When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote The Magic Flute as a fairy tale fantasy he was seeking broad popular appeal. Washington National Opera has followed suit with this production, including programming a free simulcast at Nationals Park as part of their series – Opera in the Outfield.
Archives for May 2014
Rainbow Theatre stages free concert version of Yank! the musical tonight
Yank!, the musical by brothers Joseph and David Zellnik which Richard Seff predicted would have a long life after its NY debut in 2010, has finally made it to DC thanks to The Rainbow Theatre Project.
Annapurna
Annapurna is a mountain that rises some 26,000 feet in the northern part of Nepal. It was once climbed by two men who just made it to the peak, only to make one fatal mistake on their way down. One of the men dropped his glove, and watched it fall just before storms arrived, forcing […]
Signature’s Threepenny Opera a bit too shiny
There’s a certain irony in producing The Threepenny Opera in shining Shirlington. Signature has chosen to present one of the great polemics against human degradation in a community fastidiously designed to minimize it’s residents exposure to the underclass. This presents a golden artistic and social opportunity for the talented team Signature has gathered under the […]
Playwrights and directors join Peter Marks in The Summit: declining audiences – whose responsibility?
Now that the three-part Summit series at Arena Stage has concluded, the agenda is clear: this has been an investigation into the unbalanced social and financial economy of the American theatre, both broadly and as it functions here in D.C. specifically. The series moderator, Washington Post critic Peter Marks, started these “In-Depth Explorations of D.C. […]
Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina
Harvey Fierstein has recently joined Thomas Meehan and James Lapine on the A list of writers whom the establishment calls upon to crank out a book for a new musical, replacing Terrence McNally and Arthur Laurents who immediately preceded them in that position.
Kevin Spacey documentary about touring Richard III releases today
“No matter how successful you get, always send the elevator back down.” This famous Jack Lemon quote is a favorite of actor Kevin Spacey and one of the reasons behind the new film, NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage, which follows 20 American and British actors on a 10-month international tour of Richard […]
Tom Story on directing Moth
Veteran D.C. actor Tom Story describes Moth, a tale of high school bullying and its violent repercussions closing this weekend at Studio Theatre’s 2ndStage, as the kind of play he would have loved to have done when he was in his early twenties. Now somewhere in his “later thirties,” Story has turned to directing for […]
In memory of Jerry Manning who has left his mark on theatre in DC and Seattle
Jerry Manning, Artistic Director of Seattle Repertory Theatre, died on Wednesday night, shocking friends and colleagues on both coasts. Manning, during his time at Arena Stage in the late 1980s and into the mid 1990s, was a well-known, well-liked, and well-respected member of the DC theatre scene, who played a pivotal role at an important […]
Andy Karl comes up a winner in Rocky
For those of you who remember, and cherish, the original Rocky film that made an instant star of Sylvester “Sly” Stallone, here’s what you have to know. Thomas Meehan, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, who adapted the movie to the musical stage, have kept all the key points of the story, and much of the […]
The final Chimes at Midnight by Stacy Keach
In this final installment of Stacy Keach’s blog, he talks about working with Michael Kahn as a younger actor, and shares some favorite Washington theatre memories. – DL