Baltimore Center Stage’s new artistic director Stephanie Ybarra gets off to a dynamic start with the winning, women-centered musical, Miss You Like Hell, which celebrates the passion and pain of Latinx women but generously embraces all people in search of a community where they belong and are lifted up. This storytelling musical by Quiara Alegría […]
A tribute to Alan Friedman, 71, beloved theater volunteer
Local theater lobbies just got a bit colder with the passing of Alan Friedman, 71, on September 19. Along with his husband Lou Altarescu, Alan was a fixture in the Washington theater scene, a warm and welcoming presence for decades as ushers for Round House Theatre, Washington Stage Guild, Theater J, Signature Theatre and many […]
Review: The Gulf, Audrey Cefaly’s Delta drama
We’ve seen “Jaws.” We all know what an innocent fishing expedition can become. The stakes are more emotional than predatory in Audrey Cefaly’s intense and steamy one-act, The Gulf, returning to the Washington area in a finely-pitched production from Peter’s Alley Theatre Productions. The world premiere of The Gulf was at Signature Theatre in Shirlington […]
Review: Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins at Rep Stage
Rep Stage’s gracious production of Stephen Temperley’s Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins makes you miss many things. Piano players in restaurants and cocktail lounges. Songs that make you shiver with ache, like “Violets for Your Furs.” Day dresses. Velvet hats and matching gloves. Most of all, kindness. The relationship between […]
Theatre critic Nelson Pressley retires from The Washington Post
Longstanding and highly regarded theater critic and arts writer Nelson Pressley of The Washington Post announced his retirement on August 31 on Facebook. His last piece ran in the Sunday Post on September 1. An excerpt from his farewell announcement to the D.C. theatre community reads as follows: “Earlier this month I decided to retire […]
Review: Vivian’s Music 1969 from The Essential Theatre
Somebody cared enough about a young black girl killed by a white cop in the powder keg summer of 1969 to give her a story. Nothing much was known about the girl—just her name, age and how she died. But she matters. Playwright Monica Bauer gives Vivian flesh, passion and purpose in the affecting play […]
Review: Touring company of Hamilton is young, impassioned and wildly-talented
Third time still charms with Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s game-changing, blood-drumming 2015 musical about Alexander Hamilton, whom he describes in his syncopated, ear-worm lyrics as a “$10 bill Founding Father without a father.” Having had the privilege of seeing the original Broadway cast of Hamilton twice, there was some curiosity about how the touring company would […]
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 […]
Review: A New Brain from Iron Crow Theatre
A medical emergency. If that’s not song and dance material, I don’t know what is. But under composer William Finn’s tunefully neurotic steerage, serious brain trauma becomes a bright, fresh and improbably uplifting tribute to the power of art to heal and transform. A New Brain, staged with smartness and sparkle by Iron Crow Theatre […]
Review: Queens Girls in Africa at Everyman Theatre
How many me’s can you fit in one teenage body? Jacqueline Marie Butler (Erika Rose) ponders this question and endeavors to find her place in the world in Queens Girl in Africa, D.C. playwright Caleen SInnette Jennings’ bright, welcoming one-actor show playing in repertory with her Queens Girl in the World at Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre. […]
Review: Queens Girl in the World at Everyman Theatre
2933 Erickson Street may prove to be as potent and prescient as August Wilson’s 1839 Wylie Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, the setting for many of his epic plays and the place where Aunt Ester lives, the spiritual beacon who will “set you right” and is as old as slavery. The 2933 Erickson Street address […]
Review: The Oresteia, a stunning production marks Michael Kahn’s final show as STC Artistic Director
It seems somehow written in the stars that Michael Kahn would choose the world premiere of Ellen McLaughlin’s The Oresteia as the final show of his towering tenure as Artistic Director at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Great man. Epic trilogy. The Shakespeare Theatre commissioned Ellen McLaughlin to tackle Aeschylus’ three-part play about the cursed House […]