Washington DC

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts Presents ‘La Cage aux Folles’

The Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia is excited to present the Tony Award-winning La Cage aux Folles, beginning January 9th and running until Sunday, March 3rd. The...

Local Favorite Margo Seibert Comes Home for Signature Theatre Concert

Fans of Margo Seibert – the Broadway star of Rocky and In Transit – may face some unusual competition for tickets to her upcoming concert at Signature Theatre. That’s because metro DC is no touring...

Dante’ Pope Is Center Stage in Strathmore’s Artist in Residency Program

Raheem Devaughn. Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Erykah Badu: Soul vocalist and Strathmore Artist in Residence Dante’ Pope has performed or shared the stage with them all. From sideman to...

Review: ‘American Moor’ at Anacostia Playhouse

American Moor, in a return engagement at Anacostia Playhouse, lambasts the audience with a series of provocative questions: can an actor play a role without tapping into the darkest parts of their...

Review: ‘Proof’ by St. Mark’s Players

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” implies that a child has similar qualities or characteristics as his or her parents. A particular talent may be handed down through the genes, but less...

Review: ‘Equivocation’ by Bill Cain at Silver Spring Stage

It is 1605. The Gunpowder Plot, in which a group of disaffected Catholics attempted to blow up King James I, his wife, his children, and all the political and religious leaders of the age, has just...

Magic Time!: ‘ 19: The Musical’

It was “a century of struggle” before women in the United States won the right to vote in 1920, and the centenary of the amendment that cinched it, the nineteenth, is just around the corner. An...

Review: ‘Heathers: The Musical’ at Dominion Stage

High school never changes. This is abundantly clear in Heathers: The Musical. With book, music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy, this edgy and fun musical comes to Dominion Stage under...

‘The Enchanted Bookshop’ at Encore Stage & Studio

Encore Stage & Studio’s polished and playful production of The Enchanted Bookshop is funtertainment for the whole family! The Enchanted Bookshop by Todd Wallinger tells the magical tale of Margie, the...

Review: ‘Cartography’ at The Kennedy Center

With its premiere of Cartography, The Kennedy Center continues to be a welcoming venue for theatrically devised civic discourse on often fraught issues. Cartography is a unique live documentary about...

Review: ‘Judy Garland: A Star Is Born’ at Signature Theatre

Signature Theatre’s Cabaret Series is a relaxed affair. Pull up a chair and put your elbows on the table because Awa Sal Secka and Katie Mariko Murray are going to make you feel right at home. The two...

Past Is Prologue in New Musical About Suffragists

When Nancy Pelosi accepted the gavel as Speaker of the House last week, she expressed pride at presiding over Congress during the 100th anniversary of women having the right to vote (coming in 2020)....

Theater J Names Jojo Ruf New Managing Director

Theater J, the nation’s pre-eminent professional Jewish theater, announced yesterday that Jojo Ruf will become its new Managing Director on January 28, 2019. Ruf joins Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr...

Avant Bard Announces 2019 Scripts in Play Festival

Avant Bard theatre is proud to announce the 2019 edition of Scripts in Play Festival, its signature play-reading series, February 8 to 24, 2019. This year’s selection features seven plays over two...

American Opera Is Becoming Its Own Genre and It’s Happening Here in DC

Opera in America has had the stink of death upon it for some time now. Lavish productions of period piece love stories and power struggles set largely during the time of kings and courtesans in Europe...

DCMTA 2018 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Design Elements in Professional Productions

As the year draws to a close, we asked DCMTA writers to think back on the shows that left an indelible impression on them in 2018. In this category, outstanding professional design, we recognize:...

Review: ‘[title of show]’ at NextStop Theatre Company

Like TV’s “Seinfeld,” [title of show] is a show, to a degree, about the mundane. [title of show] is a musical about four friends creating a musical – the one the audience sees. Along the way, they...

