2018

Interview: David London on ‘Humbug, The Great P.T. Barnum Séance’

The sign of a good show is being able to announce you’re extending during your opening weekend. David London’s newest spectacular, Humbug, The Great P.T. Barnum Séance just extended through April 20....

Review: ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ at Reston Community Players

Reston Community Players present Tennessee Williams’ classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Sharon Veselic directs a talented cast for this insightful production. While a lot has changed in the nearly 65...

Review: ‘Death by Design’ at Aldersgate Church Community Theater

“There is nothing whatever beneath my exterior.” So proclaims a character in Death by Design, now playing at the Aldersgate Church Community Theater (ACCT) in Alexandria. How right he is, not only for...

Here Are the Winners of the 2017 WATCH AWARDS

THE 18th Annual WATCH AWARDS WINNERS ANNOUNCED Sunday, March 11, 2018 – 7:00 pm at The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA HERE ARE THE WINNERS (IN BOLD) Outstanding Set Design in a Musical (5) Skip Gresko –...

Post-Play Palaver: ‘Silence Is Violence: Whose Earth Is This, DC?’ at Young Playwrights’ Theater

Post-Play Palaver is an occasional series of conversations between DC Theater Arts writers who saw the same performance, got really into talking about it, and decided to continue their exchange in...

Review: ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ at Silhouette Stages at Slayton House

The classic musical farce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, danced and sang its way on stage this...

Review: ‘Harvey’ by the McLean Community Players

Things are getting a little wacky with the McLean Community Players these days, and this time it’s in the form of Harvey by Mary Chase. This challenging and earnest production—directed by Eleanore...

Review: ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at Other Voices Theatre

Frederick’s Other Voices Theatre puts a very large cast and a complex technical scheme to excellent use in its production of the 1971 Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice rock operetta Jesus Christ Superstar....

‘Peter Pan, Jr.’ Flies at the Kentlands Arts Barn (A KAT-2nd Stage Production)

KAT-2nd Stage is back at the Kentlands Arts Barn with their latest family offering: Peter Pan, Jr. Peter Pan tells the story of the flying boy who never wants to grow up, the magical world he...

Review: ‘Frankenstein’ by Bowie Community Theatre at Bowie Playhouse

Frankenstein by Bowie Community Theatre has blood, violence, and drama, all wrapped up in a Gothic shell. This version was adapted from Mary Shelley’s novel by Victor Gialanella and Director Brian...

Review: ‘This Little Light’ at Venus Theatre

This Little Light by Jennifer Faletto opened this week at Venus Theatre. Deborah Randall is the director of this remarkable play. In her director’s notes, Randall calls This Little Light a comedy....

Review: ‘DEMO by Damian Woetzel: Now’ at The Kennedy Center

An eclectic excursion into choreographic experimentation, innovative instrumental accompaniment, and exciting vocalizing is all part of DEMO by Damian Woetzel: Now at Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater....

The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington Performs Durufle’s ‘Requiem’ with Soprano Breanna Sinclairé

Maurice Durufle’s Requiem, adapted for tenor and bass chorus by Artistic Director Thea Kano and presented by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, was performed at the Church of the Epiphany on March 3,...

Review: Taylor Mac’s ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (Abridged)’ at The Kennedy Center

I doubt the Eisenhower Theater was ever more queered than the night Taylor Mac came to town. The outrageously gifted and fabulously attired theater artist brought “a radical fairy realness ritual...

Review: ‘All the Ways to Say I Love You’ on Audible

If you love the New York stage and its stars, but can’t make it to the theater in person to see a live performance, Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon and the world’s largest purveyor of audiobooks,...

News: Woolly Mammoth Appoints Maria Manuela Goyanes to Succeed Howard Shalwitz as Artistic Director

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is thrilled to announce the selection of Maria Manuela Goyanes to succeed co-founder Howard Shalwitz as the organization’s Artistic Director. Goyanes is currently...

News: The Welders Receive Grants for the Development of New Work

(Washington, D.C.) The Welders—Washington’s only playwrights’ collective devoted exclusively to developing and producing new plays—has received funding for artistic development of projects by...

