The musical version of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning “The Color Purple” is the story of Celie’s odyssey from utter despair to triumph. It is the story of discovery and the power of love. The touring production of musical version is back for a brief stop at The National Theatre and it assaults the senses with […]
Boeing-Boeing
Boeing-Boeing at the Maryland Ensemble Theatre in Frederick is a charming, entertaining, manic merry-go-round of dizzying departures, landings and slamming doors set in the day-glo tangerine décor of a British playboy’s lair in Paris, circa mid-1960s. Director Tad Janes does a wonderful job of embellishing playwright Marc Camoletti’s classic French farce with playful sparkle that’s […]
24, 7, 365
What will it take to make us happy? And why are we confused by the letdown when the dream we wished for on the silvery moon comes true? The two couples in Jennifer L. Nelson’s sweetly woven and funny 24, 7, 365 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center grapple with those questions in a way […]
I Left My Heart – a Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett
“I don’t follow the latest fashion,” Tony Bennett said of his artistic instincts in a 2010 interview with the Winston-Salem Journal. “I never sing a song that’s badly written. Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and others just created the best songs that had ever been written. These are classics, and finally they’re not being treated as […]
Dreamgirls keeps dreams alive for students and teachers at Duke Ellington
Threatened with teacher layoffs due to funding cutbacks, Duke Ellington School of the Arts decides to risk it all on a Broadway-style production of Dreamgirls. On a chilly Friday night an hour before showtime, O’Thame Teeter strolls into the theatre at The Duke Ellington School of the Arts carrying with him a calm, confident energy. […]
Venus at the crossroads
Deb Randall is at a personal and artistic crossroads. As founder and artistic director of Venus Theatre, she has kept the company alive, pretty much on her own, for ten years. Staging plays written, produced and directed by women in a small space at 21 C Street in Laurel’s historic downtown area—where she’s been since […]
Looking for the Pony
The Venus Theatre production of Looking for the Pony made me cry. And I was amazed as I looked around and saw the audience—men and women—wiping their eyes. Playwright Andrea Lepcio took a personal experience—her sister’s pragmatic fight with breast cancer—and created a beautifully written, humorous, moving work. If you’re looking for a night of […]
Sanctified
At first glance, members of the East Piney Grove Baptist Church choir from Sanctified seem to be the ones in need of spiritual uplift. The youngest, a college-aged brother and sister, slouch in their chairs and pick fights with each other. One of the matrons disrupts the rehearsal with biting, yet hilarious complaints, and the […]
Women Beware Women
Constellation Theatre Company’s staging of Women Beware Women, while described by its 15th century playwright Thomas Middleton as a tragedy, is a wonderfully entertaining farce as boldly adapted by Jesse Berger. It’s a crazy, wild ride of a play where the terrific cast of morally depraved characters and their sly, knowing winks to the audience […]
OVO
Suspended some 45 feet in the air, under the Grand Chapiteau (Big Top) at National Harbor, a silky, cream-colored cocoon is undulating gracefully. The butterfly (aerialist Inna Mayorova) is making her escape.
OVO’s creator and her world of insects
Over the years, the creative masterminds, elastic-limbed acrobats and clowns of Cirque du Soleil have given the world a look at the evolution of mankind, the music of Elvis and The Beatles, and space travel
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf
Staging a revival of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf during the inaugural DC Black Theatre Festival was a smart move on festival director’s Glenn Alan’s part. Ntozake Shange’s powerfully lyrical poems depicting the loves, joys, betrayals, tragedies and the ultimate rising from the ashes of black women as […]
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