Review: ‘From U Street to the Cotton Club’ by The In Series

Rising from its roots in the Deep South, African American music journeyed north with the Great Migration, invigorating urban culture with rhythms derived from shouts to spirituals, work songs and...

Review: ‘Catch Me If You Can’ at the Montgomery Playhouse

In Montgomery Playhouse’s production of Catch Me If You Can, now playing at the Gaithersburg Arts Barn, Director Ed Starr has once again sprinkled fairy dust on an erstwhile gaggle of ordinary...

Review: ‘The Comedy of Errors’ at the American Shakespeare Center (Staunton, VA)

If you’re a fan of stand-up comedy, you know the highs and lows that come with artists working the crowd with fresh material they’ve been practicing for weeks. With their eyes on you and yours on...

Review: ‘The Winter’s Tale’ at the American Shakespeare Center

For all his brilliance, Shakespeare still suffers from the occasional whining of critics about his later “problem” plays. Longer and more complex, with familiar plot lines splintered and grafted into...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at the American Shakespeare Center (Staunton, VA)

We all have our own holiday traditions – lighting candles one night after the next, caroling, choral concerts, dreidel-spinning, Christmas Revels, Christmas-day Chinese fare, etc.—and they all bring...

Theaters Offer Discounts to Furloughed Government Employees

With no end to the government shutdown in sight, many DMV arts organizations are offering free or discounted tickets to federal government workers. DMV theaters recognize that government employees...

David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven Is Not Afraid to Testify

Musician David Lowery is a fascinating mix of contradictions. The co-founder of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven is a learned college math professor and a cool rocker musician, a proud and loving...

‘Passport to the World of Music’ Kicks Off 2019 at Creative Cauldron

Creative Cauldron invites you to join them on a musical tour of the world in their intimate cabaret space, with a diverse musical lineup specially curated by Ken Avis and Lynn Veronneau of the Wammy...

Is God Dead? Or Just Depressed, Lonely and Fed Up With Humankind?

The verdict is in. God is not dead. And rumors of his death, to paraphrase Mark Twain, have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, the deity—He, She or That Which Transcends All Else—is alive and well at...

DCMTA 2018 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Performance in a Professional Production

As the year draws to a close, we asked DCMTA writers to think back on the shows that left an indelible impression on them in 2018. Here are the professional performances that made the biggest impact...

Anacostia Playhouse Suffers Robbery, Spurs Fundraising Efforts

The Anacostia Playhouse community is reeling after a December 26th robbery in which burglars broke into the theater, ransacked the offices and stole thousands of dollars worth of supplies. The...

Review: ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’ at Keegan Theatre

Capitalism. Exploitation. Greed. It’s the holiday season, folks, and your kids shouldn’t lose out on the fun. At Keegan Theatre’s The Elves and the Shoemaker, they won’t. Written by Kristin Walter and...

‘Talley’s Folly’ Dances Through the Holiday Season at Theater J

Talley’s Folly – now in its final week at GALA Hispanic Theatre on 14th Street – is a waltz. Meaning, it’s not a salsa. And it’s not a hustle, a tango or even a hot pasodoble. On the other hand, it’s...

News: Ford’s and Kennedy Center Shows to Go On During Federal Shutdown

DC’s two major federally funded theater venues have both announced that performances will be uninterrupted by the federal shutdown. According to the website of Ford’s Theatre, where A Christmas Carol...

Review: ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ at the Kennedy Center

Even before the curtain officially goes up on The Play That Goes Wrong, you can tell you are in for a laugh riot. The show’s “Director” Chris Bean (played by Evan Alexander Smith), “Stage Manager”...

Magic Time!: ‘Washington Magic’ at the Arts Club of Washington

When I was a kid, magic tricks and puppet shows were forerunners to my love of theater. They were like my gateway drug. I got hooked on the wonder and live storytelling. And to this day I associate...

