2017

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at The British Players

Director Robert Leembruggen and The British Players have created a delightfully funny and energizing interactive theater experience that is a not-miss this holiday season. Get thy backside to this...

Review: ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ at Silver Spring Stage

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is not your typical holiday story. Adapted from the best-selling book by Barbara Robinson, this rendition is laced with hilarity, mischief, and wonder. Andrea Spitz...

Review: ‘Madagascar—A Musical Adventure’ at Red Branch Theatre Company

Chalk up one more cartoon feature making a dash for freedom under the footlights. Madagascar—A Musical Adventure is now filling the intimate Red Branch Theatre with a veritable Noah’s Ark of singing,...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company

The annual productions throughout this region of Charles Dickens’s nearly 175-year-old tale, A Christmas Carol, are as timeless and an integral part of the holiday experience as nativity scenes,...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Wolf Pack Theatre Company

Who isn’t familiar with the story of Ebenezer Scrooge? Wolf Pack Theatre has retold the familiar story of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, in a different way each year, for the past four years....

Review: ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ at City Theater Company

Wilmington’s City Theater Company presents Sunday in the Park with George like you’ve never seen it before, in an original deconstruction conceived by Co-Directors Michael Gray and Tom Shade. But if...

Review: ‘A Wonderful Life: The Musical’ by Third Wall Productions

It was an enjoyable time last night seeing all the hard work Third Wall’s cast put into A Wonderful Life: The Musical. The show is an adaptation of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life with many great...

News: This Monday Don’t Miss ‘Holidays, Hearts, and Home,’ a One-Night Benefit Concert for Puerto Rico at Arena Stage Starring Ed Gero and Natascia Diaz

This Monday, December 11th, a one-night-only concert to benefit the victims of Hurricane Maria entitled Holidays, Hearts, and Home brings a not-to-be-missed roster of whos-who performers to Arena...

Review: ‘Holiday Memories’ at HCC Art’s Collective

Holiday Memories plays this weekend only at Howard Community College in the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center’s Studio Theatre produced by the Howard County Arts Collective and directed by...

Review: ‘Twist Your Dickens’ at Second City

If you’re yearning to kick off your holiday season with goodnatured hilarity, get thee to the Kennedy Center and grab a seat at the Theater Lab, where The Second City’s Twist Your Dickens is holding...

Review: ‘The Art of Swimming’ at Tiny Dynamite

Opening Tiny Dynamite’s seventh season of “A Play, A Pie, and A Pint” – its popular happy-hour series of one-act plays, which includes a slice of pizza and a beer or soft drink with every ticket – is...

Review: ‘Forever Balanchine Farewell Performances’ at The Kennedy Center

It was bittersweet last evening when The Suzanne Farrell Ballet performed the Forever Balanchine Farewell at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House. Sweet because the muse of dance master George Balanchine...

Review: ‘Lookingglass Alice’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Throughout December, visitors entering the Baltimore Center Stage lobby will immediately notice the strange goings-on and the Wonderland-like atmosphere bestowed upon the venue. Over to the left is...

Review: ‘The SantaLand Diaries’ at Drafthouse Comedy Theater in DC

If you are barely in the mood to do something Christmassy, if Tiny Tim gives you hives, and learning lessons is anathema, The SantaLand Diaries is the bracing Christmas cocktail for you. The one-man...

Review: ‘Private Confessions’ at The Kennedy Center

How might one react to finding and reading their mother’s diary after her death? Did she purposely leave the diary so it would be found and read, rather than destroy it? And, how in Heaven’s name,...

Review: ‘Holiday Follies’ at Signature Theatre

It’s that time of year again. Signature Theatre opened their annual Holiday Follies this week. The seasonal cabaret is packed with a set of over twenty songs including Christmas classics, tunes from...

News: DC Theater Arts Unveils Two New Show-Promotion Opportunities

DC Theater Arts (DCMTA)—continuing to grow as the foremost performing arts review and news site in the DC Metro area—today introduces two new opportunities for show promotion on the site. • The first...

