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The Cherry Orchard

January 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The Cherry Orchard
by Anton Chekhov, translated by Laurence Senelick
Directed by Christopher Henley and Gaurav Gopalan
Produced by Washington Shakespeare Company
Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

The Cherry Orchard is a fitting final production for the Washington Shakespeare Company to end its stay at the Clark Street Playhouse, and the full capacity crowd on opening night was eager to celebrate WSC’s legacy.  The play, often seen as a cultural microcosm with ruminations about life and death, family, love and money, covers all the bases with a hearty cast of 16 characters to tell the embedded stories.   Co-directors Christopher Henley and Gaurav Gopalan create a world of fantasy and farce to relay the alarmingly relevant passages that mirror the state of our own affairs in this day and time. [Read more...]

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Mid-Life, The Crisis Musical

January 23, 2009 By 4 Comments

Mid-Life, The Crisis Musical
Book, Music and Lyrics by Bob Walton and Jim Walton
Directed by Shawn Kettering
Produced by Toby’s Dinner Theatre, Columbia
Reviewed by Ted Ying

You’ve heard the one about a person who spends the day trying to do some chores but, getting distracted at each step of the way, ends the day with nothing done.  Absent-mindedness is just one of the many humorous aspects of approaching mid-life along with medical problems, embarrassing exams, landmark birthdays and more.  With such a cornucopia of material to draw from, Mid-Life, The Crisis Musical should be a side-splitting success. [Read more...]

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Speed-the-Plow, Any Day Now

January 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Speed-the-Plow, Any Day Now
by Richard Seff

David Mamet speeds words at you as though they were coming straight from the mouth of an automatic rifle. I’ve never acted in one of his plays but even in my salad days I think I’d have been terrified to try. For it’s boom bang bing; it’s all manic music. You must play the piece with only your body and voice as instruments, and there are no notes on a music stand. You’re not on your own. No, you’re in it together, you and your fellow players, for the speed and energy must be maintained or the effect is diminished, and the simplicity of the plot may be revealed, which would not be good.

So it is that I was curious to see if Norbert Leo Butz could cut it in this revival at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. [Read more...]

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Why Theatre? The Conversation Continues

January 23, 2009 By 1 Comment

An Open Letter from Michael Dove, Artistic Director of Forum Theatre

Many of you attended a performance of How Theater Failed America at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company this month, and many of you participated in one or more of the provocative post-show panel
discussions. These lively and spirited dialogues covered a lot of ground, from the state of Washington theatre to the health of the arts as a whole.

For many of us, the discussions have continued well after the evening you spent with Mike Daisey. Many of you have voiced your thoughts Forum Theatre’s Blog, or the bar after the show, or in the lobby of Woolly. [Read more...]

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The Seafarer

January 21, 2009 By 3 Comments

The Seafarer
by Conor McPherson
Directed by Paul Mullins
Produced by The Studio Theatre
Reviewed by Leslie Weisman

Some plays set the stage not only literally but figuratively, preparing the audience for what will occur over the course of their action.  And then there are those whose sets are more deceptive: where a cozy walnut, velour and floral-carpeted interior, a slim Christmas tree ablaze with lights, and the familiar strains of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” from a home stereo are not indicators, but prevaricators.  [Read more...]

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Orpheus in the Underworld

January 21, 2009 By 1 Comment

Orpheus in the Underworld
by Jacques Offenbach
English adaptation by Kelley Rourke
Directed by Rick Davis and Joel Lazar
Music Director and Orchestra Conductor Joel Lazar
Produced by The In Series
Reviewed by Rosalind Lacy

How do you escape the cold? Climb Mt. Olympus and let The In Series send you to Hell. Orpheus in the Underworld at The Atlas Performing Arts Center is the best trip you’ll take all winter. Let well-trained, beautiful voices that need no microphones steam up your opera glasses. If this is Hell, you want to go there. [Read more...]

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Karen Olivo

January 21, 2009 By 5 Comments

An Interview with actress Karen Olivo, who plays Anita in West Side Story
by Joel Markowitz

When I saw Karen Olivo playing Faith in the musical Brooklyn, I knew, by the power and beauty of her voice,  that a star had been born. When I saw Karen as Vanessa in the 37 Arts Off-Broadway production of In The Heights, I told everyone I knew to run to NYC and catch her performance. After the show transferred to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, Broadway audiences were treated to Karen’s feisty Vanessa in last year’s Tony Award Winning Best Musical.

More than 50 years after it opened at the National Theatre, the new production West Side Story , under the direction of the legendary Arthur Laurents, returned to the National in preparation for its Broadway opening. DC audiences and critics alike cheered Karen Olivo’s scorching portrayal of Anita. Before she left Washington, Karen did this interview for us. [Read more...]

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Dai (Enough)

January 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Dai (Enough)
Written and performed by Iris Bahr
Originally directed Off-Broadway by Will Pomerantz
Produced by Theater J at Studio Theatre’s Milton Theatre
Reviewed by Miranda Hall

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a Russian prostitute, a German furniture designer, and an Arab statistics professor walk into a café. Not ringing any bells? Iris Bahr is willing to betit doesn’t.

What she can imagine, however, is that you have heard something about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She can assume that you’ve experienced political conversations that splatter food on the walls instead of advance mutual understanding. And she’s probably right. [Read more...]

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Starting the year with some great performances

January 17, 2009 By 4 Comments

WHAT A WAY TO WELCOME IN 2009!

Serendipity 4, Natalie Joy Johnson, The Wizard of Oz and Alice Ripley at Millennium Stage

New Year’s Eve with ‘Serendipity 4′

What’s  a better way to welcome in the New Year, than by attending a haymishe (very comfortable and “homey”) Yiddish, Hebrew, Greek, Bosnian, Romanian, Russian Gypsy Bulgarian, French, Sephardic – song filled – before-the-ball- dropped – concert at Theater J.  I have never heard ‘Serendipity 4′ perform before, although I loved, the musical wizardry of members pianist Tamara Brooks and accordionist Merima Kljuco, as they accompanied fellow-member Theodore Bikel during his wonderful performance in Sholom Aleichem – Laughter Through Tears . [Read more...]

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Help Encourage Obama to Create Sec of Arts Position

January 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment


Petition for arts Cabinet post is gaining steam

One of the best ways to promote and preserve the cultural health of
this country would be to give the arts Cabinet-level status. After
Quincy Jones was quoted in a recent interview saying that he
would lobby for the creation of a Secretary of the Arts position when
he next chats with the new president, a petition quickly emerged and
is making its way across the cyberscape. It has attracted nearly
50,000 signatures already, including the likes of Baltimore Symphony
Orchestra music director Marin Alsop and composer John Corigliano. [Read more...]

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