2016

Interviews from London Below: Inside Cohesion Theatre’s ‘Neverwhere’: Part 5: Bobby Henneberg

In Part Five of a series of interviews with cast members of Cohesion Theatre Company’s Neverwhere, meet Bobby Henneberg. Patricia: Please introduce yourself and tell our readers where they may have...

Meet The Cast of ‘Moon Over Buffalo’ at Vagabond Players: Part 2: Jess Kim

In Part Two of a series of interviews with the cast of Vagabond Players’ Moon Over Buffalo, meet Jess Kim. Please introduce yourselves and tell me why you wanted to be in the cast of ‘Moon Over...

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: An Interview with Workhouse Arts Center’s Ava Spece

The Workhouse Arts Center is a 55-acre cultural arts center located in southern Fairfax County. For the history minded, It was 100 years ago that Suffragettes who had protested the lack of voting...

Dangereuse: Reconstructing Shylock: ‘District Merchants’ at the Folger Theatre

Freud said, “When a delusion cannot be dissipated by the facts of reality, it probably does not spring from reality.” This is the essence of prejudice. In showing us a more human side of Shylock...

Capital Fringe 2016 Preview #5: ‘The Golden Smile’ by Yaakov Bressler

Hailing from a sold out run at NYC’s FRIGID Festival, the absurdist musical comedy The Golden Smile will be making its debut in Washington DC at The 2016 Capital Fringe Festival, which takes place...

Review: ‘Parade’ at Drama Learning Center

Parade is a musical with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and book by Alfred Uhry. Although the original Broadway production had a short-lived run. the show is now often remembered as a powerful...

Review: ‘The Judas Kiss’ at The Harvey Theatre in the Brooklyn Academy of Music in NYC

David Hare’s play about a very specific time in the life of Oscar Wilde first appeared in New York in 1998, with Liam Neeson playing the brilliant Irish playwright Wilde, thus establishing himself as...

Meet The Cast of ‘Moon Over Buffalo’ at Vagabond Players: Part 1: Caroline Kiebach

In Part One of a series of interviews with the cast of Vagabond Players’ Moon Over Buffalo, meet Caroline Kiebach. Joel: Please introduce yourselves and tell me why you wanted to be in the cast of...

Interviews from London Below: Inside Cohesion Theatre’s ‘Neverwhere’: Part 3: Jonas Grey

In Part Three of a series of interviews with cast members of Cohesion Theatre Company’s Neverwhere, meet Jonas David Grey. Patricia: Please introduce yourself and tell our readers where they may have...

Capital Fringe 2016 Preview #4: ‘A Breakup Is Swift’ by Clint Bagwell

A BREAKUP IS SWIFT If you want to get bummed out, we have the show for you. A Breakup Is Swift marks the world premiere of a conceptual artwork by Clint Bagwell that takes the form of a series of live...

Capital Fringe 2016 Preview #3: ‘Too Close’ by Luigi Laraia

TOO CLOSE, a play written by Luigi Laraia Part of the 11th Annual Capital Fringe Festival July 7 – 31, 2016 Two strangers trapped in an elevator need to rely on each other to survive. Two strangers...

Review: ‘Trouble in Mind’ at The Stagecrafters Theater in Philadelphia

In many ways, it’s startling to learn that Trouble in Mind was first performed in 1955. Alice Childress’ play was decades ahead of its time: it’s a satire of racial stereotypes in American...

Review: ‘Happy Days’ at Quintessence Theatre Group in Philadelphia

All dolled up in her fanciest dress, she’s smiling and chipper. It’s a sunny day, and Winnie is not going to let a little thing like the gigantic mound of dirt she’s buried in up to her waist bring...

Review: Source Festival 2016: ‘Secrets & Sound’: Six 10-Minute Plays

Don’t feel like committing to a two-hour show in development? Secrets & Sound: Six 10-Minute Plays is your ticket to theatrical speed-dating. You’re bound to fall in love with one of six playwrights,...

