Listen in on Mike Daisey’s New Years Eve monologue
January 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
“Let’s face it”, he says, “we are all living in a play that isn’t working.” - Mike Daisey
Monologist Mike Daisey, considered one of the finest storytellers in America, has a ready home on Woolly Mammoth’s stage and when he comes to town with pieces such as The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Last Cargo Cult, and How Theater Failed America, tickets sell fast. New Years Eve 2011 Mike performed When the Clock Strikes for Boston’s First Night before a sold out audience, and has given us permission to share the live recording with you. [Read more...]
Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies
December 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Those who think of Chicago-based improv troupe The Second City as nothing but overpriced comedy workshops and “Saturday Night Live” auditions will be in for a strange awakening when they walk into Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies. [Read more...]
Howard Shalwitz on growing up the Woolly way
November 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Turning 30. A time to look back, take stock, grow up.
Or reinvent a theater.
When Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company hit the big 3-0 two years ago, artistic director Howard Shalwitz viewed the occasion as not just a reason to party and bust a move, but to bust out of the box. [Read more...]
A Bright New Boise
October 17, 2011 By 2 Comments
Giddy-up Armageddon! could be the rallying cry for evangelical misfit Will (Michael Russotto), the sad-sack hero of Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise, a divinely inspired heartland comedy directed by John Vreeke. [Read more...]
Mike Daisey urges a deeper look at the legacy of Steve Jobs
October 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In the end, Steve Jobs failed to “think different,” in the deepest way
In his brilliant monologue, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, seen here at Woolly Mammoth last March, Mike Daisey laid out both his obsession with Steve Jobs and Apple’s technology, and the shocking truths he discovered in a visit to the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said ”I will never be the same after seeing that show.”
Constellation’s Ramayana becomes the next summer rerun to sell out
August 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
August is the hottest month for ticket sales too.
DC audiences are showing they like seeing their favorite shows the second time around. Yesterday morning, Constellation Theatre had only 30 seats left for its return run of The Ramayana at Source. They’re gone now, guaranteeing busy nights for the 14th Street venue through August 21st.
Woolly Mammoth, too, took a chance in bringing back its critically acclaimed Clybourne Park for a post-Fringe four week run. It sold out more than a week ago.
There are still tickets available to see the rerun of Scena Theatre’s gender bending The Importance of Being Earnest, which has earned an extension at H Street Playhouse through August 21st. Washington does love seeing a man in a dress and a woman in a tux, and the cast of Earnest doesn’t disappoint. Scena could also win an award for most innovative pricing structure. With a top ticket of $40, it’s $20 for staff of nonprofits (with a business card to prove it), $16 for students, $18 if you’re under 30 or, if it’s Thursday and you’re under 30, they throw in a free drink.
And, of course, in what could have been the biggest role of the dice of all time, the return of last October’s Oklahoma! to Arena Stage is drawing huge crowds to the new Mead Center for the Performing Arts. Jane Horowitz, in Wednesday’s Backstage column for the Washington Post reported: “Theater staffers say they’ve sold 35,000 tickets for the reprise run, with most performances selling at “near capacity.” Though they don’t release financial figures for individual shows, a spokesperson for the company says the revival will probably outpace the original fall production and become the best-selling show in Arena’s history.” The blockbuster musical, which opened July 8th, closes October 2nd. Tickets are still available.
Clybourne Park
July 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Bruce Norris won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this astonishing play not simply because of what he wrote, but for what he permits his actors to do. Most plays show characters uttering hard truths. Clybourne Park, full of outrageous wit and heartbreaking tragedy, shows characters lying, obfuscating, tap-dancing and changing the subject on the hardest subjects in America: race, racism, tribalism, cowardice and lack of compassion. When the truth finally explodes from them, it’s like one of Ridley Scott’s aliens bursting out of a human body: there is horror, disgust, and blood on the floor. [Read more...]
Bootycandy
June 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Talk about destiny. Tell your kid his penis is called “bootycandy” and you are not setting him up for a career as, say, a civil engineer. Something a tad more dramatic and outlandish is perhaps in store for the lad. [Read more...]
Clybourne Park wins Pulitzer
April 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
April 18, 2011 – Clybourne Park, a play by Bruce Norris, produced at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in 2010, was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama today. The jury’s citation praised the play as “a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America’s sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness.” [Read more...]