Interview: Playwright Andrew Watring on ‘Shakespeare is a White Supremacist,’ Opening TONIGHT at American University Rude Mechanicals

Andrew Watring, a Junior at American University, has penned Shakespeare is a White Supremacist – a new play that analyzes race in the context of classical theater. Watring’s original play is being...

Review: ‘The Book of Will’ at Round House Theatre

For the love of Shakespeare! There’s no doubt that Americans love their Shakespeare. In fact, many consider him America’s best playwright—? Then again, many Americans also love their fake news. But,...

Singer Storm Large Discusses Her Mother, Loneliness, and Why She Plans to Strip on Her 50th Birthday

Before I interviewed Storm Large, I was a bit wary. She seemed like…a lot. A big, brash personality who might hug you to death if she liked you or punch you in the face if you pissed her off. Then I...

Report: Reflections on ‘A Master Class with Denyce Graves’ at the Kennedy Center

Denyce Graves is an absolute force of nature. This is apparent any time she takes the stage, whether it is in a role or as an instructor. She has a strength of presence that radiates when she is...

Magic Time!: ‘The Last Night of Ballyhoo’ at Theater J

The production is lushly beautiful; the pacing, impeccable; the music between scenes, splendid; the acting, a delight in every detail. And the warm, piquant humor in this Jewish family drama has a...

Review: ‘The Last Night of Ballyhoo’ at Theater J

Tinsel and garlands are festooned about a beautiful 10 foot tall Christmas tree. Easy to be captivated with such an exquisite Christmas touch. But, wait, the tree is standing tall on the Edlavitch...

Review: ‘Curve of Departure’ at Studio Theatre

Rachel Bonds’ new play, Curve of Departure, now playing at Studio Theatre, is that rarity among modern plays: it’s traditional storytelling at its most engaging. Enter Rudy, played with a glorious...

Review: ‘In Conversation with Samantha Bee…A Moderated Q&A’ at The Kennedy Center Concert Hall

It was a match made in heaven: Rebecca Traister, author and commentator on feminism and politics; and Samantha Bee, Canadian-American writer, comedian, producer, and (according to TIME) one of the top...

Preview and Appreciation: The Russian Chamber Art Society on Founder Vera Danchenko-Stern’s Festive Birthday Concert

There’s an addictive quality to the events of the Russian Chamber Art Society, sort of like discovering a pastime or sport that you just have to follow once you learn about it. Maybe that’s because...

Review: ‘Citizens’ Watch’ at Washington Improv Theater

One of the best things about improv is that no two shows are alike. And Citizens’ Watch, the improvisational mystery now unfolding at Washington Improv Theater, is no exception.

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

Holidays can bring out the blues, but A Christmas Carol will get you in the Christmas spirit of gratitude and love. The Little Theatre of Alexandria transforms you to the Dickensian time of Victorian...

Magic Time!: “My Job Is to Crack Open My Soul”: A Q&A with Justin Weaks, Now Appearing in ‘Curve of Departure’ at Studio Theatre

Justin Weaks was recently named by the Washington Post one of DMV’s 12 “stage dynamos,” one of “the best of an emerging cadre of younger regional talent.” He would have been on my short list too. I’ve...

Review: ‘Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play’ at Cohesion Theatre Company

What better venue for a production of Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play – an ensemble piece set in a dystopian future where the power grid has failed, sending all our nuclear power...

Review: ‘Draw the Circle’ at Mosaic Theater Company

Draw the Circle is no ordinary one-man show. Nor is it an ordinary autobiographical play. Because Mashuq Mushtaq Deen—its transgender playwright and solo performer—has a singularly fascinating life...

Review: ‘Snow Day’ at Arts on the Horizon

Arts on the Horizon makes the most of a sparse, simple stage for their entertaining production of Rex Daugherty’s “Snow Day.” The performance starts with nothing more than a sheet spread across a...

Review: ‘ink’ at The Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

In ink, choreographer/dancer Camille A. Brown’s final installment in her trilogy examining African-American identity, an entire history of a people is written indelibly on the bodies of her six...

