, it’s the fabulous drag fest that is La Cage aux Folles!...

Review: The Arden Cabaret Series: ‘Tell Me A Story: ’Tis the Season’ at the Arden Theatre

Since its introduction last season, the Arden Theatre’s cabaret season has provided a dependable stream of the city’s best performers providing old songs, new songs, and comedy. But the latest entry...

Review: ‘Sleeping Beauty’ at Synetic Theater

Briar Rose. Brunhilde. Talia. Rosamond. Aurora. Over the centuries Sleeping Beauty has been known by many names, but the long abiding folk tale of good conquering evil and love conquering all, has...

Review: NPR’s ‘A Jazz Piano Christmas’ at The Kennedy Center

It was a family affair last night at The Kennedy Center’s Family Theater for the annual NPR’s A Jazz Piano Christmas. With performances by first a father and daughter team, Bethany and Willie Pickens;...

Review: ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors’ at OperaLancaster

Originally commissioned by NBC as the first opera for television, composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors has become an American Christmas tradition since its debut...

Review: ‘This Wonderful Life’ at Act II Playhouse

“Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!” For so many, the holiday season just isn’t complete without the images of Jimmy Stewart running through the streets of Bedford Falls bidding an...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol: A Live Radio Play’ at Howard Community College’s Arts Collective

We all could use a bit of good tidings during this winter of our discontent. Fortunately for Howard County theatergoers, this weekend is filled with holiday cheer with four productions of The...

Review: ‘Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ at Providence Players of Fairfax

Best Christmas Pageant Ever, the second production of The Providence Players of Fairfax’s 19th season is delightful Christmas family fun. Written by Barbara Robinson in the 70s and directed by WATCH...

Review: ‘Masterpieces of Russian Vocal Music: Enchanted Evening of Vocal & Piano Duets’ at Russian Chamber Art Society

If there is one thing that those of us in the DC metropolitan area can be sure of when it comes to classical music, it is that finding great examples of it on virtually any night of the week will not...

Review: ‘At Sea, Staring Up’ at The Wheel Theatre

Love conquers all. The common saying sounds like an easy feat, yet the journey of finding, keeping or cultivating love is fraught with tensions and discontinuities. This is also the case in At Sea,...

Review: ‘The Happy Elf’ at Red Branch Theatre Company

Red Branch Theatre in Columbia has an early present for young audiences this season. On opening night of Harry Connick Jr.’s The Happy Elf, many of those in the next generation of theater-lovers came...

Review: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ at The Music Box Theatre in NYC

This highly imaginative and moving musical was presented off Broadway by the Second Stage company in May of this year. It enjoyed a sold out run for a month, and was honored by a dozen awards for...

Review: ‘The Carols’ at 1812 Productions

Review: ‘The Carols’ at 1812 Productions by Neal Newman on December 10, 2016 Close harmony, the singing style popularized in World War II by the Andrews Sisters, is formidably difficult to do well....

An Interview With Aaron Cromie and Matthew Mastronardi on Dylan Thomas’ ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ at Walnut Street Theatre

I have seen many Christmas shows, each one enjoyable in its own way, but I’ve never seen a production as moving, as unusual, and as artistically satisfying as this unique version of A Child’s...

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: ‘A Bronx Tale’ at The Longacre Theatre in NYC

Chazz Palminteri’s career as actor and writer was given a big boost when his one-man play A Bronx Tale began its life off Broadway with the author as its star. The material was honed from his early...

Review: ‘A Holiday Pops!/Home for the Holidays’ with the NSO Pops

‘Tis the season for holiday cheer, laughter and heart-warming music, and there is no better place to find it all wrapped up together than at the NSO Pops’ A Holiday Pops! concert. The first...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

Ebenezer Scrooge would be a terror on Facebook. He’s just not your social media type of guy. Bahhumbug would be his Twitter log-on. And if he’s your boss, like poor Bob Cratchit, don’t even think...