Review: ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ at Victorian Lyric Opera Company

Conundrums seem to be Gilbert and Sullivan’s specialty. Their most famous works, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado, explore the comic antics that ensue when seemingly simple people are thrown...

Review: ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ at Stillpointe Theatre Initiative

On Friday, StillPointe Theatre Initiative opened its production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an absurdist play by Tom Stoppard that, along with Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, sets...

Review: ‘Time Is On Our Side’ at Simpatico Theatre Project in Philadelphia

There’s a song in the Broadway musical Hamilton that asks “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” That question is at the heart of Time Is On Our Side, R. Eric Thomas’ new play. It’s a play...

Review: ‘10x10x10” at Fells Point Corner Theatre

Ten stories, ten plays, ten minutes per play. That was the set up for 10x10x10, a collection of plays by local area playwrights, which played at Fells Point Corner Theatre. The audience got to vote...

Here are the 2016 Tony Award Winners and Link to Last Night’s Musical Performances

Here are the 2016 Tony Award Winners: Best Play Eclipsed The Father WINNER: The Humans King Charles III Best Musical Bright Star WINNER: Hamilton School of Rock—The Musical Shuffle Along, Or the...

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: Pianist Veronika Böhmová at the Czech Embassy in the Embassy Series

The Czech Republic is a small country with a big impact on music. It’s a good thing they don’t just churn out mere virtuosos, of whom the world has plenty. Instead the best of the lot harness...

Review: Source Festival 2016: ‘Heroes and Home’: Six 10-Minute Plays

Now in its ninth year, the Source Festival aims to act as a starting ground for new work from artists, both new and seasoned, from all over the country. Through collaboration and a great deal of...

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...

Review: ‘Stupid F#@*ing Bird’ at Port City Playhouse

Port City Playhouse has undertaken the hilarious dark comedy Stupid F#@*ing Bird, by Playwright Aaron Posner. The show is adapted from Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, but with a very modern makeover and...

Review: ‘Snakebit’ at Dominion Stage

You’re lucky if you’ve got one: That old friend from childhood who knows every mistake you’ve ever made but loves you anyway. The friend to whom you can confess your darkest secrets, display your...

Review: ‘Matt & Ben’ at Flying V

After filming not a few Rotten Tomatoes targets and appearing in too many tabloid headlines, the real Ben Affleck has cleaned up and redeemed himself in the public stargaze, both professionally and...

Review: ‘Almost Heaven: Songs of John Denver’ at Infinity Theatre

You might want to “Take me Home, Country Roads” to the latest production Almost Heaven: Songs of John Denver, which for the first time is playing in the Washington, DC metropolitan area in Annapolis,...

Review: ‘The New Old Time Music Hall Celebrating Queen and Country’ at The British Players

It’s a gathering of music, humor, and tradition with The British Players in The New Old Time Music Hall Celebrating Queen and Country. The British Players have quite a storied history, performing at...

Review: Source Festival 2016: ‘Static’

In Tom Horan’s Static, directed by Bridget Grace Sheaff, Emma (Amy Horan), a perky millennial, inherits, after her father’s death, the sad task of excavating the second house he owned later in life....

Review: ‘The Drowsy Chaperone’ at Damascus Theatre Company and Arts on the Green

It’s the beginning of Act I. The lights just start to go down, and everyone begins to settle into their seats for the next two hours. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, and all look forward to the...

Spine: Love, Greed, and Bigotry in The Folger’s ‘District Merchants’

There’s no question that Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice is a problem play, fraught with old hates that were once considered justified and old beliefs that have long lost their hold on the European...

Review: ‘Henry IV Parts I & II’ at The Rude Mechanicals

Over 17 years, The Rude Mechanicals, a local theater company specializing in classic works, has made its way through nearly all of Shakespeare’s enduring canon. After the current production of Henry...

