2017

Review: ‘Guys and Dolls’ at Fairfax High School

Fairfax High School Theatre’s production of Guys and Dolls had the audience roaring with laughter. Set in 1930’s New York, the show was based on short stories by Damon Runyon about the gangsters and...

Review: ‘Fronteras: A Door in the Desert’ by Almanac Dance Circus Theatre at FringeArts

I held my breath in glorious anticipation at several instances during Almanac Dance Circus Theatre’s captivating show Fronteras: A Door in the Desert. A Door in the Desert is the second part of...

Review: ‘Happy Birthday’ at 1812 Productions

Laughter broke out in the jam-packed theatre even before the first pratfall, which then only served to fan the funniness. Watching Beverly Cross’ adaption of Marc Camoletti’s Happy Birthday, as...

Review: The 22nd Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival: Abbey Lincoln Tribute at The Kennedy Center

The music of Abbey Lincoln was The Kennedy Center’s choice for its 22nd Annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival. Showcasing the best in old and new jazz artistry, this year’s tribute presented Jazz...

Magic Time!: On Being Seen as “Angry Black Man”: A Q&A with Jaysen Wright About His Role in ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage

I remember thinking after I first saw Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People at Arena that the character Jaysen Wright plays, Jackson Moore, has an important and particular role in how whole the play plays,...

Review: ‘Dancing at Midnight’ at Wolf Pack Theatre Company

Some plays invite audiences to ask themselves vexing questions: What is the meaning of life? How long is a life well-lived? As King Solomon wrote in the Old Testament: I have seen all the things that...

Josh Hitchens, Diane Richardson, Molly Edelman, and Megan Edelman Discuss ‘Anne of Green Gables’ and Victorian Theatre at Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion

The latest offering in Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion’s popular Victorian Theatre presentations is a new interpretation of Anne of Green Gables, playing for four performances this weekend in the...

Review: ‘Bandstand’ at the Bernard F. Jacobs Theatre

Eleven new musicals have opened since War Paint and here comes the last before the April 30th deadline for Tony Nomination. It’s called Bandstand and it didn’t offer us Bette Midler or Patti LuPone or...

Review: ‘Marry Harry’ at The York Theatre Company

If you’re in the mood for some pure light-hearted entertainment, Marry Harry, now making its Off-Broadway debut in a limited engagement with The York Theatre Company, is a delightful new musical...

Review: ‘Anastasia’ at the Broadhurst Theatre

As the theatre season races to the end of its nomination deadline for the Tony Awards, musical shows are exploding all over the place. We’ve had half a dozen in the last two weeks, and Anastasia...

Who’s in Town?: Debbie Allen Discusses Hosting the CityDance DREAMscape Gala on Saturday, May 6th at 8pm

Folks looking for a good cause and a night of show-stopping entertainment need look no further than CityDance’s annual DREAMscape Gala. This Saturday, May 6, donors can expect performances from the...

Review: ‘Quatuor Danel’ at the Phillips Collection

Complex 20th century “classical music,” or more properly serious art music as opposed to various forms of popular music, seems to be a gamble. It’s never just as interesting to an audience as...

Review: ‘Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs’ at The Kennedy Center

Wearing his heart on his sleeve throughout, entertainer extraordinaire Alan Cumming (Tony-award winner for Cabaret, regular on the hit television series The Good Wife, concert and recording star,...

Review: ‘The Jungle Book’ at Imagination Stage

Imagination Stage presents The Jungle Book, based on the classic story by Rudyard Kipling and adapted for the stage by Greg Banks. Janet Stanford directs a small cast of five in this production who,...

Review: ‘Macbeth’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Blood will have blood—so go the grim words of Macbeth as it dawns on him that murder is not as simple as he once thought. When it comes to battling and bloodshed, Shakespeare Theatre Company’s...

Review: ‘Russians in Paris’ at the Russian Chamber Art Society

The French and the Russians evoke very different images in the American mind, but they have one thing in common: an affinity for each other’s culture. Many Russian writers and composers lived a good...

