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Frost/Nixon
By Peter Morgan
Directed by Michael Grandage
A touring production presented by The Kennedy Center
Reviewed by Tim Treanor

Richard M. Nixon, the disgraced former President who resigned thirty-four years ago, was well known as an equivocator and a liar, so let us not compound his felonies with anything but complete honesty. This show is a disappointment.

Peter Morgan’s play is given over to an incident on the outskirts of history: David Frost’s four-part interview with Nixon after his resignation and pardon. (more…)

The Shadow of the Glen &The Playboy of the Western World
by John Millington Synge
directed by Garry Hynes
A DRUID Theatre Company production, presented by The Kennedy Center
reviewed by Steven McKnight

If you think the work of early 20th century Irish playwright John Millington Synge is merely broad comedies about Irish peasants, The Druid Theatre Company of Galway, Ireland will likely change your mind.  Their superlative performances in The Shadow of the Glen and particularly The Playboy of the Western World capture the voice of a playwright that was both authentic and modern, and demonstrate a depth of character found only in the finest theatre. (more…)

Blanche and Beyond
from Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams
adapted and Directed Steve Lawson
presented by The Kennedy Center in the Terrace Theater
reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackso

Richard Thomas has come a long way from playing John Boy Walton (early 1970’s) with over 40 films and countless stage productions since those early years.  Although the familiar visage is recognizable as soon as he steps on the set, all flashbacks to his antics growing up in that homespun version of early Americana disappear as Thomas anchors himself firmly in the flamboyant boisterous, boozing personae of Tennessee Williams (more…)

the break/s: a mixtape for stage

performance work by Marc Bamuthi Joseph

presented by the Kennedy Center

reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

Performer and personal narrative poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph is getting well earned, rave reviews for his latest expression, the break/s which infuses hip hop culture into his personal stories of identity, filled with whispers of history and whiffs of political insights, all while breaking down the boundaries of theater, dance, and film. (more…)

• Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter
• by Julie Marie Myatt
  Directed by Jessica Thebus
• Produced by Oregon Shakespeare Festival Production at the Kennedy Center
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

The basic story about a soldier carrying physical and emotional wounds trying to return to society, is as current and timeless as it gets. (more…)

• The Lion King
• Music & Lyrics by Elton John and Tim Rice . Additional Music & Lyrics by Lebo M, Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, Julie Taymor and Hans Zimmer
• Book by Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi
• Directed by Julie Taymor
• A Disney production presented by The Kennedy Center
• Reviewed by Ted Ying

When Disneyland first opened, guests had to purchase tickets for the rides and attractions.  Tickets ranged from “A” to “E” with the “E” tickets reserved for the best, most thrilling and amazing rides and attractions.  Well, in true Disney fashion, the current production of The Lion King is definitely an “E” ticket. (more…)

• August Wilson’s 20^th Century:
• Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
• Produced by the Kennedy Center
• Reviewed by Alan Sharpe, Guest Reviewer

Not even last-minute tornado warnings kept excited theater patrons away from the opening of the Kennedy Center’s month long celebration of playwright August Wilson.

Those who braved severe storm alerts and snarled rush hour traffic to attend Gem of the Ocean as staged by series Artistic Director, Kenny Leon, witnessed the opening of an historic occasion - the first ever opportunity to see all ten plays that make up Wilson’s “Twentieth Century Cycle” performed consecutively in chronological order based on the decade in which each play is set., from 1900 through the 1990’s– an unprecedented experience. (more…)

• Happy Days
• by Samuel Beckett
• Directed by Deborah Warner
• Produced by The National Theatre of Great Britain
• Presented at the Terrace Theater of the Kennedy Center
• Reviewed by Rosalind Lacy

When Samuel Beckett’s wife asked him to write a cheerful play, he wrote Happy Days in which a mid-life woman is buried in an earth mound up to her waist in the first act and up to her neck in the second.    For Beckett’s most cheerful exploration of despair now on the Terrace Theater stage, an earthquake of ruptured building materials, cement, rocks and glistening sand fill the stage apron. Relentless white light beats down. Ominous dissonance, a sound track of un-tuned stringed instruments and muffled horns, rattles and percussive ticking come from all directions to usher us in. (more…)

Produced by The Kennedy Center

Reviewed by Gary McMillan

 Michael Arnold (center) as Jacquot with the cast of Carnival!.  (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Carnival! is seldom staged, so I awaited the Kennedy Center’s production with great anticipation, never having seen the show nor heard the full score. When the show debuted on Broadway in 1961, it had a successful run of over seven hundred performances. It received several Tony Award nominations, including best musical and best book, but was passed over for a music (composer) nomination. Hmm. Since the meat of a musical is the music, I wondered if the show would be more sizzle than steak. This made me all the more curious. (more…)

Produced by The Kennedy Center

Reviewed by Rosalind Lacy

            You either love the mother. Or you hate her. But by the end of The Light in the Piazza, you love the mother because she’s transformed into something warmly human. This simple love story is a deep psychological journey about the seasons of love. The characters are complex. It’s Romeo and Juliet or Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story with an ambiguous ending.

            This 2005 Lincoln Center production, directed by Bartlett Sher, won six Tony awards (one for Best Musical) and enjoyed a run of 504 performances on Broadway. Now, the touring company of The Light in the Piazza is playing at the Kennedy Center Opera House until January 7.

            In 1953, an American mother, Margaret Johnson, from Winston Salem, North Carolina, is in the winter stages of a dying marriage. She takes her 26 year old daughter to Florence, the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. As in a Henry James novel, this story explores the clash between Americans and the residents of an old world culture. Except that in this story by Elizabeth Spencer, adapted by script writer Craig Lucas, everyone benefits and grows.

(more…)

 

 Joel takes us backstage to meet the cast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (500)