Review: The Fiasco Theater’s ‘Into the Woods’ at The Kennedy Center

I did not listen to my much-loved soundtrack of Stephen Sondheim’s and James Lapine’s classic fairy tale mash-up before heading off to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to see the...

Review: ‘10 Synchronisms’ at A Change of Harp

Conceived and directed by Elizabeth Huston, the current two-night presentation of 10 Synchronisms by Argentine-American composer Mario Davidovsky–created between 1963 and 2006, and produced here by A...

Review: ‘A Merry Little Christmas with Megan Hilty’ at The Kennedy Center

If the slightly warmer weather than normal for this time of year is making it hard for you to get into the holiday mood, head to The Kennedy Center for A Merry Little Christmas with Megan Hilty and...

Review: ‘Goyescas’ at The In Series

Tiered steps and four small café tables re-imagine the Spanish courtyard. With friendly interaction and wine, music and dancing, a cast of nine singers and two dancers introduce the evening with folk...

‘Take A Bow!’ Part 2: The Staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ Favorite DC/MD/VA Fall 2016 Performances/Directors/Designers

The Bald Ballerina in Dancing for Divas: A Labor of Love at Howard Community College. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house after Margaret “Maggie” Kudirka’s heart-wrenching solo at the Dancing for...

Review: ‘The Road: My Life with John Denver’ at People’s Light

A musician, singer, and songwriter who toured for eight years with the titular folk star and lived near him in Aspen, Colorado, before his tragic death in a plane crash at the age of 53, Dan Wheetman...

An Interview With Jay Kuo, Composer and Lyricist of ‘Allegiance.’ A film of the Broadway Musical Will Show in Theaters Across the Country on Tuesday, December 13th

Allegiance, the 2015 Broadway musical based on the forced relocation of 120,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II, will be shown in movie theaters around the country for one...

Meet the Cast and Director of Providence Players’ ‘Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ Part 3: Evie Izdepski by Julie Janson

The Providence Players of Fairfax will soon premiere the second production of their 19th season, Best Christmas Pageant Ever, written by Barbara Robinson and directed by award-winning director Liz...

Review: ‘A Christmas Story: The Musical’ at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre

Humorist Jean Shepherd left us in 1999 but his folksy memories of being a child in Indiana at Christmas time live delightfully on in A Christmas Story: The Musical. Now making its Baltimore debut...

Review # 2: ‘The Comedy of Errors . . . at Colonus’ at Lumina Studio Theatre (Green Cast)

If you’re a lover of impossible opposites, or have ever wondered what it would be like to wander into a mirthful merge—or, in the company’s assuredly less elegant, but admittedly (and amusingly) more...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol Memory’ at Creative Cauldron

Right in time for the Holiday Season, Creative Cauldron has presented another installation from their Bold New Works project with the World Premiere of A Christmas Carol Memory. Adapted from Charles...

Review: ‘School of Rock’ at Cherry Hill High School West

Back when I was in high school, we didn’t do musicals where the songs had titles like “Stick It to the Man.” (I don’t think our principal would have allowed it!) But now Cherry Hill High School West...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas’ at Olney Theatre Center

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is undeniably one of the most popular works of fiction the author ever wrote. Completed in just a few short months in 1843, the work has been adapted for a variety...

Review: ‘It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play is a delightfully entertaining show. Written by Joe Landry based on the Frank Capra film and directed by Donald...

Review: ‘The Nutcracker’ at Metropolitan Ballet Theatre

Metropolitan Ballet Theatre’s 28th annual production of The Nutcracker is a veritable feast for the senses. With a gorgeous array of costumes, a set that will evoke contented sighs from any Downton...

Review: ‘Picnic’ at The Catholic University of America

Picnic comes to Catholic. And by the time it’s over, lives are overturned, dreams are rekindled, and who knows what will happen next. William Inge, master playwright of the heartland, captured...

Review: ‘Jib: or, The Child Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was’ at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Philadelphia, PA

A multimedia synthesis of music, film, and drama, Jib: or, The Child Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was traces the rise and fall of a fictional rock star through arcane fragmented scenes of her...