2017

Review: ‘The Price’ at Roundabout Theatre Company at The American Airlines Theatre

This is one of Arthur Miller’s successes, and though it’s been revived three times on Broadway since it first appeared in 1968, it has never attracted the audiences that flocked to Death of a...

Review: ‘The Gravedigger’s Lullaby’ at TACT

Jeff Talbott established himself as a writer of great promise with the MCC Theater production of his first play The Submission in 2011. This excellent actor/playwright joined The Actors Company...

Meet the Cast of Providence Players’ ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Part 1: Sophia Manicone, playing Scout – by Julie Janson

The Providence Players of Fairfax will soon premiere the third production of its 19th season, To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Christopher Sergel, directed by Beth Gilles-Whitehead. Tickets for this...

Review #1: ‘Parade’ at The Keegan Theatre

An intriguing musical piece of consequential historical value, The Keegan Theatre’s production of the Award-winning musical Parade is unapologetically dark and honest. Based on actual events, the...

In The Moment: An Interview With Playwright D. L. Coburn on The MetroStage Production of ‘The Gin Game’

At a comfortable table at Alexandria’s Extra Perks Coffee Shop and Café, I had the happy opportunity to spend some delightful one-on-one time with The Gin Game‘s playwright D. L. Coburn. Coburn had...

Review: The Philadelphia Orchestra Performs Seeger, Berg & Beethoven with Guest Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas

Contrast was stark in the concert which Michael Tilson Thomas led with The Philadelphia Orchestra. The first half displayed two radically dissonant pieces from the 1930s — Ruth Crawford Seeger’s...

Review: ‘John & Jen’ at The Eagle Theatre

Welcome to the world It’s such a funny place The people who you love the most Are also the ones Who make you cry I’m not sure why A girl sings these lines to her newborn brother in the opening moments...

Review: ‘The Miss Firecracker Contest’ at South Camden Theatre Company

Beth Henley stocks her plays with characters that are distinctive and outlandish, right down to their names. The Miss Firecracker Contest, her wily and witty comedy now being revived at South Camden...

Review: ‘Henry V’ at Cohesion Theatre Company

I was a bit skeptical when I first heard about Cohesion Theatre Company (“Cohesion”) setting its production of Shakespeare’s Henry V in Appalachia, smack dab in the middle of the feud between the...

Bethesda Little Theatre’s ‘Let’s Not Talk About Love’ Plays March 24-26th: ‘Inside The Numbers’ Part 1

We’re not going to be talking about love, but I bet you can guess what we will be doing…singing about it…a LOT! So strap in, because you’re going to get two solid hours of some fantastic musical...

Review: ‘Coolatully’ at Solas Nua

In the fictional village of Coolatully, a quartet of characters grapple with the effects of Ireland’s newest mass emigration. The brief and heady era of the Celtic Tiger was over; a mass exodus was...

Review: ‘Evening at the Talk House’ at Pershing Square Signature Center

With the spate of openings in March, I wasn’t able to get to Wallace Shawn’s new play, the New Group’s production which played a strictly limited engagement through March 12, 2017, only until the day...

Review: ‘Night Watch’ at Bowie Community Theatre

The setting is mysterious, the music is strange, and the lighting is ominous. This is what one will experience when attending Bowie Community Theatre’ Night Watch, a murder mystery by Lucille...

Review: ‘Night at the Wax Museum’ at Encore Stage & Studio

Encore Stage and Studio presents Night at the Wax Museum, a play by Craig Sodaro. A company known for theater “by kids, for kids!,” Encore leads and encourages children who show interest and promise...

Review: ‘The Circle of Life: The Songs of Tim Rice’ at Young Artists of America

When you have over 100 talented musicians and singers filling the Strathmore stage, you know you are in for some great singing and playing from Young Artists of America. In a world premiere concert,...

Review: ‘Paper Dreams’ at Imagination Stage

One of the wonders of children is their capacity to take the simplest object and create a whole new world filled with curiosity and excitement. Paper Dreams, a new children’s dance theatre production...

