All posts by Terry Ponick:
A former college English professor, technical writer, and policy analyst, Terry Ponick started writing on theater in 1987, first for northern Virginia’s Connection newspapers and currently for the Times Community newspaper chain. Along with his wife Fran, he created a series of Siskel and Ebert-style dueling review columns that won the couple a 1993 Washington Dateline Award for theater criticism. In 1994, he moved to the Washington Times to become that paper’s classical music and culture critic.
Forty years and still singing, Washington Savoyards throws a gala
February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
From time to time, most performing arts organizations schedule a special evening of entertainment geared toward raising audience awareness as well as attracting much needed donations from well-heeled arts patrons. These sparkling “gala” evenings usually highlight an ensembles’ best or most popular performers singing, playing, or dancing to classical, pop, or Broadway hits. Click here for more events happening in this year’s Gala season. [Read more...]
The King and I
January 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Now on stage at Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia, the company’s production of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s classic 1951 musical The King and I is a remarkably effective revival of this exotic, tune-filled musical. Even in the limited space of a dinner theater, the production’s strong cast, decent choreography, and colorful, surprisingly elaborate costuming combine into a very strong argument indeed for putting this show on your entertainment calendar. [Read more...]
Up close with the magic of Elephant Room
January 27, 2012 By 1 Comment
We talk with Louie Magic, Dennis Diamond, and Daryl Hannah, if that be their real names.
The Elephant Room isn’t really a play and it isn’t really a magic show. In fact, it’s a little hard to define. One of the show’s PR blurbs breathlessly promises that if you combine “the glory of a Styx reunion tour, with the transcendental power of a 200-year-old Zuni shaman and add a dash of trailer park ennui, you come close to describing the mystical pull of a trip to the Elephant Room.” [Read more...]
Chris Sieber – he’s played Georges on Broadway and now is Zaza on La Cage tour
January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The fabulous Zaza, as portrayed by singer/actor Christopher Sieber, is the heart and soul of La Cage aux Folles, the current revival of the smash Broadway musical now playing to packed houses at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. Co-starring longtime Hollywood icon George Hamilton, the show charts the adventures and misadventures of a pair of comical, high strung, gay showbiz entrepreneurs who run a popular Parisian drag club. [Read more...]
Director Robert McNamara on SCENA’s Hedda Gabler
January 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
SCENA Theatre’s current production of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler puts some interesting twists on a classic that’s rarely seen on DC stages these days. SCENA’s veteran Artistic Director Robert McNamara has chosen to remedy this problem at least in part by employing an updated adaptation of the original by popular contemporary Irish playwright Brian Friel. [Read more...]
Little Murders
January 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Arlington’s provocative American Century Theater opened its latest intriguing blast from the American past last weekend at Gunston Theater II. On tap this time: Jules Feiffer’s 1967 bizarrely witty comedy-drama Little Murders. [Read more...]
Ben Cook – talented young DC area performer is outstanding supporting player in Billy Elliot
January 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Broadway run of Billy Elliot the Musical ended last night. But the national tour is just starting its eight month road trip and has one week to go in its highly successful run at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House and when it does, one young cast member will once again say goodbye to his family and be on the road. [Read more...]
Billy Elliot the Musical
December 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The touring production of Billy Elliot, the Musical, now ensconsed at the Kennedy Center Opera House, is a driving, energetic, and oddly appropriate holiday feast for thoughtful theatergoers. Spun off from the eponymous film version, the stage musical has a less oppressive feel than the original. But it still packs an emotional and political punch, particularly in the context of our current economic doldrums. [Read more...]
Holland Taylor on bringing Ann Richards to Washington
December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
When the call is for a smart, elegant, sophisticated woman who knows how to slip in a punch line, the answer is Holland Taylor. The star of stage, film and television found her match in the feisty star of Texas politics, Governor Ann Richards. [Read more...]
The Madman and the Nun
December 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment
You know things are going to be a little weird when you enter a theater and receive—in lieu of a program—a confidential psychiatric patient file clipped into an official-looking manila folder. Things got even stranger on opening night when cast members, wandering about outside the stage area, encouraged audience members to sample some of the asylum’s “drugs” (it’s actually wine.) [Read more...]
