2021

An outlawed gay love gets set to music in ‘Midnight at The Never Get’

Midnight at The Never Get—the Off-Broadway smash hit and third production in the Signature Features 2021 Season—will stream April 30 through June 21, 2021, in HD on Marquee TV. With book, music, and...

A summer of live performances coming from American Shakespeare Center

American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia, will reopen in May 2021 with a repertory season of three Shakespeare classics. With programming selected, cast and directed by a cohort of actor...

Digital revivals of ‘A Letter to Harvey Milk’ and ‘Don’t Stay Safe’ streaming this weekend

The award-winning Off-Broadway musical A Letter to Harvey Milk, based on the eponymous short story by Lesléa Newman and adapted for the musical stage by Jerry James, Laura I. Kramer, Ellen M....

Shuttered venues can apply April 26 for federal rescue funding

UPDATE: The U.S. Small Business Administration has postponed relaunch of the problem-plagued Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) application portal until Monday, April 26, 2021, at noon ET....

Theater Alliance draws together four dramas from a disparate District

Continuing a season of online content, Theater Alliance presents the world premiere of City in Transition: The Quadrant Series. The full-length evening of digital theater, drawing inspiration from...

Brave Soul Collective to celebrate 15 years of Black Queer artistry

Local HIV/AIDS outreach and arts organization Brave Soul Collective (BSC) kicks off its 15th year and virtual performance season with BSCFifteen, a week-long artist residency at The Kennedy Center...

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with the hilarious and insightful Peter Michael Marino

Currently in the midst of live weekend performances of his original digital toy theater production of Planet of the Grapes Live – a zany and meaningful take-off on the sci-fi classic Planet of the...

Stellar stream of ‘Rock of Ages: All-Star Reunion Concert’ on Saturday

A one-night-only bi-coastal livestream jam-fest by alumni of the five-time Tony-nominated rock musical sensation Rock of Ages will celebrate the 12th anniversary of its opening on Broadway and its...

The next generation of theatermakers will include these young Black voices

As the pandemic has left live theater dark for the past year, we have been given an unexpected gift: the opportunity to take in virtual theatrical productions from companies we may not be familiar...

Three fabulous Off-Broadway offerings to start the weekend with a bang

This Friday, April 23, three acclaimed Off-Broadway companies get the weekend off to a great start with an enticing variety of offerings – a podcast, a livestream celebration, and a live in-person...

Future arts managers at GMU look to rebuild show business

The performing arts, which have been and are dealing with major stressors, need passionate change agents to lead into the future. While that seems clear to me, I wanted to know what might be on the...

Tales of two sisters from WP Theater and New Normal Rep

Every April I’m reminded of the incisive question posed by the Guerrilla Girls – an anonymous group of feminist performance artists, formed in NYC in 1985, to fight sexism and racism within the art...

In ‘Blindness’ at STC, the audience is live, with not an actor in sight

Shakespeare Theatre Company will open the doors of Sidney Harman Hall for the first time in over a year for the Donmar Warehouse’s sound and light installation Blindness. Prior to ReOpen DC’s...

A white cop’s shots at Black man echo through ‘Until the Flood’ at Studio

Dael Orlandersmith’s Until the Flood, now an on-demand production from Studio Theatre, brings the viewer into the conversation. You couldn’t be more active as a listener in this simple, seamless...

Earth Week streams from Dixon Place and Vangeline Theater

Among this week’s streaming selections are a newly commissioned puppet show and a cautionary butoh dance piece, both with significant themes related to the annual commemoration of Earth Day. MINE – As...

In brilliant ‘Children of Medea,’ a Korean American girl hopes to cope

Conformity can be difficult for some of us at the best of times. But it is especially difficult in adolescence for a girl. Cynthia, 17, the main character in Sue Jin Song’s brilliant Children of...

