2019

Washington Performing Arts Announces Its 2019-2020 Season

Washington Performing Arts has just announced its 53rd season, comprising 45 main stage events across six venues in the Greater D.C. region. The season includes the world premiere of Christopher Tin’s...

The Nominations Are In for the 2019 Tony Awards!

Two-time Tony Award winner Bebe Neuwirth and three-time nominated Brandon Victor Dixon announced the nominations for the American Theatre Wing’s 73rd Annual Tony Awards this morning, chosen from the...

Review: ‘Pink Milk’ at Single Carrot Theatre

“Those who can imagine anything can create the impossible.” – Alan Turing For its final production in its Remington home, Single Carrot Theatre presents the Regional Premiere of Pink Milk. Written by...

Review: ‘Ink’ at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre

Now playing a limited engagement at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Ink, written by James Graham and directed by Rupert Goold, premiered to critical acclaim in London and...

Interview: BodyWise Dance Director Margot Greenlee on ‘Rookies’ First Feast’

Dance and theater performances can be much more than sitting in a seat and watching. BodyWise Dance and its cadre of dedicated, diverse artist educators have been touring throughout the DMV to respond...

Review: ‘Curtains’ at The Arlington Players

The Arlington Players’ new production of Curtains brings all that musical theater promises an audience: gorgeous sets, outsized talent, big production numbers, and memorable musical pearls strung...

Review: ‘The Value of Moscow’ by Dark Horse Theatre Company

I really enjoy going to Dark Horse Theatre Company productions because troupe founder Natasha Parnian takes every opportunity to bring the audience into the story. The Value of Moscow, written by Amy...

Review: ‘Beetlejuice’ at the Winter Garden Theatre

From the moment you enter the theater, it’s as if you’ve been transported to a different realm. Purple, blue, and green lights, ominous fog effects, and eerie music swirl around the darkened space,...

Review: ‘The Burn’ by the Hub Theatre

The Hub is off to a remarkable start under new Artistic Director Matt Bassett with their production of The Burn by Philip Dawkins. Featuring snippets from the Arthur Miller classic The Crucible...

Review: ‘Annie’ at Reston Community Players

Reston Community Players (RCP) serves up a tasty dish of that ultimate Broadway comfort food, Annie. Cooked up by Thomas Meehan (book), Charles Strouse (music) and Martin Charnin (lyrics) in 1977, and...

Review: ‘The Savannah Disputation’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

If you never thought the words “theological comedy” could go together, think again. The Savannah Disputation, playing now at The Little Theater of Alexandria, bills itself as just such a comedy. And...

Review: “14” by Theatre Prometheus

Arresting, provocative, and hauntingly relevant, 14 by playwright José Casas weaves a tale of sixteen characters living or born in Arizona who express their divergent views about immigrants and...

Magic Time!: 10 Questions for the Brains Behind ‘The Tarot Reading’

Even in this theater town abounding in innovation, The Tarot Reading stands out as an original. I can’t think of anything it’s quite like. After I saw an iteration last year (The Tarot Reading IV), I...

Review: ‘Steel Magnolias’ at Sterling Playmakers

So many stories can be started with “boy meets girl.” It’s a trope that almost clutters literature – and drama for that matter. Even in shows with almost exclusively off-stage men, they are often the...

Broadway and Off-Broadway Nominations for the 2019 Chita Rivera Awards

The committees of the Chita Rivera Awards, named for the legendary star of such iconic Broadway hits as Chicago, Bye Bye Birdie, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Nine, have announced their nominations...

Review: ‘Tootsie’ at the Marquis Theatre

When Tootsie the movie was released in 1982, it gave audiences a lighthearted look at rampant sexism, mistaken gender identity, and sexual harassment through the lens of the TV industry, as the...

Review: Broadway Center Stage: ‘The Who’s Tommy’ at Kennedy Center

Fifty years ago Rolling Stone reported completion of a new album by Pete Townshend and called it “probably the most important milestone in pop since Beatlemania. For the first time, a rock group has...

