When he was 12, Doug Carpenter attended his first-ever professional show at the National Theatre, watching awestruck over the powerful music and story of Rent. Now, almost two decades later, the actor is making his National debut in the touring production of Dirty Dancing – The Classic Story On Stage.
Archives for August 2014
I Am My Own Wife
I expected Doug Wright’s play I Am My Own Wife to be a different kind of Anne Frank story, one in which the heroine survives by hiding in plain sight. Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, the play’s historical center, was a German transvestite who lived in east Berlin from the 1930s through the 1980s, a time when […]
She Kills Monsters
“D&D is not therapy.” That’s what Tilly, a charismatic tomboy played by Rebecca Hausman, tells her older sister Agnes in the hilarious and fluid Rorschach production of She Kills Monsters. To this sage advice, the comically skeptic Agnes, played by Maggie Erwin, gives a look like “No Shit” as she exchanges sword blade blows with […]
theatreWashington’s Summer Hummer 2014 – making things hot for a cool cause
People do crazy things for charity. If you haven’t been living under a social media blackout, you’ve probably seen people dumping buckets of ice water on their heads for a charity fighting ALS. theatreWashington’s Summer Hummer does essentially the opposite thing for their charity Taking Care of Our Own: instead of cooling their donors down […]
An appreciation of theatre critic Brad Hathaway on his retirement
It is 2004. As the lights dim in the auditorium, a tall, powerfully-built man of late middle years slips unobtrusively into a seat in a back row. He is a critic. The week previous, he had reviewed shows at Signature, Arena Stage, and the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Now he is watching a community theater perform […]
Sunday in the Park with George
Stephen Sondheim’s incandescent 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George inspires like a great work of art. You never tire of looking at it and you see new things, feel new things every time you take it in.
Broadway Week 2 for 1 tix on sale now
Traveling to to New York City for Broadway shows? Consider taking advantage of “Broadway Week” which has 2-for-1 ticket offers for Sept. 1-14, 2014 and tickets go on sale at 10:30am today.
Geeks do theatre: creating She Kills Monsters at Rorschach
“At the core, this is about not just entering into someone else’s life, but entering into someone else’s fun.” So says fight choreographer Casey Kaleba, who, along with director Randy Baker and the whole Rorschach Theatre team producing She Kills Monsters, have certainly been entering into the fun together. This play is the second the […]
Free for All Winter’s Tale. How to get tickets
In 1991, Shakespeare Theatre Company presented The Merry Wives of Windsor as its first ever Free For All production, allowing all audience members to get a taste of Shakespeare at no cost. The tradition has continued ever since with more than half a million theatergoers checking out one of the Bard’s tales.
When on H Street, try these 4 eateries
As the centerpiece of H Street NE, Atlas Performing Arts Center has seen the neighborhood transition from blight to bee’s knees in the span of a decade. A movie theater fallen into disrepair, the space was purchased in 2001 by the Atlas Performing Arts Center and repurposed as a multiple venue arts center. Once flicked […]
TheatreLand – UK backstage series with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart
Theatreland, a DVD compilation of an eight-part series from British TV that documents a pair of high-profile London theatre productions, has something for everyone. Almost. Sure, it’s a theatre geek’s dream, as it allows behind-the-scenes access to the process of rehearsing and producing theatre. The soup-to-nuts tapestry examines all of the activities — onstage, offstage, […]
First look at Sunday in the Park with George
Signature Theatre begins its 25th anniversary season with the Pulitzer Prize winning Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, directed by Matthew Gardiner. Now in previews, the musical officially opens this weekend. Photo Gallery: More photos on Playbill.com Tickets on sale now