2016

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘Yo, You Be Trippin! An Incomplete but Not Inaccurate Story of LSD in the USA’

LBJ took the IRT down to Fourth Street USA Having participated in the Charm City Fringe Festival (“Fringe”) last year, Chad Short – a soon-to-be graduate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County...

Review: ‘Little Thing, Big Thing’ at Solas Nua

The DC premiere of Donal O’Kelly’s Little Thing, Big Thing, playing now at Solas Nua performing at Flashpoint Mead Theatre Gallery, is an impressively entertaining dark Irish comedy. A cast of two...

Review: ‘Guys and Dolls’ at Richard Montgomery High School

Nicknamed “A Musical Fable of Broadway,” Guys and Dolls is a 1950 musical comedy based on the short stories of the legendary Damon Runyon. With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo...

Review: ‘Black Violin’ at Strathmore

‘Black Violin’ serves up a musical potpourri at Strathmore “This is a party!” said Wil B (Wilner Baptiste) one half of the group Black Violin, which performed a genre-mashing amalgam of hip hop and...

Review: ‘Almost, Maine’ at Quince Orchard High School

“If needed, use additional sheets.” I remember always being curious how anyone writing a High School exam essay could ever write enough to need additional sheets. Then I had the opportunity to review...

Meet the Cast of ‘Dinner With Friends’ at Greenbelt Arts Center: Part 4: Jim Adams

In Part 4 of a series of interviews with Greenbelt Arts Center’s Dinner With Friends, meet Jim Adams. Joel: Please tell our readers where they may have seen your work on our local stages. Who did you...

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘God: The One Man Show’

Can I Get an Amen?! Have you been looking for a show that combines laughter, wisdom, magic and miracles? Your prayers have been answered! This weekend, God: The One Man Show (“God”) is playing the...

Review: ‘Children of Eden’ at Damascus Theatre Company

Parent-child relationships have been a perennial issue throughout history, even “In the Beginning.” Damascus Theatre Company’s production of Children of Eden takes the audience on a musical journey...

In the Moment: ‘Birdman Live! at George Mason University Center

There has been a wealth of films about Broadway over the decades. Many oft these Broadway-related movies are from a too distant past even if still shown on AMC or Turner Classics. If the older films...

Review: ‘War Virgin’ at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop

In honor of Veterans’ Day, I took in a showing of War Virgin. I first met the playwright, West Point grad and Iraqi War veteran Laura Westley, at the Army/Navy game in Philadelphia several years ago....

Magic Time: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ at The Keegan Theatre

Having been watching a con man on the national stage for too long now, I found myself last night watching a con man on a local theater stage from an unusually timely point of view. To put it simply:...

Review: ‘Marat/Sade’ at Temple University

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade is perhaps the world’s longest title for a play,...

Meet the Cast of Avant Bard’s ‘TAME.’ Part 4: Madeline Burrows

In Part 4 of a series of interviews with the cast of Avant Bard’s production of TAME., meet Madeline Burrows. Joel: Where have local audiences seen you perform recently on stage? Madeline: Most...

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘One Man Apocalypse Now’

Martin Sheen Always Wins I’m just going to get this out of the way up front, because time is of the essence. Chris Davis’ One Man Apocalypse Now is playing at the Charm City Fringe Festival and you...

Review: ‘Carousel’ at Arena Stage

Life happens. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s, Carousel, is a timeless interlude that explores the human spirit’s indomitable will to go forward no matter life’s circumstances. Director Molly Smith’s...

Review: ‘Buyer & Cellar’ at Bucks County Playhouse

Say what you will about Barbra Streisand – whether you love her massive talent or ego, or not, you have to admit there’s no one else like her. And few people can say that with as much authority as...

Review: ‘In My Body’ at Flying Bulldog Productions

Flying Bulldog Productions provided a immersive, positive and uplifting evening with their message of self-love in their production of In My Body. The world-premiere musical is a theatrical...

