“I walked out of the audition feeling as if I had just had sex with a stranger.” Was this said to me by someone remembering the heyday of the 60s avant-garde; an audition for Dionysus in ’69 at The Performance Group, perhaps? No, I was talking with Hilda Cronje, who is playing the title role […]
Archives for November 2013
Murder for Two
Some seasons ago, the Roundabout Theatre Company brought us a British import of a stage adaptation called The 39 Steps, which used the Alfred Hitchcock film of 1935 as its source. The play made literal use of almost the entire screenplay which was an achievement, for it told a story that took us all over […]
Women of 60 (Mujeres de 60)
In 2007, I nicknamed Argentine Liliana Pécora the Sarah Bernhardt of comic actresses for her acting in Women of 50 in Teatro de la Luna’s 10th International Hispanic Theater Festival. Pécora has come back for the 16th International Hispanic Theater Festival. And I’m happy to report that Pécora in Women of 60 has gotten even […]
Appropriate
Appropriate, Woolly Mammoth’s new dark-as-pitch comedy, delivers a theatrical gut-punch of roiling family drama and erupting emotion set against the backdrop of a crumbling southern mansion. DC-born playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and a surprising cast explore the struggles of the dysfunctional Lafayette family as they wage war over their deceased father’s estate and uncover buried secrets […]
She, After
Few operas require the soprano to sing in between bites of baked goods. Contemporary opera often goes one of two ways: avant-garde and over our heads, or separate from the grand and often inaccessible genre of opera. She, After, Daniel Felsenfeld’s exploration of women in metaphorical cages, doesn’t reject its genre entirely, but it also […]
Quotidian Theatre has cast its season
With their critically acclaimed mounting of The Iceman Cometh ending its run in barely 2 weeks, Quotidian Theatre Company announced the casts for the two remaining productions this season. Christopher Henley, fresh off his successful performance as the oleaginous Cardinal Pandulph in WSC Avant Bard’s King John, will play the title role in Quotidian’s upcoming […]
I Am My Own Wife
Michael Stebbins stands on stage in black — a shapeless dress, stockings, and orthopedic laced shoes, with a square headscarf hiding his hair. It could almost be a wimple and he a nun teaching at a parochial school but for the pearls. But no, he is bringing to life the character of Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf, […]
Bondage
The man in the pig mask looks over the reservations for your name. He is having difficulties, and is not helped by the fact that he is in handcuffs. “Look harder,” says his mistress, who is wearing a lusty bustier. “Harder.” She smacks him with her riding crop: whappo. “Thank you, mistress,” he says.
Lee Roy Reams at 54 Below
54 Below is the smart cabaret just underneath Theatre 54 in New York. It features the best of the Broadway performers who show up regularly between engagements on the legit stage, and its lineup has included Chita Rivera (she’s doing two shows on New Year’s Eve), Betty Buckley, Patty LuPone, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Brian d’Arcy […]
Barbara Cook’s Spotlight: An Evening with Lucie Arnaz
There’s something to be said about being able to put on a show that seems fresh and unexpected even after one has been in show business for nearly 50 years. Indeed, Lucie Arnaz’s cabaret performance at the Kennedy Center had the mark of someone who clearly has honed her craft throughout the years and finds […]
All-star Company with NY Philharmonic on PBS
And in the 1970th year anno dominum, God created the concept musical. Only in this particular case, “God” would be Stephen Sondheim. Ask any musical theatre nerd, though, and they’ll probably respond, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Touching a nerve; Dael Orlandersmith’s Black ‘n Blue Boys/Broken Men
Dael Orlandersmith will be bringing her provocative work Black ‘n Blue Boys/Broken Men to Reston’s CenterStage for its DC area premiere. It is for one performance only, on Friday, November 22, 2013. It is an intense one-actor work that aims to disrupt a silence about male victims-survivors of abuse; including their unexpected adult aggressors.