Washington DC

Review: ‘A Few Good Men’ at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

OORAH and HOOYAH! Integrity and a code of honor is at the heart of the play A Few Good Men, showing now at The Little Theatre of Alexandria. Many Marines and a few Naval officers share the focus of...

Review: ‘Butterfly’ by the IN Series Presents a Radical Restructuring of the Original Puccini

While considered one of the classics in opera’s storied canon, Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini is simultaneously acknowledged to be one of the most problematic for its depictions of race and...

Alliance For New Music-Theatre Will Be First Theater-in-Residence at Dupont Underground

Alliance for New Music-Theatre (ANMT) is delighted to announce it has been named Dupont Underground’s first Theatre-in-Residence. The residency coincides with the launch of its 2019-2020 season. It is...

Review: ‘Bobby Gould in Hell’ by Providence Players of Fairfax

Eternal questions are being hotly debated in the back room of the Italian Café in Falls Church, where the Providence Players of Fairfax have once again set up shop for a “pop-up production” of a David...

Review: Jennifer Hudson and the NSO at Wolf Trap

Gracious, engaging, and a powerhouse of a voice, Jennifer Hudson brought the house down and left the audience standing and cheering while in concert with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap...

Feature: Good news, bad news and coming attractions at 4615 Theatre

First, the bad news. Enron, the farcical, scary and all-but-unbelievable romp through the biggest fraud in corporate history, has closed. The good news is that there’s still time—four more...

Ruben Santiago-Hudson on Directing August Wilson’s ‘Jitney’

Perhaps it is his distinctive voice or the fact that he has been called the “best storyteller of his generation” that makes Ruben Santiago-Hudson the apparent inheritor of the body of work produced by...

Review: ‘A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn’ at Anacostia Playhouse

Director Stephawn Stephens has deep family roots at the Dew Drop Inn, having started as a performer in A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn. When asked how he pulled off the latest edition he said he simply...

Open To All: The Kennedy Center’s New Addition Encourages Community Engagement

Sensuous and just a bit sly, the smooth white pavilions of the Kennedy Center’s new REACH complex wink at us amidst undulating grassy berms. One rises up from the green lawn, curling like an oncoming...

Page to Stage Festival 2019: Tastings from a Buffet (Part Two)

Kennedy Center’s annual Page to Stage Festival is always chock full of tempting offerings, and the challenge of deciding what to see is daunting. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet…except you really...

Shakespeare Theatre Company To Air National Theatre Live’s “Fleabag” as Part of Film Series

Shakespeare Theatre Company is delighted to announce the lineup of three National Theatre Live screenings in anticipation of the 2019/20 Season: FLEABAG, ANTONY & CLEOPATRA, THE LEHMAN TRILOGY, and...

News: Woolly Mammoth Theatre Names Emika Abe as New Managing Director

After a nationwide search run by Greg Kandel, David Mallette, and Management Consultants for the Arts, Woolly Mammoth will welcome their new Managing Director, Emika Abe, on October 7, 2019. Abe...

Page to Stage Festival 2019: Tastings from a Buffet (Part One)

Kennedy Center’s annual Page to Stage Festival is always chock full of tempting offerings, and the challenge of deciding what to see is daunting. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet…except you really...

Review: Olney Theatre Center’s ‘Cabaret’ Is Among the Show’s Best Productions

It’s been 54 years since Cabaret first opened on Broadway, but this season is the first time the Olney Theatre Center has staged the show. I have always loved this Kander and Ebb masterpiece, but of...

‘Fabulation’ Brings a Tale of Comic (and Cosmic) Comeuppance to Mosaic Theater Company of DC

Although it sounds serious on the surface, Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine, is one of the funniest plays ever to grace a DC stage. That’s the opinion of my colleague, John...

The 2019 Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosts its 18th annual Page-to-Stage New Play Festival from Saturday, August 30, 2019 through Monday, September 2, 2019. The festival is a free...

Round House Theatre Unveils Major Renovation

Round House Theatre reopened this week after an eight-month renovation that revamped nearly every aspect of the Bethesda, MD theater space. What began as a desire to improve the acoustics in the...

