The Washington Ballet’s new production of The Sleeping Beauty, running through Sunday at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, is a breakthrough for D.C.’s hometown ballet company. It is also a study in high classicism. After two and a half years under the careful direction of Julie Kent and Victor Barbee, the dancers of the Washington […]
Archives for February 2019
Amazon issue resolved, Synetic is safe in its Crystal City theatre through 2022
Synetic Theater, Washington’s acclaimed movement-based company, will remain in its Arlington, VA facility at least through late 2022, its landlord announced. Speculation about the fate of the troupe, a DC-area institution since 1996, had been rampant ever since the announcement came that Amazon would use the building at 1800 S. Bell Street, and that Synetic’s […]
Finding Neverland review. J.M. Barrie discovers his Peter Pan in this charming musical
Seems poetic that The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up is well over 100 now and still as impish as ever in Finding Neverland. Peter Pan, the eternal boy, sprung from the mind of Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie during the Victorian era. And he has endured, from becoming a Disney stalwart to being featured in […]
Ford’s Theatre announces its 4 show 2019-2020 season
Ford’s Theatre will present two of the best-known theater stories in the English-speaking canon and two plays about outsiders in America in its 2019-2020 season, the company announced yesterday. The estimable Craig Wallace, long familiar to Ford’s audiences, will play the tortured Troy Maxson, a onetime Negro League star who now works on a sanitation […]
Review: The Head That Wears The Crown workshop shows promise for teen drama
Ally Theatre Company’s production of The Head That Wears The Crown takes on intense subject matter, folding together high school relationships, sexual assault, eating disorders, and self-harm in an emotionally confusing mix of lovely teenage girl camaraderie and long-lasting psychological scars. This workshop production reflects that overall unease; some moments are beautifully rendered, but others […]
Review: Joe Calarco’s Separate Rooms. From a young man’s death come the two biggest questions of life
Morrie Schwartz, the sociology professor and subject of Mitch Albom’s bestselling book, Tuesdays with Morrie, once said, “Death ends a life, not a relationship. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on—in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.” Leave […]
Testosterone-fueled Dein Perry’s Tap Dogs Bring Steel-tipped Beats from Down Under
The 1990s were a percussive decade. New York brought in ’da Noise and ’da Funk and Stomped even as the Blue Men thrumbed their melodic PVC tubes. Meanwhile, in Australia, steel fitter turned dance phenom Dein Perry unleashed his Tap Dogs. Almost a quarter-century later, the boot-clad lads from Down Under have come to mark […]
Separate Rooms is Joe Calarco’s Big Chill. Why he entrusted its debut to a young company
“I hope it is funny and sexy — and moving, too.” I had asked playwright Joe Calarco about Separate Rooms, his newest work; in particular, what about it would pique the interest of audiences. “First of all,” Calarco had begun, “It’s a superstar cast.” That cast begins performances on Feb. 22nd. “What I like about it and what I hope it generates?” Calarco answered his […]
Review: Dickens’s Davy Copperfield at Imagination Stage
Dickens’s Davy Copperfield is the musical retelling of the classic tale that covers and crystalizes the first ten years in the hardscrabbe life of young “Davy”. When Charles Dickens wrote it, David Copperfield was released monthly, and became a popular newspaper column. In Janet Stanford’s script, each chapter is announced with a subtitle that hints about […]
Reykjavík review. Steve Yockey’s play gets Rorschach’s signature treatment
Truth be told, I’ve never been to Iceland. But I somehow doubt that Steve Yockey and Rorschach Theatre’s horror-strewn and homo-centric vignettes in the rolling world premiere Reykjavík are meant to be faithfully representative of the oddly hot Nordic tourist spot in the middle of the North Atlantic. That said, this magic-filled and darkly comic […]
Review: She a Gem, Double Dutch lessons at The Kennedy Center
Double Dutch equals freedom. A character in She A Gem, on-stage at The Kennedy Center’s Family Theater through Feb. 24th, says that, or something to that effect, early in the hour-long show. Cultural representation can be so vital for the empowerment of communities that have been traditionally marginalized and underrepresented. So it’s wonderful that this […]
Kevin Laughon, age 49, died by suicide this morning.
Update: MetroStage is hosting a remembrance of Kevin Laughan on Monday March 11, starting at 7:30pm at MetroStage, 1401 N. Royal Street, Alexandria, VA. Everyone is invited to attend. A program is being planned. If you would like to share a song or remembrance, please email Carolyn Griffin. The Washington theatre community is in shock […]