2018

Review: ‘In the Closet’ at Rainbow Theatre Project

“It gets better” is the premise and promise of a multimedia campaign that since 2010 has tried to offer hope and encouragement to LGBTQ+ youth. The message can be life-saving. Nearly all such youth at...

Review: ‘The Interstellar Ghost Hour’ by Longacre Lea

It’s the time of the theater season for those with a taste for the offbeat and original, and time to accept the invitation for the yearly production from Longacre Lea displaying Kathleen Akerley’s...

Review: ‘Don Cristóbal’ at Pointless Theatre

Co-directors Rachel Menyuk and Eric Swartz have brought to the DC stage a truly original work with Don Cristóbal, Pointless Theatre’s last show of the 2017-2018 season. At first an obscene and...

Review: ‘Consent’ at Spotlighters Theatre

As audience members enter the Spotlighters Theatre to attend the Baltimore Playwrights Festival’s world premiere of Glennyce Lynn’s Consent, they pass signs warning against medical contamination, as...

Review: ‘Be More Chill’ at The Pershing Square Signature Center

Making its New York debut in a limited engagement at The Pershing Square Signature Center, Be More Chill – sold-out before it opened and extended for another sold-out week beyond its...

Discussing ‘Little Rock’ at The Sheen Center with Playwright and Director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj

In September 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, became one of the first educational institutions in America to become integrated, when nine heroic black teenagers enrolled in the...

Bloomberg Philanthropies Names D.C. Participants in Arts Innovation and Management Program

Washington, D.C. is no longer just a tourist city with iconic national monuments and fabled museums. Over the past decades, a distinguished cadre of small and medium-sized cultural institutions have...

Review: ‘Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce’ at Constellation Theatre Company

In Jonathan Dahm Robertson’s set for Constellation Theatre Company’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce, a collection of two-dimensional doors is depicted on the face of...

A Revamped ‘FringeNYC’ Returns in October: A Conversation with Producing Artistic Director Elena K. Holy

Following last year’s hiatus, FringeNYC – the New York International Fringe Festival – returns in October with a new structure and focus. Elena K. Holy, Producing Artistic Director of The Present...

Theatre Week Is Just a Few Weeks Away

WASHINGTON, DC – August 14 – theatreWashington today announced plans for Theatre Week 2018, a three-week celebration that will offer $15 and $35 tickets to over 20 productions, a free Kickoff Party,...

Review: ‘Happy Ending’ at Anacostia Playhouse

Happy Ending is a one-act satirical comedy written in the 1960s by Douglas Turner Ward, co-founder of the Negro Ensemble Company. He had written an op-ed for the New York Times called “American...

Review: Off the Quill’s ‘Frankenstein’

First, to avoid any confusion, let me state what this Frankenstein is not: It is not the Mel Brooks musical Young Frankenstein, with “Abby Normal” brains and creator and creation donning top hat and...

‘Legendary: Sweet Slice of Liberty’ by TBD Immersive

TBD Immersive, DC’s very own immersive theater company, brings a new production to the city this weekend. This time the show comes to life at Slim’s, a funky DC diner located at the corner of Georgia...

Five Top Off-Broadway Picks to Close Out Your Summer with a Bang!

Along with the array of Broadway hits that made their debut in 2018, this summer has brought a wealth of great entertainment beyond the big houses of the Great White Way in the Midtown-West Theater...

Review: ‘Variations on Sacrifice’ by Rapid Lemon Productions at Baltimore Theatre Project

Last night I had the immense pleasure of seeing eleven new plays by thirteen authors in Variations on Sacrifice. The Variations Project is an annual curated event produced by Rapid Lemon Productions...

Review: ‘Disney’s Broadway Hits’ at Wolf Trap

As the summer humidity abates a bit, what better way to enjoy a summer evening than with a concert full of classic Disney songs at Wolf Trap? Disney’s “Broadway Hits” concert on Thursday, August 9,...

In the Moment: ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ at the Keegan Theatre

Iowa can seem such a mythical place. That crossed my mind as I took in the Keegan Theatre’s top-notch production of the bittersweet, mystical romance of The Bridges of Madison County. Sure, Bridges is...

Review: ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ at the Keegan Theatre

Based on the novel by Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County finds Francesca, a World War Two war bride from Italy, living on a farm in Winterset, Iowa in 1965 with a husband and two...

How ‘Hamilton’ Is Remaking American History

By Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter America has gone Hamilton crazy. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical about Alexander Hamilton, “the forgotten founding father,” has become a turning point in...

Eric Schaeffer Discusses Signature Theatre’s Upcoming ‘Passion’

Starting August 14, Stephen Sondheim’s musical Passion will play at Arlington, Virginia’s Signature Theatre, starring Natascia Diaz (West Side Story) as Fosca and directed by Associate Artistic...

Interview With Tom Sweitzer About ‘Coming of Age’ Cabaret

Entertainment and enlightenment are only two of the expectations for the upcoming performance of Coming of Age at the Creative Cauldron as a group of talented teens perform a cabaret with compelling...

Review: ‘Legally Blonde’ at Zemfira Stage

I came to Zemfira Stage’s production of Legally Blonde as a virtual newbie, having seen neither the musical nor the 2001 Reese Witherspoon comedy film on which it was based. I knew to expect some...

Review: ‘Dinner’ at 4615 Theatre Company

Dinner is darkly hilarious, absurdist and at times psychologically frightening. The play, similar to Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, is about a dinner party gone terribly wrong. Serving under the...

Review: ‘Chicago’ at Other Voices Theatre

Chicago, now running at Other Voices Theatre in Frederick, has a long and winding history. In 1924, Chicago reporter Maurine Watkins covered the sensational trials of Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan,...