Joel Markowitz’s Acceptance Speech Upon Receiving the Gary Maker Award

I am very honored to receive the Gary Maker Award, and I want to thank the committee for this incredible Lifetime Award. Gary Maker was such a mensch and he fought a dreadful disease with such courage...

Remembering Anthony Lane Hinkle

Last week, the theater community suffered a great loss with the death of Anthony Lane Hinkle. Below is a lovely tribute, penned by our fellow Baltimore theater reviewer, The Bad Oracle. Please feel...

Review: ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ at Opera Philadelphia by Corey Cohen

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) is such a perfect amalgam of comedy and pathos that audiences will cheer even a flawed performance of it. It’s hard to get everything right, with...

DC Favorites ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and ‘Come From Away’ Vie for Best Musical as the 2017 Tony Award Nominations Are Announced

DC Mega-hits Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away, which wowed audiences during their sold out runs at Arena Stage and Ford’s Theatre, will be vying for Best Musical, as the 207 were Tony Award...

Review: ‘Baghdaddy’ at St. Luke’s Theater

“Alternative facts” and “fake news” are nothing new with the current presidency; they led to the Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq and its still-ongoing dire consequences....

Review: ‘Building the Wall’ at Forum Theatre

The dystopia delineated in Building the Wall is predicted by the playwright, Robert Schenkkan, to happen in America very soon. By the time the play is set, in the year 2019, the two characters are...

Review: ‘The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary’ at Curio Theatre Company

How do you turn one of literature’s greatest tragedies into a raucous comedy? Very carefully. I read Madame Bovary in high school, and while it’s been (ahem) a few decades since I’ve thought of it in...

Review: [title of show] at Fells Point Corner Theatre

When it comes to musical theatre, there are two types of people: those who hate it and those who are obsessed with it. There is no in-between. And those obsessives, those for whom musicals are like...

Review: ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

The night I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the new musical based on Roald Dahl’s novel, the theatre was packed with moms and dads with little kids in tow. All of them seemed to know the story...

Review: ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ at Exclamation Theater

The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays, one that has spurred argument and discord for over 400 years. Is the play as misogynistic as it often appears, or is its theme...

Review: ‘Billy Elliot the Musical’ at West Potomac High School’s Beyond the Page Theatre Company

West Potomac High School’s Beyond the Page Theatre Company gave us the “old razzle dazzle” in their production of Billy Elliot the Musical, with music by Elton John, and the book and lyrics by Lee...

Review: ‘Forgotten Kingdoms’ at Rorschach Theatre

There are mysteries of belief and faith beneath this fascinating parable of a play, roiling like the seawater that churns below the wooden house where its action takes place. This house is built on...

Review: ‘Passion & Struggle’ at The In Series

Poetry can be the seed of music, and music the seed of love. Music may even be used as a form of protest—and ultimately a promoter of peace. This is evidenced by the music of composers and performers...

Review: NSO Pops: LeAnn Rimes at The Kennedy Center

International multi-platinum selling acclaimed singer and ASCAP award-winning songwriter LeAnn Rimes returned to DC Friday night, joining the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) at The Kennedy Center...

Review: ‘Grey Gardens’ at the Old Opera House

An unusual choice and subject matter for a musical, Grey Gardens tells the story of the dysfunctional relationship between mother Edith Bouvier Beale and daughter “Little” Edie Beale. The two women...

Review: ‘Dorian’s Closet’ at Rep Stage

Strong and dramatic – the two words that continuously came to my mind as I watched Dorian’s Closet at Rep Stage last night. This production is the world premiere of the new musical based on the life...

Review: ‘Adam & Anthony Live’ at Strathmore

Suppose your two best friends were really talented and you invited them over to sing and tell stories and a few of your other friends found out and showed up to listen and it turned out to be a really...

Review: ‘Swallow’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company

Swallow, by Scottish playwright Stef Smith, was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival in 2015. This American premiere is produced by Inis Nua Theatre Company (which specializes in works from England,...