Fall for These Theater Week Discounts!

Ah, autumn in DC. The temperatures fall, the leaves fall, and the ticket prices fall at dozens of theaters! Theatre Week, a program of theatreWashington, celebrates the beginning of each new theater...

Review: ‘Fabulation’ at Mosaic Theater Is an Outright Joy

It takes a certain talent to turn topics that are no laughing matter into laugh-out-loud comedy that doesn’t condescend, doesn’t ridicule, and yet imbues life with meaning as only art can. That kind...

Review: ‘Beehive’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Let yourself drift back and be carried away to another time–the time when music with its rhythms was the center of a young life. Now with that thought, take yourself to the vibrant, energetic...

The REACH Opening Festival at The Kennedy Center: How Not to Be Overwhelmed

The Opening Festival of the new REACH at The Kennedy Center is truly exciting, but it’s a lot. All those buildings, all the goings-on. What’s a newbie to do? There’s no dearth of info about the...

Casting Director Kelly Crandall d’Amboise on Signature Theatre’s ‘Assassins’

The splendid, bone-chilling darkness of Signature Theatre’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins is lifted into reality by a most unexpected source: a 10-year-old character named Billy. He does...

Ray Anthony Thomas Discusses August Wilson and Playing Turnbo in ‘Jitney’ at Arena Stage

He has had major stage roles in everything from The Crucible to Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow. He has appeared in films as different as “Isn’t It Romantic?” and “Shutter Island.” Now...

Review: An Audacious and Urgent ‘Assassins’ at Signature Theatre

Nearly thirty years after its premiere, Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins still astonishes. An audacious meet-up of nine successful and would-be presidential assassins – from the narcissist John Wilkes...

Teatro de la Luna: Providing Spanish-Language Theater to DC Since 1991

Nucky Walder and Mario Marcel are household names to many Spanish-speaking residents of Washington, DC. For more than 60 years, Marcel, who is from Argentina, has dedicated himself to acting, theater...

News: Arena Stage Kicks Off 2019/20 Season with Free Community Day and Props Sale

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater kicks off the 2019/20 Season with a free Community Day and Props Sale on Saturday, August 24, 2019 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Mead Center (1101...

Providence Players’ Julie Janson Previews Pop-Up Production of ‘Bobby Gould in Hell’

With the success of their first pop-up theatrical venture, the Providence Players of Fairfax are ready for a second pop-up production. This time the Providence Players, a Northern Virginia staple for...

Review: ‘Ephemeral Fatale’ by Area Woman

Area Woman is a group of four local DC artists who came together to premiere their “comedydramadance,” Holon!, for the 2018 Capital Fringe Festival. This August at various venues throughout DC, they...

American Shakespeare Center Announces 2020 Programming

In a Sunday presentation broadcast from the stage of Staunton, Virginia’s Blackfriars Playhouse – the world’s only recreation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre – American Shakespeare Center (ASC)...

Review: ‘Betrayal’ at 4615 Theatre Company

Betrayal, one of Harold Pinter’s finest works, will open on Broadway September 5 after an extended run in London’s West End. Thanks to 4615 Theatre, a young professional company, you can see a...

News: ‘The Woman in Black’ by Shakespeare Theatre Company at the Lansburgh Theatre

Shakespeare Theatre Company announced this week that one of London’s most popular and long-running plays will join a season of classical theatre as a special presentation: The Woman in Black at the...

Review: ‘Diagnosed’ at Theater Alliance

I know what it feels like to not want to take a shower for three days. I know how the aches and pains of depression make you crawl into the fetal position and want to close out the world. I am...

Lighting Designer John H. Purnell Discusses ‘Mamma Mia’ at Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre

John H. Purnell is the Lighting Designer for Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre’s sold-out production of Mamma Mia! He has done the lighting design for many shows in the Annapolis area, including a A New...

