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• The Passion of Persephone - A Rock Opera  
• Reviewed by Steven McKnight

The Passion of Persephone — A Rock Opera is a deceptively titled misfire.  (There’s no rock in it, and very little passion.) Read more…

• Loser Josh  
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 I count only 4 improv shows among the roughly 120 productions in this year’s Fringe and Loser Josh - and I’m sorry to say this is the best thing I’m going to say about the show - is one of them. Read more…

• Lexi Star’s Privates  
• Reviewed by Steven McKnight

Lexi Star’s Privates refers to private prostitution sessions offered by a young porn star as a side job.  The fact that this encounter between Lexi and her john, a suicidal screenwriter, feels private and intimate is a tribute to the impressive skills of playwright Malcolm Pelles Read more…

• The Sticking Place  
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 The pleasantly cheesy Molotov Theatre Group presents the pleasantly cheesy Sticking Place in the dungeon-like back of the Fringe’s new New York Avenue digs.  All hail the cheese! Read more…

• Dorks on the Loose: It I Awkward  
• Reviewed by Janice Cane

Happy Fringe, everyone! I’m excited about the festival but I can’t say I was all that excited by Dorks on the Loose. Not sure what’s going on with that subtitle. Sketch comedians Phaea Crede and Becca Jones are indeed awkward, but they just don’t seem entirely at ease with the whole acting thing. Read more…

• An Enchanted Evening in the Andes 
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

Described as high energy, ancient with ancestral sounds, the Mystic Warriors deliver quite a musical show at the Tivoli Theater.   Read more…

• McSwiggin’s Pub  
• Reviewed by Steven McKnight

McSwiggin’s Pub is a slight pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.  Read more…

• The Girl in the Iron Mask  
• Reviewed by Steven McKnight

As a devoted fan of swashbucklers, I had high hopes for The Girl in the Iron Mask, a feminist twist on the classic Alexandre Dumas tale. Read more…

• The Nature and Purpose of the Universe 
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 I have to admit that after watching The Nature and Purpose of the Universe, I still don’t know the nature and purpose of the universe. Read more…

• A Report of Gunfire 
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 David Loehr’s script is lucid, and even elegant at times. Director Joel David Santer has put together a tight show, and actor/monologist Dan Crane clearly has the chops to pull it off. Read more…

• Love Converges: Two Acts of Love  
• Anthony Sanford Jr.
   
  If realism is your thing and you want a standard living room style theatre experience, Love Converges might be the thing for you,

Read more…

• The Naked Party 
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 Fringe? Fringe? Man, this is the definition of Fringe: Read more…

• Mothers of Invention 
• by Miranda Hall

Cheese made from breast milk? An apple that annihilates acne? Bananas to make your nails grow? Be sure to save room for Laura Poe’s rich and highly inventive one-woman show, Read more…

• Abe Lincoln: A One Man Show   
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor
• It seems difficult to believe, given the rolling thunder of his prose, but Abe Lincoln was not a particularly good speaker. Read more…

• Coriolanus 
• Reviewed by Steven McKnight

Coriolanus is one of the more difficult Shakespeare plays due to its static plot and an unlikeable protagonist.  While the Rude Mechanicals don’t entirely work it out, their streamlined modern production is competent and entertaining.  Read more…

• On the Sly 
• Reviewed by Steven McKnight

This is an amusing play that provides an interesting twist on the story of The Taming of the Shrew.  If you enjoy classic farce, On the Sly is a charming and polished little jewel. Read more…

• Revolutionary! Isadora Duncan’s Words, Music, Dance 
• by Miranda Hall

 If a Virginia Woolf novel enrolled in a beginner’s dance class, it might resemble this Word Dance Theater’s production. Stepping into the cedar-soaked Forum of the Shakespeare Theatre’s Harman Center, one enters a sanctuary of sylphs in silk Read more…

Iconicity 
Anthony Sanford Jr.
 
