Full disclosure: As a mere slip of a girl I used to read Bullfinch’s Mythology and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology for fun and enlightenment and when I couldn’t sleep I would populate the Greek heavens and Elysium with the names of the gods and goddesses in lieu of counting sheep. Imagine my delight when it was […]
Archives for April 2019
The Peculiar Patriot review: Liza Jessie Peterson uses humor to expose our mass incarceration of African Americans
Actress, playwright, and advocate Liza Jessie Peterson is a force of nature fighting to expose the wrongs of America’s sprawling prison system, one performance at a time. Her rousing one-woman show, The Peculiar Patriot, catalogues the ruinous effects of mass incarceration on communities across the U.S. in a spellbinding 90 minutes. Peterson relies on a […]
Review: Siwayul (Heart of a Womxn), an act of reclamation for indigenous trans people
“Our work is ceremony, because, to us, art is ceremony,” writes Alexa Elizabeth Rodriguez in her Director’s Note. This is the experience of Siwayul (Heart of a Womxn): the audience is witness to and participant in a ceremony of remembrance and healing. We travel an emotional arc more than an imposed narrative one, moving through […]
Review: Winnie the Pooh at Adventure Theatre MTC. Fun for the under 8’s
Pooh Bear is a fuzzy, golden puff full of positive wonderment whose honey addiction still roils little bellies with laughter at Adventure Theatre MTC’s Winnie the Pooh, a sweet stroll through the One Hundred Acre Wood with old friends. They have so much to do in one day. Rabbit (Stephen Murray) has hatched a plan to […]
Review: Clothes for a Summer Hotel. Zelda and Scott and Tennessee
In his note in the program of Rainbow Theatre Project’s new production of Tennessee Williams’ lesser-known play Clothes for a Summer Hotel—his last to be produced on Broadway in his lifetime—director Greg Stevens notes that the piece was a critical and commercial flop that drove the playwright further down the path of dejection and substance […]
Keeping in mind the trauma left in the wake of school shootings, how do you direct “columbinus” about the Columbine shooting, and why? We talk with Alex Levy
The 20th anniversary of the mass school shooting at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, will be on closing night for columbinus at 1st Stage. The play was written by Stephen Karam (The Humans) and PJ Paperelli a few years after the event. The questions we had were the same 1st […]
Hundreds of artists gather for CrossCurrents festival, intersecting politics and performance
The D.C. theater and arts community is about to go where it’s never been before as the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics is introducing the first-ever D.C.-wide biennial CrossCurrents festival, which will showcase innovative artists who are harnessing the power of performance to humanize global politics. Performance artists from more than 40 countries will […]
King Lear Review: Glenda Jackson in must-see if imperfect Shakespeare
As King Lear, Glenda Jackson enters with a casual swagger, giving off a scent of power that’s lasted a lifetime. But Lear is portrayed by an 82-year-old woman, lean and light and, at 5’6, dwarfed by the dignitaries and daughters who share the stage in the opening scene at the Cort Theater. If Jackson’s performance […]
Review: Balanchine, Peck, Abraham and Robbins: New York City Ballet enters a new era of hope and revived energy
New York City Ballet returns to Washington this week for its annual visit to the Kennedy Center with two programs that include two works from the company’s legendary founder George Balanchine, a Justin Peck ballet, a new work from Kyle Abraham, and a number of offerings from Jerome Robbins. There is a lot to see […]
Review: Native Son. Contemporary playwright interprets Richard Wright’s novel
So, in Native Son, Bigger Thomas (Clayton Pelham, Jr.), a man with no options, lives in a one-room apartment on the South Side of 1940 Chicago with his mother (Lolita Marie) and his brother (Tendo Nsubuga) and his sister (Renee Elizabeth Wilson) and also a black rat the size of an alley cat. And though […]
Review: columbinus at 1st Stage
Twenty years on. And the horror of April 20, 1999 has not only not dissipated, but it also seems to have continually intensified with each mass school shooting. Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. Parkland. Countless others that run together like one big blob of shameful gray in America’s collective mind under the mental banner of “another Columbine.” Since […]
Ayad Akhtar’s Junk draws David Andrew MacDonald back to Arena after 34 years
When David Andrew MacDonald takes the stage as Leo Tresler in Arena Stage’s Junk, an economic thriller that exposes the financial dealmaking behind the mergers and acquisitions boom of the 1980s, it will be his first appearance on an Arena stage in 34 years. Written by playwright Ayad Akhtar, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize […]