Some of the most beloved music of our time has been featured in movies, which is why the Congressional Chorus will present TINSELTOWN: A Hollywood Cabaret, March 17-20 for its 10th year cabaret celebration.
Archives for March 2016
Tracy Lynn Olivera on her starring role in 110 in the Shade
There’s a line in the musical 110 in the Shade where the central character, Lizzie Curry, describes her perfect husband: “I want him to stand up straight—and I want to be able to stand up straight to him!” It’s a very telling description from the character, as Lizzie is not your typical ingénue.
Wild Oats at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (review)
A large cast of eccentric characters and a convoluted plot involving mistaken identities, a traveling troupe of itinerant actors, sailors, a deserted wife, a lascivious pastor and a virtuous Quaker- Wild Oats has it all, insofar as 18th century audiences were concerned. To judge by this show, too much was simply not enough in those […]
The Lion at Arena Stage (review)
Listening to Benjamin Scheuer strum his acoustic guitar and recount his incredibly stirring life during his one-man show, The Lion, I could think of one word and one word only. Beautiful. The next day when co-workers asked me how my evening play had been, again, that’s all I could stammer. To use anything more bombastic […]
They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! from Ambassador Theater (review)
The mark of master storytellers is that they can make a given narrative hold resonance and power beyond the narrow context of the original time and place. By this standard, much art will ultimately fall short, stripped of its context and relevance as time marches on. The work that endures captures truth, even when in a different […]
Laurie Anderson performs Letters to Jack at The Kennedy Center (review)
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a more than fitting venue for Letters to Jack, the latest chapter in renowned performance artist, filmmaker, and composer Laurie Anderson’s ongoing Language of the Future series. Anderson’s series is a non-linear, sometimes surrealist meditation on the American story, told through an immersive collage of music and […]
Lupita Nyong’o in Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed now on Broadway (review)
What’s most impressive about the Broadway production of Eclipsed, Danai Gurira’s forceful drama about the effect of war on five women in Liberia, is that it is opening on Broadway at all. This has much to do with Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o’s decision to portray a girl we first see hiding under a tub.
Richard Nelson’s Hungry Review: one family during the 2016 election year
In a Presidential campaign year that includes headlines like CNN’s recent “Donald Trump defends size of his penis,” one welcomes the premise behind Richard Nelson’s new three-play cycle, The Gabriels: Election Year In The Life Of One Family, which will unfold in real time at the Public Theater.
Familiar Review: Danai Gurira’s other New York play
Danai Gurira is best known for slicing off the heads of zombies in The Walking Dead, but that is about to change. Her play Eclipsed is opening on Broadway March 6, starring Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o. Three days earlier, Familiar, her funny, insightful play about a Zimbabwe family living in Minnesota, has opened Off-Broadway.
Othello from Shakespeare Theatre Company (review)
The play’s final words sum it up best: “This heavy act with heavy heart relate.” The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of William Shakespeare’s Othello is decidedly heavy on the heavy, sonorous and austere.
Game-changing new theater app, developed by a black woman, gets ready to launch
As a critic, I’m sometimes in the business of prediction: who is going to win what award, what production is going to sell well, what company is going to have the best season coming up.
Word Becomes Flesh at Theater Alliance (review)
Theatre, at its best, has the ability to be a powerful tool for political and social change. That means, right now in particular, #blacktheatrematters.