Reimagining a film classic in ‘Planet of the Grapes Live’ digital toy theater

Historic toy theater meets post-modern digital livestream in Planet of the Grapes Live, Peter Michael Marino’s wacky but meaningful reimagining of the 1968 sci-fi film classic Planet of the Apes. The...

A showcase of extraordinary talents from Ballet Theatre of Maryland

Ballet Theatre of Maryland’s Momentum is a collection of four classical and contemporary works that showcases the extraordinary talents of the company. The first two pieces are choreographed by former...

Up next from Mint Theater Company

Off-Broadway’s award-winning Mint Theater Company continues the celebration of its 25th anniversary season with the latest installment in its Silver Lining Streaming Series on Monday, April 19, with a...

A prickly take on marriage rocks ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’ at Silver Spring Stage

Lucas Hnath’s sequel to Ibsen’s classic raises thoughtful contemporary questions.

The Reclamation Project holds space to heal past harm in theater

The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political uprisings resulting from the anti-Black violence that killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade last year (as well as the...

NYTF and Congress for Jewish Culture commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Monday, April 19, 2021, marks the 78th anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, a heroic act of Jewish resistance in Nazi-occupied Poland (and the single largest revolt by...

A powerful theater of witness marks Emancipation Day in ‘Here I Am’

Many of us have been asking, “What will our theaters look like when our community returns to a post-pandemic ‘normal’?” Mélisande Short-Colomb and her collaborators—professionals and students or...

In eye-opening ‘The Jam: Only Child,’ a son and grandson tells it like it was

In The Jam: Only Child — now streaming on demand from Signature Theatre — Tony Award nominee Daniel J. Watts recounts his life as the only child of a single mother: a latchkey kid who grows up with...

Woolly’s powerful father-son convo ‘This Is Who I Am’ in rerun

(This review, first published December 14, 2020, was written about the original livestream run. The production is now streaming on demand through April 25, 2021.) Woolly Mammoth’s production of This...

The latest from ‘As the Curtain Rises’ and Ellen’s Stardust Diner

After a brief hiatus from the main narrative and a series of bonus content installments airing since January, Broadway Podcast Network’s original digital soap opera As the Curtain Rises, written by...

A Chekhov trio from Workhouse Arts is an intellectual tickle

Chekhov is not a feel-good story teller. His plays tell a brutal truth about people: their motivations, their weaknesses, and their duplicity. The Workhouse Arts Center is currently streaming Chekhov...

A fresh look at a hookup in ‘Frankie and Johnny’ from MetroStage

MetroStage continues its exploration of the works of the late multi-Tony Award winning playwright Terrence McNally with a virtual reading of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. Directed by Stefan...

Coming on Thursday: Charlayne Woodard’s ‘Neat’ and Titanic Remembrance Day

As the next offering in Manhattan Theatre Club’s virtual Curtain Call series celebrating acclaimed past productions, two-time Obie Award winner and Tony nominee Charlayne Woodard (Ain’t Misbehavin’)...

Angelica Chéri’s epic love story ‘Berta, Berta’ is next at Everyman

Playwright Angelica Chéri’s mystical and moving play Berta, Berta is next up at Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre. Founder and Artistic Director Vincent M. Lancisi announced that Everyman is set to stream...

All-star benefit to help rebuild Off-Broadway’s York Theatre Company

After nearly a year’s hiatus due to the pandemic, Off-Broadway’s award-winning York Theatre Company – founded in 1969, and noted for developing and producing new musicals and resurrecting neglected...

KenCen puts on puppet show and kids try it at home

I had the opportunity to watch Leonardo and Sam: The Terrible Monster and the Most Scaredy-Cat Kid in the Whole World, Respectively with my daughters (aged 7 and 9). The show is adapted from two Mo...

Tuyet Thi Pham reclaims her family origin story in ‘Motherland’ at Atlas

What can be discovered if we find the time and ability to have a conversation with our parents about the time before we existed? Think of what we might learn. Think of the unremembered or...

