2018

Review: ‘Born Yesterday’ at Ford’s Theatre

What a sparkling production of Born Yesterday at Ford’s Theatre. Written in 1946 as the United States was standing powerful after the carnage of WWII, Garson Kanin’s script is delightfully subversive;...

Review: ‘Pop Punk High’ at (le) poisson rouge

After a critically-acclaimed showcase presentation last winter, Pop Punk High (with original book by Anderson Cook, music and lyrics by Ben Lapidus, and direction by Felicia Lobo) has returned, for a...

Celebration of the Arts in Arlington Next Week

WHAT: The 2nd Annual Celebration of the Arts in Arlington WHEN: Thursday, October 4, 2018 from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm Enjoy live music from The Walkaways. Eat delicious food and desserts from 20 local...

In the Moment: ‘Lincolnesque’ at the Keegan Theatre

Separating a theater company’s production from the playwright’s script is crucial when evaluating a performance. After all, an engaging full production can do the old razzle-dazzle to cover a script’s...

Review: ‘Lincolnesque’ at the Keegan Theatre

In Lincolnesque, a play written by John Strand and directed by Colin Smith, the art of lying for one’s country succeeds in fusing a deceptively light touch and inside-the-Beltway political humor with...

Review: “Ain’t Misbehavin'” at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

The joint is jumping, and the stars are strutting to legendary jazz great Thomas “Fats” Waller’s exuberant melodies at Toby’s Dinner Theatre with an all-embracing musical revue of 30 soul-stirring...

Review: ‘VANJARI’ at Don’t Tell Mama

What more suitably provocative venue for VANJARI than Don’t Tell Mama? Established on Restaurant Row in 1982, the popular piano bar, cabaret, and restaurant takes its name from the spirited song in...

Review: ‘Blueberries for Sal’ at Adventure Theatre MTC

Adventure Theatre MTC presents the world premiere musical Blueberries for Sal, written by Michael J. Bobbitt and Sandra Eskin, and featuring new music and lyrics by William Yanesh. Based on the...

Review: ‘The Last American Hammer’ by UrbanArias

Stick a right-wing conspiracy theorist, a curator at a Toby jug museum, and a rookie FBI agent in the same porcelain-filled room in a no-name town in rural Ohio, then make them talk over tea and...

Review: ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ by 2nd Star Productions

You won’t need them, but you’ll want your umbrella and your dancing shoes when you see 2nd Star Productions’ Singin’ in the Rain. Oh yes, that beloved ‘40s classic movie musical has been formatted for...

Review: ‘Lysistrata’ at Spotlighters Theatre

Baltimore City is home to a lovely nest of small, historic theatre companies, housed in lovely historic buildings, in lovely historic neighborhoods where parking can be tight. Among these, in Mount...

The American Pops Orchestra ‘You’ve Got a Friend: A Singer-Songwriter Celebration’ at Arena Stage

The American Pops Orchestra kicked off its fourth season with You’ve Got a Friend: A Singer-Songwriter Celebration featuring a diverse lineup of local and national talent at Arena Stage. Maestro Luke...

An Interview with Jennifer Ashley Tepper: Producer, Programming Director, Author, and Dynamo!

Currently the Creative and Programming Director at Feinstein’s/54 Below, Jennifer Ashley Tepper has been responsible for curating and overseeing over 3500 shows to date at the world-class supper club,...

Interview: Circus Artists Hannah Robinson and Sarah Kathleen Hluchan on TSNY-DC’s All-Aerial Student Showcase

What makes a circus act great is it looks humanly impossible. Yet, Trapeze School New York (TSNY) Washington DC regularly trains students to do the impossible on a daily basis. Their next student...

Magic Time!: ‘How to Win a Race War’ at The Klunch

I know from my feminist antipornography activism that there is plenty of misogynist hate literature around. (The hard-core stuff is brutal, sadistic propaganda marketed to men arousing them to violate...

Review: ‘How to Win a Race War’ at the Klunch

How To Win a Race War—a whopping 3-hour, 15-minute ordeal—indulges in the world of white supremacy, wheels and deals in astoundingly racist and horrifying caricature, and expects a pat on the back for...