Review: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company

With all of the festivities surrounding the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, many theatres have taken it upon themselves to put forth lavish and bold new productions of the Bard’s work....

Review: ‘The Importance of Being Ernest’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

What better way to spend a lovely late spring evening than to be charmed by the words of Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest beguiles us at Laurel Mill Playhouse. This farcical satire of...

Review: Source Festival 2016: ‘lost&SOUND’: Artistic Blind Date

“Within each of us lies uncharted secrets. Beyond us drifts an unknowable universe…” thus begins lost&SOUND, a 35-minute Artistic Blind Date inspired by one of the full length plays currently featured...

Review: ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’ at The York Theatre Company

This charming piece of work has a long history. Its original run was off Broadway at Theater 80 in the East Village, where it settled in for a smashing run of 1697 performances. Arthur Whitelaw was...

Review: ‘Ragtime: The Musical’ at Wolf Trap

Easily one of most under-rated musicals to come out of Broadway in the last 20 years, Ragtime: The Musical—with book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens—follows...

2016 Capital Fringe Preview #2: ‘The Computer That Loved’ by Erik Mueller

Here’s an interview with Erik Mueller, writer and performer of The Computer That Loved, a 30-minute solo show about a computer scientist who finds creative inspiration in his romantic ups and downs....

In the Moment: ‘Technical Theater Boot Camp’ at Hylton Performing Arts Center.

This summer Hylton Performing Art Center is offering a unique opportunity for “hands-on” learning about what happens backstage during a live theater performance. The Hylton is offering a...

Arts Collective@HCC Holds Auditions for 2016-2017 Improv Group (WIG) Season on 6/23&24 From 6:30-9:30 PM

Howard Community College’s Arts Collective (AC) announces open auditions for “What Improv Group?!” / W.I.G.’s 2016-2017 Season, under the direction of S.G. Kramer & Daniel Johnston, on June 23rd and...

Review: ‘District Merchants’ at Folger Theatre

District Merchants, in its world premiere at Folger Theatre, is a tour de force that explores the complexity of race and identity in Reconstruction-era America. As part of Folger Theatre’s 2016...

Review: Source Festival 2016: ‘Buried Cities’

This year’s edition of the DC Source Festival continues with its central mission to present works fresh to the DC area. The new theater works at Source receive their first full production at one of...

‘What Men Don’t Say’ Plays at The Anacostia Arts Center on June 18th at 5 & 8 PM

The title What Men Don’t Say in itself stirs up a plethora of emotions from women and especially men. Many of these emotions originate from experiences, perception and history with both genders as...

Review: Source Festival 2016: ‘Entanglement’: Artistic Blind Dates

Tangled Up in Time Cultural DC’s Source Festival 2016 kicked off with Entanglement, an immersive piece of theatre written and performed by Claire Alrich, Maryam Foye, and Britney Mongold — three women...

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...

Interviews from London Below: Inside Cohesion Theatre’s ‘Neverwhere’: Part 2: Cori Dioquino

In Part Two of a series of interviews with cast members of Cohesion Theatre Company’s Neverwhere, meet Cori Dioquino. Patricia: Please introduce yourself and tell our readers where they may have seen...

Midyear CD Review: Evocative Oboe, Witty Haydn, and a New Take on Duke Ellington

Serendipity counts in music as in anything else. A year and a half ago I recommended two outstanding debut albums by artists with local connections. Soprano Danielle Talamantes, a Northern Virginia...

Review: ‘Cul de Sac’ at Encore Stage & Studio

Encore Stage & Studio is currently showing their world premiere production of Cul de Sac. The play, written by Amy Thompson, is an adaptation of the popular comic strip of the same name by Richard...

Review: ‘Love Letters’ at Hippodrome Theatre at The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center

Talk about age-appropriate casting: Love Letters, a play about the 50-year relationship between a man and a woman, is now at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore starring a man and a woman acclaimed...