2018

Review: ‘Unlucky Soldiers’ at Theatrical Mining Company

“This we’ll defend” is the motto of the U.S. Army, and the Theatrical Mining Company is going above and beyond to fulfill that commitment in its world premiere production of Robert Garcia’s Unlucky...

Review: ‘Macbeth’ at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre

In January 1666, famed diarist Samuel Pepys saw a performance of the William Davenant Macbeth and called it a “strange perfection.” The production that just opened at the Folger Theatre is strangely...

Review: ‘Shakespeare’s R & J’ at Vagabond Players

Paula Vogel facetiously called Othello “a play about a handkerchief,” but Shakespeare’s R & J, Joe Calarco’s all-male reconception of the Bard’s most famous love story now being presented by the...

Magic Time!: ‘Gloria’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Count on Branden Jacobs-Jenkins to leave you whiplashed and shell-shocked. He hits nerve after nerve then goes for the jugular. Whatever he writes, see it. Woolly’s previous productions of...

Review: ‘Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate)’ at GALA Hispanic Theatre

The current offering from the justly renowned GALA Hispanic Theatre, Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate) is a veritable feast for the senses and a savory mixture of theatrical...

Review: ‘Private Peaceful’ at TBG Theatre

Director Simon Reade’s compelling stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s 2003 award-winning novel for young adults, Private Peaceful, now playing a limited engagement at TBG Theatre, offers an intense...

Review: ‘Rumors’ at the Colonial Players of Annapolis

Colonial Players’ production of Neil Simon’s Rumors is a hilarious farce of a play, a wonderful way to start their 70th season. First appearing on Broadway in 1988, this version, directed by Atticus...

Review: ‘Luther’ at Arena Players

By Cybele Pomeroy “My name is Luther and I’m going to sing every song I know. Come on, y’all, let’s have a party.” — Tamba Giles as Luther Vandross in Luther. It’s a brick building in an area between...

Review: ‘Gloria’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Director Kip Fagan opens this production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria with a clever conceit: Miles (Justin Weaks), an office intern, is at his desk, as the contrapuntal woodwinds and strings of a...

Review: ‘August: Osage County’ at the Little Theatre of Alexandria

The Little Theatre of Alexandria’s production of August: Osage County, the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Terry Letts, pulls off the condensed, soap-opera feel of a family forced to deal with a...

Avant Bard Announces Full Cast and Creative Team for ‘Illyria’

Avant Bard theatre announces the full cast and creative team for its 2018/2019 season opener, Illyria, or What You Will, freely adapted from Twelfth Night by Jonelle Walker and Mitchell Hébert and...

Review: ‘Engaging Shaw’ at Best Medicine Rep

There is an engaging sub-genre of theater, that one might call the battle of wits or the comedy of intellect, that takes some of the greatest minds in history and brings them to life, with all their...

Review: ‘Hand to God’ at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

So what sort of play is Hand to God? Dysfunctional family drama? Teen coping with angst saga? Angry satire on a particular style of Christianity? Scenario for a horror movie? Raunchy sex comedy?...

Review: ‘Hero’s Welcome’ at 1st Stage Theatre

Hero’s Welcome at 1st Stage is the area premiere of British playwright Alan Ayckbourn’s 79th play. While Ayckbourn might be best known for his uproarious comedies, the humor here is darker than...

Review: ‘Sweeney Todd’ by Rep Stage

Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street presented by Rep Stage, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by High Wheeler, took to the boards this week at Howard Community College....

Review: ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ at Everyman Theatre

True magic happens not when we’re convinced that an illusion is true, but when we realize that it can’t be so yet still refuse to believe it isn’t. Such a spell is cast over the audience at Everyman...

Review: ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ at Laurel Mill Playhouse

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, directed by Jen Sizer and produced by Maureen Rogers, opened September 7 at the Laurel Mill Playhouse. Written by Dale Wasserman (based on Ken Kesey’s novel), the...

