The Glass Menagerie

There is a special atmosphere created when Helen Hayes winner, Jim Petosa, conducts a production and this Glass Menagerie at Olney Theatre is no exception. Read more

Call of the Wild

Rarely do two acts differ so much in content and quality as in the new musical Call of the Wild at Olney Theatre Center.  After a difficult and challenging first act, the work is redeemed by a terrific second. Read more

King of the Jews

The novel King of the Jews is the story of the heroic Jew Trumpelman, who makes the fatal decision to collaborate with Nazi oppressors in order to save the lives of the other Jews in his community. Read more

Is He Dead?

Is He Dead?
By Mark Twain
Adapted by David Ives
Directed by Halo Wines
Produced by Olney Theatre Center
Reviewed by Steven McKnight

Would Is He Dead? have received a Broadway debut in 2007 if it had not been a long lost work written a century earlier by Mark Twain?  It’s a creaky and formulaic farce at best.  Yet fostered by the capable talents at Olney Theatre Center, Is He Dead? gradually gains enough irresistible comedic momentum to leave the audience smiling. Read more

Peter Pan

Peter Pan: The Musical
Book by J.M. Barrie
Music by: Mark Charlap, additional music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by: Carolyn Leigh, additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Directed by Eve Muson.
Produced by Olney Theatre Center
Reviewed by Gary McMillan

If you can pry junior’s fingers from his Game Boy, he just might enjoy a vacation from Nintendoland via Olney Theatre Center’s holiday excursion to Neverland. Peter Pan is a bit of an old chestnut, to be sure, but its 1950s score still entertains audience members whose first experience of the show likely was half a century ago on a small black & white television set. Olney’s production has the key ingredients to charm children: Read more

The Underpants

 

The Underpants
adapted by Steve Martin from a play by Carl Sternheim
directed by John Going
produced by Olney Theatre Center
reviewed by Rosalind Lacy

Steve Martin, of Saturday Night Live fame, knows how to tell a joke just right. Even bawdy ones, abounding with double entendres, in a German farce that airs out more than dirty laundry. Read more

Rabbit Hole

• Rabbit Hole
• Written by David Lindsay-Abaire
• Directed by Mitchell Hébert
• Produced by Olney Theater
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

In this metro-area premiere, a suburban couple that seems to have all the creature comforts of home shows the frayed edges of trying to cope with a tragic loss.   Read more

Stuff Happens

• Stuff Happens
• by David Hare
• Directed by Jeremy Skidmore
• Produced by Olney Theatre Center
• Reviewed by Ted Ying

Politics is the most exciting game in town.  Or so says my friend, the political lobbyist.  How else can he explain his choice of career, when he has worked in several more lucrative professions?  Olney’s Stuff Happens makes me start to believe him.  Read more

The Mousetrap

• Mousetrap
• Written by Agatha Christie
• Directed by John Going
• Produced at Olney Theatre
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

How does the longest running show in the history of London’s famed West End, one that has been performed on Broadway and throughout America for decades still have enough punch to keep ‘em guessing for yet another run?  Read more

1776

• 1776
• Book by Peter Stone . Music and Lyrics by Sherman Edwards
• Directed and Choreographed by Stephen Nachamie
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

If 1776 was merely a musical, it would not be much of one. Its pleasant score contains not a single memorable song, and the harmonies tend toward the barber-shop variety. Similarly, Olney’s production would be unremarkable. The voices are competent, though a few - Jessica Lauren Ball and the sturdy Rob Richardson as Martha and Thomas Jefferson, for example - are wonderful.  But 1776 isn’t merely a musical. It’s our story, an American history play expressed in the prototypically American art form.  It moves us to joy and sadness Read more

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