What I love most about this city, and what I don’t see much anywhere else, is a love for tapping into the extraordinary. So much of the work I see in DC is so true, with a spine intact and feet firmly on the ground. I forget that I’m watching actors perform. I get transported. […]
Archives for April 18, 2012
Alexander Strain and Mark Hairston of The Whipping Man
Fridays, the Jewish Community Center on 16th Street NW is mostly quiet and dark in observation of Shabbat. But still, deep in the belly of the JCC, a theatrical rumbling is building its steam. The Whipping Man is this Spring’s theatrical offering from Theater J. A small cast of rugged and well read gentlemen share […]
New Opera duo: Booze and Cigarettes
Contemporary opera is supposed to be a rare and endangered species. Robert Wood, Artistic Director of UrbanArias, says otherwise and believes fervently that it’s a cause worth pursuing. His second season is proving that opera properly seeded and nurtured can thrive. His recipe for his developing company is “Opera. Short. New.”
Eve Muson on directing Lynn Nottage’s Las Meninas
How director/professor Eve Muson took a Nottage play from a college production to the professional stage I remember, somewhere at the tail end of the Regional II version of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in 2010, being led into the Towson University Theatre Center one more time. I’d already seen more plays in […]
Puppet Underground Cabarette this Saturday
Puppet Underground, the DC collective of politically minded puppeteers, is hosting NYC puppeteer Erin Bell this weekend at La Casa. They call it “Puppet Underground Cabarette”, described as (smaller, shorter, and better than ever!) and it comes with a warning: “This cabarette has puppet nudity and sex and may not be appropriate for children.”