Harvey, a great classic of the American theater (it won the Pulitzer in 1944, beating out The Glass Menagerie) now at 1st Stage in McLean, is a story in which the hero, Elwood P. Dowd (Jonathan Lee Taylor), is a dipsomaniac who has as a best friend a pooka — that is to say, a […]
Now Comes the Night, 1st Stage (review)
Learning to let go, whether of a friend or a traumatic experience, is one of life’s greatest challenges. In Now Comes the Night playwright E.M. Lewis explores both in the story of a journalist recently returned from a lengthy hostage experience in Iraq. It is a gripping story receiving its world premiere at 1st Stage […]
The Good Counselor at 1st Stage (review)
The Good Counselor is a brilliant play that probes uncomfortably around the chambers of the human heart. It’s a masterfully written and directed treatise on where a woman’s responsibility as a mother ends and her responsibility to herself begins. Packed with uneasy questions, with no easy answers, it follows two seemingly disparate women, struggling to […]
Old Wicked Songs review: intimate and moving
Has it really been over 17 years since the regional premiere of Old Wicked Songs by Jon Marans at Studio Theatre? The 1996 Pulitzer Prize nominee for Best Drama (which lost to Rent) is given a welcome and first-rate return to the area by 1st Stage.
Outstanding production of Doubt at 1st Stage
John Patrick Shanley’s thought-provoking dialectic on the dead-end of certainty vs. the revelatory nature of doubt is masterfully handled by director Michael Dove in a production at Tysons’ 1st Stage.
Look who’s delivering a ‘how-to’ on bringing the funny
Ok theater-goers, here’s a question: What type of theater do you think is the toughest for actors and directors to get right? Ask anyone and I’m betting, dollars to doughnuts, they’ll name the weighty, thought-provoking, tear-jerking dramas. “The Miracle Worker, Death of a Salesman, or any of the Shakespearean tragedies will likely be at the […]
Going to 1st Stage in Tysons? Try these dining spots
Tysons is in the process of transforming itself from office park complex to urban center. A decades long renovation scheme plans to recreate the business and shopping hub into a self-contained, mini-metropolis Though the construction of a new city looks easy enough on paper, buildings and restaurants are just that without the color and nuance […]
One Man, Two Guvnors. 1st Stage brings London and Broadway hit to Tysons
Has this ever happened to you? It is 1963. You’re Charlie “the Duck” Clench, career criminal, and you’re played by Steve Beall. You’ve pledged the hand of your daughter, Pauline (Megan Graves) – who has the IQ of a toaster – in a marriage of convenience to the gay gangster Roscoe Crabbe, in order to […]
Bat Boy: The Musical
Don’t lie – you’ve probably thumbed through the pages of a supermarket tabloid more than once in your life. The line is slow, the cashier has run off, and you suddenly find yourself curious – even captivated – by the possibility of such headlines as “Severed Leg Hops to Hospital” or “Bigfoot Kept Lumberjack as […]
Steven Royal, big Bat Boy fan, directs the musical at 1st Stage
If there’s one thing that Bat Boy: The Musical director Steven Royal wants to make clear about the latest 1st Stage production is that people shouldn’t be expecting a story similar to Damn Yankees. “The number of people who think this is a story about baseball is scary,” he says. “In fact, a number of […]
The Cripple of Inishmaan
Unsettled is the residual impression after viewing 1st Stage’s The Cripple of Inishmaan, although, and surely because, the experience delivers on the promise of enfant terrible playwright Martin McDonagh’s penchant for bleak comedy.
Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins
Souvenir purports to be one big gag about bad opera singing – and of course some people would say all opera singing is appallingly funny– so a comedy based on the life of an historic, horrendously bad soprano would be like aiming at the side of a barn. Any joke, or should I say note, […]