Review: ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at the Museum of Jewish Heritage

One of the most beloved musicals in Broadway history, Fiddler on the Roof has made a smashing comeback in New York with the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s Off-Off-Broadway production at the...

THE ROSE THEATRE CO Brings FIRST DRAFT Reading Series to 1st Stage

Love new plays? Then THE ROSE THEATRE CO’s Reading Series|FIRST DRAFT has great news to report. The series will begin its 2018-19 season of new play readings with a new Northern Virginia location to...

Review: ‘Tape’ at Dominion Stage

Tape is not a play with perfect characters or comfortable resolution. What makes Tape uncomfortable to watch is that the characters all feel like people we know. We all went to school with Vince, Jon,...

Review: ‘Cabaret’ by the Fredericktowne Players

The Emcee is worth the price of admission, and then some. In The Fredericktowne Players’ production of the Kander/Ebb hit, Cabaret, Lenore Mionette Florez is spectacular as the impresario of the Kit...

Review: ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ at Baltimore Center Stage

Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may boast of owning “twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile,” but in Center Stage’s comparably rich...

Birdland Jazz Club Opens Its New Birdland Theater

Established in 1949, Birdland Jazz Club has been recognized as one of New York’s most iconic nightclubs, frequented by internationally-renowned celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Gary...

Review: ‘Living and Dying with Tricia McCauley’ at Venus Theatre

Living and Dying with Tricia McCauley is a raw and personal journey through grief. Tricia McCauley, the local actress whose brutal 2016 murder rocked the theater community, was a personal friend and...

Review: ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ by the National Players

It seems particularly appropriate that the National Players should be mounting a production about an imperturbable, peripatetic gambler who takes every mishap in stride while journeying as far as it...

Next Reflex Dance Collective Now In Residence at Workhouse Arts Center

Continuing to expand their regular offerings of performance events, the Workhouse Arts Center now has an official dance company-in-residence, Next Reflex Dance Collective. Stepping out to find new and...

Review: ‘Ann Hampton Callaway: The Linda Ronstadt Songbook’ at Feinstein’s/54 Below

A recurrent feature at Feinstein’s/54 Below, Ann Hampton Callaway is best known to cabaret audiences for her sophisticated pop/jazz stylings and to TV viewers for the iconic theme song she wrote and...

Review: ‘Voytto Tech: a scifi fable’ at InterAct Story Theatre

Ready for some out of this world fun that will teach your kids about good global citizenry? InterAct Story Theatre’s current production, Voytto Tech: A scifi fable, takes audiences to the far-off...

Knights of Columbus Host Mystery Play by Shoestring Theatre Company in Fairfax, VA

An Alfred Hitchcock-style mystery play unfolds at the Knights of Columbus performance on Friday, October 5, 2018, at 7 p.m. in the St. Leo the Great School Gym. The play is the second original...

Magic Time!: ‘The Events’ at Theater Alliance

Theater Alliance’s The Events, now playing at Anacostia Playhouse, is one of several plays this season that deal with a mass shooting. (There’s also Pinky Swear’s Blight, coming October 20 to the same...

Review: ‘Viva V.E.R.D.I. – The Promised End’ by the In Series

Theater can be many things: challenging, and then restoring; transcendent, and yet—fundamental. A platform for the cutting-edge and a welcoming home-fire for the familiar. Rarely does a single show...

Tour de Theatres Bike Ride Combines Physical Exercise with Love of Theater

Halfway through the 2018 Helen Hayes Awards ceremony, a bike whizzed onstage, jolting the audience to attention. On the bike was Theatre J Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr, clad in bike shorts and a...

Review: ‘Sex With Strangers’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre

The summer heat lingers well into fall with Fells Point Corner Theatre’s season-opening production of Sex with Strangers, a provocative two-hander romantic comedy/drama by Laura Eason (writer/producer...

Magic Time!: ‘If I Forget’ at Studio Theatre

To paraphrase the famous Passover Seder line, “Why is this domestic drama different from all other domestic dramas?” Or, to put the impudent question another way, “What makes If I Forget a uniquely...

