A grown daughter’s soon-to-be-published memoirs of a childhood family trauma rip open long-festering emotional scars over Christmas Eve at the Palm Springs manse of an aging Hollywood B-list couple turned GOP political organizers in Jon Robin Baitz’s Tony-nominated 2011 drama Other Desert Cities, brought ably to life by Peace Mountain Theatre Company out in Potomac, […]
Archives for December 2019
Review: I Take Your Hand in Mine. Anton Chekhov in love
I Take Your hand in Mine is based on the intimate letters written between Anton Chekhov at the end of his life and his wife Olga Knipper. It has come to the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in the busiest holiday season and for the briefest of runs, but don’t lose the opportunity to see this […]
Review: The Woman in Black, an edge-of-your-seat thriller
“It was 9:30 on Christmas Eve,” the lone figure entones in the grandest theatrical tradition of beginning an eerie tale. This holiday season, our fair city is visited by one of Britain’s longest running plays, spooky or otherwise. The Woman in Black has taken up residence at the newly named Michael R. Klein Theatre on […]
Review: L’Enfance du Christ, a dazzling, transformative experience from In Series
As I watched the performance of The IN Series’ most recent offering, I thought about starting my review with a warning: “Don’t go to see L’Enfance du Christ unless you want to be transformed.” And that made me think, “Well, why do we go to see theater – some of us repeatedly – if we […]
Review: Second City’s Love, Factually takes aim at its rom-com movie cousin
Romantic comedy movies can be saccharine, especially when they’re set during the holidays. Some people love these fluffy flicks, and others love to riff on them. But no matter how someone feels about holiday rom-coms, The Second City’s Love, Factually is a silly jaunt that’s sure to make both romantics and cynics laugh out loud. […]
Review: BARE, the musical at Iron Crow, struggles to reach its high notes.
For LGBTQ+ audiences, the story of BARE is a tale as old as time: Two young men share a forbidden romance. BARE takes the story and places it in a Catholic Boarding school, amidst a throng of rambunctious and hormone-fueled teenagers. The duo, Peter (Brett Klock) and Jason (Benjamin Eisenhour) face an age old queer […]
Review: Infinite Tales debuts at 4615 Theatre Company
In this ambitious collection of Irish folktales, four siblings, neglected and mistreated after their mother’s death, are cursed and forced to live in exile for 900 years as swans. Told as part of three mythological cycles, the tales are nestled in each other like Russian dolls. Just when you become familiar enough with one, out […]
Review: Madeline’s Christmas at Creative Cauldron
In an old house in Paris, covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. And at Creative Cauldron, for their Christmas thing, the twelve little girls get up and sing. Oh, all right, I’m sorry, that was horrible — it’s just that it’s the holiday, and Madeline’s Christmas is a musical loaded […]
Review: The Snow Queen from Synetic Theater. Move over Frozen!
It’s a savvy move on the part of Synetic Theater to stage a production of The Snow Queen right as children and tweens everywhere are besotted with the prospect of “Frozen 2” opening in theaters. No doubt parents may actually be able to get their children to the theater with the tantalizing prospect of seeing […]
Review: The 2019 Christmas Revels: Celestial Fools
When singer/musician/educator John Langstaff launched a seasonal celebration of early music in Boston back in 1971, comprised of song and general merriment that would bring community together and keep at bay the bleak, shortest days of winter, did he ever imagine it would become a tradition, indeed an industry, that would take over nine cities […]
Traditions change. Even for Fiddler on the Roof. Choreographer Christopher Evans on Fiddler’s revised choreography
Professional productions of Fiddler on the Roof traditionally feature the iconic Jerome Robbins choreography from the original production. The 2015 Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof was the first major production to get permission to use new choreography, created by Hofesh Schechter and his company. That revival is now on tour across North America, […]
The gloves are off in Second City’s She the People: The Resistance Continues!
For those who were lucky enough to catch Second City’s original sketch comedy She the People when it rolled through town last December, you might be wondering how the all-female cast of comedians could hope to top itself. Fear not: in its return to Woolly Mammoth Theatre, the famed Chicago comedy troupe’s She the People: […]