Arena Stage, whose ten-play season was cancelled earlier this year by coronavirus, has announced that it intends to restage in 2021 three of the plays it lost this year. To that contingent, Arena will add a world premiere musical, and stage another musical which it had already slated for the 2020-2021 program year. Arena’s first […]
Archives for July 2020
Review: Amadeus. Mozart’s rival is Salieri; the play’s rival is the movie
Historically, Amadeus is baloney. Theatrically, it’s a feast. Musically, the National Theatre’s 2016 production of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play — a recording of which is being streamed online through July 23 — arguably shares something of the same fate as Mozart’s supposed rival Salieri. This Amadeus suffers from comparison with the 1984 film directed by Milos […]
Review: Synetic Theater’s The Decameron, Day 9. Imaginings run wild
Boccaccio’s world of The Decameron continues as cyber-theater for two more rounds of short videos by Synetic Theater’s company members and close associates. Imbedded in the program is one of the best short works in the series. Joseph McAlanan has found a nugget of a story to display his stage combat talents. Boccaccio’s third story in […]
Review: Synetic Theater’s The Decameron, Days 7 & 8. Unraveling minds.
In trying to capture the times of our modern plague, the sum of the Synetic artists who have made these short performance works have shown us life as it has been reduced: clowns in cramped spaces, unraveling minds, and chaos. Rachael Small pushes boundaries, creating one of the wackiest of all of the Synetic videos […]
Recommended watching and listening for this week
We hope you will take time to watch DC Theatre Scene’s first virtual discussion, held Friday night. An honest, personal sharing of the affects of racism on these important members of our theatre community. (Click image to view on Facebook.) Our recommended performances for this week start with three locally produced events. Desiderium by Ricky […]
Tonight: DCTS live streams Gender-Diverse Black Theatre Leadership Roundtable
Tonight, DC Theatre Scene holds its first live streamed event, starting at 7pm, on the DCTS Facebook page. The last few months have been hard in the theatre community, with many reckonings and revelations. While it has been a time of transformation, it has been particularly difficult on BIPOC women, femmes and nonbinary folx, who […]
1949: Howard University Players’ first in the nation Scandinavian tour earned standing ovations.
On August 31, 1949, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt made her way to the SS Stavergerfjord to see off twenty-one Howard University students and faculty leaving on a European sojourn. All members of the Howard University Players, the group was embarking on a lengthy tour of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany that would earn them […]
Review: Synetic Theater’s The Decameron, Day 6. We dance!
The short videos from Synetic on this sixth day of content give us three worlds and stories through the language of dance. In classical ballet’s repertoire there is no greater or more physically demanding role than the dual swan role of Odette-Odile. Italian ballet dancer Valentina Palladino has used as her inspiration pieces of the […]
Video: NY Philharmonic plays 13-year old Jordan Millar’s arrangement of We Shall Overcome. Heart-searing
This is THE anthem of THE American civil rights movement that many other movements for civil rights around the world have adopted. You will have heard it sung in documentaries and the news coverage of protests from the 1960s. Listen to this version. It’s heart-searing. It soars. The arrangement written by this young lady (a […]
Denied a stage, Academy of Classical Acting 2020 grads perform Shakespeare and Shaw as live radio plays
Due to the coronavirus, the intensive one-year MFA in Acting, Academy for Classical Acting, a joint venture between Shakespeare Theatre Company and George Washington University, was unable to hold final live performances for its students, but that doesn’t mean the class won’t perform. Under the guidance of ACA Program Director Alec Wild, the school’s 20th […]
First live performances in the area start July 25 at ASC. Here’s how they’re making it happen.
American Shakespeare Center joins only a few companies in the country to have obtained permission from authorities for live performances this summer. ASC will perform Othello and Twelfth Night in rep, starting July 25. Calling it their “SafeStart” season, the company developed protocols in strict accordance with VA Commonwealth, VDH and CDC guidelines to protect […]
Mosaic cancels Fall season; Ari Roth takes a sabbatical
DC’s Mosaic Theater Company will not produce its Fall schedule of plays, Board Chair Bill Tompkins announced in a press release which DC Theatre Scene received today. “Conditions remain too uncertain for a resumption of in-person performances at this time. Like so many other arts organizations, we have to do what’s best for the whole […]