Sometimes it’s hard not to wonder about the relevance of musical theater. Sometimes it’s hard not to love the form but wonder if the content might be stuck in a limbo of irrelevance. And then you’re reminded of Tony Kushner’s and Jeanine Tesori’s Caroline, or Change and you realize that musicals can be revelatory, immediate, […]
About Sean Craig
Phaeton from Taffety Punk (review)
Taffety Punk has a bit of an odd premiere on their hands. Phaeton is filled with loveless marriage, questions of faith and faithfulness, young adults trying to find their way in the world, and much more. Which all seems normal enough, especially told through some stellar acting and design. The play also happens to include angry […]
Jersey Boys returns to The National Theatre (review)
There’s an odd moment in the middle of Jersey Boys, a throwaway line that you could miss amid the pulsing rhythm that drives the now decade old musical. It comes near the end of the first act, when the tall tale of the Four Seasons’ rise to fame is reaching its commercial climax. As the […]
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Round House Theatre (review)
The first thing you’ll notice about Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Round House Theatre is the set. It would be impossible to walk into the Bethesda theatre and not marvel at the luscious recreation of the turbulent Mississippi plantation home that has become a staple of American theater.
Tinseltown: A Hollywood Cabaret from Congressional Chorus (review)
A slew of clichés are at my fingertips, wanting desperately to open this review. “The silver screen comes alive on stage!” “Hollywood meets Broadway at the Atlas thanks to the Congressional Chorus!” “Let’s go to the movies with the Congressional Chorus – that’s entertainment!”
ABCs of American Art Song from In Series (review)
The great American composers are alive and well in the Source blackbox, as In Series continues its season: Made in America (all three Americas that is…) with ABCs of American Art Song. The night of music includes three classic vocal compositions by Argento, Barber, and Copland, all of whom took source material from some of […]
Agents of Azeroth from Washington Rogues (review)
The past few years have seen a boom of plays trying to tackle the digital age. It’s an interesting prospect for theatre, a medium that in so many ways is diametrically opposed to the technological trends that the contemporary world is having growing pains over. It almost seems an impossible feat sometimes to create […]
Too Much Light’s back and blazing at Woolly Mammoth (review)
The Neo-Futurists are at it again. Once more they are taking Woolly Mammoth’s stage by storm with their mentally experimental performance of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. The show has been running for over 20 years, making audiences laugh, scream, dance, and so much more. That momentum shows no sign of stopping, […]
The Night Alive at Round House Theatre (review)
Time is out of joint in Conor McPherson’s The Night Alive, making its regional premier at Round House Theatre. Taking place solely in the rundown apartment of Tommy, a Dublin burnout trying to get by, the play tells a tale of redemption, or at least some twisted facsimile thereof.
Lovecraft: Nightmare Suite from Molotov Theatre Group (review)
The fear of the unknown is the greatest fear that plagues us. This is the conceit of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and the mission statement of Molotov’s newest work, a staged adaptation of six of Lovecraft’s short stories entitled Lovecraft: Nightmare Suite. And yet, ironically enough, it is the utter lack of the unknown […]
Seuls, briefly at the Kennedy Center (review)
After years of being performed around the world, Seuls, the riveting solo performance written, directed, and performed by Wajdi Mouawad, makes its U.S. premiere in the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. The semi-autobiographical piece follows Mouawad’s constructed self – a grad student working on his thesis examining the solo performances of Robert Lepage – as he […]
From Rorschach: Truth & Beauty Bombs: A Softer World (review)
Is it enough praise to simply say that shades of Churchill and Ruhl permeate Truth & Beauty Bombs: A Softer World, Rorschach Theatre’s brilliant new play running at Atlas Theatre? No? Then read on, for the kaleidoscopic collage of interconnected stories manages to find reality in the surreal, and uses the poetry of language to […]