2018

Review: ‘Songs for a New World’ at Spotlighters Theatre

It’s about one moment – the moment before it all becomes clear. Jason Robert Brown succinctly sums up his own production in this line from the opening number of Songs for a New World, now playing at...

Dramaturg Becomes Playwright with The Welders ‘In This Hope: A Pericles Project’

The DC playwright collective The Welders bills itself as “the only playwright collective devoted exclusively to developing and producing new work.” When the second grouping of The Welders – whose...

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Time Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton. A beloved classic,...

Review: ‘Beetlejuice’ at the National Theatre

You can’t miss Betelgeuse. A star in the constellation Orion, this supergiant is red as flame and one of the 10 brightest stars in the night sky. At approximately 10 million years old, Betelgeuse...

Review: ‘Cabaret’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of Kander and Ebb’s classic Cabaret is an intimate experience, with wonderful singing and choreography. Based on Christopher Isherwood’s stories, this...

Review: ‘A Piece of My Heart’ at Bowie Community Theatre

Female Vietnam veterans are saluted as actors give their whole hearts in Bowie Community Theatre’s A Piece Of My Heart, through November 18th. It seems likely that every veteran fights two wars: one...

Review: ‘Waiting for Godot’ at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater

Following its highly-acclaimed premiere in the 2016 Galway International Arts Festival, Ireland’s Druid theater company closes its worldwide tour of the award-winning production of Samuel Beckett’s...

Review: ‘Cinderella’ at Imagination Stage

Full disclosure: I love fairy tales. All of them. I always have, despite also being a girl who asked myself one day why Rapunzel couldn’t just make a ladder with all her own hair and escape the tower...

Review: ‘Brigadoon’ at Rockville Musical Theatre

Below a luxurious burgundy velvet curtain, Rockville Musical Theatre’s Brigadoon Orchestra delivers the Overture under the Musical Direction of Joseph Sorge. The curtain opens as traveling New...

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with ‘Bootleg Famous’ Dan Domenech

In 1968, Pop artist Andy Warhol made his much-celebrated observation, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” The future is now, and Andy was right. With the advent of the...

Review: ‘The Benjamins’ at the Music and Drama Ministry of Shiloh Baptist Church of Landover

“People that love money, they never have enough,” said a character from Director and Playwright Fay Brake’s engaging stage play, The Benjamins. With themes of overreaching ambition, greed and the...

Review: ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ at Creative Cauldron

Children’s theatre is almost always adorable but not necessarily a place where you will see fantastic performances. Peter Pan and Wendy at Creative Cauldron succeeds in telling the classic story of...

Review: ’50 Shades of Gay’ at The Charm City Fringe Festival

By Kylie Miller Fringe Festivals are a great platform for shows that push boundaries and challenge the norm. 50 Shades of Gay does exactly that. Ike Avelli, a 52-year-old single gay man, is the star...

Review: ‘The Toxic Avenger’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

The small, low-ceilinged theater at the Greenbelt Arts Center, with intimate seating arrangements and limited space for sets, is a natural habitat for The Toxic Avenger, a quintessential small-cast,...

Review: ‘NURSE!’ at The Charm City Fringe Festival

Lisa Hayes brings one of her acclaimed one-woman shows to Baltimore with NURSE!, a compelling story of a labor strike from a variety of perspectives. Embodying numerous distinct characters, Hayes...

Review: ‘Dracula’ at We Happy Few

Halloween may be over, but the horror season is still in full swing. We Happy Few Theatre Company invites you to “listen to the children of the night” with Dracula, a repertoire production, at CHAW,...

Review: ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay!’ at Nu Sass Productions

Nobel laureate Dario Fo’s Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay! (one of several English language renderings of the original title, Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga!) opens as Antonia (Francesca Marie Chilcote) and her friend...

Review: ‘Un-a-parent’ at The Charm City Fringe Festival

By Kylie Miller The play on words of the show’s title, Un-a-parent, perfectly sets up this comedic solo show. The life experiences of Joe Minchik, the writer and performer, are both hilarious and...

Review: ‘Things That Are Round’ at Rep Stage

The mental province that stretches from magical thinking to ordinary self-delusion is given a new survey in Callie Kimball’s Things That Are Round, now having its world premiere via the Equity players...

Review: ‘The Barber of Seville’ by Annapolis Opera at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts

Annapolis Opera’s production of The Barber of Seville is a hilarious spectacle of a show. Directed by Braxton Peters, with Artistic Director Ronald J. Gretz conducting, it combines beautiful music and...

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ by Damascus Theatre Company at Olney Theater Center

I doubt there was one person in the entire Carl Freeman Auditorium who hadn’t seen some version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (either the original animated film from 1991, the live-action version...

Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival – How to Fringe 2018

What is Fringe? Today begins the Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival, a celebration of new and emerging independent theatre that will continue through November 11th. The festival offers 22...

Review: ‘King of the Yees’ at Baltimore Center Stage

“You don’t have use? You don’t have power? They will erase you from your own story.” -Larry Yee Lauren Yee has a problem. And it’s kind of a big one. Not Lauren Yee the writer, whose very funny but...

Review: ‘Anastasia’ at The Kennedy Center

Will you be swept up into the legend of Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia? When her family was executed during the Russian Revolution, the rumor spread that...

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Georgetown University

Last night I had the pleasure of visiting a 167-year-old drama society. Georgetown University’s Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society was established in 1852, making them the “oldest continuously running...

Shaina Taub Lovers Rejoice! ‘As You Like It’ Lands at Keegan

I’m a big fan of composer Shaina Taub. Her unique blending of socially conscious theater and pop-folk tunes has brought her great acclaim in recent years. After adapting and musicalizing two...

