It wasn’t Alice or the White Rabbit or The Mad Hatter that made everyone go ‘gaga’ the night I saw the new musical Wonderland on Broadway- it was a tail-swinging, tail-playing Jose Llana wearing a ‘purrfectly’ outrageous kitty outfit – that drew the loudest laughter and applause from the appreciative audience.
Archives for April 2011
Joel hits the Helen Hayes Awards’ Red Carpet
Welcome to the Red Carpet at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards ceremony. Here’s what happened on Monday, April 25, 2011 from 6:15-7:45 PM outside of the Warner Theatre!
Sam Ludwig, Florrie Bagel and Parker Drown in Speech & Debate
I hear that Florrie Bagel, Parker Drown and Sam Ludwig are wowing audiences and critics with their powerful performances in Speech & Debate at Rep Stage. This is a change of pace for these three sensational singers, giving them a unique opportunity to display their excellent acting skills in leading roles. Here they talk about […]
The Real Inspector Hound
Ever had the hankering to stop being a seat warmer and jump up onstage to join the action? Careening out of your comfort zone and inadvertently breaking the fourth wall are two of the themes in Tom Stoppard’s affable send-up of pat murder mysteries and theater critic pretensions, The Real Inspector Hound.
Jahi Kearse, from MetroStage to Broadway debut in Baby It’s You!
Jahi Kearse is a hoofer, a singer, a musician, a powerful actor, and a songwriter who critics and DC area theatregoers have enthusiastically embraced his performances in MetroStage’s Cool Papa’s Party, Round House Theatre’s Pippin, and The Studio Theatre’s Slam!, Top Dog/Underdog, Passing Strange, and Slam!
At the Helen Hayes Awards, a night of ties
Four companies share top production awards: Candide and Oklahoma! take top Musical Awards; Clybourne Park and Hamlet tie for Drama Candide, the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s first venture into musical theater (co-produced with the Goodman Theatre), and Oklahoma!, the first play to be staged at Arena’s new Mead Center for the Performing Arts, shared top honors […]
At This Theatre
Theatre lovers who are lucky enough to get to the Broadway theatre district in New York, either while in town on a trip or simply by hopping on a subway from home, know that one thing you usually check in the Playbill when you take your seat is the feature “At This Theatre.” There you […]
Contemporary American Theater Festival to Feature Plays by Mamet, Shepard
This coming July, the five-play Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) at Shepherd University in bucolic Shepherdstown, West Virginia will feature plays from two of America’s most well-known playwrights as well as two world premieres and a play by a newly-minted performer-turned-playwright. The festival will run from July 8 to July 31st.
Being the audience – life experienced all together
A meditation on what it means to be an audience member A while back, at the opening of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Arena Stage, there was a reference, by George, Martha’s history professor husband, to something going back to the Punic Wars. It was a caustic, satiric, reference, as I remember, […]
Shiffman ends stage career to become a theatrical agent
J. Fred Shiffman, whose droll theatrical wit informed a fantastically versatile talent for over three decades, will end his storied stage career and become a full-time agent for Capital Talent Agency on May 5, the agency has announced.
New Federal budget will hurt small theaters in DC, City Paper says
The compromise budget which kept the Federal Government operating this year will have a “devastating” effect on small arts organizations, including small theaters, according to the Washington City Paper.
Numancia
The Teatro de Parla Youth Company of Spain delivers a powerful blast from the past. On the backs of black t-shirts worn by three actors, white print spells out: GUERRA (war), ENFERMEDAD (disease), and HAMBRE (famine). The characters stand upstage on a platform littered with bodies. These villains represent the rewards of war.