Washington DC

2019 Helen Hayes Award Winners

Outstanding Choreography in a Musical – Hayes Parker Esse Anything Goes Arena Stage Outstanding Choreography in a Musical – Helen Rachel Leigh Dolan Chicago The Keegan Theatre Outstanding Choreography...

Take Ten With The Creator of the ‘Take Ten’: theatreWashington’s Michael Kyrioglou

We’ve all read his columns, now get to know the person behind them! In the midst of last week’s Helen Hayes Awards-fever, I asked theatreWashington’s Michael Kyrioglou to answer some questions...

WNO’s ‘Tosca’ Serves Up Classic Opera Comfort Food Done Right

The Washington National Opera’s (WNO) fine opening night performance of Puccini’s Tosca provided an opportunity for catharsis and reflection, two things our overwrought city needs right now. My...

Review: ‘Pride & Joy: The Marvin Gaye Musical’ at The National Theatre

Spectacular. Amazing. Unforgettable. Pride & Joy is a musical that tells the little known love story of Anna Gordy Gaye (January 28, 1922 – January 31, 2014) and the legendary and iconic R&B singer,...

Review: ‘You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown’ By Other Voices Theatre

“Happiness is anyone and anything at all that’s loved by you.” This line from the final song of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown completely sums up why the Peanuts Gang has remained such a popular...

Synetic Theater Announces 2019/20 Season

Synetic Theater is proud to announce their 19th Season, beginning with a remount of the popular, water-filled adaptation of The Tempest September 25 through October 20, 2019. A new family-friendly...

Review: Ben Platt’s ‘Sing to Me Instead’ Tour Lights Up The Anthem

Undampened by the rain outside, the DC stop on the Ben Platt’s Sing to Me Instead tour brought three serious talents to the Anthem stage with thunderous applause. Passionate, creative, and...

Review: ‘The Heidi Chronicles’ at The Clarice

The University of Maryland’s Production of The Heidi Chronicles, by playwright Wendy Wasserstein and directed by Scot Reese, leads the audience through the productive life of protagonist Heidi...

Review: ‘The Tarot Reading (V)’ at Anacostia Arts Center

The circusy-party vibe begins before showtime. The place is festooned with streamers, furnished with comfy sofas, bedecked in colored light, and stocked with bags of popcorn to share. A friendly Fool...

Review: ‘Sherlock’s Veiled Secret’ at Rockville Little Theatre

A day marked by soaking rains lent a fitting atmosphere to Sherlock’s Veiled Secret, set between Sussex and London, England. K.C. Brown crafted the play around the legendary sleuth Sherlock Holmes in...

Magic Time!: ‘The Chibok Girls: Our Story’ at Georgetown University

One night five years ago, a horror happened in Chibok, North Eastern Nigeria. The Boko Haram—Islamicist terrorists who believe that Western education is evil—abducted 276 girls from the school where...

Review: ‘Spunk’ at Signature Theatre

Since 1990 when New York’s Public Theater first staged George C. Wolfe’s adaptation of three short stories by Zora Neale Hurston into the play Spunk, audiences have gleaned the creative mind of one of...

Review: ‘God of Carnage’ at Keegan Theatre

Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award-winning God of Carnage is a cautionary tale for modern times. Written in French and translated into English by Christopher Hampton, Reza’s razor-sharp black comedy has...

Helen Hayes Videos: Get To Know Your Hosts!

The 35th Annual Helen Hayes Awards are just around the corner and we couldn’t be more excited! All of DC theater in one room together, wearing fancy duds and celebrating another year of hard work and...

The Lab at Georgetown Brings Together Global Artists for ‘The Gathering’

The Lab program at Georgetown University occupies an interesting space in the DC performing arts world, existing at the intersection between art and international affairs. Georgetown’s Laboratory for...

Magic Time!: ‘God of Carnage’ at Keegan Theatre

The set foreshadows the coming fracas. There’s a fault line down the middle where this living room seems sliced in two. And something’s out of whack. The halves do not align. Like two stressed...

Keegan Theatre Announces 2019-2020 Season

The Keegan Theatre is proud to announce its 2019-2020 season, featuring a groundbreaking collection of plays and musicals, including one world premiere, three Washington DC premieres, and its...

Review: ‘The Full Monty’ at Workhouse Arts Center

The Full Monty, a musical about a group of unemployed, average Joes who decide to put on a one-night-only strip show to make big money fast, is currently playing at the Workhouse Arts Center in...

Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton To Join The Honorable Sarah Bloom Raskin In Conversation On Opening Night Of ‘Mary Stuart’

Freshman member of the 116th Congress, Jennifer Wexton (VA – 10th), and former Federal Reserve Governor and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Sarah Bloom Raskin, sit down for a conversation about...

Review: ‘The Oresteia’ by Shakespeare Theatre Company

To theater historians, dramaturgs, and lovers of all things Greek, the promise of a production of Aeschylus’ The Oresteia is enough to drive one mad with joy. To begin with, of all the Greek plays...

Compass Rose Theater Benefit Performances of ‘Love Letters’

Love Letters, A. R. Gurney’s two-character play chronicling the tumultuous lifelong friendship between a couple who never marry will be performed May 31 and June 2 as a special benefit for Annapolis’...

Review: ‘Love’s Labor’s Lost’ at Folger Theatre

Ready for teasing mockery and romantic conflict that crosses economic classes and genders with an added dash of some re-imagined blurred lines? Then step up to the wit and words of William...

Review: ‘P.S. Your Cat is Dead!’ by Dominion Stage

P.S. Your Cat is Dead!, written by James Kirkwood, Jr. and directed by Michael Page, is a great look at different manifestations of schadenfreude (pleasure derived by someone from another person’s...

