As an experiment in audience participatory theatre, dog & pony dc’s Beertown is an interesting and memorable adventure.  [Read more...]

When the lights come up and the bodies start to crowd, do you come off as a scowler or a smiler? The rush hour platform’s peppered with both populations. On the one hand: Metro commuters who want nothing more than uninterrupted solitude on their ride from point A to point B. On the other hand: [Read more...]

Somewhat like the poetry of e.e. cummings—whose lower-case, typographically bizarre verse forms promised to shake up literary convention but actually built upon it—the lower-case “dog & pony dc” ensemble aims to take accepted canonical texts and re-scramble them. Case in point: their current production of Courage: A Political Theatre Revival. [Read more...]

Punch – That’s the Way We Do It
Written and directed by Wyckham Avery
Produced by dog and pony dc
Reviewed by Miranda Hall

Welcome to Adventure Seating 101. dog and pony dc’s production of Punch is an in-your-face – and frequently an in-your-lap – homage to vulgarity, violence, and questionable satire. If you’re in the mood for some crude, late-night entertainment, pull a trash bag over your clothes (if you’re sitting in the front two rows, they’re already attached to your seat), grab a beer (they’ll make sure you have one in the prologue), and get ready to jump into an evening of Fringe-esque debauchery. [Read more...]

• Cymbeline
• By William Shakespeare
• Directed by Wickham Avery
• Produced by dog & pony dc
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

What a bad idea this is! Dog & pony dc has re-conceived Cymbeline - definitely a minor part of Shakespeare’s canon – as a theatrical exercise in which actors change roles with every scene. To imagine an equivalent, suppose that Arena Stage decided to do the same thing with Death of a Salesman. In the first scene, Rick Foucheux would appear as Willie Loman, and Nancy Robinette as his wife, Linda. In the next scene, the Loman sons Biff and Hap would be played by – Rick Foucheux and Nancy Robinette, respectively. [Read more...]