Review: ‘Once On This Island’ at the Circle in the Square Theatre

The first Broadway revival of the 1990 Tony-nominated hit musical Once On This Island, with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty, brings an innovative vision to an old...

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

Surely, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is the definitive Christmas story—at least, in the fiction category—and Paul Morella’s scrumptious and spooky adaptation has become a perennial favorite. Adapted...

Review: ‘The Brownings’ at Orbiter 3

It’s long been said that in order to be a writer, one must be at least a little crazy. Well, they don’t get any crazier than the great Victorian poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning....

Review: ‘Peter Pan’ at the Arden Theatre

Arden Children’s Theatre opens its 20th Anniversary Season with a delightful production of Peter Pan, adapted for the stage by Douglas Irvine, and based on J.M. Barrie’s books. Whit MacLaughlin...

Interview: Natalia Magnicaballi of The Suzanne Farrell Ballet Discusses ‘Forever Balanchine: Farewell Performances’

I had the pleasure to sit down with Natalia Magnicaballi, principal dancer with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, to talk about her work with the company and the upcoming concert series: The Suzanne Farrell...

Review: ‘The Goodies’ at Iron Crow Theatre

The Goodies, a devised play conceived by Director Susan Stroupe and the eight women of color who have taken on the roles of the main characters, is a challenging and thought-provoking look at how...

Review: ‘Madeline’s Christmas’ at Creative Cauldron

The twelve little girls in two straight lines of Ludwig Bemelmans’ beloved children’s series have taken the stage this holiday season in Creative Cauldron’s Madeline’s Christmas. With book and lyrics...

Review: ‘It’s a Wonderful Life a Live Radio Play’ at the Laurel Mill Playhouse

It’s a Wonderful Life is a classic. One we want to see every holiday season. Growing up, it was a household staple for us even though we were Jewish. The theme, the importance of kindness, the meaning...

Review: ‘Hansel and Gretel’ at Synetic Theater

Synetic Theater presents a imaginative re-telling of a beloved classic with their wordless production of Hansel and Gretel. Directed and choreographed by co-adaptors Tori Bertocci and Elena Velasco,...

Review: ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ at the Virginia Opera

Giacomo Puccini never met a foreign culture that he didn’t try to set to music. His operas set in Japan (Madama Butterfly) and China (Turandot) are celebrated as masterpieces. Less celebrated is his...

Review: ‘Peekaboo! A Nativity Play’ at the Hub Theatre

Want to wish yourself a Merry Little Christmas and a Happy New Year in a new way? Then for those with a bent for the uncommon, consider taking in a contemporary retelling of the Biblical Nativity...

Review: ‘Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone?’ at The WorkShop Theater

One of the early, less-familiar works by Tony Award-winning playwright and librettist Terrence McNally (famed for his highly-acclaimed Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, Kiss of the Spider...

Review: ‘Black Girl: Linguistic Play’ at The Kennedy Center

A lone bass guitar player, Electric Bassist Tracy Wormworth, is highlighted in a stream of light. He is seen at a distance and the sound is like a fluttering thought, familiar but quickly dissolving...

Review: ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’ at Prince George’s Little Theatre

What can you say about a character who was on a first name basis with Walt Disney and Mahatma Ghandi? A character who dominated the radio airwaves, read plays, wrote books, who often slept until noon,...

Review: ‘Amazing Grace’ at the Museum of the Bible

A gorgeous production of a glorious musical in a grand new DC theater. What’s not to love? The new hall for performing arts is the 472-seat World Stage Theater, high up on the fifth floor of the new...

Review: ‘The Sea Cadet’ and ‘A Trip to Africa’ at Concert Operetta Theater

Concert Operetta Theater moved into new artistic territory with its November production of two unfamiliar operettas. Daniel Pantano’s Philadelphia company teamed up with a European organization led by...

Review: ‘My Fair Lady’ at Quintessence Theatre

Quintessence Theatre has built a strong reputation as a home for classic drama. But now they’ve dived into the American Musical Theatre canon in a big way by staging one of the most popular and...