CenterStage’s American Buffalo hits its high point when Teach (Jordan Lage), a bald guy with a mustache who sports a leisure jacket and bellbottom highwaters, pulls out a shiny silver gun and starts to load it. He’s sort of trying to hide it from Don, the other guy in the store. In other words, he’s […]
Russian play about judicial corruption comes to the Capitol
The City of Baltimore has recently found itself under the harsh gaze of the Russia Today: in a 500 word piece, shaped by an hour or so of immersion in Baltimore’s one-block red zone, and many hours evidently spent watching “The Wire,” a Russian reporter dutifully described Baltimore as a war zone of economic imbalance. […]
Strand’s Jayme Kilburn takes us to the dark side of producing in Baltimore
It Ain’t Easy Being a Founder, Director, Treasurer, Official Greeter, Artistic Director, and Ticket Seller for a Small Startup Theater in the Middle of Baltimore in the Middle of a Recession: An Interview With the Strand’s Jayme Kilburn.
Karen Zacarias on her Book Club Play
“when opening night comes … it’s like the play’s going out the door to go to college, and I’m giving it one more apple and one more kiss.” When I finally reached DC playwright Karen Zacarías, this mother of three was in the final stages of tweaking The Book Club Play, which was on the verge […]
Portrait of Poe: with the help of actor Mark Sanders, Poe’s ghost fights eviction by Baltimore City
“We do Bar Mitzvahs.” In the benefit production Portrait of Poe, that’s about as close to optimism as Edgar Allan Poe, gets on October 8, 2011, at Area 405. And the show hasn’t even begun. Having revealed his freelancer roots – anything for money! – Poe (in the body of Baltimore actor and writer Mark […]
South Pacific
In an era where ‘sour’ seems to say it all, there’s one thing to like about South Pacific at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre even before seeing it. This 1949 musical about American Seabees stuck on an island paradise in the middle of World War II is a flashback to an age when Americans had a pretty […]
British playwright Duncan Macmillan at Studio Theatre
I came to DC’s Studio Theatre to talk to Duncan Macmillan about his latest play, Lungs, which will be making the first part of its rolling world premier at Studio on October 2nd (it opens on the 19th in the U.K. ). The play itself focuses on a young couple agonizing about – here I’m stealing […]
With Baltimore Connections, a New York address, and Moscow Art Theater training, Studio Six Theatre puts the Alpha back into Acting
This column is about Baltimore theater, and, admittedly, the connection between Studio Six (in New York City) and Baltimore is a little tenuous.
The creative force known as Kwame Kwei-Armah on heading CenterStage
Baltimore inspired him, and now he intends to return the favor. “Cool. Savvy.” That branding for the 2011-2012 season dangles outside the CenterStage theater on Calvert Street in Baltimore. It’s cut and pasted from an enthusiastic Washington Post review of last season’s ReEntry. Presumably, the idea was that even for those outside the Baltimore Beltway, […]
Director Jim Knipple returns to shake up Baltimore theatre scene
“I’m all about wild stuff”, he says, and shows he really means it with the baby-in-the-microwave play Bump! In the underworld of Baltimore’s theatre, success comes, but it usually involves heading out of the Beltway for good. At least that’s the assumption. Director Jim Knipple is one of those Baltimore artists who checked out. But […]
Un Saddest’s underground Ten Minute Play Festival
DCTS welcomes Baltimore columnist John Barry In the dark, sweaty, jam-packed basement of the Bell Foundry Building – located in a neighborhood off Baltimore’s Penn Station – Un Saddest Factory Ten Minute Play Festival organizer Lola Pierson has a few things to tell her audience. If you can’t stand the play after two minutes, she says, — […]