Review: ‘Pushkin’ at The Sheen Center

Presented by the american vicarious in a limited-engagement world premiere at The Sheen Center, Pushkin, playwright Jonathan Leaf’s latest historical drama, considers the last troubled years (1834-37)...

Review: ‘The Color Purple’ at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

“I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it,” said the character Shug Avery in novelist Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple, which...

Review: ‘The Story of the Gun’ at Woolly Mammoth

“All you have to do is move your little finger, move your little finger, and you can change the world.” That line from Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins could well serve as an epigraph for Mike Daisey’s...

5 Questions with Joshua Conyers, Summer 2018 Filene Artist at Wolf Trap Opera

Baritone Joshua Conyers is becoming a mainstay in the Washington area. Conyers is a Summer 2018 Filene Artist at Wolf Trap Opera, where he has sung Count Capulet in Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette,...

Magic Time!: ‘The Story of the Gun’ at Woolly Mammoth

Mike Daisey’s monolog The Story of the Gun is a show both hilarious and sobering, and he begins it with a wry riff on who we are who have come to see it. As he joshingly reminds us, we are liberal...

Review: Dan Domenech’s ‘Bootleg Famous: To Broadway and Beyond’ at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

New York’s Dan Domenech, who wowed audiences last summer as Che in the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s acclaimed production of Evita, was invited back to Center Valley, PA, on July 30, for a...

Avant Bard Announces 2018-2019 Season

For its 29th season of making theatre on the edge, Avant Bard proudly announces three mainstage productions featuring classic comedies by Shakespeare and Molière newly adapted for now, plus a...

Review: ‘King John’ at Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

King John of England was not a popular ruler, and Shakespeare’s play about him is not, to put it mildly, among his most popular works; indeed, it hasn’t been performed in Baltimore since 1781. The...

Review: ‘An Irish Twist on a Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Quotidian Theatre Company

Quotidian Theatre Company’s An Irish Twist on a Midsummer Night’s Dream is a fantastical adventure that transports Shakespeare’s classic to 1820s Ireland. This production was directed and adapted by...

Three Truths I Took Away From Second City’s ‘Generation Gap’

Are we brave enough to laugh at ourselves? That’s a question The Second City explores in it’s latest comedy show Generation Gap, playing now through August 12th at the Kennedy Center. The show blends...

‘Hamilton’ is Encouragement for True Inclusion in Theater

Hamilton: An American Musical is whatever kind of success you want to call it for its time. Artists, audiences, and critics observed it as groundbreaking in its music composition, choreography, and...

Review: ‘A Chorus Line’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

A Broadway musical about Broadway musicals—what could be better for theatre-lovers of all stripes? The iconic A Chorus Line truly fits the bill! It features music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward...

Magic Time!: ‘Dave’ at Arena Stage

You know those big live TV versions of blockbuster musicals that get broadcast decades after the show was a hit on the stage? Like, not until generations have come and gone? Well in the case of Dave,...

Review: ‘Macbeth’ at 4615 Theatre Company

Why do people commit evil, and once they have started, why can’t they stop? Now, as always, it is a question worth asking. Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, is an exploration of this...

Past is Prologue at 4615 Theatre Company

Artistic Director Jordan Friend had a clear vision when 4615 Theatre Company began producing full seasons last year. Each 4615 season would kick off with a pair of shows – one classic, one...

Magic Time!: A Report on ‘The Trans-Atlantic Time Traveling Company’

The prodigiously imaginative performance artist Holly Bass belongs to the first generation of her family not to pick cotton for a living. I learned that startling fact as I passed through an art...

Review: ‘Little Women (The Musical)’ by Wildwood Summer Theatre at the Arts Barn

Wow! Wildwood Summer Theatre’s production of Little Women (The Musical) was both dazzling and polished; its shine reflected the animated energy of its all-youth (ages 14-25) cast and crew, while...

Review: ‘Bernstein at 100: A Celebration’ at Wolf Trap

What could bring luminaries from the worlds of opera, musical theatre, a cappella, jazz, dance, choral music, and symphonic music together for one night of heavenly tunes? Perhaps nothing short of...

Review: ‘Dave’ at Arena Stage

The real news getting you down? Do you have a plentitude of cares and woes hanging over your head? Are you an addicted MSNBC watcher who wants to get off the couch and away from the cell for a few...

2018 New York Musical Festival Review: ‘’68’ at The Acorn Theatre at Theatre Row

This August marks the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago – one of the watershed events in the history of the American protest movement and election politics. Under...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Sucks to be a Grownup’

In Sucks to be a Grownup, you’ll see every side of CJ. Her funny side, her angry side, and even her emotional side. You’ll see CJ laughing and interacting with her audience, and you’ll see her crying...

Review: ‘Barnum’ at Prince William Little Theatre

By Leandra Lynn Step right up! Feast your eyes on PWLT’s current production, Barnum! The fun started even before I walked into the Hylton Performing Arts Center, with clowns waving at me from the...

Review: ‘Head over Heels’ at the Hudson Theatre

An epic marriage of Ancient, Elizabethan, and Post-Modern stylings, the Broadway premiere of Head over Heels at the Hudson Theatre, produced by Gwyneth Paltrow and Donovan Leitch, is cause for joyous...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘The Country Co-ed’

If you’re a fan of double entendres and early-2000s raunchy teen movies, then chances are you’ll like The Country Co-ed, a modern re-imagining of William Wycherley’s 17th-century Restoration comedy,...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘up your aesthetic’

Although it is aesthetically pleasing—beautifully designed and performed—up your aesthetic has nothing to do with aesthetics, per se. Instead, the production—which opened at the Blind Whino SW Arts...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘A View From My Backyard’

Fringe is filled with stories, but few are as comfortably charming as the memories presented in A View From My Backyard. Sara Herrera presents her memories through a series of stories and dances,...