I may be excused for presuming that, if you have a theater shelf, it already sports a copy of Steven Suskin’s book. Equal parts reliable reference book and entertainingly written opinionated history, your shelf may have the first edition from 1985 when it instantly became indispensable as the book to check for quick information on […]
Archives for January 2012
NSAL competition for Musical Theater Performer. Cash prize is $4,000.
This year’s National Society of Arts and Letters’ National Career Awards will be presented for Musical Theater. All performers, 18 to 29 years old who do not have a professional manager or agent, are invited to apply.
Acme and UnSaddest team up for Rogue Waves
Last summer, for this column, I took a brief look at Baltimore’s Ten-Minute Play Festival, hosted by the UnSaddestFactory Theatre. The most mind-blowing feature of that weekend of occasionally brilliant controlled chaos was the audience. First, the audience was standing-room only. Many of the chairs were filled with members of Baltimore’s DIY community. [The acronym […]
Faction of Fools seeks costume designer
Faction of Fools, DC’s Commedia dell’Arte theatre company, seeks a Costume Designer for Hamlecchino: Clown Prince of Denmark, running April 26 though May 19 at Gallaudet University.
Theatre Lab seeks Technical Director
The Theatre Lab, Washington’s largest theatre school, seeks part-time Technical Director for summer teen productions of Parade, Urinetown, and Off a Broken Road. Work with professional lighting designer and supervise a team of tech interns in 150-seat theatre space. June 18-Aug 11.
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (revisited)
I caught a matinee of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying this week, and as I watched young Nick Jonas prancing about as J. Pierrepont Finch in the current Broadway revival of the Frank Loesser-Abe Burrows master work, I suddenly had a revelation about the recent and current Broadway scene.
No Rules takes a new look at Peter Pan
Actors playing Peter and Wendy give us their takes on the new play No Rules Theatre Company is getting ready to open the world premiere of Peter Pan: the Boy Who Hated Mothers with John Evans Reese as Peter and Megan Graves as Wendy Darling. John answered a few questions for No Rules – which […]
Jennifer Nelson on directing Necessary Sacrifices
Jennifer L. Nelson is the Director of Special Programming at Ford’s Theatre, and the director of their most recent production, Necessary Sacrifices. This new drama — the fourth commission by playwright Bill Hellesen for Ford’s — examines a series of historic interactions between Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln, who both find themselves at extraordinary moments in their lives and […]
Elephant Room
Think back to that oddball uncle who always showed up at your birthday party with a trick up his sleeve. You remember him. Loud blazer, toothy grin, something not quite right about his hair. But he could pull coins from your ear, guess the card in your hand, and make a dollar bill whole again. […]
Two Gentlemen of Verona (a rock opera)
How do you solve a problem like The Two Gentlemen of Verona? This comedy, often speculated by scholars to be the first of Shakespeare’s plays, is one of his least-beloved (and least performed) works – and not without reason. The language, by Shakespearean standards, is weak. The meandering story offers numerous plot points and themes […]
Albert Nobbs
Glenn Close doesn’t play Albert Nobbs as a woman passing for a man – she plays the character as sexless. The straight-laced member of the waitstaff at Dublin’s Morrison Hotel keeps a tellingly low profile, lips sealed, spine arched, uttering few words, preferring the world to think of him – because Nobbs identifies as male […]
Vpstart Crow’s new season announced, and calls for directors
First look at what lies in store for us in the 2012-2013 season comes from Vpstart Crow Manassas-based Vpstart Crow Productions yesterday announced that its 2012-2013 season would feature four plays with large Washington area followings to be produced in the Hylton Performing Arts Center of George Mason University’s Prince William campus. Although the company has […]