Introducing the real Ma Rainey. Ahead of the premiere on December 18, 2020 of August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, it is important for audiences to realize that Ma Rainey is not a fictional character born of Wilson’s imagination, but rather a massively popular singer who crossed musical boundaries. Wilson himself was influenced by […]
Archives for December 2020
Review: A Very Pointless Digital Holiday Spectacular, just right for 2020 sendoff
You’ve got to hand it to Pointless Theatre- the above title alone is just about perfect for 2020, even if it started out as a simple twist on the company’s clever name. As we are all in need of a little pointless cheer these days, I must tell you that it cheers me no end […]
Richard Byrne releases his latest: Flamingo: Why Were We Unprepared for COVID-19?
“I’m a playwright, right?,” DC playwright Richard Byrne told me on a phone call. “I miss people getting into my face with my words.” But the pandemic has pushed this prolific writer and his producers into a series of short monologues for YouTube that have captured a world wide following. The spark for what will […]
Review: Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce Pandemic! with not a twinkle of treacle
What kind of weird holiday show is this? That was my initial reaction – not my usual reaction to a show by Taylor Mac, which is more often: Wow ( to Hir, and A 24 Decade History of Popular Music certainly, with more mixed feelings about The Fre, and Gary A Sequel to Titus Andronicus). More […]
Review: A Protest In 8: Strategize, Organize, Mobilize from Theater Alliance
A daughter confronts her police officer father. An absurdist game show tries to determine who is the most Black. A candidate for district attorney confronts her traumatic past. A sex worker encounters a magical restaurant. These are just a few of the snapshots from Theater Alliance’s virtual play festival, Strategize, Organize, Mobilize: A Protest In […]
Review: This Is Who I Am, a pie that binds
“During peacetime, when we need metaphors, we raid the language of war. But the idiom of wartime is food: cannon fodder, carnage, slaughterhouse. Buildings and people are pancaked, sandwiched, sardined,” writes Annia Ciezadlo in Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War. “Perhaps it is because the destruction reminds us of the knowledge […]
Community comes together to celebrate Tom Prewitt and his legacy. Everyone welcome.
It’s always an awkward situation when leadership of an organization transitions. The smartest model, of course, is for the outgoing leader to separate cleanly and to fade quietly into the past. That’s much better then having someone hanging around, creating an awkward situation as the old seems to want to cling while the new feels […]
Review: I Hate It Here: Stories from the End of the Old World
Do you remember the old Firesign Theatre? On their records (do you remember records?), an absurd scene would dissolve into another absurd scene, until you dissolved in laughter. To put a period on our annus horribilis, Ike Holter’s I Hate It Here uses the Firesign Theatre motif. Absurd scenes dissolve into other absurd scenes. But […]
Broadway: Happy Hanukkah. The Folksbiene Chanukah Spectacular
Joel Grey sings “Give My Regards to Broadway” – in Yiddish. And he’s not alone among the 50 performers of the Folksbiene Chanukah Spectacular, a fast-moving, entertaining 80 minutes that is ostensibly a celebration of the Festival of Lights. It is available for free online through December 12th, which is the third day of Hanukkah […]
Black Theatre: Jennifer L Nelson reflects on African Continuum Theatre Company
In his 1996 speech, “The Ground On Which I Stand,” acclaimed playwright August Wilson charged the American theatre industry to take seriously the funding and producing of Black theatre. This includes not casting Black actors in roles originally written for white actors (condemning “colorblind” casting), but rather to program plays by Black playwrights, hire Black […]
Review: A very merry Christmas Carol from American Shakespeare Center
Scrooge was right, you know; it is humbug to fall like jackals upon each other for eleven months of the year, but on the twelfth to feign good will and generosity of spirit. He was a skinflint and a tightwad, but he was no hypocrite. When he asked the do-gooders, seeking donations for the poor, […]
DC Theatre Scene to cease publication Dec 31
After fifteen and a half years and more than ten thousand articles, DC Theatre Scene will cease publishing on December 31, 2020. After December 31, there will be no more reviews, no more articles, no more theater news. “We know this decision will affect many people, and I wish we could have continued to serve,” […]
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