Pop quiz: What does it take to score? High school basketball star Joe Marks (Hunter Hoffman) says it’s about physical stamina, devotion to team, and impeccable strategy. For his world-weary English teacher Mrs. Edwards (Sarah Holt) it’s about intellectual rigor, patience, and inner curiosity. So when the dry-witted teacher picks up a raunchy note, soaking […]

Three scenes and thirty minutes, War and Therapy barely scratches the surface with its subject material. More of a spark to encourage discussion, the short play shows audiences the issues with therapy and war veterans, and it warns against the dangers of labeling “mental illnesses” in vets. Writer Paula J. Caplan is clearly an expert […]

Annoyance Theatre may not be an East Coast tribe (they hail from Chicago) but, wouldn’t you know it, they’ve gone and made something I’ve seen many a local theater fail at creating: a historically accurate musical retelling of the founding of Salem, Massachusetts, penetrating in its commitment to research and fact.

With a charming smile, Marc Spiegel captivates his audience with rhyming couplets and animated voices. The Grubrag’s Ballad is an epic poem, but it doesn’t read anything like Beowulf. Instead, Spiegel enchants his audience with tales of mythical creatures, carrying a musical-like rhythm throughout the piece.

Playwrights frequently knock down the fourth wall between the stage and the audience, but in The Perfect Chocolate Milkshake, playwright Lee August Praley knocks down the first wall – the one between the playwright and the stage. Some guys can do this successfully – Pirandello, certainly, and probably Stoppard – but Praley, at least at […]

I’ve been trying to decide what to name it. Help me out, sweetie, what do you think? I’m considering something classic, like “Portrait of the Artist as a Bewildered Mother-To-Be.” Or, “How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Embryo.” As it stands, the name “Running:AMOK” implies a sort of chaos and intensity that […]

John Morogiello has a thing for redheads, and his play, while not filled with gut-busting laughs,  is witty, quirky, entertaining, and somehow, someway, manages to add in a splash of drama.

Angela Neff grew up in a large family with a larger than life father.  Unfortunately, his exploits which stemmed from a bi-polar disorder became increasingly destructive and eventually led to hospitalizations, divorce, and suicide.  [Note:  that’s not a spoiler, it’s in the program.]  Writer-performer Neff gives a descriptive solo presentation of scenes from her life, […]

Imagine a group of friends (and some hangers-on) sitting around one night talking about the club scene they used to frequent. No matter the particular scene, if you were a crazy clubkid, you’ve had the post-scene breakdown, the nostalgia and the arguments about what it really meant. AWoL Productions’ The Rave Scenes is exactly like one […]

How did I lose my laugh? This is the question that solo artist Shameka Cunningham asks herself repeatedly throughout I Lost My Laugh in the Revolution. But whether or not she answers the question is up for debate. If she could commit to the role in a deeper way, the audience may be able to […]

A seedy motel room, a bag full of beer and narcotics, and unresolved sexual abuse from a decade prior; no, I’m not referring to how some of us might have spent our weekends (thanks Knight’s Inn in Rockville!), but rather Alchemy Art Project’s production of Tape, masterfully directed by Marshall B. Garrett.