Fringe is a melting pot for people of all backgrounds. At the moment I’m getting to know a less common pairing: a classical poet and an actor skilled in long-form recitation.
Archives for July 2013
Joe Orton’s Loot at Westport Country Playhouse
If you’ve been contemplating a summer visit to lower New England for some swell weather, beautiful rain nourished greenery and even good theatre, you might consider an afternoon or evening at the fabled Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Connecticut. This completely refurbished old barn has been offering new plays and splendid revivals, often with the […]
Slings and Arrows Season 1:05 A Mirror Up to Nature
“There is one thing…I just happen to believe this play is the single greatest achievement in Western art. We’ve got that going for us.” – Geoffrey
Underneath the Lintel
Even though Underneath the Lintel has been attracting crowds and winning awards on the Fringe circuit (voted Best Solo Show, 2011 Minnesota Fringe Festival; voted Best Solo Show, 2012 London Fringe Festival; chosen as Best of the Fest, 2013 Orlando Fringe Festival), it doesn’t feel like it belongs in a festival. The script by Glen […]
Tweet for Signature tickets closes this Saturday night
It’s not too late to enter our contest for the wittiest Tweet to win 2 tickets to any performance of Miss Saigon at Signature Theatre! All you have to do is Tweet @DCTheatre_Scene with a reaction to your favorite Fringe show. We’ve gotten some great reviews so far, but this contest is open until Saturday […]
What It’s Like? One Veteran’s Tale of Addiction, Survival & PTSD
I glanced up from my watch on my way to the Goethe Institut and saw a group of people in the dim streetlight in front of the door. They stood at odd angles to one another, each in their own posture. If they were conversing, it was quiet and private, no touristyammering or drunkblathering.
Salomé
Oscar Wilde renounced convention with his tales of decadence and beautiful corruption—preferring the treacherous beauty of the poisoned apple to Victorian moralism. In their production of his tragedy, Salomé, Scena Theater spins the Janus coin of great beauty to show its counterpoint in sickness and corruption. Their impeccable production of Salomé reaches through the fabric […]
The Third Breast
As The Third Breast opens, the cast sings, accompanied by acoustic guitars, tambourines, and a flute, as if around a mid-summer bonfire, and they invite the audience into the fold of their valley “commune” through the offer of libations. It seems as if one is walking into a 1969 love-fest, yet the audience leaves feeling […]
Go-Go dolphins, vocables and gender transformation: a look in on the rehearsal of The T Party
I’m in a rehearsal room a few weeks ago. I’ve just seen a sequence about same-sex activity among dolphins. The sequence is extremely informative. Statistics and other data are footnoted. After running through it once, the deviser-director of the piece gives the cast a few reactions to what she has just seen and tells them […]
Tent Talk: Writer and Performer Sam Simon
I find Sam Simon at the Baldacchino Tent in the afternoon, sitting with his director Jessie Roberts and enjoying a few moments of calm before showtime. After our interview he’s headed around the corner to perform The Actual Dance, a solo show chronicling his wife Susan’s battle with Stage 3 breast cancer beginning with her […]
Lysistrata 1969
The Rude Mechanicals make a lot of bold choices in their adaptation of the classic Lysistrata. They have chosen to set Aristophanes’s sex-laden comedy in 1969, a time rife with anti-war sentiments, sexual exploration, and rebellion against authority. They have chosen to mostly maintain the antiquated syntax of the text, including lines said in unison, […]
Four Women
“What do they call me?” Nina Simone asked. “What should they call me?” asks Wild Women Theatre in Four Women, their multidisciplinary exploration of black identity and womanhood showing at Studio Theatre.