Review: BSO at Strathmore: Mahler Symphony No. 6

Some critics go to music performances as a modern day Shakespearean Brutus: They come to bury the performance, not praise it. And, bury it they do with raised pinky, off-putting, arcane phraseology...

The American Pops’ “I’ll Be Seeing You-A World War II Love Story” Tonight at 8 PM at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium

TONIGHT, Friday, November 11th at 8:00 PM LUKE FRAZIER AND THEAMERICAN POPS ORCHESTRA PRESENT “I’LL BE SEEING YOU – A WORLD WAR II LOVE STORY” FOR VETERANS DAY TO OPEN THEIR ALL-STAR SECOND SEASON....

Meet the Cast of ‘Dinner With Friends’ at Greenbelt Arts Center: Part 3: Michelle Johncock

In Part 3 of a series of interviews with the cast of Greenbelt Arts Center’s Dinner with Friends, meet Michelle Johncock. Joel: Please tell our readers where they may have seen your work on our local...

Daisy Eagan: From Her Tony Award-winning Mary Lennox to Playing Martha in ‘The Secret Garden’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

I rarely see a show twice, but I saw the Broadway production of The Secret Garden with Daisy Eagan 12 times. What a thrill it is to chat with her as she prepares to star as Martha in Shakespeare...

Meet the Cast of ‘Children of Eden’ at Damascus Theatre Company. Part 2: Kevin Sockwell

In part two of a series of interviews with the cast of Damascus Theatre Company’s Children of Eden, meet Kevin Sockwell. Where have local theatergoers seen you perform before on our local stages? What...

Composer/Librettist Andrew Earle Simpson on ‘The Outcasts of Poker Flat’, His New One-Act Chamber Opera Playing at Catholic University Through Sunday 11/20

New opera: The Outcasts of Poker Flat at Catholic University (Or, “Two Prostitutes, a Thief, and a Gambler Walk into a Bar…”) This month, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, a 70-minute one-act chamber opera...

“It’s Our Most Jewish Play This Season”: A Q&A With Adam Immerwahr About ‘The Christians’ at Theater J

For the second show in his first season as artistic director of Theater J, the nation’s largest and most prominent Jewish theater, Adam Immerwahr picked a play with the counterintuitive title The...

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘The Pink Hulk: One Woman’s Journey to Find the Superhero Within’

Last night, I was slated to review a couple shows at the Charm City Fringe Festival (“Fringe”). To be honest, I didn’t have much energy for it. I’d stayed up until 4:00 am watching a horror show and...

Review: ‘South Pacific’ at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts

Annapolis Opera’s production of South Pacific was a fun, charming musical. Based on James Michner’s novel Tales of the South Pacific, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics and book by Oscar...

‘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: ‘Salvador’ by Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company at GALA Hispanic Theatre

There’s good news and bad news floating out of GALA Hispanic Theatre this week. First, the bad news. Salvador—the full-length autobiographical dance drama, choreographed by the great Flamenco dancer,...

Review: ‘Tame.’ at Avant Bard

Audiences of all generations and emerging Millennial-aged playwrights should rejoice at Avant Bard’s production of DC playwright Jonelle Walker’s TAME. Avant Bard took a risky budgetary and audience...

Magic Time! ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company

This beautiful play about black teenagers with bleak futures left me with such a melancholy sadness that two days later (on what was then Election Day), it had not gone away. I share that not to keep...

Spine: ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company

America is but an expensive iPhone. If you’ve got that, and its Pink with a sexy ringtone, then you’re in, as in the “in” crowd. Now, all you need is a baby. Or so seems the mind-set of Margie,...

Review #2: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ at The Keegan Theatre

In John Guare’s wonderfully enigmatic and slightly precocious play, Six Degrees of Separation, now playing at The Keegan Theatre—the ripples of interconnection run rampant as the author intended. This...

Review: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ at The Keegan Theatre

We’ve all heard of this idea before—that there are six degrees of separation between everyone in the universe, from the president of the U.S. to a “gondolier in Venice.” John Guare’s play, named after...

