2019

Enjoy Your Stay at Flying V’s ‘Crystal Creek Motel’

Plaza Suite, this is not. In fact, it is about as different as a play can be that shares the same premise: short vignettes about the different people who occupy the same room in, as one character puts...

A musical job unlike any other: A talk with Angel Gil-Ordóñez of the PostClassical Ensemble

Correctly predicting what kind of serious art music would and would not be presented on American concert stages in 2019 would have fooled – even baffled – the most prescient of musical observers from...

LA Theatre Works’ ‘SEVEN’ will explore social injustice through documentary theater at George Mason

LA Theatre Works is bringing its distinctive radio style, live theater to the DMV with a production of SEVEN. A documentary theater play, SEVEN is based on the lives of seven extraordinary women from...

Crashing the Party: Pink Martini Celebrates 25 Years With a Kennedy Center Blowout

If the invitation would have been to see the genre-bending Portland-based cabaret-style self-described ‘little orchestra,’ Pink Martini, featuring China Forbes with special guest star Meow Meow, that...

Theater and Policy Salon’s 2019-2020 season kicks off this weekend

The 2019-2020 Theater and Policy Salon season will start on October 18 at 3 pm with a Salon at New York University’s Washington DC campus at 1307 L Street, NW in downtown DC. The conversation will...

Prologue Theatre’s ‘Dog Sees God’ Guaranteed to Get You Talking

Now in its second season, Prologue Theatre’s mission is simple: They want to start conversations. They will undoubtedly accomplish this with their take on Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage...

Creative Cauldron announces “Bold New Musical Voices” competition for women composers and writers

Creative Cauldron announces an open call for submissions for its new “Bold New Musical Voices” Festival, to be held from April 27 – May 6, 2020. The festival seeks new and innovative musical works by...

U.S. premiere of ‘White Pearl’ by Anchuli Felicia King to premiere at Studio Theatre

In her U.S. premiere, rising Thai-Australian playwright Anchuli Felicia King takes a scathing look at the ugliness of the beauty industry in White Pearl, beginning November 6, 2019, at Studio Theatre...

‘Phantom of the Opera’ still thrills at the Hippodrome

Baltimore’s fussy old Hippodrome Theatre is the ideal setting for any show dealing with fin de siècle madmen acting out obsessive love fantasies. So consider it a reward to have a thrilling new...

Review: ‘Dublin Carol’ at Irish Repertory Theatre

Now playing a limited Off-Broadway engagement at Irish Repertory Theatre, Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s Dublin Carol, which made its debut at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2000, tells an old...

Review: India.Arie at Strathmore Music Center

India.Arie is music therapy for the soul – part mindfulness meditation through song and part groove-funk to keep it real. Authenticity is her brand essence, but her performance is much more than a...

Review: Theater Alliance’s ‘Day of Absence’ by Douglas Turner Ward

Two clowns open a suitcase. In that suitcase lies a rope. A long rope. They start to play with it, tug-of-war stuff, with the loser pretending he’s winning. Lotsa yuks. Then the twist. And the painful...

A Dispatch from the Charm City Fringe Festival

The Charm City Fringe is on! Here’s what I got up to last night. Reviews Poly-Theist “Brett was a married, 21-year-old monogamous Evangelical. Then he became the opposite.” When real people talk about...

Review: ‘Broadway Center Stage: Footloose’ at The Kennedy Center

Footloose, the 1984 movie starring everybody’s friend, Kevin Bacon, was a hit for many reasons, but one stood out over the others: dancing means life, and dancing gives meaning to life. This...

Review: The Mariinsky Ballet’s ‘Paquita’ at the Kennedy Center

Ballet, like opera, has a love-hate relationship with its 19th-century repertoire. Contrived plots, truly embarrassing cultural stereotypes, crowd-pleasing but horribly dated choreography that simply...

LA TI DO presents Natalie Weiss: Live in DC

Join LA TI DO for an intimate evening with YouTube sensation Natalie Weiss at Union Stage at The DC Wharf featuring Natalie Weiss with a live band. Where: Union Stage, 740 Water St, SW Washington, DC...