Nu Sass To Perform ‘Marx in Soho’ at Edinburgh Fringe Festival

DC-based theater company Nu Sass Productions is taking Marx in Soho to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer. Marx in Soho, by American Historian Howard Zinn, will feature Mary Myers as Karl Marx...

Nominations Announced for the 2019 Drama Desk Awards

Nominations for the 64th annual Drama Desk Awards were announced this afternoon for the 2018-19 season, honoring the outstanding achievements of professional theater artists on Broadway, Off-Broadway,...

‘Love’s Labor’s Lost’ Director Vivienne Benesch Finds Inspiration in Folger Reading Room

Actor, director, and administrator Vivienne Benesch has many credits to her name. She is the Producing Artistic Director of the PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For twelve...

Review: ‘STOMP’ at the National Theatre

Started by Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1991, STOMP is a cacophony of sounds produced by common objects in lieu of musical instruments. An amalgam of music, dance,...

Review: ‘Come From Away’ at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre

Ideally, Come From Away should be seen in the round, with the audience gathered so close by that it can share the claustrophobia, fear and love of all those grounded passengers. It’s a pity to be kept...

Woolly Mammoth Announces Its 2019-2020 Season

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company announces its 2019-2020 season, which features an energizing array of plays by new voices and Woolly veterans. The premiere season curated by Artistic Director María...

Review: ‘Hadestown’ at the Walter Kerr Theatre

One of the most haunting love stories of all time is the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, recounted in Virgil’s Georgics, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and other literary classics. Devastated by...

Review: ‘Ripcord’ by Vienna Theatre Company

Vienna Theatre Company has just opened David Lindsay-Abaire’s hilarious play, Ripcord, for the last production of their current season. The show takes place in an assisted living facility, with two...

Magic Time!: Disrupting the White Comfort Zone: A Q&A about ‘P.Y.G.’ at Studio Theatre

I have an ongoing interest in how theaters in DC with predominantly white audiences raise and represent the issue of race. And one of the things I’ve been noticing is how the white comfort zone...

Preview: Bethesda Little Theatre Switch-Hitters Knock It Out of the Park

By Christina Ling Or should that be hit-switchers? Either way, the talented cast of the Bethesda Little Theatre (BLT) is sure to delight as they cross the musical gender divide with their upcoming...

Review: ‘Black Pearl Sings!’ At Alliance for New Music-Theatre

Black Pearl Sings! by Frank Higgins, at Alliance for New Music-Theatre, is an absorbing production with an uplifting message. This witty play was successfully produced here in 2016 at MetroStage,...

#MeToo: BSU Student Artists Take Immersive Approach to the Movement

In response to the growing momentum behind the #MeToo Movement, Bowie State University Theatre has dedicated their season to the creation of a new, devised performance entitled #MeToo. Through...

Review: ‘Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus’ at the Booth Theatre

What’s so funny about mounds of bloody, dismembered, and spurting bodies, flatulence and excrement, necrophilia, and penises – lots and lots of penises? That depends on your sense of humor. Taylor...

Review: ‘Rumors’ by the King William Players

The King William Players’ production of Rumors delivers constant laughs. Neil Simon’s 1988 farce comes to roaring life in this production, directed by Sarah Irving and performed and produced by the...

Interview: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik at the Kennedy Center

Many artists cite their family as one of their main sources of inspiration, but violinist Yevgeny Kutik can make a stronger claim than most. Even some of the repertoire he performs stems directly from...

Review: ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a challenging and much-loved absurdist tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, has had long runs and featured many famous actors. Fells Point Corner Theatre’s ambitious...

Review: ‘Spring Awakening’ by Boundless Theatre

It is a joyful occasion when a new, vital theater company opens, and the advent of Boundless Theatre in Frederick is a welcome addition to the Western Maryland arts scene. Their inaugural production...

