Theater J

In lipstick and hip schtick, the Kinsey Sicks tickle at Theater J

‘Oy Vey in a Manger,’ their adults-only holiday special, is not for the pious or prudish—let alone right-wing fanatics—but it’s hilarious for everyone else.

Red Bull’s world-premiere Off-Broadway adaptation of ‘The Alchemist’ delivers the laughs and the lessons

With its timely setting in the London plague year of 1606, Jeffrey Hatcher’s new time-traveling adaptation of Ben Jonson’s 1610 classic The Alchemist for Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater, now playing...

‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ at Theater J touches us with joy and sadness

Based on the wildly popular memoir, a tender exploration of mortality and friendship.

New gender-neutral categories announced for Off-Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Awards

The Lucille Lortel Awards, honoring outstanding achievements Off-Broadway (productions in Manhattan venues with 100-499 seats), has announced that its awards for acting will no longer be defined by...

‘Becoming Dr. Ruth’ returns to Theater J and welcomes us in

The evening encourages us to engage with Dr. Ruth’s memories as well as to contemplate what might be our own.

An interview with Dr. Ruth, whose story became ‘Becoming Dr. Ruth’ at Theater J

‘Naomi Jacobson is perfect for this role,’ said the ‘real’ Dr. Ruth.

Theater J announces new season, life-affirming and in person

Six shows, including two standout solo performances, a rarely performed classic Jewish play, and a special holiday musical.

TCG’s THRIVE! to provide support for US-based Theaters of Color

As part of THRIVE! Week – a virtual convening from June 7-11, with programming by, for, and about theater-makers who identify as BIPOC, POC, or People of the Global Majority (representing 80% of the...

Three queer yeshiva grads defy “ex-gay” therapy in ‘Abomination’ at Theater J

Sure, we theatergoers miss live productions. But then again, for the adventuresome, there is a veritable taster’s menu of virtual theatrical events. No need to leave home, no need for Metro or...

Felicia Curry and Adam Immerwahr to co-teach Black and Jewish plays at Theater J

In these tumultuous times, theatermakers and theatergoers have been working to share a long-time common goal: to reflect upon and engage with the human condition. In a noble effort to continue this...

A critic at play

During the past seven-odd years that I’ve contributed to DC Theater Arts, I’ve written about upwards of 600 shows—sometimes as the designated reviewer (when I followed criticism conventions) and...

Theater J revives a 1910 hit comedy-melodrama

Sit back to indulge in a comedy-melodrama. A streaming Zoom reading of a rediscovered play first produced in 1910. It is a love letter, with sharp edges, to a bygone time. A time of tintype slides and...

A course at Theater J for theater lovers looks ahead to post-COVID change

Change is coming. As the DMV theater community is reeling and reckoning with the effects of the coming post-COVID-19 world and as artists of color are speaking their minds freely, what awaits? What...

Why a whisper network turned into a tornado at Flying V

On Monday evening, June 22, 2020, the Board of Flying V Theatre Company terminated Cofounder and Artistic Director Jason Schlafstein following a weekend of sexual misconduct and harassment allegations...

A formidable production of ‘The Wanderers’ at Theater J

“Isn’t it OK to sometimes be selfish?” asks a character in Anna Ziegler’s cunningly devised The Wanderers. With Amber McGinnis’ discerning, sympathetic direction, Theater J’s production provides...

‘Sheltered’ at Theater J hits home in America right now

A gathering stormcloud looms over this exquisitely wrought play by Alix Sobler. “How bad is it going to get?” a character wonders aloud. No one can answer. “It can’t go on like this much longer, can...

Theater J examines world history, good and bad, in ‘Sheltered’

Alix Sobler’s play Sheltered, based on real-life characters, is a rarity. It is a history play that doesn’t fall into the trap of portraying a period in history in such detail that it forgets to...

Reflections on a terrifying role: Susan Rome talks about ‘becoming’ Louise Nevelson in Edward Albee’s ‘Occupant’ at Theater J

When Susan Rome bats her eyelashes—as she often does in Edward Albee’s Occupant, now at Theater J—she becomes Louise Nevelson, the iconic sculptor whose life and work were inseparable. The lashes,...

In Edward Albee’s first-rate ‘Occupant’ at Theater J, a gutsy woman sculptor creates herself

“True if interesting” is Louise Nevelson’s byword in Occupant, Edward Albee’s witty and wise bioplay about the famous sculptor. She was quite the character. For Nevelson, in the hagiography according...

Review: ‘Love Sick’ at Theater J Offers a Contemporary Look at the Biblical Song of Songs

Celebrating the lushness of love without shying away from the moody darkness that might befall lovers, Theater J opens its new season with the East Coast premiere of the musical Love Sick. Love Sick...

Review: ‘The Jewish Queen Lear’ by Theater J

Valerie Leonard’s engrossing performance as a powerful matriarch lifts the Theater J premiere of the English-language The Jewish Queen Lear beyond a nostalgia-laden look back to a once highly...

Theater J to Welcome Home Audiences for its 2019-2020 Season

Theater J Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr and Managing Director Jojo Ruf announce Theater J’s 2019-2020 season, welcoming home audiences to a beautiful and refreshed theater located in the newly...

Yiddish Translator Nahma Sandrow Talks About Bringing a 19th-Century Masterpiece to a Modern English-Speaking Audience

It took a little over 120 years. But—thanks to Theater J—Jacob Gordin’s wildly popular Yiddish drama, celebrated as The Jewish Queen Lear, has made it onto the English-language stage. The play, whose...

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...

‘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...