Iconicity is the most enjoyable trip through history through photography one could ever hope to experience. Read more…

• The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband 
• by Miranda Hall

  Everything starts with bang. Marriages. Affairs. Divorces. Dinner parties. Plays. How everything ends, however, and what follows the jump-start, is less than thrilling. Read more…

• Good Enough for Government Work  
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 Mean-spirited, stupid and staggeringly unfunny, Good Enough for Government Work is not good enough for anyone. Read more…

• Dizzy Miss Lizzie’s Roadside Revue — The Orestia
• Reviewed by Steven McKnight

To see Dizzy Miss Lizzie’s Roadside Review, get there early to have a drink, find a good seat (the shows are selling out), and generally enjoy the whole DMLRR experience.  Read more…

• The President’s New Clothes 
• by Leslie Weisman

 A timely political take on Hans Christian Andersen’s timeless tale of the clueless monarch, “The President’s New Clothes” has been updated for the fourth time since its inception at the height of the Watergate scandal.  Read more…

• Fool for a Client 
• Reviewed by Janice Cane

Who knew fraud was funny? For most people, it probably isn’t - especially not when it means facing 225 years in federal prison. But Mark Whitney saw his financial nightmare as an opportunity to fulfill a dream - to represent himself at trial. Read more…

• City Folk 
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

Billy (Alex Perez) is auditioning for the Church play. He has a Shakespearian monologue, but the monsignor (Peter Quon) wants him to throw in some lines about the protection of babies. “Improv, eh?” Billy says, “That’s tough.” Read more…

• Poe and All that Jazz  
  by Miranda Hall
• If Poe and All that Jazz receives the zealous attention it deserves, then perhaps this holiday season a Poe-in-a-box will give Tickle-me-Elmo a run for its money. Let’s give it that chance - for the kids.

Read more…

• The Revenge of the Cat-Headed Baby
• and Other True Tales about Life and Death   

Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 There were a couple of empty chairs at the showing of The Revenge of the Cat-Headed Baby and Other True Tales yesterday at Cole Studio.

You fools!

Read more…

• Chocolate Jesus 
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 I know that not all of you believe in Jesus but you all believe in chocolate, so let’s start with the bad news: DCSpeakeasy’s production is long on religion, but there’s not a drop of the sweet stuff. (Storyteller Eva Salvetti passes around some brown rice, but believe me, it is an inadequate substitute).  The good news is that the storytelling is done with such wit, humility, acuity and humanity that it is like chocolate to the ears. Read more…

• For Tomorrow: Story and Poetry of Hilda Stern Cohen 
• by Darcy Sabatino

For Tomorrow combines story telling, music and a slideshow. The experience was like a grade school living history day. Read more…

• If You See Something Say Something 
• by Leslie Weisman 

Our story begins at the White Sands Missile Range, a secure military installation in New Mexico.  It’s quite large; “you could fit three Rhode Islands in it,” Mike Daisey tells the capacity audience. Read more…

• Through the Looking Glass 
• Darcy Sabatino

Theatre is not just about what happens on the stage it is also about the venue, the outside of the building, the way it smells, the sounds, and the audience. So it’s July. It’s hot. Read more…

• Eugenio 
• Reviewed by Janice Cane

It’s a tricky thing, having a theater festival in the middle of summer. If the weather is gorgeous, as it was for the opening weekend of Fringe, it may be hard to draw a crowd. Read more…

• Fringe Scene Stealers
• 
• Performers from Musicals and Concerts Who Really Stole the Show
• By Joel Markowitz

This Fringe is all about the Music for me, so I’m throwing the spotlight on performers and musicians who were real standouts.  Add your own favorites - musicals of not - in the Comments section.  Let’s give them a hand! Read more…

• Ball and Chain 
• By Matt MacNelly

A lifetime of happiness. A death sentence. A sacred institution. A tax break. In Ball and Chain, the M word is put under the microscope courtesy of seven new plays that focus on the happily ever after as few have before. Read more…

• Long Beach ‘44 
• By Laura Vogltanz

 If you have already read a few reviews of this year’s Fringe, then you have heard this before: “The Shop,” where several of these plays take place, is a garage.  A weird, dark, hot, hole in the ground that screams haunted house Read more…

Revenge of the Poisoned Lady and The Victim 
Reviewed by Anthony Sanford Jr.
 
After watching the double feature presented by the five member Live Action Cartoonists ensemble, dinner tables will never quite be the same. The show is two delightfully comedic horror tales

Read more…

A Nervous Smile 
by Danielle Martin

What’s cool about Fringe in concept is the possibilty that on a shoe-string budget, the highlight is a small group actors doing service to a playwright. Here,  contemporary American playwright John Belluso’s recently discovered works is easily sparked to life in this pared down black box production.

