The 4615 Theatre Company has joined the ranks of full-time producing DC-area theaters this year with a four-production schedule balanced between classic and contemporary stories. The Silver Spring-based company is presenting Shakespeare’s seldom-produced King John in rep with The Lion in Winter, James Goldman’s contemporary account of King John’s father, the great King Henry II, […]
Archives for July 2017
Zack and David’s Capital Fringe BINGO boards ready to play this weekend
It’s that time of year again! That most glorious time each summer when for one magical week the Capital Fringe festival is extended. It’s a great chance to see the hit Fringe shows you missed or revisit ones you loved. For us, however, the most exciting prospect of Extension Week is resurgence of our favorite game […]
Woolly Mammoth’s remount of An Octoroon (review)
An Octoroon is a big play. It makes you sit up and take notice. It makes you laugh and it makes you wince. More often than not it makes you squirm uncomfortably. I’d say that it is that rare conundrum of a play: a mirror held up to our current society but loaded with poetry […]
Janet Langhart Cohen on Anne & Emmett, when will the hatred that destroyed these children end?
Talking with Janet Langhart Cohen is like stepping back in time and talking to a time traveler –she’s been everywhere and knows everybody. A broadcast journalist and President and CEO of Langhart Communications, Cohen is well known throughout the world. At the same time, she lives and feels life from the inside out and palpably […]
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s A Grand Night for Singing (review)
Rodgers and Hammerstein, the team which gave us Carousel! Sound of Music. Oklahoma! South Pacific. The King and I, undoubtedly have one of the most celebrated musical theatre canons in the world. Even their lesser musicals contain gems, as famed director Walter Bobbie realized when he curated the revue A Grand Night for Singing. Originally presented […]
Synetic’s signature portrait of evil: Mark of Cain (review)
In their first original piece in five years, Synetic Theater tells a grand story, from humanity’s flawed origin all the way to an ignominious end. The non-stop display of physical prowess and intelligent design is entrancing, even as the show urges you to get up and do something about the state of the world.
The King speaks. Jose Llana on what King and I has to teach us now
“Any story about a world leader who realizes the only way to protect the country is not by extending walls but extending a hand of friendship to a foreigner—I find that very profound,” Jose Llana says, speaking from the touring Lincoln center production of The King and I.
Lincoln Center’s tour of The King and I, “Simply sublime” (review)
The King and I, Lincoln Center’s dazzling new incarnation now at the Kennedy Center, is the jewel in the crown of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s work. Written during the golden age of Broadway musicals, and inspired by the book Anna And The King Of Siam by Margaret Langdon, it tells the semifictionalized tale of Anna Leonowens, […]
Capital Fringe head asks “If every theatre in town is operating full-tilt in July, is there a need for a Fringe festival anymore?”
For the past 12 years, DC’s Capital Fringe Festival provides performance space and resources to small theatre companies, solo and performance artists, dance troupes, musicians, and more. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Julianne Brienza, has managed the festival since its inception, including overseeing a major shift in location from a rented space near the Convention […]
Thurgood at Olney Theatre Center (review)
It’s a great time in Washington to re-evaluate through drama the weights and balances of our justice system. Downtown at Arena Stage we’re watching Scalia’s story, penned as The Originalist, which preceded the opening out here at Olney Theatre Center this weekend of Thurgood. It’s hard to believe that for a short time these two […]
Review to tell my story: a hamlet fanfic
Adapting Shakespeare to a modern context is always a dicey proposition – witness the NY Public Theater’s ongoing “Julius Trump” firestorm. But Welders playwright and Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri has no such issues. Petri has channeled her gift for social satire into a frenetic, funny, and relatable vision of Hamlet for the internet […]
Capital Fringe audiences vote ‘Best of’ awards for 2017
The TheaterMania sponsored Capital Fringe winners of the Audience Choice Awards were announced tonight: Winner Best of Show – Fringe Audience Awards Hexagon 2017: Let Freedom Zing! Presented by Hexagon Winner Best Drama – Fringe Audience Awards “It’s What We Do: A Play about the Occupation” Presented by Café Aziza, Inc. EXTENDED! Winner Best Comedy – Fringe […]