News: A Farewell Letter from DCMTA Writer Richard Seff

I didn’t want to slink off into the night without saying so long to you very lovely DC fans at DC Theater Arts. It was time to go, and I’m grateful for the space in which to get sentimental for a...

News: ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ Coming to Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia is excited to be the first regional theater in the metropolitan area to present The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Justin...

Review: ‘Mom Baby God’ at Taffety Punk

By writing Mom Baby God’s central character Destinee Grace Ramsey as a likable, “trying-to-find-her-place-in-the world” young woman speaking her own truths, playwright Madeline Joey Rose has created...

Review: ‘Godspell’ at NextStop Theatre Company

NextStop Theatre is reaching the end of their July 2017 to June 2018 “Point and Counterpoint” season. Their third and final show pairing explores the contrasting effects that religious teachings can...

Review: ‘The Texas Homecoming Revolution of 1995’ at Best Medicine Rep

Bullies in the bathroom, rampant rumors and petty one-upmanship. Whether in Texas, Iowa or Connecticut, the horrors of high school cattiness haunt many into their adult years. Texas Homecoming’s...

Review: ‘Bill Murray, Jan Vogler & Friends: New Worlds’ at the Kennedy Center

Can you imagine a chamber music concert—a quartet, playing mostly classical work by composers with names like Bach, Schubert and Shostakovich—getting six encores? And seven—yes, seven—standing...

Review: Washington National Opera Presents Verdi’s ‘Don Carlo’ at the Kennedy Center

“Peace and transcendence can only be found in death” seems to be the eternal thread that runs through Verdi’s operatic masterpiece, Don Carlo. Presented by the Washington National Opera, the gloom and...

Review: ‘Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery’ at Center for the Arts/George Mason University

In turbulent times, escaping into a yarn that is as light and high-flying as a helium-filled balloon can be a welcome respite. So, the Great Performance Series at the Center for the Arts/George Mason...

Review: ‘That Part Is True’ at Rabble Crew Productions

Wouldn’t it be fun to be a young urban radical and cohabit with other young revolutionaries—in a cheap walk-up apartment that you all share—eating fast food, having polyamorous sex, doing recreational...

Review: ‘Fool for Love’ at the Cumberland Theatre

The theme of a man and a woman who can’t live without each other and can’t live with each other is as old as theater. Often enough it has been played for comedy, as in the couples in Noel Coward’s...

Review: ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ at Olney Theatre Center

Five minutes into the start of Every Brilliant Thing, most of the audience had already cried for the first time – and had laughed aloud. By the end of the show, the entire room seemed to be infused...

Review: ‘Disgraced’ at Compass Rose Theater

Race, religion, office politics, and fear of the “other” are just some of the issues that explode onto the stage in playwright/novelist Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, a 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner. Set in...

Review: ‘Avenue Q’ at Workhouse Arts Center

The audience for Workhouse Theater’s production of Avenue Q (music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Mark, book by Jeff Whitty), loved every minute. And what’s not to love? The 2003 Tony...

What To See This Week: Young Playwright’s Theater Presents ‘Silence is Violence: Whose Earth is This, DC?’

A movement is taking flight and Young Playwright’s Theater (YPT) is one of its co-pilots. Their upcoming Silence is Violence event will explore environmental injustice as it relates to gentrification...

Review: ‘Gypsy, A Musical Fable’ by Ovations Theatre Senior Company

Gypsy, A Musical Fable, a Broadway classic that debuted in 1959, has become intertwined with the DNA of most Baby Boomers, Gen Xs, Gen Ys, and even Millennials. The book by Arthur Laurents was...

Review: ‘Othello’ at American University’s Studio Theatre

A play like Othello raises many questions in the minds of theater-lovers: Should art be recuperative? Should plays written long ago be redeemed to suit the tastes of modern-day audiences? Othello is a...

In the Moment: Interview with Joe Calarco about ’12 Million Footsteps’

For nearly two decades, the inventive Signature in the Schools education program has exposed Arlington County public high school student actors to highly-charged, real-world issues well beyond the...