Review: The Philadelphia Orchestra Presents The Rachmaninoff Festival

During his lifetime, Sergei Rachmaninoff was more famous as a pianist than as a composer. Logically, therefore, The Philadelphia Orchestra’s current Rachmaninoff Festival is concentrating on the...

Review: ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at the City of Fairfax Theatre Company

There’s the daily ordeal of truth, imaginary facts, and shifting identities. There is wealth and privilege and assumptions based on hearsay, without understanding. Within all of this lies the...

Review: ‘Three Sisters’ at Maly Drama Theatre at The Kennedy Center

Anton Chekhov’s classic play Three Sisters is being given a superb rendering by the Maly Drama Theatre (from St Petersburg, Russia) at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. Director Lev Dodin...

Review: ‘crazy beautiful’ at FringeArts

How are dances created? What might inspire a choreographer? Specifically, how does Tania Isaac develop a dance? What role does the viewer have in it all? These are some of the questions that come to...

Review: ‘Hetty Feather’ at Delaware Theatre Company

Nothing can keep Hetty Feather down. An orphan’s life is a hard one, especially in Victorian England – and Hetty has it harder than most orphans, spending years enduring cruel treatment in London’s...

Review: ‘Groundhog Day’ at the August Wilson Theatre

Andy Karl is a delightful musical theatre leading man, but he’s been having a bit of bad luck lately. During a late preview of Groundhog Day, his latest outing on stage, he suffered severe damage to...

Spine: ‘Three Sisters’ by the Maly Drama Theatre at The Kennedy Center

With the Maly Drama Theatre’s Three Sisters, playing through April 30 at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre, theatre lovers will feast on every slow motion wonderment, every long glance into...

Review: ‘Columbinus’ at Metropolitan Youth Theatre by Matt Stevenson

Massacre. Bloodbath. Horror. These are just a few of the terms used to describe the absolute tragedy that took place on April 20, 1999 in Jefferson County, Colorado. The terrible events that took...

Review: ‘Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure’ at Beacon Theatre Productions

“You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.” ~ Sherlock Holmes Under the amber glow of gaslight, fog furls forth, a bobby blows his whistle, and conveyance to the world of Sherlock...

Review: ‘The Full Monty’ at The Players Club of Swarthmore

The Players Club of Swarthmore brings six average Joes to the stage with its season finale musical, The Full Monty. Based on the 1997 movie featuring six British blue-collar out-of-work steelworkers,...

Interview: Jazz Chanteuse Changamiré

I met jazz chanteuse Changamire’ at a networking event. She quickly warmed up to me and gave me her latest jazz album “Love” to listen to. I was blown away. In our interview she shared how she got...

Review: ‘Return to Spoon River’ at Theatre Row

Published in 1915, Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology – a collection of free-verse poems in which the deceased residents of a fictional rural town in Illinois recount episodes from their lives...

Who’s in Town? A Conversation with Adam Pascal, Performing in Concert with ‘Rent’ Costar Anthony Rapp at Strathmore This Friday, April 28th at 8pm

Rent fans are in for a treat as Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp team up for a one-night-only concert event at Strathmore this Friday, April 28th at 8 PM. Pascal and Rapp are forever joined in the hearts...

Review: ‘Taking Sides’ at Port City Playhouse by Wesley Cobaugh

Taking Sides by Ronald Harwood is a stark look at post-war process and what is really meant by getting at the truth of what happened, why, who knew and when. Director Mary Ayala-Bush has crafted a...

Review: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ at the Barrymore Theatre

John Guare’s masterpiece from 1990 solidly launched his career, earning a run of 155 performances off-Broadway which extended to a run at the Beaumont Theatre on Broadway of 485 additional showings....

Review: ‘Love and Information’ at Temple Theaters

“I did tell you” “You didn’t” “I did I said Wednesday we’re going to dinner with” “But you didn’t” “Yes because I remember because you said” “All right I must have forgotten I’m sorry” “Yes you did”...