At first glance, members of the East Piney Grove Baptist Church choir from Sanctified seem to be the ones in need of spiritual uplift. The youngest, a college-aged brother and sister, slouch in their chairs and pick fights with each other. One of the matrons disrupts the rehearsal with biting, yet hilarious complaints, and the […]
Archives for October 2010
Finding the funny in a Commedia class
It was mid-October, the air was crisp, the leaves were changing and the people in Sidney Harman Hall were metamorphosing. I was an observer in Matthew Wilson’s Master Class for actors, and the long sequence of “exercises to warm up the neck” was a dead giveaway: this workshop was going to be as physical as […]
Richard III
Loaded with action and intrigue and bursting at the seams with an uncommonly large cast of characters, William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Richard III inspires controversy and discussion whenever and wherever it’s staged. And the Washington Shakespeare Company’s new production of the drama is no exception.
WAMU airs DC theatre company’s Macbeth on Halloween
Halloween is the perfect night for a ghost story, and on October 31st from 6pm – 7pm, WAMU-88.5 will air Lean & Hungry Theater’s radio drama of Shakespeare’s tale of suspense, murder and tragedy, MacBeth. The show will be heard on its main broadcast frequency (88.5 MHz) and will be streamed on the WAMU.org web […]
A Fox on the Fairway
“Caddyshack” is a great, big, loveable dumb movie, but fans would be hard-pressed to call it one of the more astute studies ever assembled on the art of golf. After witnessing the angry and belligerent mess made by A Fox on the Fairway, however, that movie seems positively penetrating. Ken Ludwig’s new comedy – ostensibly […]
The Odd Couple
The years, and an intervening, long-running TV show, have fuzzed our memories of what Neil Simon’s great comedy was about, but Theater J’s fine production will set us straight. Oscar Madison (Rich Foucheux) and Felix Ungar (J. Fred Shiffman) are not stock comic characters, cranky and neurotic in turn, but unhappy men with deep emotional […]
The Pirates of Penzance
The Washington Savoyards opened their swashbucklingly funny take on Gilbert & Sullivan’s classic Pirates of Penzance last weekend at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Perhaps a bit overshadowed by the big things going on at Arena Stage’s new Mead Center’s gala opening events—also last weekend—the Savoyards’ sprightly reprise of their 2008 hit production was a […]
Dracula
Maryland Ensemble Theatre trumpets its production of Dracula, by the estimable Stephen Dietz (Lonely Planet, Still Life with Iris, a bunch of other stuff), as being “rich with both humor and horror.” It is not. It is instead a bland retelling of the original Stoker story, slenderized and with scenes reshuffled, and with some funny […]
The Lost Ones
It’s not uncommon to feel some instinctive concern for an actor’s health and safety, whether they’re brandishing swords or simply stepping too close to the edge of the stage. But The Lost Ones may be the first show in which I’ve feared that the characters are going to be stepped on and crushed.
Holiday
Hard-working corporate lawyer Johnny Case wants to use an eminent business score to “retire early and work late” so he can experience life. This plan is a surprise to his heiress fiancée, a delight to her rebellious sister, and an anathema to her wealthy banker father. Such is the plot behind Philip Barry’s Holiday, a […]
Locomotion
I’ll admit I wondered if a stage adaptation of “Locomotion” could capture the powerful voice in Jacqueline Woodson’s award-winning novel in verse. Well, it can. And it does. The show is a superior work in its own right, and an excellent addition to the fall line up at The Kennedy Center’s Family Theater.
Broadway Musicals by Peter Filichia
Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit & The Biggest Flop Of The Season – 1959 to 2009 If you can identify the three photos on the left side of the cover as being from Camelot, Cats and Hairspray, you will enjoy this book. If you can identify the three photos on the right side of the […]