All posts by Ben Demers:
Ben Demers, a Baltimore native, has been a theater enthusiast since a young age. He studied drama and voice at Vassar College, performing in numerous plays, musicals, and operas. By day, he is a legal assistant in a DC law firm, and in his spare time, he enjoys debating the artistic merits of horror movies, tearing up the dance floor, and performing music on guitar and piano. He is thrilled to experience all the dynamic, exciting theater that DC has to offer.
Wishful Drinking
February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
“I consumed massive amounts of opiates religiously.” “Having waited my entire life to get an award for something … anything … I now get awards all the time for being mentally ill.” “There’s no underwear in space.” Any of these zingers from Carrie Fisher’s winning one woman show Wishful Drinking could serve as wholly appropriate tag lines for her zany account of her struggles with fame, tempestuous family life, and the twin beasts of addiction and mental illness. [Read more...]
The Religion Thing
January 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Faith can bind people together under the banner of common belief, or it can create deep rifts, irreconcilable by way of reason or shared history. In Theater J’s lovingly crafted production of Renee Calarco’s The Religion Thing, a polished cast navigates the playwright’s meditation upon the complex role of faith in relationships, marked by a heady brew of razor sharp humor, repressed secrets, and raw emotion.
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Black Nativity
December 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In a season of well-worn holiday traditions, nothing brings a more welcome blast of fresh good will than the image of Baby Jesus being lovingly serenaded by powerful gospel music and surrounded with luscious Afro-Caribbean trappings. Theater Alliance’s spirited production of Black Nativity takes the audience on a joyful, unique ride through the Christmas Story, set to a foot stomping gospel hit parade. [Read more...]
The Santaland Diaries
December 8, 2011 By 2 Comments
If anyone can find the dark side of the happiest time of the year, it’s David Sedaris. The master of sardonic storytelling has found a talented vessel in Joe Brack, who has concocted an animated, multi-layered spin on Sedaris’ painfully funny Christmas chronicle, The Santaland Diaries. [Read more...]
A Second Chance
December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
At its core, romance is the same at any age: an exciting, gut-wrenching roller coaster of blessed highs and crushing lows. The only thing that changes as the years go by is the volume of emotional baggage standing in the way of new love and contentment. In A Second Chance, Ted Shen’s elegant ode to late-blooming love, two New York City residents grapple with personal demons and painful pasts as they try to open their hearts one more time. [Read more...]
A Broadway Christmas Carol
November 23, 2011 By 1 Comment
The earlier and earlier onset of the holiday season, marked by 24-7 Christmas radio and Santa greeting you at CVS in early November, is enough to drive a sane person underground until December 26th. However, despite the onerous onset of “Christmas Creep”, the yearly retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol somehow never goes out of style.
MetroStage puts their own stamp on Dickens’ tale with A Broadway Christmas Carol, a kinetic, toe-tapping holiday confection of a revue, featuring a talented trio of performers and clever Dickensian style parodies of Broadway show tunes.
The Golden Dragon
November 10, 2011 By 2 Comments
It started with just a simple toothache…and then everything went wrong. Studio Theatre’s tense, darkly comic production of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s The Golden Dragon follows disparate lives forever changed by a single random event. It’s an arresting allegory for the turmoil plaguing our increasingly intertwined global community. [Read more...]
Chicago
October 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A web of betrayal, scandal, and murder is brewing deep in the heart of Columbia, MD. In their crowd-pleasing production of Chicago, Toby’s Dinner Theatre puts their own stamp on the sordid story of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, transporting audiences from the cozy performance space into a tale of criminal intrigue as big as the Windy City itself. [Read more...]
A Moon for the Misbegotten
October 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In Eugene O’Neill’s classic drama A Moon for the Misbegotten, two lost souls reach out to each other across a blighted stretch of earth, riding waves of hope and heartbreak in pursuit of a love that was doomed from the very beginning. [Read more...]
Impossible Theater debuts with Macbeth
August 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It’s a bold move for a new theater company to tackle a well known Shakespearean work in their first outing; it’s another thing entirely to take on a show that is the very definition of bad luck in theater circles. Impossible Theater Company has done just that, overcoming the curse of “The Scottish Play” and making a confident entrance to the DC theater community with their ambitious spin on Shakespeare’s superstition-riddled tragedy, Macbeth. [Read more...]