Review: ‘Enron’ at 4615 Theatre Company Is an Excellent Investment

Back in 1998, the official Enron vision and values statement had a line in it that said: “Ruthlessness, callousness, and arrogance don’t belong here.” Two years later, as the company’s stock...

Review: ‘The Country Wife’ at The Rude Mechanicals

In 1675 William Wycherley wrote The Country Wife, a bawdy comedy of manners that pushed back against an 18-year stage ban instituted by a Puritan government. With the Restoration of the English...

Review: An Emotionally Gripping ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ at the Kennedy Center

Some musicals are all about the entertainment. You expect to see some awesome dancing, amazing singing, and leave the theater smiling (see my review of Disney’s Aladdin, also currently playing at the...

Review: ‘Treasure Island’ at Synetic Theater

If you’re a fan of swashbuckling pirate tales, you’ll love Synetic Theater’s charming and atmospheric spin on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island. Directed by Tori Toletino and adapted by...

‘In Your Shoes’: A Theatrical Experiment in Fostering a Democratic Ethos at Georgetown University

In the Devine black box theater at Georgetown University’s Davis Performing Arts Center, nine casually dressed undergraduate students, seated in chairs or on the floor take turns telling the story of...

Magic Time!: ‘Blank’ at Theater Alliance

“There are holes in the script!” would be the deathblow for any more conventional work of theater, but in Nassim Soleimanpour’s Blank, the gaps are where the action’s at. As with Soleimanpour’s hugely...

Vocalists Add a Narrative Twist to Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Volta’

Cirque du Soleil’s Volta is a rush of energy and hand-over-mouth gulps of emotions. Currently decamped in Fairfax County, a quick saunter from the raised Metro Silver Line station at Tysons II, Volta...

Review: ‘Legally Blonde’ at the Keegan Theatre

In this summer of our discontent – what with unchecked climate change, racist politics, and mass murders – a bit of cheer in the form of a frothy tale of a privileged white girl who, through dint of...

Theater Alliance Announces Third Annual ‘Word Becomes Action Festival’

The third annual Word Becomes Action Festival launches Theater Alliance’s 2019-2020 season with six new works that ask us to confront the revolutions and moments of resilience within our daily lives....

Review: ‘Or,’ by Theatre Prometheus at Capital Hill Arts Workshop

Liz Duffy Adams’s play Or,—which premiered in 2009 at the Women’s Project in New York—is a deliciously literate feminist farce. A radical mashup of dichotomies (among them straight and gay, male and...

Review: ‘Mamma Mia!’ at Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre

Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre’s production of Mamma Mia! is a colorful, fun-filled spectacle. With Music and Lyrics by Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Book by Catherine Johnson, the musical,...

Review: ‘Young Frankenstein’ by Other Voices Theatre

IT ALIVE! Other Voices Theatre brings not only a monster, but also a fantastic evening of laughter, to life with their production of Mel Brooks’ musical Young Frankenstein. If you love Mel Brooks’...

Review: ‘Generations: A Series of One Acts’ at The Colonial Players of Annapolis

Generations: A Series of One Acts, at Colonial Players, is a touching, thoughtful evening of three brand-new one-act plays, each about 30 minutes long, by three playwrights well-known in the Annapolis...

Magic Time!: A Love Letter to ‘Dear Evan Hansen’

When Dear Evan Hansen debuted at Arena Stage four years ago, I was so moved by the show I wrote it a love letter, republished below. Now a Broadway hit, it returns to DC for a run at Kennedy Center...

In The Moment: Kimberly Gilbert Is King In ‘Bootleg Shakespeare, Richard III’

Once again, Taffety Punk Theatre Company has succeeded at challenging the theatrical status quo. This time, it was with a mesmerizing Bootleg Shakespeare Richard III. Under the open-eyed, “the...

National Players To Offer Low or No Cost Shows at Olney Theatre Center

National Players, America’s longest-running touring company and the hallmark outreach program of the Olney Theatre Center, presents its three-play repertory with a series of pay-what-you can previews...

Review: ‘South Pacific’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. The winner of multiple Tony awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, South Pacific continues to charm...