For 2018-2019, Ford’s Theatre has opted for a season of magic and optimism in which the corrupt are smited, the stingy are enlightened, wrongs are righted and children are delighted.
Archives for February 2018
Becoming Dr. Ruth at Theater J (review)
Dr. Ruth. Nearly everybody knows her iconic look, sound and effervescent spirit. Little did we know, however, about the marriages that didn’t work, early professional hardships, experience working in a kibbutz in Jerusalem, and unspeakable loss. Some of us at a certain age can’t help but grin at the memories of our first encounters with […]
Arena Stage announces its next season, starting with Broadway hopeful Dave
A fantasy about a high school teacher who becomes a Presidential double and then the de facto President when the real President suffers from a scandalous illness will open a season for Arena Stage which is otherwise mostly about some of the most dramatic — and real — events of world history.
Shakespeare Theatre Company announces Michael Kahn’s final season (2018/2019)
What becomes a legend most? For the Shakespeare Theatre Company, celebrating the final year of its artistic director since 1986, Michael Kahn, it will be this: two Shakespeare plays, a new adaptation by frequent collaborator David Ives, a bit of 1940s agitprop, a 19th-century novel transitioned into a new play, and a new adaptation of […]
Rep Stage among the first companies to announce its season 2018/2019
Callie Kimball is an actor and playwright who graced DC stages for several years before moving to New York City. Rep Stage will be producing the world premiere of her new play, Things that are Round, this November.
Review: Relevance by JC Lee. Feminism loses in this generational battle
It might sound unenlightened to call Relevance a catfight between two feminists. Jayne Houdyshell and Pascale Armand, after all, are portraying characters explicitly identified as “public intellectuals” in JC Lee’s play – one as Theresa, a long-famous white feminist author, the other as Msemaji, a younger, up-and-coming black feminist author.
Teen drama, Count Down, Strand’s entry in Women’s Voices Theater Festival (review)
Count Down, one of many extraordinary plays included in this year’s Women’s Voices Theater Festival, is an emotional drama about teenage girls living in a group home in Chester, New Jersey. Playwright Dominique Cieri based it on her experiences teaching in a similar home.
Ryun Yu on Hold These Truths at Arena Stage. A 1940’s Japanese American’s protest of government actions speaks to our time
Although Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi might not be a name people recognize, many know his story and the historic Supreme Court case which bears his name— Hirabayashi v. United States. The son of Japanese immigrants, Hirabayashi, then a student at the University of Washington, was convicted of violating two of President Roosevelt’s orders during World War […]
Review: Some Old Black Man starring Wendell Pierce
Are you ready to be old? By that I mean are you ready to sell your home, where you’ve lived for fifty years and raised your family, and go…elsewhere? To lay aside your lifetime friends, and the pursuits you love and finally have the leisure to enjoy — a lazy breakfast at the local diner, […]
Jerry Springer the Opera Review
Jerry Springer the Opera is profane, vulgar, obvious, offensive and irresistibly entertaining – at least in the first act, when it offers a high art version of the TV talk show that has aimed low since 1991. The New Group production, directed by John Rando and featuring a pitch-perfect 17-member cast led by Terrence Mann […]
Violence versus pacifism . Brown versus Douglass. The Raid at Theater Alliance (review)
“Everyone in this play is dead,” Harriet Tubman (Tiffany Byrd) announces minutes into the first act. Frederick Douglass (Marquis D. Gibson), John Brown (Nicklas Aliff), Henry Kagi (Josh Adams), Emperor (Dylan J. Fleming), John Brown Jr. (Robert Bowen Smith), and Mahala Doyle (Moira Todd), speak directly to the audience from seats among us, and introduce […]
Cliff Williams III: Why theatres need to hire intimacy choreographers.
The theatre can be a messy place, and often this is most evident in the rehearsal process. Violence and intimacy scenes stand as two of the more interesting challenges. How do we display violence on stage, while keeping the actors safe? How can an actor sit there and take a punch every night, for 20+ performances, […]