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Robert Richmond puts Lady Macbeth in Bedlam mental hospital and other wild...
In 2008, Folger Theatre’s Macbeth, directed by Aaron Posner and Teller (of the magician duo: Penn and Teller), starred Ian Merrill Peaks and Kate Eastwood Norris in the titular roles. Ten years later,...
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Review: Small Mouth Sounds, oddly beguiling
The last place you’d think to go for a little peace and quiet is the theater. But that’s what happens in Round House Theatre’s production of Bess Wohl’s 2015 off-Broadway hit, Small Mouth Sounds, an...
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Ian Merrill Peakes has played Macbeth before, but never like this Folger...
This is not actor Ian Merrill Peakes’ first time playing Macbeth on the Folger stage. Ten years ago, he and Kate Eastwood Norris played Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth, and now return to their roles under the...
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Worst mistake made at casting calls and other audition tips from longtime...
Last year, I spoke with Naomi Robin (as she was leaving her longtime gig as Casting Director at Theater J) about her time there and about her career more broadly. I also asked her about the perspective...
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Review: Engaging Shaw, an engaging romantic comedy
Engaging Shaw is a fun-loving romp of a parlor comedy that hits its mark at Best Medicine. The script by John Morogiello imagines one of the truly most gifted social writers in history confronted with...
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Review: Gloria, a very Woolly play –“sometimes shocking, frequently hilarious”
While a very popular musical currently running at the Kennedy Center is asking audiences, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” across town at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Brandon...
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Review: South Pacific, enchanting and relevant
Was ever a message musical wrapped in such a luxurious bounty of romance? Those love songs! Seventy years later, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific still floors us with its lyricism. Jessica...
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Review: Viva V.E.R.D.I – an otherworldly convergence of Verdi and Shakespeare
Giuseppe Verdi revered Shakespeare and wrote a Macbeth, an Otello, and a Falstaff. He longed to write a King Lear as well and even worked with two librettists toward that goal. But although Verdi...
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Review: 1st Stage give Ayckbourn’s play Hero’s Welcome its area debut
A war hero returns to his hometown after 17 years with a new wife with hopes for a new life. Yet the scandalous circumstances of his departure and long-standing regrets challenge his plans in Alan...
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Review: Dancing at Lughnasa at Everyman
Dancing at Lughnasa casts a spell before the actors utter a word. Irish music peppily plays as you enter the theater and drink in Yu-Hsuan Chen’s painterly set–with sinuously twisted old trees and a...
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Review: Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate), new romantic...
Walking into Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) I knew, as you may, that there was a best-selling Spanish language movie of its time, and an equally popular novel/cookbook by Laura...
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Review: Folger’s alt-Macbeth, a “strange perfection”
I’ve seen Macbeth performed in the round, outdoors, in the nude, multiple film and TV versions, various homages and parodies across multiple media, I saw a spirited production last month by an emerging...
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Review: Sweeney Todd at Rep Stage
The lean, black box staging of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Joseph W. Ritsch packs a more muted wallop than other versions I have seen but is highlighted by a cast of eight gifted...
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Review: Tubman at DC Hip Hop Theater Festival
Playwright and performer Lacresha Berry spent ten years working as a public school teacher in New York. A teacher inevitably wonders if some children are simply beyond her power to help, and this...
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Reviews: Richard III, Emma and The Man of Mode at The American Shakespeare...
The skies opened up as Route 66, going west, became Route 81, going south, frustrating my vow to drive at 80 mph for the rest of the way. We had left at ten after ten, a reasonable enough start time...
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Review: The Events, a survivor’s view of a mass shooting
We are riveted by a need to understand the perpetrator of a mass shooting, but isn’t it more pertinent to know what the survivor feels? After all, it’s much more likely that we will be survivors than...
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Review: Turn Me Loose, a play about comic genius Dick Gregory
Dick Gregory was never afraid to speak truth to those who most needed to hear it. Even when it fell like acid rain. Gregory—the rebel comedian who paved the way for provocative, black funny men—ended...
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Review: The Wedding Singer at NextStop Theatre
Eye rolling and harrumphing over Broadway musical writers being out of ideas feels pretty banal at this stage in the game. It’s no secret that creators of musical theater are relying more than ever on...
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Review: If I Forget asks big questions about forgetting and forgiving
How do we honor our past without closing doors to the future? What do we owe our parents and grandparents, when weighed against the prospects of our children and their children? The cast of If I...
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Review: The Pianist of Willesden Lane, a mother’s story told by her daughter...
Mona Golabek has adapted The Pianist of Willesden Lane from her book The Children of Willesden Lane, written with Lee Cohen and performs it alone on stage. Golabek’s presence as she recalls the life of...
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