As the new season opens, there will be one fewer critic looking on. Bob Anthony, who wrote through his Web site AllArtsReview4, passed away from respiratory failure on Saturday, August 20, 2011 after a three-week stay at George Washington University Hospital. According to Joel Markowitz, who interviewed Bob’s family last night and has produced a comprehensive […]
Archives for August 2011
Encore Encore: A Fest of Fringe this weekend
Let’s Fringe again, like we did this summer. After wildly successful runs at this summer’s Capital Fringe Festival, Flyboy, But Love Is My Middle Name, The Bird, and Cabaret XXX; Les Femmes Fatales are returning for Encore Performances at the Warehouse Theater.
Voting now open for DC Theatre Scene’s Audience Choice Awards
Voting opened this morning for the fifth annual DCTS Audience Choice Awards in which the staff of DC Theatre Scene nominate the best productions and performances from the previous season, and the audience is invited to vote for their favorites. “We are very proud of the work appearing on our stages.” Lorraine Treanor, editor of […]
The 2011 DCTS Audience Choice Awards
Thanks to all the theatremakers – playwrights, composers, producers, designers, and performers, whose work has been enjoyed on Washington area stages this year. Thanks to each theatre’s staff who make our visits such a pleasure. Thanks to all those who write about our burgeoning scene. Thanks to the donors and volunteers whose generosity makes this […]
Think theater’s not affordable? AET commits to $10 tickets
This year, American Ensemble Theater is continuing its policy of $10 tickets. How, we asked Martin Blank, AET’s Artistic Director, can any company do that? And why? With recession jitters and a volatile stock market, now may not be the ideal time to delve into low-cost theater and theater tickets. Then again it might. Every theater’s business […]
The best plays I saw this season
A musical is an odd beast, and one which does not occur in nature. When was the last time that you, while crowding into the Metro, or pouring coffee for your sweetie, or advising on the debt ceiling, broke into song? Me neither. But it happens all the time in musicals, and at the most […]
Un Saddest’s underground Ten Minute Play Festival
DCTS welcomes Baltimore columnist John Barry In the dark, sweaty, jam-packed basement of the Bell Foundry Building – located in a neighborhood off Baltimore’s Penn Station – Un Saddest Factory Ten Minute Play Festival organizer Lola Pierson has a few things to tell her audience. If you can’t stand the play after two minutes, she says, — […]
WSC Avant Bard turns the Henry plays inside out
The newly re-named company announces casting for its Falstaff-centric comedy We all know this story…the one about Happy Hal, the Prince Who Stayed out Late. The heir to the English throne who drank, wenched, gambled and cavorted with cowards, petty thieves and whoremongers while the great monarch Henry IV fretted – and then who, miraculously, […]
Looking back on the Hispanic theatre season
The rap on the wrap-up of the 2010/2011 Hispanic Theatre season in Washington D.C. is that as far as audiences are concerned, GALA Hispanic Theatre and Teatro de la Luna must be doing something right. In spite of funding cuts, the two Spanish-speaking theater groups have enjoyed strong box office support, garnered positive to enviable […]
Let your voice be heard – register now to vote for the Audience Choice Awards
The press has spoken . The judges have spoken. Now it’s your turn. Since 2007, DC Theatre Scene has been asking its writers to name the best productions and performances of the theatrical season just ended. We then turn it over to you, our readers, to show your appreciation for all the work done by […]
Something’s Coming, Something Good: West Side Story and the American Imagination
West Coast author Misha Berson got it right when she observed that West Side Story’s place in world-wide popular culture exceeds that of a mere musical. As she says: “In Japan and South Africa, Cairo and Kalamazoo, people who have no truck with any other Broadway musicals can sing a few bars of ‘The Jet Song’ […]
Something Past in Front of the Light
Something Past in Front of the Light is “The Exorcist” for grownups. Playwright Kathleen Akerley’s genius script recognizes, as “The Exorcist” did not, that Satan (Alexander Strain), or “Stan” as he is familiarly called here, does not torment the innocent. To win Satan’s special attention you must invite him, as you must invite Dracula, into your […]