Review: ‘The Imbible: Rum and Pirates’ at The Producers Club Theaters

A favorite summertime installment in The Imbible’s series on the origins and development of alcoholic beverages, The Imbible: Rum and Pirates is back by popular demand for a limited four-weekends-only...

C-c-c c’mon: Monumental Theatre Company Announces 2019 Season

Monumental Theatre Company is not messing around: After their 2018 win at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards, Monumental is gearing up for a season guaranteed to impress. From off-Broadway indie hits to...

Review: ‘South Pacific’ at Olney Theater Center

No one is from there. Espiritu Santo, the main island setting of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical drama and the James Michener novel (Tales of the South Pacific) that inspired it, is not the dreamy...

They Are Bach! Washington Bach Consort Announces Their New Artistic Director and Kicks Off 41st Season

After a dramatic auditioning process that lasted the entirety of their 40th season, Washington Bach Consort has selected their new Artistic Director. The premiere Baroque chorus and orchestra that...

Page to Stage 2018: Tastings from a Buffet (Part Two)

Kennedy Center’s annual Page to Stage Festival is always chock full of tempting offerings, and the challenge of deciding what to see is daunting. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet…except you really...

A New Dynasty Commands the Stage in the Folger Theatre’s ‘Macbeth’

“The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.” Those words—spoken by 10-year-old Owen Peakes in the Folger Theatre’s startling new production of Macbeth—send a faint tremor through the packed house....

Natalie Graves Tucker: Theatre Week Kickoff Emcee and All Around Superwoman (Interview)

Natalie Graves Tucker is so many things to so many people that we might need to add “superwoman” to her resume: actor, mom, marketing professional, voice over artist, video producer, writer, former...

Shakespeare Theatre Company Announces New Artistic Director: Simon Godwin

The Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) today announces the appointment of Simon Godwin as its next Artistic Director. Godwin, currently the Associate Director at the National Theatre of Great Britain...

Review: ‘Small Mouth Sounds’ at Round House Theatre

“You have everything you need within you to be human,” says an unseen guru on the god mic. He is speaking in sonorous tones to six seekers who now sit rapt in a row facing us the audience. They have...

Page to Stage 2018: Tastings from a Buffet (Part One)

Kennedy Center’s annual Page to Stage Festival is always chock full of tempting offerings, and the challenge of deciding what to see is daunting. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet…except you really...

Hip-Hop and Hamilton: The Same Revolution

Born into a society coming off a bloody, soul-crushing war nobody asked for. The folks who govern are taxing their people into oblivion; the common man looked at as a lesser caste, an undeserving...

Review: The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek at MetroStage

There is a good, rather grim, chance that The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek will be Athol Fugard’s last play; well into his eighties, Fugard has wryly admitted as much in recent interviews. If that...

The Top Eleven Ticket Deals During Theater Week

The final days of summer are here. And you know what that means? It’s time to score some awesome deals during Theatre Week. For the third year, we’re bringing you exclusive prices to some of the...

Review: ‘Anything Goes’ at September Song Musical Theatre

For a long Labor Day Weekend, September Song is presenting Cole Porter’s Anything Goes at the Carroll Arts Center in Westminster, Maryland. Produced by Allen Cross and Joan Eichhorn and directed by...

Page to Stage Festival 2018: A Complete Listing of Shows

UPDATE: Click here for an interactive guide to the Page-to-Stage Festival. A very helpful tool in planning your visit. The Kennedy Center’s 17th annual Page to Stage Festival offers theatergoers the...

Review: ‘Dream House: A Rainy Day Play’ by Building Better People Productions

Building Better People Productions’ performance of Dream House: A Rainy Day Play, is a funny, clever show about the power of imagination. Written by Jeremy Gable and directed by Lynne Childress, the...

DC-Area Premiere of Athol Fugard’s ‘The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek’ Opens This Weekend at MetroStage

The Washington, DC-area premiere of Athol Fugard’s most recent play The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek opens this weekend at MetroStage and will run through September 30. First preview on Thursday,...

