The reflective moments after a funeral open and close August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, the opening production of No Rules Theatre Co.’s 2014-15 season. And that’s wholly appropriate, as the play is an extended memory lesson, bursting with all the tragic lyricism one expects of the man who chronicled the drama of the African-American experience in […]
Archives for September 2014
Venus and Adonis by Isango Ensemble
A very different show than Isango Ensemble’s companion piece, Magic Flute, Venus and Adonis is more somber, less accessible, and is more of an acquired taste. While Flute is deliriously fun for all ages, Venus and Adonis is definitely slanted to a more sedate crowd ready to hunker down and deal with the vagaries of […]
The Magic Flute by Isango Ensemble
Who knew that Mozart’s Magic Flute could bounce and sway with an African beat? It does, big time in the masterful production by the visiting artistry of the Isango Ensemble from Cape Town, South Africa. And I mean visiting as in short run of only several performances remaining before they pack up for the rest […]
The Fatal Weakness
There was for a time, in what we call the golden age of Broadway, a genre known as “the drawing room comedy”. A select few of the major playwrights of the day wrote them, dressed them up in sets often designed by Donald Oenslager or Jo Mielziner. These rooms were so opulent they could only […]
Going to Studio or Theater J? Try these dining spots
Between DuPont and Logan Circles lies a land fertile with fun and food. This small stretch of city block comprises a full helping of the D.C. good life, attracting everyone from the morning brunch crowd to evening revelers. Courtesy of two performing arts centers, the area stays culturally infused as well with the Jewish focused […]
Fatal Song: The Great Opera Murders from In Series
Between consumption, poison, madness, exposure, stabbing, and suffocation, the divas of classic opera never really had much of a chance. Carmen, Mimi, Desdemona, and others finally get the chance to vent about their unfortunate ends through The In Series’ gleeful production of Fatal Song, a melodious sendup of the raw deals handed to opera divas […]
Cancun at GALA
Cancún is a richly-layered comedy, a brilliantly-written four hander, by Jordi Galcerán, Europe’s hottest playwright at the moment, from Catalonia, Spain. Two couples from Spain celebrate 25 years of close friendship on the Fourth of July by vacationing in Cancún, Mexico. On a richly detailed set, replete with real, granulated, white sand that puts us […]
Memphis stars open up about race, love and friendship
It had been more than three years since Greg Twomey last took to a stage—a much acclaimed performance as Xanadu’s Sonny in Toby’s Dinner Theatre, Baltimore location—so the actor admits, he was somewhat off his game when he was cast as Huey in Toby’s current production of Memphis, playing at Toby’s Columbia location.
Bay Theatre’s reading ends with real wedding
On Monday night, September 8th, Bay Theatre’s reading of the comedy Four Weddings and an Elvis finished with a surprise twist not in the Nancy Frick script. As the reading, held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, ended, before anyone could leave, a real wedding ceremony began as Bay Theatre Artistic Director Janet Luby […]
Once at Baltimore’s Hippodrome
Sometimes, a break from Broadway brass and bombast is a good thing. No one savors glitz and a Merman-esque belt more than this critic, but the still power and poise of Once may make you re-think the idea that a musical must either be runaway high-energy or a spectacle of some sort.
We are Samurai at Venus Theatre
For those among us who remember reading Choose Your Own Adventure books as children, Venus Theatre’s latest production will be a welcome treat. We Are Samurai, a promenade-style play by Daria Miyuki Marinelli and directed by Deborah Randall, allows audiences to choose which narrative threads to follow, which environments to explore, and yes—which of the […]
NextNOW Festival begins today at Clarice Smith
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center will hold its inaugural NextNOW Fest, a four-day festival featuring theatre, music and the arts, from Sept. 11-14. Martin Wollesen, executive director of The Clarice, came up with the idea as a way to showcase all the University of Maryland and its College of Arts and Humanities offers—especially at […]