2021

A sensational seance and powerful storytelling in ‘Animal Wisdom’

Animal Wisdom is a sensational Southern seance with moving original music and heartwrenching storytelling. Animal Wisdom is a collision of traditional storytelling and modern lenses, bursting into a...

‘GMCW Turns 40’ celebrates equality, justice, and joy

GMCW turns 40 is a joyous, and bittersweet, survey of the breadth of the work of Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC. Photographs, newpaper clippings, and video footage of the Chorus singing, acting,...

Online offerings from Gingold, NAATCO, and Vangeline

June is proving to be a busy month for NYC theater, with a rich variety of virtual offerings from Gingold Theatrical Group (GTG), National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO), and Vangeline Now in...

The Drama League goes virtual with ‘DirectorFest 2021’ this month

Starting today, the Drama League of New York, founded in 1916, to provide an artistic home for directors and the audiences they inspire, will present its annual longstanding multi-week festival...

‘Variant Strains’ comedy about a vaccine race is a booster shot of fun

I didn’t think I was ready to attend live theater again — only the prospect of a new play by the always reliable John Morogiello performing in a winning combo with the irrepressible Rebecca Herron at...

Wolf Trap marks 50th anniversary with first live performances in a year and half

A full summer season of concerts to reopen America’s only national park for the performing arts.

Post-Play Palaver: A double take on ‘Blindness’ at STC

Post-Play Palaver is an occasional series of conversations between DC Theater Arts writers who saw the same performance, got really into talking about it, and decided to continue their exchange in...

Streaming selections of songs and stories to start the week

This week opens online with concerts and conversations from Broadway favorites appearing in three ongoing livestream series that both entertain and enlighten. The Seth Concert Series – Live today at 3...

Creative Cauldron presents ‘Always…Patsy Cline’ live and outdoors

Creative Cauldron presents Always…Patsy Cline, written and originally directed by Ted Swindley and based on a true story. This musical play follows the unlikely friendship between Patsy and a devoted...

An elegently sensual ‘Ella es tango (She Is Tango)’ from GALA

GALA Hispanic Theatre’s Ella es tango (She Is Tango) is the tale of two centuries of music, dance, and female liberation from the origins of Tango as a macho form of entertainment, for the patrons of...

1st Stage reveals cast of surprise-filled ‘Duck Harbor’ web series

Actors Geoffrey Rivas and Deidra LaWan Starnes met for the first time live online.

Broadway Podcast Network opens Pride Month with L Morgan Lee

Broadway Podcast Network (BPN), NYC’s digital leader in theater-related audio programming, has announced the creation of an international partnership with eleven, one of the UK’s leading independent...

Turning 30 triggers Millennial cyber-angst in ‘Capricorn 29’ from The Tank

Presented by Off-Off-Broadway’s OBIE-winning company The Tank in association with Sami Pyne as part of Post Theatrical’s pandemic-time programming, Capricorn 29, which had its virtual premiere on May...

A woman’s liberation through generations in ‘A Very Present Presence’ from Pipeline Playwrights

A Very Present Presence, written by Ann Timmons and directed by Catherine Tripp, is the latest streaming offering from the women’s collective Pipeline Playwrights. Timmons states that this comedy...

‘A More Perfect Union’ from Arena is a thrilling musical accomplishment

I love what you stand for, but I hate the way you lie. to save our soul your secrets need to die. I still love you. God, I still love you. Look me in the eye. Tell me where you’ve been. — lyrics from...

NSO reunites with live audience after 15 months of silence

For the first time in more than a year, audiences lined up outside the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall to hear the National Symphony Orchestra perform last week. Musicians and their public were together...

Bowen McCauley Dance to take last bows, gives penultimate performance

As the dance world eases back to stages, Bowen McCauley Dance was among the first to dip a toe in to test the waters, dancing together on the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater stage before a very...

In Mosaic’s darkly funny ‘Inherit the Windbag,’ an epic bickerfest (ep. 8)

Mosaic Theater Company’s web series Inherit the Windbag is a darkly funny revisitation of a debate between two larger-than-life figures. During the 1968 Democratic and Republican National Conventions,...

