Good news to opera lovers, opera is very much alive and growing in its John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (KC) home on the Potomac. While many big and small opera companies in New York and elsewhere have found themselves recently out of business or floundering financially, Washington National Opera (WNO) seems to […]
Archives for February 2019
Review: The Brothers Size at 1st Stage, captivating performances
The Brothers Size is a deceptively simple three-character play that tackles themes of brotherhood, devotion, and freedom. It is receiving an outstanding production at 1st Stage. The story involves a pair of brothers. Ogun Size (Gary-Kayi Fletcher) runs an automotive repair shop in Louisiana, while his younger brother Oshoosi Size (Clayton Pelham, Jr.) is recently […]
Review: Everything Is Wonderful, a hardspun joy of a play at Everyman
We quickly learn that Everything Is Wonderful is Amish shorthand for “Shut your pie hole, I beg you.” But you wouldn’t want to miss a single plainspoken word of this magnificent, wholehearted play by Chelsea Marcantel that delves into the barbed nature of forgiveness and surrender to pain and grief and whether or not it […]
The Wiz (Ford’s Theatre) and Fly By Night (1st Stage) are most nominated 2018 Helen Hayes productions
Last night, theatre artists, administrators, patrons, and special guests gathered in the National Theatre’s Helen Hayes Gallery for theatreWashington’s announcement of the nominees for the 35th Annual Helen Hayes Awards for work presented in 2018. The nominations were the work of 40 Helen Hayes judges, who considered 2,866 artistic elements of 208 eligible productions. The […]
Review: Gypsy at Toby’s Dinner Theatre
Gypsy is a grand, brilliant affair. Then and now and forever. And Toby’s Dinner Theatre is giving it a first class production. This is the story of Rose (Cathy Mundy). The precursor to the backstage moms of today. The first mama to be immortalized for her gloriously, over-the-top, selfish, crazy, singular mindset: make my child a […]
Ouroboros: Dawn of the Cabaret review, choose-your-own adventure in a DC mansion
Few words strike fear into the hearts of wide swaths of the theatre-going population than ‘Audience Participation.’ But when said participation involves sipping champagne, swanning around a mansion in Dupont Circle, watching fire spinners perform in the snow, and solving puzzles with strangers, that pill becomes a lot easier to swallow. Thus is the experience […]
Ain’t Misbehavin’ review, a high-wattage Fats Waller power surge at Signature Theatre
If you’ve got a case of the polar-vortex blues, Signature Theatre has the prescription for you: a two-hour extended-release burst of high-wattage, endorphin-pumping rhythm, courtesy of one Fats Waller and friends in a rompin’ stompin’ Ain’t Misbehavin’. A tad overmannered in spots and too loudly mic’d on the vocals, especially on the treble end, the […]