Gypsy is a grand, brilliant affair. Then and now and forever. And Toby’s Dinner Theatre is giving it a first class production. This is the story of Rose (Cathy Mundy). The precursor to the backstage moms of today. The first mama to be immortalized for her gloriously, over-the-top, selfish, crazy, singular mindset: make my child a […]
Review: The Mystery of Love & Sex at Iron Crow
Assuming love and sex are an intertwined riddle to be solved and you want an answer to the mystery —you’re not going to get it here. If you want to walk away deep in thought, contemplating the unavoidable complexities of male/female friendships and sexuality, you’re probably not going to do that either. While The Mystery of […]
Review: New Guidelines for Peaceful Times at Spooky Action Theatre
The title, New Guidelines for Peaceful Times, sounds like a satirical take on a dystopian world. But it’s not. It’s a much more earnest, honest, and delicate look at how war—the internal and the global—affects an individual, society, and art, specifically theatre.
Review: Sleepy Hollow, Synetic-style. Macabre. Scary. Glorious.
Synetic’s Sleepy Hollow takes no cues from Disney’s version or even the 1999 remake by Tim Burton, which saw the tale go darker and deeper. It is far better—a richer, more provocative tale that blurs the line between good and evil and gives dimension and nuance to both Ichabod Crane and his supernatural nemesis, the Headless Horseman.
Review: Born Yesterday, the 1940s comedy at Ford’s Theatre takes serious aim at big money corruption
Wow. Just wow. Born Yesterday, a Tony-award winning play written in 1946 by Garson Kanin, feels likes a premonition come to fruition.
Review: Lincolnesque at Keegan Theatre
We often imagine Lincoln to have been an amiable, principled man, worn down by war and illness. Perhaps his own and, certainly, that of his sons and wife. Which is why Brandon McCoy’s Francis makes such a great facsimile of our American Hero. He is congenial. Concerned with the well-being of others. A great speaker […]
Review: Turn Me Loose, a play about comic genius Dick Gregory
Dick Gregory was never afraid to speak truth to those who most needed to hear it. Even when it fell like acid rain. Gregory—the rebel comedian who paved the way for provocative, black funny men—ended his comedy career in the 1970s, yet, old and young alike know his face. It appears besides MLK and other […]
Review: The Ice Child, a modern once upon a time fairy tale
Sometimes it is just easiest to say it up front as clearly as possible: I loved The Ice Child—an old-school-esque “once upon a time” fairy tale about very real-world, right now issues that treats its tiny audience like intelligent, independent beings capable of great empathy. And imagination.
Review: Second City’s Generation Gap, a summer slice of funny
Second City is back at it again with Second City’s Generation Gap…or How Many Millennials Does it Take to Teach a Baby Boomer to Text Generation X?, now invading the Kennedy Center to help DC pass what will likely be another hot-under-the-collar kinda summer with levity and laughter. This time, they’ve got something to say about […]
Review: Dancing in My Cockroach Killers
It’s a funny title, isn’t it? Dancing in My Cockroach Killers. Yet, profoundly telling. About stereotypes. About other cultures. About “our” opinions of Latinos. Yet, this is not a show about Latin ethnicity generally, but rather a specific celebration of Puerto Rico and its rich culture, musical heritage, and ability to survive an oppressor that […]
Review: Charlotte’s Web casts its spell at Creative Cauldron
Charlotte’s Web, the beloved children’s book by E.B. White, is an emotionally taut tale that plays well with music by Charles Strause, who’s next musical was Annie. Here, Creative Cauldron has brought it lovingly to life by children, for children, with the same warmth and spirit that has had generations cheering for a runty piglet […]
Review: The Speed Twins at Venus Theatre, lesbians in purgatory
As it opens, The Speed Twins makes no bones about were you are: Dyke Heaven! A purgatory of sorts, set up like a seedy bar reminiscent of London’s now shuttered Gateways Club, where a drunken, lonely Ollie sits, head flat-out against a pub table awaiting something, or someone one, to happen. Enter Queenie, decked out in […]