Donny and Marie would not approve. But South Park lovers and fans of filth will no doubt herniate themselves chortling at The Book of Mormon, the shibboleth-shattering Tony and multi-award-winning musical about the Mormon faith and the chowder-headed attempts of missionaries to sell religion to third-world villagers.
Archives for February 2014
Back to Methuselah, Part 1
With Washington Stage Guild’s gusty production of Back to Methuselah, less is more, and, also, more is more. Less is more: The set is appealingly minimal, the blocking clear and simple, the plot both minimal and simple. All the better to leave plenty of room for more ideas and personalities. More is more: Every time […]
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company announces Season 35
It’s the start of the big reveals – that time of year when theatre companies in our area start laying their cards on the table. So far in next season announcements, we’ve seen news from Shakespeare Theatre and Arena Stage. Next comes Woolly Mammoth, with their theme “Let Them Eat Cake!, a season of revolutionary […]
Lee Mikeska Gardner’s unpacked her bags in Boston. What she’s brought from DC
Around WSC Avant Bard, where she was Managing Director for several years and directed a number of productions, Lee Mikeska Gardner is known simply as LMG. Among her legacies is what has come to be called, even by new actors at the company who have never met her, the “LMG Exercise.”
Three Plays with DC connections are among six Steinberg finalists
Three plays with connections to the Washington, DC theater scene are among the six finalists for the $25,000 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, which goes annually to the best new play produced by regional theater, the American Theatre Critics Association announced last night.
Arena Stage announces its 65th season
Yesterday, Molly Smith, Artistic Director of Arena Stage revealed that the company’s plans for season 2014/15 will include 5 world premieres, 2 musicals, 3 comedies and a 25-writer commission for the National Civil War Project.
Pluto
When something terrible happens, we go to another planet. Time warps and stops. Pain presses against the glass, begging, demanding to be let in. In Steve Yockey’s lovely, unsettling play, the planet is Pluto—a planet lonely, dark and cold—and recently demoted to dwarf star status.
The Cole Porter Project: It’s All Right With Me
There are few things more charming, more chic, more certain to please than a Cole Porter song. These time-tested pleasures, as tuneful as they are clever, do not tend to disappoint. As such, I entered the opening night of the In Series’ new Cole Porter Project: It’s All Right with Me with the high hopes. […]
Moby-Dick
Massive. Emotionally wrenching. Magnificent. On Saturday night, at the east coast premiere of Moby-Dick, the Washington National Opera audience sighted the breaching of a great American opera.
An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin
In my other reviews, I’ve made mention of cabaret as a fascinating opportunity with a name artist. Tonight, it’s just artist and audience, me as me, you as you, and we will share something directly, it seems to promise. There is a sense of palpable excitement at the opportunity of receiving this vulnerability before the […]
Intersections Festival, celebrating five years at Atlas, opens Feb 21st
Celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, the Atlas Intersections Festival will bring together hundreds of D.C.-based performers and thousands of theater fans over three weekends to join together in exploring beyond what’s on the stage.
WSC Avant Bard ushers in Ruhl’s gender bending Orlando
It’s safe to say that Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending classic novel “Orlando: A Biography” was ahead of its time when originally published in 1928, telling the story of a young 17th-century Elizabethan man who goes to bed one night as a duke only to find himself transformed into a duchess the next morning. Legend has it […]