It’s a bold move for a new theater company to tackle a well known Shakespearean work in their first outing; it’s another thing entirely to take on a show that is the very definition of bad luck in theater circles. Impossible Theater Company has done just that, overcoming the curse of “The Scottish Play” and […]
Archives for August 2011
A personal tribute to poet and lyricist Fran Landesman (1927 – 2011)
Lyricist Fran Landesman started with “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” and the Broadway musical The Nervous Set. Then turned her life into songs. Here’s how our lives intersected. “What was it like working with Steve Allen?” I asked. The woman sitting across from me was used to interviews; the press had been […]
First look at the DC area 2011-12 theatre season
If you hit the link at the bottom of this article, you will reach a machine designed to tell you how much fun you’ll have next season. For maximum effect, sort by date, and imagine yourself seeing shows through the year.
Studio Theatre’s garage sale this Saturday
Why settle for stools from Ikea, when you can have Ikea-like stools that Jennifer Mendenhall and others used in Circle Mirror Transformation? Or wouldn’t that red couch Tom Story is presently curling up in as Andy Warhol be the perfect spot for you and your iPad2?
The Wizard of Oz
Only the creative minds of folks from The Puppet Co could find a zany way to give the Wizard of Oz story a fresh new spin while encouraging imagination and make believe. In their usual fashion, the company members took the time to deconstruct the scenes to relay the message with a contemporary flair while […]
Season at a Glance: 2011/12
The DCTS Interactive Guide to the Washington DC Area Theatre Season
War Horse
This import from the National Theatre in London, at the Beaumont Theatre in LincolnCenter, is more an experience than a play, and as such it’s a hum-dinger. As a play it is less than that, for stripped of its trappings, which are tremendous, it’s more or less “Lassie Come Home” minus dog, plus horse. I […]
Strike Up the Band
Once again, PS Classics comes to the rescue of aficionados who have a few blank spaces in the Gershwin section of our theatre shelves.
Grease
Grease is one of those Broadway musicals that’s been grown, shrunk, and re-shaped over time so that each version you see can be rather different from the last. The Olney Theatre’s sprightly but not completely satisfying take on the show resembles more recent Broadway and London iterations, circa 2007, with perhaps a snip or two.
Little Shop of Horrors
Tell me if this sounds familiar. There’s this thing in the middle of the room, and it’s growing. In fact, it’s consuming everything in sight. First it’s the size of a beaver, then of a Doberman Pinscher, and finally the size of a Volkswagen. And there’s this nervous, nerdy, nebbishy little guy who keeps feeding […]
Taffety Punk’s free bootleg of King John is tonight
Today, Taffety Punk continues its annual tradition of bootleg performances when the company plus friends gather for the one and only rehearsal of tonight’s single performance of William Shakespeare’s King John. As Folger’s box office opens at noon to distribute the night’s free tickets, the cast members, their lines memorized, director, choreographer and designers will […]