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with George Salazar

Since originating the role of Michael Mell in Be More Chill, wowing fans in the regional, Off-Broadway, and Broadway productions of the show, and garnering millions of hits for his deeply felt and...

Women composers to revel this weekend at WoCo Fest 2021

Cellist Amanda Gookin joined the legions of artists whose lives were upended when the pandemic robbed them and their public of sharing music in the same space. But that all changes on Saturday, June...

Apropos Edgar Allan Poe: a reminiscence and a ringing listen

Growing up in Baltimore, it was impossible to avoid the story of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849). He was conceivably our most famous resident. There was the mysterious stranger, known as the “Poe...

The Stonewall Inn launches Pride Month with a benefit concert tonight

For over 50 years, The Stonewall Inn has been a beacon of hope as one of the original safe spaces and community centers for the LGBTQ+ community. Inspired by the struggles and ideals of the LGBTQ+...

Company | E returns to live performance with new works on climate change

Company | E put out a bold call for choreographers early this spring. In the era of COVID cancellations and livestream programming this announcement provided a bright spot, a hint that change was on...

NY PopsUp opens its June events in Union Square and on IG Live this evening

Because of the impromptu nature of pop-up events, NY PopsUp – an ongoing initiative to reactivate the performing arts and to revitalize audiences with surprise shows throughout the city and state –...

Stay entertained inside today with streams from George Salazar and Mikhail Baryshnikov

If the cold and rainy weather has put a damper on your outdoor Memorial Day weekend plans and you’re looking for something memorable to do, you can enjoy the holiday inside with online shows from two...

A feel-good podcast from theatermakers Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory Smith

Do you have those friends who are so crazy talented, smart, and wonderful that you wonder how in the world you are lucky enough to have crossed paths with them? That’s Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory...

A rousing ‘Luther’s Trumpet’ at GMU takes a provocative look at dissent

“A true believer is never comfortable in his faith,” says Martin Luther in Luther’s Trumpet. Director Rick Davis brings this rousing drama, written by historian James Reston Jr., to the George Mason...

Rorschach Theatre hits the jackpot with immersive ‘Distance Frequencies’

Rorschach Theatre’s current production is not a show. Well, not yet. It’s more of an adventure of the mind and, if you wish, the body. Since October 2020, patrons could receive seven chapter boxes of...

Live from Refracted and the cell for Memorial Day weekend

With the return of live in-person performances comes two experimental works from innovative artists and companies who’ve been dedicated to keeping theater alive during the pandemic. For this Memorial...

An exhilarating ‘Freewheelin’ Insurgents’ by Psalmayene 24 from Arena Stage

Nobody knows how the crisis that we are currently experiencing is going to turn out. The questions What are we to do? and How are we to go on? are at the center of The Freewheelin’ Insurgents, the...

Love goes to and fro in ‘The Last Five Years,’ up next from Constellation

Following the success of Sue Jin Song’s one-woman show Children of Medea, Constellation Theatre Company presents Jason Robert Brown’s beloved two-person musical The Last Five Years as the second...

Shakespeare Theatre Company to resume full-capacity shows in September

Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Artistic Director SIMON GODWIN announced the Company’s 2021/22 Season in a virtual townhall meeting for season subscribers, donors, Board members, and STC staff. The Tony...

An explosive dialogue about education, history, and race in ‘The Niceties’ from MTC

There’s nothing nice about The Niceties – it’s angry, combative, and explosive, and far from the eponymous suggestion of politeness in social behavior and etiquette. Originally presented as part of...

My impromptu evening when the show couldn’t go on at American Shakespeare Center

One by one, our beloved live theaters are reopening, and the level of anticipation cannot possibly be higher. This summer, Staunton, Virginia’s company at the American Shakespeare Center is starting...