Review: ‘And Baby Makes Seven’ at The Strand

Closing out its 11th season, The Strand Theater Company presents the final three performances of Paula Vogel’s And Baby Makes Seven. Directed by Emily Hall and featuring a talented cast and production...

Review: ‘Hillary and Clinton’ at the Golden Theatre

Can you imagine a parallel universe in which the politics of the 2008 US presidential campaign are played out by people with the same names, situations, and inter-relationships as the real-life...

Review: ‘The Mighty Five and Friends’ by the Russian Chamber Art Society at the French Embassy

With the concept of nationalism hovering uneasily in the political air, it was as edifying as it was gratifying to hear four first-rate musicians celebrate in song some of the masterworks of what...

Review: ‘Hamlet’ at the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

You’ve seen ten productions of Hamlet, you’ve seen ‘em all, right? There is nothing new you care to see at this point, because even the innovative approach is becoming tired. But have you ever seen a...

Behind the Scenes at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Props Warehouse

Staging an epic that involves a bloody chain of events in “a deluge of violence,” as the Shakespeare Theatre Company describes The Oresteia, requires not just the skills and talents of the actors on...

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with Lucille Lortel Award Nominee John Edwards

Actor/singer/dancer John Edwards is not just a triple threat, he’s also an awards-nominated one, and deservedly so. A current member of the Grammy-nominated Broadway Inspirational Voices gospel choir,...

Magic Time: ‘Les Deux Noirs: Notes on Notes of a Native Son’ at Mosaic Theater Company

The splashy opening is spectacularly preconception-smashing. We know we’re about to see a play premised on a 1953 meeting in a Paris café between the literary lion Richard Wright and James Baldwin,...

Review: ‘Les Deux Noirs: Notes on Notes of a Native Son’ at Mosaic Theater Company

In Les Deux Noirs: Notes on Notes of a Native Son, Playwright Psalmayene 24, Director Raymond O. Caldwell, and Founding Artistic Director Ari Roth take on the risky task of staging a well-known and...

Who Gets To Feel Safe? A Conversation Inspired by Mosaic’s ‘Native Son’

Theater and Policy Salon partners with New York University Washington Center to organize a conversation on “Who Gets to Feel Safe?” in conjunction with Mosaic Theater Company’s productions of Native...

When BSO’s OrchKids Show Up, Good Things Happen

In the early 1990s, I lived in New Orleans at the corner of Philip and Constance streets. At the time, it was the transition zone between the toney Garden District and the St. Thomas projects. More...

Review: ‘Beckett Trio, Part 2’ by Scena Theatre

Ready for your Samuel Beckett fix? A fix for the lesser-known, very short-form works by the winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature? If you are the least bit curious and open to a quieter form...

Review: ‘Blithe Spirit’ by Vagabond Players

After three – count ‘em, three – local productions of Blithe Spirit during 2018, Maryland audiences are well aware of the fact that it takes more than fear of Christmas to make a Noël Coward. And...

Review: ‘A Comedy of Tenors’ at Olney Theatre Center

Things are getting silly at the Olney Theatre Center these days. Very, very, silly. Very skillfully silly, in the production of Ken Ludwig’s A Comedy of Tenors. A follow-on to Ludwig’s highly popular...

Magic Time!: Inside the DC Jail with Liza Jessie Peterson and ‘The Peculiar Patriot’

Actor and Playwright Liza Jessie Peterson is an extraordinary artist/activist. Tucked inside her uproarious one-woman show, The Peculiar Patriot—which she performs through April 20, 2019, at Woolly...

Review: ‘A New Brain’ at the Colonial Players of Annapolis

Harmonious voices! Hilarious hoofing! A dancing frog! With over 30 songs packed into its 90 minutes, the Colonial Players’ A New Brain is a magnificent autobiographical musical comedy that is based on...

Tandavam Events’ Radhika Rao Discusses Indian Classical Dance and ‘Trilochana’

If you are not from the great sub-continent of India or do not have any Indian friends, you might be forgiven for not knowing that there is a healthy culture of Indian classical dance in the DMV, much...