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: ‘Our Class’ at Georgetown University

Tadeusz Slobodzianek’s Our Class opens in 1926 in a kindergarten classroom in a small town in northeastern Poland. Whereas most of Europe’s Jews had experienced a long history of expulsions and...

A Youthful Fresh Take on ‘Our Class’ at Georgetown University

Long before the recent shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Derek Goldman had planned to direct a production of Our Class with student actors at Georgetown University. It is a play...

Magic Time!: ‘Actually’ by Theater J at Arena Stage

The vexing concept of consent in sex gets a seductively smart parsing in Anna Ziegler’s Actually. Now playing in an electrically well-acted Theater J production directed by Johanna Greunhut, Actually...

Review: ‘Actually’ by Theater J at Arena Stage

The idea of sexual consent might seem simple: no means stop and yes means carry on. In practice, however, nothing could be further from the truth. The predicaments stemming from this issue that so...

Tour de Theatres Bike Ride Combines Physical Exercise with Love of Theater

Halfway through the 2018 Helen Hayes Awards ceremony, a bike whizzed onstage, jolting the audience to attention. On the bike was Theatre J Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr, clad in bike shorts and a...

Review: “The Pianist of Willesden Lane” by Theater J

Storytelling is one of the most ancient of the performing arts, distinct from that of the dramatic actor, and when Mona Golabek makes her entrance, it is not as an actor playing a character but as a...

2018 Capital Fringe Review: ‘Dangerous When Wet: Booze, Sex & My Mother’

Solo performances are among the most difficult in show business. Without other actors to parry dialog or set up jokes, the entertainer can easily end up putting an audience to sleep. Luckily for us,...

In the Moment: Another Look at Theater J’s ‘Trayf’

I looked forward to taking in the premiere stage production of Lindsay Joelle’s Trayf at Theater J. The title Trayf alone brought me smiles then and now. After all, trayf is the Yiddish word for food...

Review: ‘Trayf’ a World Premiere at Theatre J

New York, 1991: Zalmy (Tyler Herman) and Shmuly (Josh Adams) are two young men, best friends since childhood, excited to get behind the wheel of their newly acquired RV. What makes them different from...

Magic Time!: ‘Roz and Ray’ at Theater J

This is an absolutely absorbing medical drama performed with full-on passion by two of DC’s top-tier actors. Susan Rome plays Roz, a hematologist dedicated to her role as healer, and Tom Story plays...

Review: ‘Roz and Ray’ at Theater J

Fierce. No word short of that can fairly describe the characters’ commitment to their consuming passions, and the actors’ commitment to their roles, in Theater J’s harrowing production of Karen...

Review: ‘Becoming Dr. Ruth’ at Theater J

Helmed by a trio of DC’s creative talent royalty, Theater J’s production of Becoming Dr. Ruth, penned by Mark St. Germain, goes beyond just facts and dates to become an engaging exploration of how Dr....

‘Everything Is (Finally) Illuminated’ – Aaron Posner’s Setting of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Masterpiece Makes Its DC Debut at Theater J

Twelve years after it was first adapted for the stage by British playwright Simon Block, the play Everything Is Illuminated – based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer – has arrived at Theater J,...

Review: ‘Everything Is Illuminated’ at Theater J

A young Jewish American writer named Jonathan arrives by train in the Ukraine on a quest to find a woman named Augustine who helped his grandfather Safran escape the Nazis. He has only a faded...

Magic Time!: ‘The Last Night of Ballyhoo’ at Theater J

The production is lushly beautiful; the pacing, impeccable; the music between scenes, splendid; the acting, a delight in every detail. And the warm, piquant humor in this Jewish family drama has a...

Review: ‘The Last Night of Ballyhoo’ at Theater J

Tinsel and garlands are festooned about a beautiful 10 foot tall Christmas tree. Easy to be captivated with such an exquisite Christmas touch. But, wait, the tree is standing tall on the Edlavitch...

Review: ‘The Love of the Nightingale’ at The Catholic University of America

A play from the 1980s about revenge for a rape, based on an ancient story from Greek mythology, comes alive in a student production as though it was about now. As though everything in it about how...

Magic Time!: ‘Sotto Voce’ at Theater J

Among the revelatory dimensions of this lyrical play is one that caught my attention by surprise. I knew going in that Sotto Voce, by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Nilo Cruz, would resonate with...

Review: ‘Sotto Voce’ at Theater J

In Sotto Voce, Theater J’s first production of the 2017-18 season, the characters don’t actually lower their voices. Instead, they speak in whispers, and not always to each other. However, they do...

Review: The Kinsey Sicks in ‘Things You Shouldn’t Say’ at Theater J

There’s virtually nothing a drag queen won’t say, or do, in public or private, say the Kinsey Sicks. The San Francisco-based beauty shop quartet that puts the show into show business, the bawdy into...

Magic Time!: Report on a Staged Reading of ‘Olityelwe (The Forgotten)’ at Theater J

When Jonathan David Martin came from New York to DC to be Theater J’s new associate producer in March of last year, he brought with him a backstory as co-artistic director and producer of the Smoke &...

Magic Time!: ‘Broken Glass’ at Theater J

Arthur Miller’s 1994 Broken Glass does not rise to the stature of his greatest works (Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, The Price, and others). But even lesser Miller can be arresting, as the smart...

Review: ‘Broken Glass’ at Theater J

Shards of unseen, but sharply-felt shattered glass, both of a collapsing marriage and the infamous Kristallnacht (Night of Crystal), are fused together in Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass, now playing at...

Review: ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ at Theater J

Though it was well-established since the 1950s that Neil Simon was a master humorist and gifted comic writer, it wasn’t quite revealed until 1983 when Brighton Beach Memoirs premiered on Broadway that...