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Two young actors get ready to step into the ring of Sucker Punch

March 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What’s my name? What’s my name, sucker?  In Houston, forty-five years ago last month, Muhammad Ali was carving up hapless, helpless Ernie Terrell, a heavyweight pretender who had insisted on calling Ali “Cassius Clay,” a name Ali had rejected. Ali was correcting this error at a rate of about thirty jabs a minute, turning Terrell’s face into hamburger. As God gave Adam dominion over the animals by allowing him to name them (see Genesis 2:19); so Ali asserted dominion over himself by naming himself, and dominion over those who would not recognize him by beating the hell out of them.

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Frank Ferrante has bet his life on Groucho

March 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

On Saturday, March 3rd, Frank Ferrante will perform his acclaimed solo show An Evening with Groucho at the Alden Theatre in McLean Virginia. Last week, we had the chance to talk about the man he has come to know well over the last 25 years, the one and only  Groucho Marx. [Read more...]

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Director Jessica Burgess on speaking the language of Cho

February 29, 2012 By 1 Comment

“There are sixty nine hundred languages in the world,” according to the linguist George, the central of Julia Cho’s The Language Archive.” Half of them are doomed to disappear in the next century.”

But there’s one language that, in this Forum Theatre production, is alive and well: ceaseless bickering among couples entering late middle age. [Read more...]

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Natsu Onoda Power, creator of Astro Boy and the God of Comics

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Renaissance woman Natsu Onoda Power is generating a reputation for original, highly inventive performance pieces. Writer, director, designer, theater prof at Georgetown University, Onoda Power is being celebrated for her collaborative, creative process, her exuberant drive and her brilliant devising of new ways to experience theater.

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Soul stirring Aisha de Haas heats up Josephine Tonight! at Metro Stage

February 27, 2012 By 1 Comment

Recently I sat down with Aisha de Haas, jazz chanteuse, Broadway singer, and repertory actress. I had just watched her performance in Metro Stage’s Josephine Tonight! where she’d knocked my socks off playing both Josephine Baker’s mother, Carrie, and “Big Bertha Smith”, Josephine’s vaudeville mentor. I wanted to learn more about this powerhouse singer.

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Behind the magic of The Magic Flute at The Puppet Co

February 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Three shadowy figures stand on a scaffold high above the stage, looking down on a tangle of eight foot strings and contorting themselves in and around each other to bring inanimate blocks of wood and celastic creatures, most no larger than three feet in height,  to life. [Read more...]

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Paige Hernandez on P. Nokio at Imagination Stage

February 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

Brimming with energy, Paige Hernandez brings a joyful creativity wherever she goes. As a teaching artist, actor, dancer and choreographer, and a self-professed hip-hop advocate, Hernandez has worked with artists of all ages from the classroom to the theatre and beyond. [Read more...]

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Actors Nigel Reed and Valerie Leonard on love and marriage

February 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Love comes naturally to the actors in Love Letters

For the busy theatrical couple Nigel Reed and Valerie Leonard, Valentine’s Day is more than a once a year affair. It’s nearly the definition of their marriage. Be it comedy or drama, hearing that either is in a show is reason enough to check it out. [Read more...]

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Shirley Serotsky on directing Blood Wedding

February 8, 2012 By 1 Comment

– Shirley Serotsky has been directing theatre in DC for ten years, at the helm of projects with Theater J, Keegan Theatre, Washington Shakespeare Company, The Hub Theatre, and others. Her new production of Blood Wedding, produced by Constellation Theatre Company, takes the beloved Spanish romance in new directions. Serotsky spoke with DC Theatre Scene one day before previews about the surprises, challenges, and excitement in staging Federico Garcia Lorca’s play. — [Read more...]

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The life and times of director PJ Paparelli

February 6, 2012 By 2 Comments

PJ Paparelli, having been through a battle or two of his own,
knows how to direct the conflict besetting the two gentlemen of Verona.

A young man of promise, moving forth from a working-class background, has an unbroken string of successes. Along the way, he meets other young people, some born of great wealth, who have found themselves in terrible situations, and his compassion for them feeds his art. But as he reaches artistic maturity, he is confronted with the possibility of failure and he must use all his resources to solve his dilemma. [Read more...]

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