Constellation Theatre Company Announces 2019-2020 Season

Constellation Theatre Company, led by Founding Artistic Director Allison Arkell Stockman and Managing Director A.J. Guban, is thrilled to announce its thirteenth season of epic, larger-than-life...

Review: ‘The Honey Trap’ at Greenbelt Arts Center

The Honey Trap, a World Premiere at Greenbelt Arts Center, clearly has the best set I’ve seen in years: a mixture of ’50s kitsch, photos of ’50s-era entertainers, a record player console, plush-period...

Helen Hayes Tribute Recognizes Jennifer L. Nelson as a DC Theater Trailblazer

Actors, by definition, play all sorts of roles. But for Jennifer L. Nelson—a theater veteran who’s been working on stage and off ever since she landed in DC at the age of 22—the multi-tasking involves...

Review: ‘The Children’ at Studio Theatre

Three retired nuclear physicists meet in a quaint cottage not far from the nuclear power plant where they once worked and where a catastrophe has occurred. Earthquake, tsunami, tidal wave,...

Review: ‘Treasure Island’ by We Happy Few Productions

By Andy Arnold Ahoy Washington landlubbers! Prepare to set sail on the Hispaniola with Jim Hawkins (Alex Turner), Long John Silver (Wyckham Avery) and the Treasure Island crew: if you dare. Robert...

Review: ‘Strathmore Annual Spring Gala’ featuring Matthew Morrison and Shoshana Bean

Though it was storming outside, the stars shone brightly inside for Strathmore’s Annual Spring Gala Saturday night. Raising funds for the educational and artistic programs that impact over 30,000...

Review: National Chamber Ensemble performs ‘The Contemporaries’

By Ross Heath Arlington’s Gunston Arts Center was the place to be on Saturday night. Always a joy to hear the National Chamber Ensemble which delivered joy with its season finale concert of...

Ally Theatre Company Earns the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company (Interview)

Ally Theatre Company will receive the 2019 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company at the 35th Annual Helen Hayes Awards. At its core mission, Ally Theatre Company is committed to...

Interview: It’s Been a ‘Monumental’ Year for This DC Theater Company

In 2018 Monumental Theatre Company was the recipient of the prestigious theatreWashington John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company. The Aniello Award aims to give public recognition...

‘The Oresteia’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company: Not Your Typical Chorus Line (Interview)

The Oresteia, freely adapted by Ellen McLaughlin from Aeschylus (c. 525 BCE-c. 456 BCE) promises to be a fitting conclusion to Michael Kahn’s last season as Artistic Director of the Shakespeare...

‘Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead’ by Wolf Pack Theatre Company

What happened to the characters in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts gang when they entered adulthood? We find out in Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, written by Bert V. Royal and...

Review: ‘The 39 Steps’ at Rep Stage Co.

For Rep Stage Co.’s The 39 Steps, disaster is never more than one step away. With only four actors re-enacting an entire vintage spy movie right before our eyes and assuming some 140 different...

Avant Bard Announces Full Cast and Creative Team for ‘A Misanthrope’

Avant Bard Theatre announces the full cast and creative team for its season finale, A Misanthrope, a world premiere adaptation of Molière’s The Misanthrope by Manhattan-based playwright Matt...

Review: ‘Rooming House’ by Lucky Plush Productions at the Kennedy Center

Lucky Plush Productions is a dance/theater company currently performing at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. But this is no conventional company. Compared to dance troupes, they are at the...

Review: ‘Under(world): The Lost and the Found’ by TBD Immersive

TBD Immersive presents their new adventure, Under(world): The Lost & The Found, in Dupont Circle. The Dupont Underground has been transformed into a series of settings representing the inter-crossings...

Review: ‘Annie Jump and the Library of Heaven’ by Rorschach Theatre

There are two things every teenager knows are true: you can’t choose your parents and you can’t choose the jerks you go to school with. Such is life for Annie Jump in small-town Strawberry, Kansas....

Theater and Policy Salon To Host Conversation with Alliance for New Music-Theatre This Saturday

The post-show Salon conversation, in partnership with the Alliance for New Music-Theatre, will take place on Saturday, May 4, at the Spooky Action Theater space at the Universalist National Memorial...

Magic Time!: ‘Oslo’ by Round House Theatre

It is rare that theater seriously asks us to believe something far beyond itself. Typically we are asked to suspend disbelief about let’s-pretend that happens on stage. The gripping and inspiring play...

Improvised Excellence: Matthew Morrison Brings His Signature Style to Strathmore This Weekend

Broadway fans are in for a treat as Matthew Morrison (Glee, The Light in the Piazza) and Shoshana Bean (Wicked, Waitress) will be headlining Strathmore’s Spring Gala Concert this weekend. Morrison and...

Review: ‘Oslo’ by Round House Theatre

For those wanting to be absorbed into a highly recommended, fictionalized account of events surrounding the 1993 Oslo Accords and the inconceivable peace between Israelis and Palestinians that bloomed...

Review: ‘The White Snake’ by Constellation Theatre Company

Trained in the mystical arts, two snakes, one white and one green (puppeteered and acted by Eunice Bae and Momo Nakamura, respectively) look longingly down from their mountain top at the hustle and...

Review: ‘The Great Commedia Hotel Murder Mystery’ by Faction of Fools

As much as modern culture claims to worship novelty, innovation and even disruption, there is a lot to be said for the tried and true. From an imaginative rendition of a beloved Shakespeare play to...

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...

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 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...