Review: ‘Dogfight’ at Rockville Musical Theatre and Arts on the Green

War, friendship, and love are serious elements in a man or woman’s life. Rockville Musical Theatre’s production of Dog Fight explores those elements through the music and lyrics of Benj Pasek and...

In the Moment: Q&A with Minister Becky May Jenkins, Leader of the Women’s Ecumenical Choir Performing ‘The Gospel of Colonus’ at Avant Bard

An ensemble is very key to the success of a theatrical production. Whenever I go to a theater performance, I make sure to take in those who, while not in the spotlight, still pack a visual and aural...

Review: ‘Rock of Ages’ at Reston Community Players

Here’s something I bet you never wanted to think about again: the ‘80s and your hairstyle. Good. Now that I’ve unlocked a horror all too unimaginable, let’s revisit a sexier time in our history. A...

Review: ‘Marx in Soho’ at Nu Sass Productions

Nu Sass’ latest Small Batch production is Howard Zinn’s one-actor Marx in Soho. It is another highly successfully, nervy production by Nu Sass with it mantra, “strong women, great theatre.” It is...

Review: ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ at The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC

Last night, I had the pleasure to see the the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying as performed by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC....

Review: ‘Mom Baby God’ at Single Carrot Theatre

Sinister things are lurking just below the surface at the “2018 Students for Life Conference” in Washington, DC, which is where Madeline Burrows’ disturbing solo show Mom Baby God, about the youth...

Review: ‘The Lyons’ at Isis Productions

Expletives, insults, and accusations fly, when an unhappy wife, alcoholic daughter, and gay son gather in the hospital room of their dying husband and father for a farewell verbal slug-fest. Isis...

Review: ‘Lucky Stiff’ at Silhouette Stages at Slayton House

The musical Lucky Stiff with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty opened March 10, 2017, at Silhouette Stages and performed at Slayton House in Columbia, MD, under the...

Review: ‘From the Mouths of Monsters’ at The Kennedy Center

From the Mouths of Monsters, a world premiere Kennedy Center commission by award-winning playwright Idris Goodwin, directed by Dougie Irvine, is a gripping, intense glimpse into the mind of...

Review: ‘Our Town’ at Temple Theaters

Temple University Department of Theater’s production of the Pulitzer Prize winner Our Town would have pleased its author, Thornton Wilder. This American classic was written in the early 20th century...

Review: ‘Side Show’ at The Media Theatre

Come look at the freaks Come gape at the geeks Come examine their aberrations Is this any way to begin a Broadway musical? Well, if the subject matter is any individual who has been the victim of...

Review: ‘It’s So Learning’ at FringeArts

It’s So Learning, written and performed by comedic mavericks The Berserker Residents, is a wild, immersive ride through the Berserkers’ vision of the K-12 system. Even people who avoid...

Review: ‘Booty Candy’ at Montgomery College

In a particularly lapel-grabbing scene in Montgomery College’s Booty Candy, a preacher tells his congregation that he’s tired of hiding from the “what they heard” crowd and shows them who he really...

Review: Discovery Artist in The Kennedy Center Jazz Club: Elena and Samora Pinderhughes

Siblings Elena and Samora Pinderhughes are young, both in their early 20s. Samora is a composer and pianist and sister Elena is a vocalist and flutist. Despite their youth, the pair has been creating...

Magic Time! ‘Intelligence’ at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater

Lately I’ve been thinking that there are two key questions that must be asked of every season-programming choice by every theater’s artistic director: 1) Why now? 2) So what? There is no single right...

Review: ‘Intelligence’ at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater

Intelligence, the new play at Arena Stage about the Valerie Plame CIA scandal, comes at a very timely moment in politics. As Donald Trump appears increasingly clownish, the presidency of George W....

Review: ‘Spring Awakening’ at Howard County Community College Theatre

The Tony Award-winning Spring Awakening (The Musical), with Book and Lyrics by Steven Sater, and Music by Duncan Sheik, based on the play by Frank Wedekind, and directed by Jenny Male, opened last...

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Arden Theatre Company

In 1998, Arden Theatre Company opened their F. Otto Haas Stage with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Widely considered one of William Shakespeare’s lightest and most accessible plays,...