Review: ‘An Irish Carol’ at Keegan Theatre

With a heart as cold as the blustery winds blowing people in and out the door, An Irish Carol by Matthew J. Keenan finds David, a pub’s miserly owner, confronted by guests of his past and glimpses of...

DCMTA 2018 Staff Favorites: Outstanding Professional Theater Productions

As the year draws to a close, we asked DCMTA writers to think back on the shows that left an indelible impression on them in 2018. In this category, Outstanding Overall Production, we recognize:...

‘Miss Saigon’: Time To Say Goodbye?

A blunt assessment: It’s time to move on. It is time to retire Miss Saigon as the seductive, out-of-touch, museum piece that it is. Miss Saigon has little to say about the sorrows of the Vietnam War....

Magic Time!: ‘Kings’ at Studio Theatre

“Laws are like sausages,” goes the adage. “It’s better not to see them being made.” As it happens, I have a good mental picture of how sausages are made, because for three summers during college I...

Review: ‘Man of La Mancha’ at Workhouse Arts Center

Man of La Mancha has long been an icon of mid-20th century American musical theater with its share of 1966 Tony Awards. This show about a man marching forward for “a heavenly cause” is a staple of...

Review: ‘Miss Saigon’ at The Kennedy Center

Miss Saigon is all grown up. Sort of. It’s been almost 30 years since Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s blockbuster opened in London’s West End and took the world by storm. But times have...

Review: ‘A Christmas Messe’ at Folger Shakespeare Library

This time of year, it can be challenging to keep your spirits merry and bright through the commercialized din of holiday exhortations. Well, I may have found an antidote to the seasonal fog....

Review: ‘Oh, God’ at Mosaic Theater Company

Theater and theology have been boon companions for eons. Ever since religion was invented, humans have wanted divinities with drama. Way back in polytheistic antiquity, playgoers imagined gods as...

Review: ‘Kings’ at Studio Theatre

Kings at Studio Theatre is both entertaining and thought-provoking in every sense. Beautifully acted and directed, it reminds us that politicians, even though it may be hard to believe at times, are...

Review: ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ at Anacostia Playhouse

Driving Miss Daisy, at Anacostia Playhouse, tackles many subjects: growing older, race relations, and all sorts of personal drama encountered by its Southern protagonists over a 25-year period,...

Review: ‘It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play’ at Prince William Little Theatre

Prince William Little Theatre’s production of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, directed by Caroline Scarborough, presents the well-known story of George Bailey (Michael Clendenin) discovering...

Review: ‘Striking 12’ by Free Range Humans at BlackRock Center for the Arts

Striking 12 is a striking exception to the mandatory Christmas sappiness occupying most entertainment venues this time of year. It’s set at holiday time, but the holiday in question is New Year’s Eve,...

Review: ‘Talley’s Folly’ at Theater J

As Talley’s Folly opens, 40-something-year-old, self-described “hairy Jewish accountant” Matt Friedman (John Taylor Phillips) steps onto the stage and informs the audience that he has 97 minutes to...

Review: Olney Ballet Theatre’s ‘The Nutcracker’

There are certain things that start popping up everywhere to mark the Holiday season. Carols on the radio. Decorations on houses and main streets. (Objecting to the fact that both of these are...

Review: ‘Frosted: A Traditional British Panto’ at Kensington Town Hall

It is a truth universally acknowledged in the modern era that everything must be novel, revolutionary, and exciting. People will (apparently) stand in line for the newest iPhone (whether they need it...

Review: ‘My Father’s Dragon’ at Synetic Theater

Synetic Theater produces another visually captivating and emotion-filled journey in their newest show, My Father’s Dragon. The story, adapted by Ryan Sellers, is based on the children’s book of the...

Review: The Gay Men’s Chorus Holiday Show

The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC presented their annual Holiday Show on a cold winter’s night and the warmth exuded by this very polished and respected chorus obliterated any bitter winds. Since...