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Composer Jason Robert Brown on his newest works:13, Trumpet of the Swan, his children’s book “Tickety-Tock”and on Open Circle’s unique production of Songs for a New World
By Joel Markowitz

Jason Robert Brown’s beautiful scores of The Last 5 Years and Parade has been produced by several DC theatre companies. Last year Jason’s incredible piano playing was heard at Signature Theatre’s concert version of Songs for a New World at Strathmore, and this year we were treated to an innovative production of the show at Open Circle Theatre.  Now, DC audiences will be able to watch Jason conduct a concert version of his new work The Trumpet of the Swan at The Kennedy Center on December 4 thru 6.

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Landless Theatre is throwing out a costume challenge to its audiences coming to see its show about the zombie rock band Diamond Dead on Halloween: best costume - and they are the judges of that - wins $100.  Diamond Dead is being reprised from its Capital Fringe debut for two 10:30 pm performances only: Fri & Sat, Oct 31 & Nov 1 at Warehouse Theatre, 1017 7^th Street NW. Tickets: $15. Order on the site.

Meanwhile, Landless’ President Harding Is a Rock Star opens at DCAC tonight and runs through Nov 30.

Beginning tonight, and extending over these last few days running up to the Nov 4 presidential election, XX (eXtreme eXchange) and Georgetown University -  are presenting their examinations, not of the candidates, but of the voters themselves. (more…)

Honey Brown Eyes
written by Stefanie Zadravec
directed by Jessica Lefkow
produced by Theater J
reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

Ethnic cleansing.  Serbians and Croatians. Sarajevo.   There was a time, not long ago when these terms and names were as unfamiliar as ancient languages or distant planets.  It wasn’t long before everyday Americans got a crash course in world geography when pictures of families trudging along the countryside filled the airwaves.  The world premiere Honey Brown Eyes brings that world up close and personal, explosive and disturbingly real. (more…)

Naomi Jacobson, the chameleon-like character actor whose work in such diverse pieces as A Bridge Too Far, Maria/Stuart, Dead Man’s Cell phone and State of the Union has won her widespread Washington critical acclaim, has been awarded a Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship by the Ten Chimneys Foundation, the Foundation announced yesterday. (more…)

LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOYZ!
Joel Markowitz interviews the cast of Altar Boyz

Joel Markowitz had a heavenly time schmoozing with five talented young singers, actors and dancers who are burning up the Bethesda Theatre Stage, listening to confessions, and saving the souls of it’s wildly applauding audiences.

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As American As
by Ken Prestininzi
directed by Shirley Serotsky
produced by Journeymen Theater Ensemble
reviewed by Janice Cane

The premise of the dark comedy As American As is promising. What is the ultimate price of freedom and security? What does it mean to be patriotic in our post-9/11 world? How much would we sacrifice for our country? One family agrees to convert their basement into a “black site” for terrorist interrogation. (more…)

The Missiles of October
adapted by Karey Faulkner from a teleplay by Stanley R. Greenberg
based in part on the book “Thirteen Days” by Robert F. Kennedy
directed by Karey Faulkner
produced by The Heritage Theatre Company
reviewed by Tim Treanor

Heritage, a relatively young company which, as its mission, produces plays about American history, presents us with an adaptation of Stanley Greenberg’s much admired teleplay about the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is staged in the beautiful old Round House Theater, now a Montgomery County municipal building, and features a very fine performance by Jeff Murray, a former Foreign Service Officer, as Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. (more…)

The Hand (La Mano)
by playwright German Madrid
directed by Antonia Castillo
produced by Carro de Baco, Barcelona, Spain, and Teatro De La Luna
reviewed by Rosalind Lacy

The Hand (La Mano), by German Madrid, Spain’s gift to Teatro de la Luna’s Eleventh International Festival of Hispanic Theater is a mordantly witty puzzler, the kind of breathtaking one-act that’s simply ingenious. (more…)

Irma La Douce, A Body of Water, Romantic Poetry
by Richard Seff

Mel Miller has been bringing Musicals Tonite to New Yorkers since 1998. What are they?  They are a sort of watered down version of Encores!, which means only that they are staged concert readings produced on a tiny budget in a small theatre, with minimum lighting and scenic effects, and orchestrations for one, two or sometimes three instruments. The cast is made up of Equity performers, but the star wattage is dim - that is not to say that the talent onstage is dim, but it’s only rarely that a name recognizable to the public is up there. However, that’s half the fun. (more…)