Adventure Theatre MTC Conducting DC-Wide Search for Teen Musical Theatre Stars

Adventure Theatre MTC (ATMTC) seeks eight middle and high school students (aged 11 – 18) for the roles of Huckleberry Finn, Jim, Mary Jane, and Alice in Huckleberry Finn’s Big River, a world premiere...

Review: ‘If I Forget’ at Studio Theatre

When I grew up in a small New Jersey shore town with a single synagogue to serve many surrounding communities, I recall a particular question uttered within my family and my own Jewish tribe. This...

Review: ‘The Events’ by Theater Alliance at the Anacostia Playhouse

A wrenching agitation pervades the gray clouded confines of The Events, in which a diverse chorus group is slaughtered by a gunman. Claire (Regina Aquino), the church chorus leader, is the sole...

Review: “The Pianist of Willesden Lane” by Theater J

Storytelling is one of the most ancient of the performing arts, distinct from that of the dramatic actor, and when Mona Golabek makes her entrance, it is not as an actor playing a character but as a...

Review: ‘Kindertransport’ by Sandy Spring Theatre Group

Kindertransport by Diane Samuels is being presented by Sandy Spring Theatre Group at the Arts Barn in Gaithersburg in partnership with the City of Gaithersburg. The play is produced by Jerry...

Review: ‘Pramkicker’ by Taffety Punk Theatre Company

Imagine a pram catapulting down the stairs and the sweet instant of satisfaction that the kick initiates. A fragment of a second later, the realization of the tumble hits home. The kick is, after all,...

Review: ‘The Wedding Singer’ at NextStop Theatre Company

A wedding singer spurned by love becomes unlikely friends with the waitress at the local banquet hall and, from dumping to dumpsters, finds that love might be worth another try. Celebrating their 30th...

Review: ‘Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight’ at Silver Spring Stage

Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight by Lauren Gunderson, produced by Bill Hurlbut and directed by Erin Bone Steele is presented at Silver Spring Stage. The company has recently...

Review: ‘The Last Five Years’ by Montgomery Playhouse

The Last Five Years is a modern musical that follows the 5-year romantic relationship between Catherine, an aspiring actress, and Jamie, an aspiring writer, from their first date to the final days of...

Who Was Sir William Davenant and What Did He Do to ‘Macbeth’?

If you want to get yourself in the mood for the Folger Theatre’s current hit production of Macbeth – a famous adaptation from the 1660’s of William Shakespeare’s original tragedy, by his godson...

Review: ‘Turn Me Loose’ at Arena Stage

Long before Hannah Gadsby premiered her anti-comedy stand-up special Nanette, in which she lambasts the sexist entertainment industry and forces audiences to reckon with their own complicity, there...

Timothy Douglas: The Voice Behind ‘Small Mouth Sounds’ at Round House Theatre

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a disembodied voice floating above the seats at the Round House Theatre this month. The voice belongs to Timothy Douglas, an award-winning director whose work has...

Review: ‘Spring Awakening’ by Wolf Pack Theatre Company at Greenbelt Arts Center

Wolf Pack Theatre Company’s production of Spring Awakening is a powerfully moving show. The 2006 musical, with Book and Lyrics by Steven Sater and Music by Duncan Sheik, is based on the 1891 play of...

Review: ‘Cirque De Nuit’ by PrioreDance at Atlas Performing Arts Center

Figures emerge into the light. They are remarkably similar and without guise, and as the bodies accumulate in number; it is as if one has been multiplied by ten. The variations are obvious but the eye...

A Really ‘Chill’ Interview with George Salazar

If you need an introduction to George Salazar, you haven’t been paying attention. Currently seen Off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center in the sold-out smash-hit musical Be More Chill...

Beltway Barks: Smooch a Pooch or Take One Home

When Rusty the celebrity dog goes looking for kisses this Saturday, he won’t be alone. Joining Rusty will be a cadre of adoptable dogs and animal-loving actors brought together by Lisa Carrier Baker,...

Review: ‘Putin On Ice (that isn’t the real title of this show)’ by Single Carrot Theatre and The Acme Corporation

By Brandon Block We’re in a long, dark, monastic chamber. A white marble bust of Putin sits against dark red drop-banners that are just barely not swastikas, instead featuring a black outline of a...