Review: ‘Where Words Once Were’ at The Kennedy Center

This past weekend, The Kennedy Center opened a newly commissioned show for young audiences from Playwright, Finegan Kruckemeyer. The piece titled, Where Words Once Were, touches on the often...

Review: ‘Working: a Musical’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre

Working isn’t a typical musical. There’s no plot, no resolution, no love story. Yet the tale it tells is an absorbing one. By using words and music to examine the relationship of people to their jobs,...

Review: ‘Falsettos’ at The Walter Kerr Theatre in NYC

We must thank Andre Bishop and his staff at Lincoln Center Theatre for gifting us with a very early Christmas present called Falsettos, composer William Finn’s musical with a book he co-wrote with...

Charm City Fringe Review: ‘The Shoemaker’s Holiday’ at Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

The Shoemaker’s Holiday: A Firking Funny Production at BSF This weekend, I had the good fortune to be at Baltimore Shakespeare Factory (“BSF”), as part of the first audience ever to see The...

Review: Sheila Jordan at the KC Jazz Club

Sheila Jordan loves jazz. Sheila Jordan loves singing. Sheila Jordan really loves jazz singing. And we feel truly blessed to have spent an evening in the presence of that love. For those who have not...

Review: ‘Milk Like Sugar’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Milk Like Sugar, the Obie Award-winning play that just opened at Mosaic Theater Company of DC, starts off as badass comedy, the kind where the word “shit”—repeated like an “amen” at the end of each...

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 Migration Project: live performance art installation’‘ at Jane Franklin Dance Company

The Migration Project is a live music, multi-media event directed and developed by Jane Franklin of the Jane Franklin Dance Company that raises many questions: When is it necessary to pick up from...

Review: ‘Out of the City’ at Passage Theatre

Leslie Ayvazian’s comedy Out of the City opens in the lobby of a Bed and Breakfast in the Poconos. Carol and her husband Matt are there for the weekend to celebrate Carol’s sixtieth birthday. Carol’s...

Who’s in Town?: American Idol Winner Taylor Hicks, Performing at The Hamilton in DC on Friday, November 11th at 8pm

Taylor Hicks became a household name in 2006 when he won the fifth season of American Idol, becoming one of the most beloved winners of that iconic TV program. Over 200 million viewers watched the...

Review: ‘Mary Poppins’ at Olney Theatre Center

How do you make a stage musical from a movie that was “Practically Perfect in Every Way”? A movie that won five Academy Awards, including Best Visual Effects for cinematic magic tricks and a sequence...

Review: ‘Tick, Tick…Boom’ at The Highwood Theatre

Originally a one-man show written in 1990, Tick, Tick…Boom was reconceived after Jonathan Larson’s untimely death by David Auburn and produced off-Broadway in 2001. Rewritten to include three...

Meet the Cast of ‘Children of Eden’ at Damascus Theatre Company. Part 1: Cheryl J. Campo

In Part 1 of a series of interviews with the cast of Damascus Theatre Company’s Children of Eden, meet Cheryl J. Campo. Joel: Where have local theatergoers seen you perform before on our local stages?...

Review: ‘Girl in the Red Corner’ at The Welders

Among the adages that keep women put down and passive is the one that goes, “Good girls don’t fight.” It’s a specious presumption that infects culture like an immobilizing toxin. It’s an addle-brained...

Review: ‘La Cage aux Folles’ at Other Voices Theatre

With music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and a book by Harvey Fierstein, La Cage aux Folles running at Other Voices Theatre is a splendid spectacle stuffed with laughs and many poignant moments about the...

Review: ‘School of Rock’ at Beyond the Page Theatre Company at West Potomac High School

It’s hard not to leave the theater humming Stevie Nicks or exclaiming “Stick it to the man!” after seeing Beyond the Page Theatre Company at West Potomac High School’s rockin’ production of School of...

Meet the Cast of Avant Bard’s ‘TAME.’ Part 3: Jill Tighe

In Part 3 of a series of interviews with the cast of Avant Bard’s production of TAME., meet Jill Tighe. Joel: Where have local audiences seen you perform recently on stage? Jill: The last play I did...