Melissa Dunphy’s The Gonzales Cantata, which will begin its run on In Series’ website November 3, is an opera with a unique libretto – transcripts of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ December 7, 2006 decision to fire seven United States Attorneys. Though it may be strange to hear the words […]
Review: Capturing the conscience of Studio’s Kings
There are not many towns which could be riveted by a tale which revolves around the tax treatment that carried interest gets, but, by God, Washington is one of them. Of course, the carried interest argument is just the lever by which playwright Sarah Burgess gets to larger moral issues, including the power and use […]
Simon Godwin’s next thing: Directing National Theatre’s film Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s peripatetic Artistic Director Simon Godwin, having instituted a six-production 2020-2021 season for STC notwithstanding the pandemic, has decided to use his spare time to helm a film of Romeo and Juliet for the National Theatre – in London. Godwin, who previously directed filmed stage productions of Antony & Cleopatra and Twelfth Night […]
Review: Midnight Dreary series continues with Poe’s creepiest tales
All stories are about the loss of power – or, more correctly, loss of the illusion of power, and the more fundamental the loss, the more heart-wrenching the story. Here we are, in the prime of life, conquerors of the Peloton, with a swell job in the Department of Commerce and two kids in a […]
Everyman Theatre to resume live Queens Girl performances November 19
Everyman Theatre today announced that it would resume producing theater live and in person by continuing the run of Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ Queens Girl: Black in the Green Mountains on November 19. Everyman had been producing the one-actor play, which features Felicia Curry as Jacqueline Marie Butler, when the pandemic shut down production in March. […]
Review. Poe’s Dreary Midnight: A Doom for Our Times
Halloween has a special resonance this year, as the horrors are close at hand, funerals are more numerous than weddings, and at times the whole world seems to be a sepulcher. In this context, horror from such specialists as Lovecraft and Poe serve, strangely, to comfort rather than to horrify (or to provoke graveyard laughter), […]
Shakespeare Theatre announces its 2020-2021 virtual and in person season.
Like spring crocuses peeking out of the melting snow, DC-area theaters are beginning to formulate a path back to their audiences, tentative but real. Shakespeare Theatre Company is among the first to do so, with a six-production portfolio – not quite a schedule, as dates have not been announced – of plays, some virtual, some […]
Rorschach’s “trail blazers” discount for its real life DC treasure hunt ends Oct 13
The pandemic has turned theater into a treasure hunt for some companies as they scramble to find new modes of presentation which are both safe and rewarding for their audiences. But one area theater company has decided to turn this metaphor on its head, and make, as part of its theatrical season, a treasure hunt […]
The Helen Hayes Awards night plus reaction you didn’t see from 4615 Theatre Company
The Helen Hayes Awards were last night, so I slipped into my good tux, straightened my black tie, and took the Metro down to the waterfront. I hoofed it to the Anthem; saw some buddies; shook some hands; slapped some backs. I squeezed up to the crowded bar and ordered a martini; the bartender accidently […]
DC citizens speak through Arena Stage’s new film The 51st State
Statehood for the District of Columbia has always been a fraught enterprise. It wasn’t until 1961 that Washington residents could vote for President; and before 1973, Congress appointed DC government’s overseers. The District now has its own Mayor and Council, a non-voting representative in Congress and a “Shadow Senator”, and the right to send electors […]
Actors and politicians in STC’s Will on the Hill. Can The Bard guide us in these tempestuous times?
If you are inclined to self-righteousness – and, really, who isn’t? – you might be prepared to look down your nose at the various Senators, House Members and other political high rollers who gathered together to produce 2020’s Will on the Hill – or Won’t They? After all, what are they doing pretending to be […]
Review: American Shakespeare Center twists Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s already complex comedy
We think of Shakespeare as a romantic. He was anything but. As portrayed in the canon, love is an affliction, which clouds the reason and destroys discrimination and judgment. If we take a cold look at his great romance, Romeo and Juliet, we see it for what it is. Juliet is a 13-year-old girl who […]
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