Review: ‘Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing’ at Signature Theatre

With gentleness and clear affection for an unexpected heroine, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner James Lapine has written and directed with a disarming touch an endearing new play “with music”;...

Review: ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ at Ovations Theatre

How often are you torn between the demands of a profession and finding a satisfactory work/life balance? James Lapine’s book about George Seurat examines the difficulty of finding a solution to this...

Review: ‘Cirque du Soleil Toruk – The First Flight’ at Wells Fargo Center

An original prequel based on James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster film Avatar, Cirque du Soleil’s touring production of Toruk – The First Flight, now in Philadelphia for a five-day stop at the Wells Fargo...

Meet the Cast of Greenbelt Arts Center’s ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’: Part Three: Rachel Pino-Elliott and John Carter

In part two of a series of interviews with the cast of Greenbelt Arts Center’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, meet Rachel Pino-Elliott as Schwartzy and John Carter as Leaf Coneybear....

Review: ‘Linda’ at Manhattan Theatre Club

I don’t know all the works of author Penelope Skinner, but based on The Village Bike and the currently running New York production of Linda, I suspect she is now on the short list of the best female...

‘COME HEAR THE MUSIC PLAY:’ Memories of My Twenty Years as Agent For John Kander by Richard Seff: Part Two: ‘The Curtain Rises’: ‘Flora, the Red Menace,’ ‘Cabaret,’ ‘Zorba,’ and ‘The Happy Time’

John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Richard Seff at a dinner honoring Harold Prince. Photo courtesy of Richard Seff. THE CURTAIN RISES. One of the properties for which I tried to get this new team hired was...

Review: ‘Bigoudi’ at Atlas Performing Arts Center

Is it just me or do the French have a way of taking the most mundane, everyday objects and making poetry out of them? Consider the humble plastic hair-curler, those tiny, porous tubes that feature...

Meet the Cast: The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC’s ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.’ Part Three: Rinaldo Martinez

In Part Three of a series of interviews with the cast of The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, meet Rinaldo Martinez who plays J. Pierrepont Finch....

Review: ‘If I Forget’ at The Laura Pels Theatre in the Steinberg Center

I know Playwright Steven Levenson only from his work as librettist on the musical Dear Evan Hansen, so this for me is his first play. It more than fulfills the promise shown in the musical, where his...

Review: Suitland High School’s ‘Mid-Winter Concert’

Prince George’s County Public Schools are filled with young talent. An excellent example of that talent is Suitland High School’s Center for the Visual and Performing Arts’ musicians and choirs. As...

Review: ‘koma’ at Solecalibur

It’s 2 a.m. His mind is racing, overwrought with memories of situations, conversations, and images of her. Music and film merge with poetry, rap, and movement to explore one half-hour inside one man’s...

‘COME HEAR THE MUSIC PLAY:’ Memories of My Twenty Years as Agent For John Kander by Richard Seff: Part One: The House Lights Dim’

COME HEAR THE MUSIC PLAY: Memories of My Twenty Years as Agent For John Kander by Richard Seff OVERTURE. John Kander and Fred Ebb have written some fifteen musicals for Broadway as well as an...

In the Moment: Q&A With Bob Telson, Composer of ‘The Gospel at Colonus’ – Now Playing at Avant Bard

Avant Bard’s The Gospel of Colonus is a gorgeous, rapturous musical. Taking a phrase from the Bible, specifically Psalm 100, I found The Gospel of Colonus a “joyful noise” to witness and highly...

Review: ‘The Giver’ at NextStop Theatre Company

I loved the book and hated the movie, so I was really curious to see how The Giver, Lois Lowry’s Newbery award-winning story about a dystopian society where everything has gone to “sameness”, would...

Review: ‘Fickle: A Fancy French Farce’ at Olney Theatre Center

Modernizing Comic Antiquity, Or What Would a Classic French Farce Look Today: Fickle Brings the Laughs at Olney Theatre Center In an age where it seems like all the classics are getting reboots of...

Meet the Cast of The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC’s ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ Part Two: Shawn Morris

In Part Two of a series of interviews with the cast of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, meet Shawn Morris. Please introduce yourself and tell our...