Two more steps to reopening Broadway

It’s been thirteen months since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of Broadway theaters on March 12, 2020. But now efforts are underway to begin the reopening process, with two initiatives...

Audrey Cefaly’s ‘Maytag Virgin’ is a joy to see at Colonial Players of Annapolis

Maytag Virgin is Colonial Players of Annapolis’s first show since the pandemic forced theaters to close. Directed by Edd Miller, it is offered livestreamed as well as to limited, masked, and...

Coming soon from Red Bull, The Public, and MasterVoices

Three favorite NYC companies have new offerings making their virtual debut next week, in a variety of genres and styles. So whether you prefer a dramatization of a classic epic poem, an original audio...

Live onstage again: a coming-of-age comedy at GALA Hispanic Theatre

Having implemented strict safety precautions in keeping with the Mayor’s plan, GALA Hispanic Theatre reopens its 45th-anniversary season live with Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (Tía Julia y el...

Shots from the vaccination site at Arena

Arena Stage has partnered with DC Health and MedStar Health to support and provide an accessible and safe location to help steadily vaccinate DC residents. The site will operate Thursdays to Sundays...

A personal relationship to America’s racial reckoning wraps up Arena Riffs

A More Perfect Union—a new concept-album-inspired music piece written and conceived by award-winning composer and lyricist Rona Siddiqui (Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfgan, One Good Day)—will be the...

A long struggle in ‘Whiterock Cliff’ with surviving depression and telling the story

Right from the start, Ryan McCurdy warns us that he won’t be telling the truth. Or maybe he does, at least in part, in his one-man Off-Broadway musical story Whiterock Cliff, performed and streamed...

Landless Theatre Company tries its hands at a sock puppet ‘Urinetown’

Pandemic life may have shut down live theater, but DC’s Landless Theatre Company has always had a knack for making lemonade out of lemons. They found their own digital theater solution hiding in the...

Grammy-winning percussionists release an exceptional, ‘theatrical’ album

Can an hour-long album of something technically labeled “classical music” actually be the closest thing to musical theater’s tradition of an original cast recording? It can in the case of last month’s...

Joe Iconis and Family streaming live at Adelphi University on Sunday

As part of Adelphi University’s Live from Adelphi concert series, Tony-nominated Be More Chill composer Joe Iconis and his close-knit group of collaborators (lovingly known as Iconis and Family) will...

Descendant of enslaved people sold by Georgetown to perform her ‘Here I Am’

Our ancestors have waited patiently through centuries for us to come to the table of acknowledgement. Here I Am fulfills my desire to give voice to those families, including my own, and to our...

A theater fan tests Synetic’s impressive new streaming service

The award-winning Synetic Theater is known for innovative interpretations of classic stories, most notably for their Wordless Shakespeare adaptations. As theaters pivoted to virtual performances and...

Mark your calendar for a weekend lineup with Empathy, Heart, and Tennessee Williams

Top offerings for the upcoming weekend include two online concerts and conversations, and a live outdoor solo show at a popular off-off-Broadway venue, so be sure to mark your calendar in advance for...

Everyman Theatre updates slate of plays for 30th-anniversary season

After delivering on the promise of rehearsing, filming, and streaming the first two production of the season, Queens Girl: Black in the Green Mountains and Cry It Out, the staff and artists at...

Black actors face grief of pandemic in hip-hop musical from Arena

Arena Stage is now streaming the second installment in its Arena Riffs series: a pandemic-era hip-hop musical written, directed, and performed by award-winning playwright, director and, actor...

New this week from Ballet Hispánico, Audible, and the Guggenheim

This week’s offering include a retrospective celebration of Latino dance, an audio play from the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and a museum pop-up performance by two acclaimed Broadway composers....

NY PopsUp at Broadway’s St. James Theatre

On Saturday, April 3, 2021, NY PopsUp – the statewide initiative to reinvigorate the arts – presented the first performance in more than a year inside a Broadway theater. The special event, which took...