“These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder / Which, as they kiss, consume.” Friar Lawrence’s words ring pulse-quickeningly true in Shakespeare Theatre Company’s vibrant Romeo & Juliet, its sixth iteration of this timeless tale. Directed by Alan Paul, the company’s associate artistic director, the production also […]
Archives for August 2018
Imagination Stage’s season features a fairy tale musical and plenty of adventure
Cheese, wicked stepmothers, wicked stepfathers, national emergency and whatever your imagination can come up with — Imagination Stage will this season be probing all the themes which fascinate the childish imagination.
Review: Akerley’s new Interstellar Ghost Hour a space time puzzler
Iris is an astronaut. She travels through space. Iris is also a chrononaut. She travels through time. And that’s where her troubles begin as the protagonist of The Interstellar Ghost Hour, Kathleen Akerley’s latest fall annual auteur production, often seen as the opening volley of the season, especially for shows made for and by local artists.
GALA Hispanic Theatre’s new season includes another big bilingual musical
GALA Hispanic Theatre will mark its next season, its 43rd, with eyes on modern classics: a play which takes Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea as a jumping-off point, the musical version of the iconic movie Fame, and opening with opening with an adaptation of Laura Esquivel’s Como agua para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate).
This season, WSC Avant Bard puts the “Avant” in the Bard and beyond.
Love the classics, but think they’re old hat? WSC Avant Bard has something for you this year: two brand-new reimagined classics (one by the Bard), plus one classic from our own time.
Review: Pointless turns Garcia Lorca’s puppet show into a delightfully absurd fantasia
Productions that are the most fun ask their audiences to buckle up, embrace the madness, and hang on for a wild ride. Pointless Theatre has such a carnival of entertainment in their latest offering, Don Cristóbal, freely adapted, as only Pointless can, from Federico Garcia Lorca’s puppet show El Retablillo de Don Cristóbal.
Washington Stage Guild foregoes Shaw for a season of regional and world premieres
Washington Stage Guild, well known as the premier DC producer of the works of George Bernard Shaw, won’t be producing any of the master’s plays this year. Instead, it will serve up four contemporary plays about days gone by, including the concluding episode of Arlene Hutton’s Nibroc trilogy.
Gettin’ The Band Back Together Review: Tacky but Fun Musical About Middle Aged Rockers
From its first moments, Gettin’ The Band Back Together feels like the tackiest show on Broadway, an impression advanced by its lazy plot, uninspired garage rock score, dopey jokes, and clichéd characters. Yet, for all its obvious mediocrity, there is an odd and grudging realization by the show’s last moments : Gettin’ The Band is […]
Review: Pretty Woman on Broadway, fewer charms, almost no surprises
Vivian (Samantha Banks) is a hooker, Edward (Andy Karl) is a killer corporate raider who meets her on Hollywood Boulevard, and if the ensuing romance is no less a fable than it was in the hit 1990 movie, there are fewer charms and almost no surprises in Pretty Woman: The Musical.
Chris Henley’s notebook: 7 smashing NYC summer shows and the stars and understudies who earned those Standing O’s
School was out. Daddy had some days off. Seemed like a good time to take the kids up to New York City — and then to go back again the following week to see some theatre not suitable for (then almost) six year olds. One sees a lot of great theatre here in Washington, and […]
Natascia Diaz stars in Sondheim’s Passion, a role she nearly declined
Natascia Diaz has wowed DC audiences for a decade, but when Signature Theatre offered her the lead role of Fosca in Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, she hesitated. The popular actress has earned Helen Hayes Awards for her work in Rooms at MetroStage; and the same award in 2013 for MetroStage’s Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well […]
Happy Ending, a 1965 comedy, marks the beginning for promising black actors and writers in DC
Is Washington, D.C. ready to support Black theatre produced by a new Black theatre company? I recently had the opportunity to speak with Ella Davis, co-founder of All About the Drama Theatre Group and director of Douglas Turner Ward’s 1965 play Happy Ending, now playing at Anacostia Playhouse.
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