He’s reported from above the Arctic Circle. He’s reported from Air Force One. He’s reported from wars in Iraq, Ukraine, and Israel. He covered the Justice Department for National Public Radio during the administration of the second Bush and the White House during the Obama years. In 2012, National Public Radio embedded him in Mitt […]
Archives for June 2019
Review: Chesapeake Shakespeare’s open air Macbeth
With stars overhead and faint sounds from picturesque Ellicott City, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) brings a homey atmosphere to their movable Macbeth, performed amongst the renovated ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute. The former girls’ boarding school has been home to CSC for 17 years, but it wasn’t until 2008 that the company did their […]
Review: A Doll’s House, Part 2. Funny, sharp and smart
The door slam heard around the world. Has there ever been a more memorable exit than Nora Helmer banging the door closed on her life, marriage and children in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House–other than perhaps the odd stage direction in Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale: “Exeunt, pursued by bear.” Nora’s action shook audiences in 19th […]
Theater Alliance’s next season: dramas and new Psalmeyene 24 hip hop musical
Theater Alliance’s first season under the helm of Producing Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell will take a hard look at the experience of being Black in America in its three-play 2019-2020 season. The Theater Alliance season will kick off with Douglas Turner Ward’s 1965 play Day of Absence. In a sleepy Southern town, White residents […]
Gwen & Ida: The Object is of No Importance fails to connect art worlds
The title Gwen & Ida: The Object is of No Importance comes from a painter’s refrain to a film director that the subject of your art doesn’t matter, only that you make it. To this end, the audience of the work is irrelevant, so long as the work satisfies the creator. Gwen & Ida starts […]
Review: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at Creative Cauldron
Creative Cauldron doesn’t shy away from the big and bold, and producing the Broadway version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast embodies that to the hilt. Amidst its small modest space, the Disney masterpiece that launched a thousand ships becomes an intimate, authentic telling. It’s splendid. Surely, we all know the story: long, long ago […]
Review: A Misanthrope, a witty, somewhat crass update of Moliere comedy
With A Misanthrope, Manhattan-based playwright Matt Minnicino has fashioned a “Molière for millenials” with this very witty and sometimes crass twist on the 17th century playwright’s The Misanthrope. Minnicino unfurls his cynical tale in Molière’s rhyming verse style, adding a meta layer to the play, moments when the characters comment directly to the audience on […]
Review: The Oldest Boy, motherhood and letting go, at Spooky Action Theater
Plenty of pop culture real estate—from The Omen to We Need to Talk About Kevin, to name a few—has been devoted to parents coming to terms with the possibility that their child may be pure evil. But grappling with a potentially holy offspring can be equally fraught, or so suggests The Oldest Boy, a play […]
Talking tap and Donald O’Connor with virtuoso hoofer Robert Mintz from Singin’ in the Rain
Ask any hoofer to name their favorite dance movies, and you’re bound to hear Singin’ in the Rain among their list. The classic 1952 Hollywood musical about the waning days of silent films starring Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds is one of the all-time great musical films with some of the best dancing […]
Review: A rousing silver anniversary for Step Afrika!
A quarter-century ago, C. Brian Williams, who’d honed his step-dancing skills as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha at Howard University, was visiting South Africa at the dawn of the Nelson Mandela presidency. Williams saw a boy on a roadside doing a step-like gumboot dance, the kind miners in that country developed to communicate with […]
Review: Forest Treás. Pointless replaces puppets with cameras to tell the story of the Beltway sniper attacks
Forest Treás is a fictionalized cozy Mayberry-type Maryland town described by its residents as the “safest place” to live. This original story loosely inspired by conditions surrounding the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks, explores what happens in the heart and soul of a community when danger threatens to destroy their sense of safety. The townspeople enter, […]
The 2019 Tony Awards: The Winners and most memorable speeches not shown on tonight’s Tony Awards show
While viewers in past years might have retired early from the 3 hour Tony Awards show, 2019’s host James Corden gave them plenty of reasons to stay tuned through to the final awards in tonight’s 73rd Annual Tony Awards. Ever the natural showman, Corden ranged from singing and dancing on the Radio City Music Hall […]