The Great Game – the Pentagon Performances
February 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Great Game: Afghanistan is a long, long series of plays. Clocking in at some seven-and-a-half hours, the Tricycle Theatre Company’s marathon run through nearly 170 years of Afghan history leaves one at once exhausted, humbled, and oddly invigorated. This tour de force through Afghanistan’s tribulations under British, Soviet, and now American occupation leaves the viewer feeling rather better educated, but perhaps more baffled than ever before. “Are we in our ninth year in Afghanistan?” ponders an aide to Gen. Stanley McChrystal in a dramatic representation of an actual statement. “Or are we on our first year for the ninth time?” If it were only nine years that mattered! [Read more...]
24, 7, 365
February 17, 2011 By 1 Comment
What will it take to make us happy? And why are we confused by the letdown when the dream we wished for on the silvery moon comes true? The two couples in Jennifer L. Nelson’s sweetly woven and funny 24, 7, 365 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center grapple with those questions in a way that’s refreshingly light and fun. [Read more...]
New musical from In the Heights playwright heads up Arena Stage’s next season
February 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Like Water for Chocolate, a musical adaption of the best-selling Laura Esquivel novel by In the Heights author Quiara Alegria Hudes, in what is being billed as the pre-Broadway run, will lead off Arena Stage’s 2011-2012 season, Artistic Director Molly Smith announced yesterday.
The world premiere, which will feature music and lyrics by Paul Cohen and Academy Award nominee Lilia Downs, will run from September 9 to November 20, 2011 and be the first production in Arena’s scheduled eleven-play 2011-2012 season. [Read more...]
The Weir
February 17, 2011 By 2 Comments
The Keegan Theatre’s new production of The Weir grabs you from the start, almost before you know it. Bright yet dark, simple yet complex, emotional yet cerebral, Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s beautifully sculpted miniature masterpiece explores, with a deceptively light touch, the darker recesses of the human heart which, as Blaise Pascal observed, knows things that the mind cannot comprehend. [Read more...]
Oedipus el Rey
February 16, 2011 By 5 Comments
We can never seem to outrun our fate, but the exercise does us good. The quest of Oedipus is a futile one — to steer clear of the prophecy decreeing he will one day kill his father and sleep with his mother — but that doesn’t stamp out the satisfaction we get from watching him try. To tear down all the wrong possible futures before they happen… isn’t that what we all strain to do, in daily increments? Fate-making can be cardio, and hope a physical exertion. [Read more...]
An interview with Director Mary Zimmerman
February 15, 2011 By 1 Comment
Director Mary Zimmerman on The Arabian Nights and Candide
DC audiences were given two holiday gifts from Director Mary Zimmerman: her lavish and eye-popping productions of Candide for The Shakespeare Theatre Company and The Arabian Nights for Arena Stage. I became a fan of Mary’s after seeing her Tony Award-winning production of Metamorphoses at Circle in the Square Theatre in 2002 in NYC (she won the Tony for Best Director). Like many DC area audience members, I was wowed by the visual delights of Candide and The Arabian Nights. I asked Mary to take us on her journey of adapting these two great works for the stage and the recent DC productions. [Read more...]
Broadway – The American Musical (Book & DVDs)
February 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
There are many ways to approach the topic of musical theatre. There’s the scholarly approach of books that survey the topic as a whole. There’s the research approach that digs into one slice of the topic at great length. There’s the biographical approach looking at the life of one contributor or team at a time. There’s the reference approach providing tabular or statistical details in orderly presentations that make it easy to look up a specific fact. Then there’s the collector’s approach which is to gather all of the above and use each to expand your knowledge or appreciation of this particular art form. [Read more...]
Beyond Therapy
February 15, 2011 By 1 Comment
Bruce (Graham Pilato) meets Prudence (Mundy Spears) at a restaurant. It is their first date, and they are both nervous. They shake hands. Bruce gestures her to her seat, and sits down across from her. He looks into her eyes. They share a moment. “You have beautiful breasts,” he says, and the worst date in human history is on its way. [Read more...]
Rob McClure on playing Mozart in Amadeus
February 11, 2011 By 1 Comment
Rob McClure is a performer who can do it all. He’s a puppeteer – spending many years pulling the strings in Avenue Q. He’s a hysterical physical comedian, leaping around while playing the flaming Carmen Ghia in The Producers and Charlie Chaplin in a new musical. Through March 6th, Rob is playing the manic genius – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre. It’s not surprising to me that critics are raving about his performance as the child-like and annoying Mozart. [Read more...]
La Candida Erendira
February 11, 2011 By 2 Comments
The Innocent Eréndira and her Heartless Grandmother (La Cándida Eréndira)
Abandon all moral judgment and logic to enjoy this erotic fairy tale. A grandmother sells her young granddaughter for rape and sex trafficking. Welcome to the grotesque and mysterious world of Gabriel Garcia Marquez where evil becomes palatable through magical realism. [Read more...]