Sharing the Joys of Close Listening and Music: Rob Kapilow on ‘What Makes It Great?’

For the past 10 seasons, conductor/composer/commentator/author Rob Kapilow has brought his acclaimed series What Makes It Great? to D.C. under the auspices of Washington Performing Arts. With his...

Review: ‘Inner Voices’ at TBG Mainstage Theatre

Honoring its mission of developing and presenting new works of musical theater, the New York-based organization Premieres, led by Artistic Director Paulette Haupt, is back with its biennial series of...

Review: ‘King John’ at Folger Theatre

King John is so rarely performed (indeed, it’s been a decade since I last saw it staged) that the current Aaron Posner-directed production at the Folger Theatre opens with a primer on the players and...

Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival: What to See and Where to See It

The Seventh Annual Charm City Fringe Festival is taking place in the Bromo Arts District from November 1 through November 11, 2018. Here’s a listing of all the shows. Get fringing! Fringe Shows with...

Review: ‘Venus in Fur’ at 4615 Theatre Company

One of the most remarkable things about D.C. theater is its abundance of good plays, professionally produced and performed, yet often staged in places that are, to put it mildly, a bit odd. Nowhere is...

Review: ‘The Agitators’ at Mosaic Theater Company

“Do you still believe there can be a country for all?” When that blunt question comes up in The Agitators—Mat Smart’s deeply affecting play about the friendship between Susan B. Anthony and Frederick...

Review: ‘Good Grief’ at Vineyard Theatre

Now in its New York premiere at Vineyard Theatre, Good Grief considers the personal perspective of one first-generation Nigerian-American girl coming to terms with the universal issues of love, loss,...

Review: ‘Sheila and Moby’ by Flying V at the Writer’s Center

Sheila and Moby is a show about a young woman and a friend she thought she’d left behind forever. It’s also about personal responsibility as a member of the community, doing the thing that works when...

Talking Shakespeare with Ted van Griethuysen at the Shakespeare Theatre Company

How do you interview a legend? This was the question I pondered on the way to the Lansburgh Theatre to interview Ted van Griethuysen, one of the finest actors of his generation. Shakespearean par...

Review: ‘Sweat’ at Everyman Theatre

Lynn Nottage last year became the first woman to win a second Pulitzer Prize for Drama thanks to her play Sweat, a dramatization of the collapse of the American unskilled labor market circa 2000, now...

Desdemona Chiang Directs ‘King of the Yees’ at Baltimore Center Stage

If you haven’t already heard, Baltimore Center Stage is producing Playwright Lauren Yee’s King of the Yees. And in case you weren’t aware, this play is kind of a big deal. The story, which takes place...

Review: ‘La Cage aux Folles’ by ArtsCentric

“It’s rather gaudy, but it’s also rather grand,” the title song of La Cage aux Folles asserts of its titular drag club, and the same may be said of the musical that is set there, now receiving a...

Ann Hampton Callaway on her new album, ‘Jazz Goes to the Movies’

Cabaret icon Ann Hampton Callaway just released her 16th album, Jazz Goes to the Movies—renditions of songs from classic Hollywood films. On her way to New York to perform at Feinstein’s 54 Below,...

Review: ‘Long Way Down’ at The Kennedy Center

Long Way Down, adapted from the renowned young adult novel in verse by Jason Reynolds, is told in the voice of a 15-year-old named Will and performed by the prodigiously talented Justin Weaks. He is...

Review: ‘A Chaste Maid in Cheapside’ by The Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

Moved by an impulse analogous to the original instruments movement in early music, Baltimore Shakespeare Factory (BSF) is dedicated to mounting the Bard’s plays and those of his contemporaries in the...

Review: ‘Barnum’ at The Heritage Players

Hey kids, let’s go see a show! “Come Follow The Band” with The Heritage Players at Thomas Rice Auditorium in Catonsville to see Barnum, the story of a man and his life-long love affair with illusion...

Review: ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ at Brave Spirits Theater

Words have lethal consequences in the clear-eyed, unflinching production of The Duchess of Malfi from Brave Spirits Theatre. Under the sure-handed direction of Casey Kaleba, The Duchess of Malfi is...

Review: ‘East of Eden’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Can one escape the sins of their ancestors? Can one choose their own course and overcome an evil background? These questions are explored in NextStop Theatre Company’s glorious new adaptation of John...

Review: ‘Sing To Me Now’ by Rorschach Theatre Company

What happens when human imagination runs dry? When the concept of artistic expression and creativity is stifled in a world that has become overwhelmed with frustration, anger, and despair? That is the...

Review: ‘Big Apple Circus’ at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park

Now in its 41st season, the Big Apple Circus, originally founded in 1977, has had its ups and downs over the past few years, but it’s back with a bang for the holidays at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch...

Review: ‘Prinze’ at The Sheen Center

Best known for his hit NBC series Chico and the Man and his unprecedented guest appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (he was the first comic Carson ever invited to the couch to talk after...

Review: We Happy Few’s ‘A Midnight Dreary’ at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop

Entering the black box theater space at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, it is clear that We Happy Few’s A Midnight Dreary is not a normal theatrical adaptation of classic literature. A simple paint...

Review: ‘The Crucible’ at Silver Spring Stage

Silver Spring Stage’s spectacular and engrossing show, The Crucible, under Director Craig Allen Mummey’s expert guidance, tackles many contentious subjects, including sexism, racism, religious...

Review: ‘Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ at George Mason University

Big River is the musical adapted from the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. With music and lyrics by Roger Miller and a book by William Hauptman, the 1985 production on...