Ballet Hispánico commemorates its 50th anniversary with a free virtual celebration

America’s leading Latino dance organization, Ballet Hispánico, founded by National Medal of Arts recipient Tina Ramírez in 1970, will commemorate its 50th anniversary with a virtual celebration of a...

An independent woman faces cancer in Solas Nua’s intimate outdoor drama

There couldn’t be a more perfect setting for Irish playwright Deirdre Kinahan’s In the Middle of the Fields than the grassy, clovered slope of P Street Beach, a sliver of Rock Creek Park a quick walk...

Studio Theatre’s ‘Flow’ feels like a hip-hop feast for the senses

Director Psalmayene 24 and actor-poet Justin Weaks join forces again in Flow, bridging the gap between Old Skool rappers and new age Flowetry performers to trace the tragic footsteps of seven...

Lauren Marcus added to the June opening weekend of Feinstein’s/54 Below

As was previously announced, after the long pandemic shutdown, Feinstein’s/54 Below will be reopening its doors to live audiences on Thursday, June 17, with a starry roster of top artists from the...

A close look at ‘City in Transition,’ Theater Alliance’s love letter to DC

Transition as a noun means “the process or period of changing from one state to another.” As a verb it means “to undergo or cause to undergo a process or period of transition.” Both definitions, from...

GALA’s ‘She Is Tango’ to highlight women composers and singers

Tango—called by one Argentinian tango instructor “a caricature of the patriarchy”—will dance to a distaff tune in GALA Hispanic Theatre’s Ella es tango (She Is Tango), a sizzling original musical...

Martin Luther to lock horns with the Pope in ‘Luther’s Trumpet’ from GMU

Edward Gero and Craig Wallace—two of the most prominent actors in DC—go head-to-head as Martin Luther and Pope Leo X in Luther’s Trumpet, presented May 28 to June 5, 2021, by George Mason University’s...

The final chapter in MasterVoices’ ‘Myths and Hymns’ streams on Wednesday

The last installment of MasterVoices’ free season-long digital take on Adam Guettel’s theatrical song cycle Myths and Hymns – which was nominated for a 2021 Drama League Award in the category of...

A summer of free weekend mini-festivals at Kennedy Center’s The REACH

Millennium Stage returns to the Kennedy Center with weekly, free, outdoor performance experiences curated by artists and organizations from around the DMV. Every Thursday to Saturday, May 27­­ to...

Winners of the 87th annual Drama League Awards

In a virtual ceremony this evening, streaming through the interactive Awards Room platform, the 2021 Drama League Awards – the oldest national theatrical honors, first inaugurated in 1922, then...

New this weekend from Keen and Dzieci

Off-Broadway’s acclaimed Keen Company concludes its innovative 21st season of Hear/Now audio-theater reimagining of the classic radio drama on Friday, May 21, beginning at 7 pm, with the world...

32 actors to perform Alan Sharpe’s ‘Screen/Plays’ on Black Pride Weekend

African-American Collective Theater (ACT) begins its 29th consecutive season with readings of Screen/Plays—12 original short plays by Founding Artistic Director Alan Sharpe. The latest installment of...

Women’s collective Pipeline Playwrights to premiere magical comedy

Pipeline Playwrights announces its first production in its Our Time, Our Stories Zoom production series: the world premiere of Ann Timmons’s A Very Present Presence, directed by Catherine Tripp. This...

Watch ‘The Drama League Awards’ and ‘Broadway Barks’ online this weekend

Two big annual events are streaming this weekend, to celebrate the innovative work of the national theater community during the past year of pandemic closure and to find loving forever families for...

A highly entertaining ‘How He Lied to Her Husband’ from Washington Stage Guild

Washington Stage Guild continues its run of online performances with a one-act comedy from George Bernard Shaw, whose works they perform so frequently that he’s affectionately known as their “house...

Rarely produced classic plays streaming now from Red Bull and the Mint

Off-Broadway’s acclaimed Red Bull Theater and Mint Theater Company are goldmines for the unearthing of little-known rarely-produced plays of the past that are deserving of greater recognition. This...