Review: ‘Hold These Truths’ at Arena Stage

There is a dramatic moment in Hold These Truths that comes as no surprise yet comes as a heart-stopping shock. We know going in that this moment is going to happen. We know that the U.S. Supreme Court...

Review: ‘The Imaginary Invalid’ by the Mason Players at George Mason University School of Theater

Satire is a comic form I have always loved. Among the greatest geniuses of the genre is Molière, whose comedies from 3.5 centuries ago still evoke howls of laughter when done well. Directed by...

Review: ‘Rap Guide to Consciousness’ at SoHo Playhouse

Do you ever wonder about the nature of awareness and the mechanics of perception? Luckily for us, Baba Brinkman does, and returns to SoHo Playhouse with his well-conceived and brilliantly entertaining...

Review: Happenstance Theater’s ‘Slapstick Jukebox’ Is a Wacky Good Time

Catch Happenstance Theater’s Slapstick Jukebox before it scoots away. Only five shows were planned for this weekend, so only the fast and the few will get the opportunity to watch this solid ensemble...

Online Lives/Offline Drama: Writers Have Superb ‘Sex with Strangers’ at Colonial Players

Sex with Strangers, written by Laura Eason, is now on stage at Colonial Players. Directed by Dave Carter, this play about two writers navigating the difficulties of love in the digital age stars...

Review: ‘Of Mice and Men’ at Maryland Entertainment Group

An apt subtitle for Of Mice and Men, adapted from the 1937 novella by John Steinbeck, might be “the futility of hope.” In the small, corrosively lonely, universe of a California ranch during the Great...

Magic Time!: The Birth and Revelation of ‘Mom Baby God’: A Q&A with Playwright/Performer Madeline Joey Rose

Mom Baby God—a solo show written and performed by Madeline Joey Rose about the right’s attack on abortion rights—is as playful as it is powerful. The play centers on a fourteen-year-old girl,...

Review: PostClassical Ensemble’s ‘Deep River: The Art of the Spiritual’ at the Washington National Cathedral

When is art an intentional expression of respectful cultural appreciation and when is it an unconscious foray into cultural misappropriation? These were some of the deep questions raised in Deep...

In the Moment: Interview with Sound Designer Justin Schmitz

All too often the work of a theater sound designer can go unnoticed. In fact, not long ago the Tony Awards decided not to even provide an award category for sound design (now reinstated). Thankfully,...

Review: ‘The Gospel at Colonus’ by Avant Bard

The Gospel at Colonus, Avant Bard’s production of the gospel-infused Oedipus story, opened on February 27 with a sweet, bright salvo of a song. Members of the Women’s Ecumenical Choir (headed by Becky...

Kennedy Center Members Did Not Throw Away Their Shot When ‘Hamilton’ Tickets Went On Sale

Imagine for a moment that you were a visitor to DC yesterday and you wanted to see a show at the Kennedy Center. You would likely have logged on to their website and received this message: Because...

An Interview with Award-Winning Actor Dan Hodge: Making his Off-Broadway Debut in the New York Premiere of ‘Dogs of Rwanda’

Just concluding his comic roles in the Walnut Street Theatre’s national touring production of Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, with its final performances this week in California,...

Diverse City: A Chat with Matt Ripa, Founding Artistic Director of the DC Queer Theatre Festival

Welcome to the Diverse City column on DC Theater Arts. My name is Darby DeJarnette and I created this column to highlight, through interviews, the different experiences of individuals from various...

Reston Community Players Presents Tennessee Williams’ Classic ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’

It’s been called author Tennessee Williams’ best work and is widely known as his favorite. Now the classic Southern drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof takes the stage in Reston Community Players’ 51st...

Discovering Your Story in Circus: Street Light Circus’s Julia Quigley, Louise Chase Dettman, Dani Pierce Steuber, and Christian Kloc on ‘Circus in Lines: Many Stories Tall’

A couple of things about the local circus community: One, if you show up as your authentic self and are willing to work, you will be heartily, soul-nourishingly embraced. Two, a lot of folks who...

Review: ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ at the United States Naval Academy

The United States Naval Academy’s Department of Musical Activities’ production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a feast for the eyes and ears. With lyrics by Tim Rice and music by...