Theater Alliance launches Season 16 with the Word Becomes Action Festival

Theater Alliance launches Season 16 with the Word Becomes Action Festival: Flipping the Script. Building on the success of last year’s inaugural festival, this second annual festival explores themes...

Surrealism on Stage: Behind the Doors at Sarah Ruhl’s ‘Melancholy Play’ at Constellation Theatre

Imagine a cluster of windows without walls, set against a backdrop of doors. And imagine a stage with a floor whose texture resembles sand. Those are just a few of the images—improbable as they...

Review: ‘Marie and Rosetta’ at Mosaic Theater Company

I could well make this a one-word review: Wow. After the sensational opening of Marie and Rosetta at Mosaic last night, wow was the first word I heard from everyone I talked to, and wow was the first...

Interview: Creative Cauldron Producing Director Laura Connors Hull

Creative Cauldron is celebrating its 10th season performing at its ArtSpace venue in Falls Church. Creative Cauldron is one of the area’s small theater gems, with a consistently high quality along...

Dangereuse: The “Wow” Effect: Free-for-All ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at the Shakespeare Theatre Company

First-rate Shakespeare for free is one of the most valuable gifts the Shakespeare Theatre offers the DC community. The two-week run of Romeo and Juliet is a reprise of director Alan Paul’s acclaimed...

Playwright Neil Simon Dies at 91

Neil Simon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright, died last night at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. The cause was complications from pneumonia. He was 91 years old. His...

Patrick Flynn’s ‘The Ferberizing of Coral’ a Winner at Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival

Patrick Flynn’s The Ferberizing of Coral was one of six plays chosen for publication by Samuel French at the 43rd Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival this week. 850 plays were submitted to the...

In the Moment: ‘Passion’ at Signature Theatre

Leaving Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, directed by Matthew Gardiner, I found one word to describe my reaction: Believable. Yes, believable. This Signature Theatre production of Passion took me inside its...

Review: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Free For All

Romeo & Juliet’s famous entreaty–“wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast”– is strikingly realized in the latest addition to Shakespeare Theatre Company’s yearly Free For All production, a...

Review: ‘Passion’ at Signature Theatre

Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, now playing at Signature Theatre, has two of the greatest songs in the composer’s brilliant portfolio – “I Wish I Could Forget You” and “Loving You” – and three complex,...

Magic Time!: ‘The Interstellar Ghost Hour’ at Longacre Lea

Here’s an idea for a grad lit student in search of a dissertation topic: “Bewilderment and Brilliance in the Theater of Kathleen Akerley.” That thought flipped through my head after I watched The...

Studio Theatre Adds ‘The Children’ to 2018-2019 Season, Announces Cast of Season Opener

Studio Theatre has added a production to its previously announced 2018-2019 season. The Children, by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood, will close out Studio’s season beginning on May 1st, 2019....

Interview: The Hub Theatre’s New Artistic Director Matt Bassett Looks Ahead to 2018-19 Season

In a recent telephone interview, Matt Bassett, Hub Theatre’s new artistic director, discussed the company’s upcoming season. In shaping the season, his first as Hub artistic director, Bassett said...

Women in Theatre Conference Coming to Howard Community College August 25

Rep Stage is pleased to announce that the third annual conference dedicated to women working in the theatre will be held in the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center at Howard Community College...

Interview: MetroStage’s Carolyn Griffin and Actor Doug Brown Discuss ‘The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek’ by Athol Fugard

Over its 30 seasons, MetroStage has had several homes, including 17 years in a cozy venue in Alexandria’s North End. Redevelopment of the area will lead MetroStage to another location in Alexandria in...

Review: ‘The Glitter Girls’ at Upcounty Theatre

The Glitter Girls, written by Mark Dunn and directed by Bruce Hirsch, is a hilarious romp through a mind game played by the wealthy Trudy Tromaine (Margaret Condon) on her “Glitter Girls”- a...