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• How I Got Rich In A Year, Using That Secret:
• A Play For Believers, Skeptics And Slobs 
• By Laura Vogltanz

Engaging, captivating and fun!  Three descriptions that are difficult to achieve for a solo performer, but Laura Zam does it with ease.  Read more…

• The Fiddler Ghost 
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

 The Fiddler Ghost is a perfect example of what the Fringe Festival is all about– a chance to showcase unusually creative theatrical expressions that don’t fit the traditional boxes, that pack a punch, Read more…

• 7 Sins 
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor 

Now this is a monologue. Although there were only four sins (including calling that soupy Manhattan he was drinking a Martini), but who’s counting, James Judd’s high-speed, high-octane jet-ski through his amazing and ridiculous life Read more…

• Prototype 373-G  
  Reviewed by Anthony Sanford Jr.
   
  What does a spur of the moment engagement, a ring master in a mental hospital, a giant turtle, and pregnancy have in common? Prototype 373-G. Read more…

• Power House: 
• The Super-Ozone-Friendly-Happy-Disco-Energy-Techno-Dance-Along Show
• Reviewed by Carrie Klewin

Social experiment as theatre?  With Power House, Bouncing Ball Theatrical Productions gives us a scientific experiment centered on dancing as a viable resource for energy. Is this the revolutionary new means of solving our energy crisis?  Read more…

• Desire/Regret  
• Reviewed by Carrie Klewin

 If the music of bodies in motion sounds appealing to you, then Desire/Regret may be a piece of curiosity. Inspired by A Streetcar Named Desire, the wordless performance is a dream-like montage of images and sounds. Read more…

• Euripides’ The Bacchae  
• by Matt MacNelly

 If there is only one thing the ancient Greeks taught us, it is that tragedy is universal. The stories told by Euripides and friends often involve Gods and mythical creatures, but in the end the tragedy stems from Read more…

• Four Rooms Waking  
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 Perhaps Four Rooms Waking means the same thing as Four Plays in the Same Room Running at Roughly the Same Time. I hope so; otherwise I went to the wrong play. Read more…

Crashing Home  
Danielle Martin

Four vignettes that use song, yoga, metaphor, and video to present the facets of womanity. Disclaimer: while I adore feminist plays and work (it was thrust and vantage of my thesis), this particular vein of reclamation Read more…

• The Cloud Factory  
  Reviewed by Danielle MartinIt’s a treat to come into a low-tech performance, and before the show begins be invited into the piece’s atmosphere. In this case, original, sweet folk tunes calmed and opened the space up for solo performer Alix Sobler,

Read more…

• Hold Me, Drill Me, Kiss Me  
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 Hold Me, Drill Me, Kiss Me is a slender but amusing monologue by a guy named Joe Zarrow. Mr. Zarrow is a courageous and ambitious fellow: Read more…

• B-Digga Presents 
• Reviewed by Miranda Hall

“Man, I forgot the Fringe was a theatre festival,” shrugged the rapper E.R.K. as he jauntily took stage Saturday afternoon. “I’m music,” he laughed. “Well alright. Here we go.” Read more…

• Slave Narratives Revisited 
• -A Celebration of Freedom
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

Nothing quite puts today’s national political election is perspective like Slave Narratives.  This production is a fascinating montage of voices, experiences, and resilience of captured Africans Read more…

• I Like Nuts  (The Musical)  
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 Attention Musical Writers: Urinetown is not a template. The first time we see a Musical which is all about subverting musical conventions, it’s cute. But it gets awfully old awfully quickly after that. Read more…

• The Dream-Casting  
• Reviewed by Carrie Klewin

 This stream-of-conscious, cornucopia of quasi-carnival inspired non-sequiturs is not for the intolerant fringer. Read more…

• Life is a Dream 
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 Uncut Pages, an all-woman troupe stages Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s 320-year-old play, which was written with only one female character. This is not necessarily a barrier to a successful enterprise. Read more…

• On Sale Now!   
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

I don’t know if Slash Coleman has big matzo balls, but I know that Rick Huddle does. First, he wrote to our website using his own name. Second, he is doing a one-man show about consumer choice, which will get you about six people in your audience. Read more…

• Born Normal