Nothing truly prepares one for the remarkable resemblance of the actors David Selby and Craig Wallace to the characters they portray, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass in the world premiere Necessary Sacrifices just opened at Ford’s Theatre.  [Read more...]

As many in the music-theatre world will tell you, three main genres of musicals are being produced today.  There’s your “classic” fare from the golden days of 30’s and 40′s American musical.  There’s your Sondheim and Sondheim spinoffs.  And then there’s Disney. The last is marked by amiable tunes supported by somewhat witty if anachronistic lyrics in a book packed with political correctness and family values. [Read more...]

The past and present don’t collide in Harrison, Texas so much as they come to an uneasy truce. In the early years of Reconstruction, when townsfolk feared and distrusted the southern migration of Union families, the challenge to overcome the recent past was steep indeed. A few decades later, swept up in the industrial boom of another, bigger war, the tenant farmers in agricultural towns like Harrison began to fear that the values of their small-town present were slipping into the past. [Read more...]

Tonight, you will be visited by three spirits. Watch for when the clock strikes one… then two… then three. You won’t believe what emerges from the dark shadows.

Well, Scrooge won’t believe it. Not for a few scenes. As for us, we’ll eat it up, no questions asked. I can think of few stories more drained of suspense than A Christmas Carol. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. [Read more...]

Ford’s Theater opened its 2010-2011 season last week with a charming production of Samuel A. Taylor’s romantic comedy Sabrina Fair.

Written in the early 1950s, Sabrina Fair opened on Broadway in 1953 and tells a Cinderella-esque story about a young girl who is looking for true love but finds her hopes and dreams stunted by the class and social conventions in place at the time. [Read more...]

Ripped from the pages of a 50’s pulp comic, Ford’s Theatre’s Little Shop of Horrors is a colorful explosion of retro humor and sci-fi horror. This delightful production offers a simple, important lesson: whatever you do, “Don’t feed the [alien] plant.” [Read more...]