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FREE NIGHT OF THEATER, locally organized and sponsored by the League of Washington Theaters, is back and bigger than ever with 17 theatres offering 21 productions. Tickets go on sale Monday, Oct 1^st at noon.  For those who don’t remember, last year’s tickets were swooped up almost immediately.

But before you get ready to reserve those seats for yourself, think about this:  FREE NIGHT is our one chance a year to expose new people to all the vibrant theater we enjoy year round. The theaters make the seats available hoping to see new faces and broaden our theater going audience. (more…)

• A Lesson Before Dying Sparks Community Dialog
• by Debbie Minter Jackson

The final session of a four-part series organized at Round House Theater explored “race, social justice, and other issues in the play” and involved a stellar panel of presenters - John C. Brittain, preeminent lawyer in the field of civil rights and social justice, Montgomery County Executive the Honorable Ike Leggett, and brilliant director Timothy Douglas and was moderated by renowned scholar, writer, NPR feature news reporter, Juan Williams.  (more…)

• A Lesson Before Dying
• By Romulus Linney based on the novel by Ernest J. Gaines
• Directed by Timothy Douglas
• Produced by Round House Theatre
• Reviewed by Tamera Izlar
• Read Debbie Minter Jackson’s companion report Race, Injustice, Healing and Hope

 The elegant Round House Theatre, with its courteous, friendly front of house staff, did little to prepare me for the cold, raw desperation contained in playwright Romulus Linney’s world of Bayonne, Louisiana, 1948.  (more…)

This weekend, Studio Theatre celebrates the beginning of its 30th year with a weekend long celebration including a reading of the first play produced by Studio, Lanford Wilson’s The Rimers of Eldritch. Amazingly, Studio Theatre was able to assemble the original cast, who have flown in from all over the country for the event.  For the full schedule, click here.

Artistic Director Joy Zinoman, interviewed on WAMU’s Metro Connection today, remembered 14th Street as it was 30 years ago and Studio’s role in the invigoration of the community.  It’s a fascinating discussion.

To listen, click on the article here.

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• Well
• By Lisa Kron
• Produced by Arena Stage
• Directed by Kyle Donnelly
• Reviewed by Janice Cane

Well is a fantastically original play that explores both personal and societal issues. Well, it’s really a play within a play. Or no, wait, it’s really a theatrical exploration inside a theatrical exploration. Or is it a play within a theatrical exploration? Oh! Maybe it’s a theatrical exploration within a play. No no, I got it. It’s a “solo show with other people in it” inside a … (more…)

• The Fall of the House of Usher
• Adapted by Nathan Weinberger and Paata Tsikurishvili from a short story by Edgar Allan Poe
• Produced by Synetic Theater
• Directed by Paata Tsikurishvili
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

For the first twenty minutes, The Fall of the House of Usher is the best thing I have ever seen Synetic do. Edgar Allen Poe’s pyrotechnically lush short story (which I recommend you read here before going to the show if you aren’t familiar with it) is tailor-made for Synetic’s kinetic storytelling, in ways that its most recent adaptations - Macbeth and Animal Farm - are not.  And Synetic takes a huge bite out of this particular juicy peach. Irini Tsikurishvili’s choreography is practically a sacrament; Konstantine Lortkipanidze’s original music is art; and when the House on the stage falls - which it does both literally and figuratively - the house in the audience stands up and cheers. (more…)

• Personally Speaking:  Actor Yaegel T. Welch
• Cast member of My Children! My Africa!  
• Interviewed by Joel Markowitz

He commands the stage with emotion, power and strength. He’s Yaegel T. Welch, a talented young actor who is playing Thami Mbikwana in Studio Theatre’s critically acclaimed production of the Athol Fugard play.  Peter Marks called him “the extraordinarily impassioned Yaegel T. Welch”.  I asked Yaegel to talk about his role, the Studio Theatre production, and his theatrical training and experiences.

Joel: Please tell us who you play in My Children! My Africa!

Yaegel: I play Thami Mbikwana. Thami is a young South African school boy of undoubtedly high intelligence, who, after careful study, decides to lead a school boycott in protest of the Bantu education system. His conflict arises when this choice forces him to end relationships with his teacher of many years Mr. M (who wholly disagrees with any form of protest that might lead to violence) and draw students from the school; and a young white South African school girl (with whom he has recently formed a strong bond), because of the distrust their relationship might create amongst other black South African students. (more…)

• No Exit
• By Jean-Paul Sartre   Translated by Paul Bowles
• Directed by Robert McNamara
• Produced by Scena Theatre
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

The remarkable thing, considering how celebrated Jean-Paul Sartre is as a chronicler of the human condition’s hopelessness, is how conventional No Exit really is.  It is not an existential treatise, it is a morality play, in which some thoroughly repulsive characters get it in the teeth.  Indeed, the play it resembles most is A Christmas Carol, if Scrooge did not have an unhappy childhood to explain away his miserliness, and had the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be booted his backside to the hereafter, instead of returning him to his London bed.  (more…)