Max Garner is a Baltimore writer whose two person play Sphere: The Thelonius Monk Story, directed by Rosalind Cauthen, will be at Woolly Mammoth Theatre this weekend as part of the DC Black Theatre Festival.
About John Barry
Foot of Water, conceived and performed by Single Carrot
Single Carrot Theater’s Foot of Water opens with this thought, spoken by the narrator (Jessica Garrett): “Love is like a balloon….When you are inside the balloon, love is completely natural, it’s what’s supposed to happen.” And when you’re outside, things get strange. That’s all you really need to understand this alternately weird and highly affecting […]
White Noise
White Noise, performed by Wanderlust Theatre at the Fridge this weekend, is a play that’s impossible to separate from the exhibit of paintings by DC artist Tom Block. So I’ll begin by describing the paintings themselves.
Michael Stebbins, juggling Rep Stage
I first saw Michael Stebbins, Artistic Director of Rep Stage, in 2005 juggling several phone lines and over a dozen roles in the solo show Fully Committed. Juggling seems to be what Stebbins is all about. He’s managed to take lead roles, direct plays, nurture a subscription base, and balance budgets for a small professional theatre […]
Naoko Maeshiba, dancing on the edge of theatre
Dancer/Choreographer/Director Naoko Maeshiba, at least to me, was one of Baltimore’s hidden artistic treasures until I had the chance to see in 2009. Her journey began in Japan, where she was born and trained, before she headed to Hawaii, DC, and, ultimately, Charm City, where she is now in the Department of Theatre Arts at […]
Three zombie Sisters at Bell Foundry in Baltimore this weekend
The ACME theatre, which I’ve done a brief piece on, will be going up with a new version of the Three Sisters this weekend. But don’t expect mustached colonels in late 19th century Russian military attire.
Chesapeake Shakespeare expands to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor
On May 7th, the Baltimore theatre world received some good news: the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, currently located in Howard County, announced its purchase of the downtown Mercantile Safe Depost and Trust Building, a classically designed brownstone built in 1885. What was born as a bank, and transfomed as an afterhours spot for Baltimore party people, […]
The many faces of Baltimore actor Bruce R. Nelson
If you’ve watched professional theatre in Baltimore, you’ve probably seen Bruce R. Nelson. But it may have taken you a little while to realize it. When I walked into the Boehmian Café in Baltimore’s Northern Arts district, I thought I’d missed him. But he was there, in the shadows, complete with a graying beard, which […]
Kaddish, based on a Nobel winning novel, makes its world premiere in a tiny Baltimore space
Director Barbara Lanciers was ready to premiere Kaddish, her version of Imre Kertesz’s novel “Kaddish for an Unborn Child” at the Baltimore Theatre Project. It’s a production she’s been waiting almost a decade to bring to the stage. And for herself and actor Jacob Goodman, it’s been a labor of love. There was only one thing missing: […]
Eve Muson on directing Lynn Nottage’s Las Meninas
How director/professor Eve Muson took a Nottage play from a college production to the professional stage I remember, somewhere at the tail end of the Regional II version of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in 2010, being led into the Towson University Theatre Center one more time. I’d already seen more plays in […]
To Juilliard and back again: Kelli Wright reinvents herself
I met Kelli Wright outside the Strand Theatre the day before the premier of Blood-bound and Tongue-tied. She had the lead role, Jocasta, a woman with a literal Oedipus Complex. But she had a more immediate problem. She had just locked herself out of her car.
Thoughts on Center Stage’s 50th anniversary season
Center Stage announced its upcoming 50th season on Friday, March 30th at Case[werks], a gallery across from Baltimore’s Penn Station.