Terry Burrell steps into cast of Oklahoma

E. Faye Butler begins rehearsals for Arena’s Trouble in Mind

On August 9th, there will be one change in the cast of Arena Stage’s hit show Oklahoma! as one actress moves from the Fichandler Stage to an Arena Stage rehearsal hall, and another steps into her role. [Read more...]

Steel Magnolias

Even if you know the story, saw the movie or an earlier production of Steel Magnolias, this iteration warrants a return visit, because it’s likely you haven’t seen an actual mother and daughter in the roles.  The casting adds a special charm and poignancy to the script, and it doesn’t hurt that both actresses are particularly good in their portrayals.  [Read more...]

Rock Bottom: A Rock Opus

Working in the theatre, you quickly learn that you can’t please everyone all the time. Sometimes audiences steer clear of a show because it looks too dark or upsetting. Maybe the content is offensive, or the story line doesn’t appeal. Sometimes it’s just that strange, sinking feeling that everyone involved, simply put, is trying too hard. [Read more...]

The Insurgents

Intrigued by the cultural and racial issues in several productions in this year’s Contemporary American Theater Festival, I found my way back to Shepherdstown, WV for a thought provoking  weekend of theatre.  Although the notoriously good though uncomfortable and unsettling Race by David Mamet is sold out, Insurgents could be worth a final weekend trip if seen in tandem with another show.   [Read more...]

Jerry Orbach: Prince of the City

I’m not sure if the book has one long title and a longer subtitle, or if it is a short title with two subtitles, but the cover reads “Jerry Orbach  –   Prince of the City –  His Way from The Fantastics to Law & Order.” [Read more...]

2011 Capital Fringe – it’s a wrap

July 24, 2011 – Sunday night, as the last shows in this year’s Capital Fringe were winding down, the Capital Fringe closing night party in the Baldacchino Gypsy Tent was underway.

Everyone was waiting to see which shows won the Theatermania Pick of the Fringe Awards.  But first, Cory Ryan Frank,  officially Audience Services Manager, but we know best as the happy, helpful box office guy, announced the numbers:  This year’s festival featured 124 shows, giving 637 performances. Of those, 256 had more than 50% attendance, and 65 were sellouts.

The festival sold just over 27,000 tickets (1509 of them in packages) and 12,635 buttons.

John Burns, representing Theatermania’s Ovation Tickets, presented the audience-chosen Pick of the Fringe Awards:

Best Comedy – Priscilla Dreams the Answer (Nu Sass Productions)

Best Dance – SHE  (Verena Lucia) and UPheaval (DC Aerial Collective)

Best Drama – Hamlet Reframed (Grain of Sand Theatre)

Best Experimental - Hugo Ball: The Super Spectacular Dada Adventure (Pointless Theatre)

Best Musical – Cabaret XXX  (Pinky Swear )

Best Solo – On the Rag to Riches (Angry Alice)

Best Overall Production – Who’s Your Baghdaddy or How I Won the Iraq War (Charlie Fink Presents)

and the Capital Fringe Director’s Award, chosen by Festival Directors Julieanne Brienza and Scot McKenzie, went to Izumi Ashizawa for her production of iKilL.

Missed the reviews?  Catch up on all our reviews here.

And, this morning Capital Fringe posted this final Daily Dose by none other the man who needs no introduction for followers of his Daily Dose, the star of the box office, none other than Cory Ryan Frank!

Clybourne Park

Bruce Norris won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this astonishing play not simply because of what he wrote, but for what he permits his actors to do. Most plays show characters uttering hard truths. Clybourne Park, full of outrageous wit and heartbreaking tragedy, shows characters lying, obfuscating, tap-dancing and changing the subject on the hardest subjects in America: race, racism, tribalism, cowardice and lack of compassion. When the truth finally explodes from them, it’s like one of Ridley Scott’s aliens bursting out of a human body: there is horror, disgust, and blood on the floor. [Read more...]

Out of the Shadow

Young Playwright’s Theater was founded in 1995 by playwright Karen Zacarías in order, through interactive in-school and after-school programs, to teach DC metro area students to “promote community dialogue and respect for young artists.”

Saturday’s performance of the original student play, Out of the Shadow, was the culmination of YPT’s year-long Young Playwright’s Workshop.  The single performance provided the students the opportunity to perform their play at Capital Fringe.

Out of the Shadow deals with the hot-button issue of bullying in the schools. The student playwrights used monologues, short scenes, poetry, and song to tell the stories of students bullied for race, gender, sexuality, socio-economic status, or just for being different. [Read more...]

Birds of a Feather

Here is the story of six members of three exotic species of wildlife who have entertained New Yorkers for over two decades: (1) Silo (Dan Crane) and Roy (Matt Dewberry), two male chinstrap penguins who pair-bonded, built a nest, and hatched and raised a chick in the Central Park Zoo. (2) Pale Male (Dewberry) and Lola (Crane), two red-tailed hawks who built an enormous nest on the twelfth-floor ledge of a Manhattan co-op, where they hatched and raised their young. (3) Paula Zahn (Jjana Valentiner)  and Richard Cohen (Eric Messner), whose marital discord fed the tabloids with allegations of cruelty, infidelity, and financial skullduggery. [Read more...]

Enoch Arden

Imagine a man who leaves behind his wife and children in search of financial stability and a better future overseas. Imagine the man finds himself stranded abroad and returns, an unrecognizable shell of his former self. Imagine the man, now lost in a world he once ruled, without hope, or the life for which he thought he was fighting for. We see this every day as troops pour home from Afghanistan and Iraq, but it’s a timeless tale told with absolute craftsmanship in Andrew White’s adaptation of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Enoch Arden. [Read more...]