“Shuffle Along is jazzy, tuneful, full of pep,” says one of the rave reviews from 1921 printed on the curtain during intermission at the Music Box Theater, where George C. Wolfe has mounted a revival of the all-black musical that deserves far more exuberant praise than “full of pep”: It is cataclysmically entertaining.
Archives for April 2016
The Kennedy Center Arts Summit: a call to live life as citizen artists
Renée Fleming walks on stage and shares confidentially that when she isn’t jetting to the glamorous capitals of the opera world or singing the great soprano roles on stage, she is making tracks to attend a show or concert then adds, “ Because it’s what I do. There is no real separation between the work […]
Fully Committed Review: Jesse Tyler Ferguson as 40 Characters in a trendy restaurant
Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Mitchell on “Modern Family”, is starring on Broadway in Fully Committed, portraying Sam, a struggling actor who works as a reservations clerk at a trendy Manhattan restaurant, as well as some 40 characters with whom Sam interacts. It’s a soufflé of a show being sold as a full expensive meal.
Long Day’s Journey Into Night review: Jessica Lange as Eugene O’Neill’s Mother
“None of us can help the things life has done to us,” Jessica Lange says as Mary Tyrone. Mary is talking about one of her sons, a drunk, but she herself, a convent girl who married a matinee idol, has become a morphine addict. At the end of the night, she will descend into madness.
Black Pearl Sings! at MetroStage (review)
Black Pearl Sings! is a powerful, entertaining story of two women from vastly different walks who have life-changing interactions that revolve around snippets of historical music.
The Electric Baby from Rorschach (review)
At their best, fairytales allow adults and children alike to gently explore lessons of life, love, and loss, while safely ensconced in a cushion of abstraction. At their worst, they enable us to paper over loss and disappointment and avoid true engagement with the world around us.
Tuck Everlasting Review: Broadway Musical About Immortality for 11-Year-Olds
The members of the Tuck family spend two hours trying to explain why it’s a curse to live forever, but it is only in the final 15 minutes of Tuck Everlasting that the musical drives home what a blessing it is to be mortal. It does this with an extraordinary, wordless ballet.
Journey to the West from Constellation Theatre (review)
April turns out to be an “epic” month in the city. This week Washington National Opera opens its much-anticipated full “Ring Cycle” by Richard Wagner, and Constellation Theatre, the company that sails into the theater awards ceremony with more Helen Hayes nominations than any other company this year, has just debuted its production of Mary […]
Exclusive: Francesca Zambello on directing The Ring of the Nibelung at WNO
Francesca Zambello is directing Wagner’s Ring Cycle that opens April 30th at The Kennedy Center and brings to Washington National Opera for the first time the whole four-part epic opera cycle. And just for good measure, WNO will present the whole thing three times through.
Cosi Fan Tutte Goes Hollywood from In Series (review)
How can an opera’s venue and staging make so much difference? It just does in this spiced up, expansive and zany remount of In Series’ Cosi Fan Tutte Goes Hollywood at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. The theatrical adaptation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s master work about women and morality is by Nick Olcott.
William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged) at Folger (review)
Those bad boys of abridgment, the Reduced Shakespeare Company, have struck again just in time for the big celebration of the Bard of Avon’s 400th anniversary celebration. This time their mixed up, verse-juggling, quick-change, three-person comic extravaganza proposes to be the premiere of William Shakespeare’s recently discovered first play.
Max McLean in C.S. Lewis Onstage: The Most Reluctant Convert (review)
The disciple Paul converted to Christianity after being knocked off his horse by a shaft of light, and hearing a voice say, “Saul, why dost thou persecute Me?” The conversion of Clive Staples “Jack” Lewis took longer, and was a little quieter. “When we [his brother Warnie and himself] set out [by motorcycle to the […]