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Review: Mozart’s whimsical The Magic Flute from Washington National Opera
Wild things abound in this production of Washington National Opera’s The Magic Flute, currently playing at the Kennedy Center. With Maurice Sendak’s artwork at its forefront, the opera’s elements of...
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Review: Dhana and the Rosebuds, an intriguing but unsuccessful drama on the...
In theory, Dhana and the Rosebuds, a theater-dance hybrid about a Syrian emigree seeking her refugee grandmother, should be compelling. It is topical. Its wedding of abstract and ritualized movement,...
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Cyrano Review: Peter Dinklage Sings, Without a Fake Nose or Much Panache
Peter Dinklage’s singing voice would not normally qualify him for a role in a musical, unless in a Disney animated movie as a singing rhinoceros. But Rex Harrison couldn’t really sing either, and he...
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How 1970’s culture clashes played out on two Washington DC stages
By 1970, Washington, DC had long been a major college town; home to tens of thousands of young people who were trying to define their generation in opposition to the dominant values of their parents....
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Review: Sea from Scena Theatre
Jon Fosse’s Sea is a tricky play to connect with. Its inhabitants seem at times to be on a boat (“I am the Shipmaster!” one insists, over and over), but it’s clear early on that the setting’s a bit...
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Review: Veils. A moving, inspired look at women from the civil rights era...
Imagine that you are a child and you are exploring your grandmother’s closets. Or you’re an adult whose grandmother has died and it’s your responsibility to go to their home and sort through her...
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Review: Signature’s A Chorus Line, with new choreography, still dazzles
A Chorus Line is known as one of the most pared-down, starkly intimate “song-and-dance shows” in the Broadway canon. On a barren stage—devoid of any scenery or set but for a wall of floor to ceiling...
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Review: The Havel Project: A tribute to Czechoslovakia’s dissident playwright...
To mark and honor the thirtieth anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, the Alliance for New Music-Theatre is presenting two one-act plays to honor the revolution’s leader, the dissident...
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Review: Lovers’ Vows. Will they? Won’t they? A delightful farce from We Happy...
Abstinence and sex. Sex and abstinence. They’ve long vexed the masses, from noble to peasant as far back as the 1700s, when British writer Elizabeth Inchbald translated a German play roughly titled...
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Review: White Pearl, a blistering satire on racism in the skin care industry
In White Pearl, playwright Anchuli Felicia King quickly throws the audience into a keenly contemporary conflict: a viral social media PR crisis, with a company accused of racism. Inspired by an actual...
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Review: Agnes of God, Factory 449’s devastating look at religious faith and...
In a convent of cloistered Catholic nuns, a baby lies in a wastebasket. She has lived for less than an hour, before being strangled with her own umbilical cord. In another part of the room, her mother,...
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Review: The Jungle Book, a new musical written for Creative Cauldron’s young...
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling is the quintessential coming-of-age story: Mowgli, a human infant, is found alone in the jungle by the Wolf Pack- and adopted by the animals. As he matures, he begins...
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Review: Edward Albee’s Occupant at Theater J
“It’s not the person,” cries the sculptor Louise Nevelson (Susan Rome) in Edward Albee’s Occupant, “It’s the work they do!” Would be it that Albee had heeded his character’s advice. Then we might have...
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Review: Amadeus soars at Folger Theatre
There were, at various points, half a dozen versions of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus floating around. The playwright was trying to square the circle and make his metaphorical work about the tragic view of...
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Cheap Eats: where theatre goers can find delicious, affordable dining
Got tickets for a night of theater, but running a little tight on money and time? We’ve compiled a list of dining spots near popular venues where the service is quick, the food is good, and the bill...
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Review: RENT’s 20th Anniversary Tour, talented cast in a feisty remount
“Take me for what I am. Who I was meant to be.” So sings Maureen in one of RENT’s most famous ballads. Those famous lyrics are also perfect advice for people headed to the National Theatre for the...
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Richard Clifford: on directing Shaffer’s ‘revenge comedy’ Amadeus and Kenneth...
“I think that anybody coming in will go, ‘Oh wow: look at those people; look at that time in life; look at that relevancy to now. That man is being so horrible to that other person; why?’ In that way,...
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Dance review: Mark Morris’s Beatles tribute ‘Pepperland’ lacks an emotional core
The deconstruction of a cultural touchstone by an acclaimed choreographer is an appealing notion, all the more so to live music. But although it was superbly performed Wednesday night, Mark Morris’s...
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Review: Disney’s Newsies, the youth-revolt inspired musical
Newsies is a frolicking, joyous musical with a healthy dose of “kid power:” the perfect recipe for families this holiday season. Based on the original Disney film and drawing from the real-life...
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Review: Olney’s Singin’ in the Rain sings and taps up a storm
A Hollywood classic gets the royal treatment resulting in a heaping helping of theatrical magic courtesy of Olney Theatre Center’s staging of Singin’ in the Rain. As Hollywood ballyhoo might have...
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