Review: ‘Slave Play’ at the Golden Theatre

Sitting in a theater for a two-hour-and-five-minute running time without intermission is not particularly comfortable for many audience members who might require a bathroom break or a chance to...

Internationally Acclaimed Cellist Amit Peled to Perform Free Concert

Internationally acclaimed cellist Amit Peled joins Peabody Conservatory alumna Allison Freeman for a free concert this Sunday, October 13, 2019, at 4:30pm at St. Edward the Confessor Church in Bowie,...

Review: Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Escape to Margaritaville’ at The National Theatre

Four years ago, I walked into what was then the Barnes & Noble in downtown Bethesda and asked for a sales clerk’s assistance locating one of Jimmy Buffett’s greatest hits CDs. She was stymied. Would...

Appropriate or Appropriation? PostClassical Ensemble and The Lakota Music Project Frames Debate on Indigenous Music

If this summer’s Baltimore Symphony Orchestra labor dispute underscored that remonstrating over the sustainability of American symphony orchestras is pointless if we don’t clarify whether they should...

The Eighth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival Launches This Week: How to Get Your Fringe On!

October 10 marks the Launch Party for the Eighth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival, a celebration of new and emerging independent theatre that will continue through October 20th. The kickoff party,...

Storm Large Is in Charge at AMP by Strathmore

Ah, an evening of cabaret in an intimate venue in the swanky Pike and Rose complex. Elegant artists dressed to the nines singing and playing sophisticated classics from the Great American Songbook...

A Personal View of the Coming Apocalypse: Caryl Churchill’s ‘Escaped Alone’

What a play! Escaped Alone is full of dramatic presentations announcing a coming apocalypse; an end of days. The production at Signature Theatre is receiving rightful praise (read my colleague Barbara...

Review: ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show’ at Imagination Stage

Shadow puppets, sock puppets, masked performances, large scale festival puppets, and marionettes appear in cultures around the world. Enduring over the centuries, puppetry is an art, in multiple...

Review: ‘Carrie, The Musical’ at Workhouse Arts Center

It’s that time of year again, when there’s a bit of Pumpkin Spice in everything and Halloween themes are taking over. The Workhouse Arts Center is doing its part to add a bit of horror into the air...

Review: ‘All That Jazz!’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

All That Jazz! at Annapolis Shakespeare Company is an original musical revue of classic songs from old Broadway shows, in collaboration with Unified Jazz Ensemble. Conceived and directed by Sally...

Review: ‘Disenchanted’ at Creative Cauldron

Snow White is bossy. Cinderella is a ditzy dim bulb. Sleeping Beauty not only sleeps a lot but snores. Belle is going nuts from talking to inanimate objects. Mulan likes girls. Just what kind of...

A Wild Tale Wags ‘My Barking Dog’ at Caos on F

test

Review: ‘Escaped Alone’ at Signature Theatre

British playwright Caryl Churchill is a revolutionary playwright. In her career, she has upset theatrical expectations many times over. She plays with gender and fools with time. She invents unusual...

Review: ‘And Then There Were None’ by Providence Players of Fairfax

Providence Players of Fairfax present Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, based on her book of the same name. By one of the world’s most decorated crime writers, And Then There Were None...

Review: ‘Pride and Prejudice’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Love is a game—or deadly serious—or both at once, depending on which character you ask in NextStop Theatre Company’s production of Pride and Prejudice. The game motif is evident early on, as the cast...

Review: ‘The Winter’s Tale’ by The Wheel Theatre Company

Suddenly and immovably convinced his wife has been unfaithful, a jealous king’s actions result in the death of his queen and son, the abandonment of his infant daughter, and a cheery start to The...

Magic Time!: A #MeToo Memory Animates ‘I Am Her’

Midway through this taut, fraught drama about sexual trauma, a woman named Ana, a wife and young mother, is suddenly triggered. We are not told exactly why. It might be the Kavanaugh hearings...

Review: ‘Merce Cunningham at 100, Beach Birds and BIPED’ at the Kennedy Center

What a pleasure to celebrate the centenary of modern dance master Merce Cunningham with a pair of works that demonstrates his formidable vision for dance, imbued with clarity of form and generosity of...

Review: ‘Murder on the Nile’ at Castaways Rep

Murder on the Nile is Agatha Christie’s staging of her popular novel, Death on the Nile, published in 1937. Castaways Repertory Theatre has chosen this definitive whodunit for their Fall production of...

Review: ‘West by God’ at The Keegan Theatre

The economic and social plight of America’s white rural working class has been the subject of recent blockbuster books from J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy to Educated, by Tara Westover. Now this...

Review: ‘Fences’ at Ford’s Theatre

As seen through the simple symbolism of a wooden fence, Ford’s Theatre’s season opener of August Wilson’s Fences is a brilliant and searing exploration of the tragi-conflicts and heroic triumphs of...

Highwood Theatre Founder Fired Amid Accusations of Criminal Conduct Against Minors

On Friday, September 26, 2019, Washington City Paper reported on serious allegations facing the former executive director and founder of the Highwood Theatre, a children’s theater company based in...

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with Two-Time Tony and Emmy Award Winner Bebe Neuwirth

Singer/dancer/actress Bebe Neuwirth is not only a triple threat, she’s a multiple award-winning one. Among the honors she’s received are two Emmys for her role as Dr. Lilith Crane in the popular TV...

‘My Barking Dog’ Explores Wildness and Uncertainty at Caos on F

Building on its mission to produce “exciting yet profound theatre in greater Washington, DC” The Edge of the Universe Players 2 is presenting My Barking Dog, a play about “A woman. A man. A wild...

Review: ‘Hamlet’ at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet is a wonderful way to kick off their new season. Directed by Sally Boyett, the show sets Shakespeare’s classic play in modern dress, combining...

Review: ‘Annie’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Annie, the beloved Broadway darling that has enchanted audiences through generations! With its Book by Thomas Meehan, Music by Charles Strouse, and...

Review: ‘The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice,’ presented by the Taffety Punk Riot Grrrls

The all-female production of Othello at Taffety Punk, directed by Kelsey Mesa, is a breath of fresh air. Because all the characters are played by women, you forget that they are female after a few...

Review: ‘The Tempest’ at Synetic Theater

What an inspired creative jewel. What a brave new world. What a daring technical and artistic production. That is Synetic’s The Tempest; Shakespeare’s tale of shipwreck and magic, power grab and...

Washington Stage Guild Refreshes Shaw’s ‘Candida’

George Bernard Shaw published Candida in 1898. Though it was not performed in London until it was a hit in New York in 1903, where it inspired what Shaw called “Candidamania,” the play’s American...

Review: Audra McDonald Headlines George Mason’s University’s ‘ARTS by George!’

Audra McDonald’s concert Saturday night, September 28, was the culmination of a wonderful evening at George Mason University’s 14th annual ARTS by George! benefit. The concert hall at the Center for...

The Sorrow Beneath the Surface of ‘School Girls’ at Round House Theatre

Can one laugh heartily at a satirical comedy—be thoroughly engaged by the entertaining characters, story, and performances—and then after it’s over mourn what it was about? That was for me the...

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

The Eighth Annual Charm City Fringe Festival is taking place in the Bromo Arts District from October 10 through 20, 2019. Here’s a listing of all the shows. Ready, Set, Fringe! Fringe Shows with...

A Last-Minute Program Change Helps Showcase NSO’s Evolving Signature Sound

The National Symphony Orchestra’s third season opener signaled a distinctively bright and cohesive sound is developing under Maestro Gianandrea Noseda. Noseda explained to the crowd that his...

Review: ‘The Giver’ at Aldersgate Church Community Theater

In The Giver, Eric Coble’s adaptation of the Newberry Award-winning novel by Lois Lowry, Aldersgate Church Community Theater offers a family-friendly production about a future society that has gained...