You might be forgiven for wondering how Brave Spirits will pull off a sea battle, given the extremely minimalist aesthetic they’ve assembled for Antony and Cleopatra. The play begins with the beat of a martial drum, and that drum, a few pieces of cloth, and some painted poles are all that accompany the Bard’s words […]
Lisa Carr wins 2016 Gary Maker Audience Award
Lisa Carr, an enthusiastic DC theatergoer who considers less than a hundred shows to be a “slow year”, has won the 2016 Gary Lee Maker Audience Award as this year’s outstanding audience member.
Henrietta continued, with Henri IV, Part 2 from Brave Spirits
There’s a question plaguing Hollywood today when it comes to wildly successful and praised new works: should we make a sequel and can it possibly be as good as the original? And while many blame film studios’ lame superhero franchise cash grabs as a recent phenomenon, the sequel is at least as old as Shakespeare.
Henry is Henrietta in Henri IV, Part 1 from Brave Spirits
One of the hardest things about producing a Shakespeare play is making it feel up to date. Paraphrasing Jack Crew when contemplating playing Hamlet in Slings and Arrows, “Every time the audience hears ‘To be or not to be,’ they won’t be hearing my voice; they’ll be hearing the voices of all of the famous […]
Stage Briefs: NYT praise, free theatre, new company, gender twists and Deathtrap cast
A roundup of some of this week’s theatrical news and notes from Women’s Voices Theater Festival, Everyman Theatre, Chesapeake Shakespeare, Interrobang Theatre, Strand Theatre, L’Enfant Rebelle, Brave Spirits and NextStop Theatre. We’re more than half way through the Women’s Voices Festival (the last play opens October 31st), and it’s abundantly clear that congratulations are in […]
Brave Spirits in rep: Two Noble Kinsmen and Midsummer Night’s Dream
Down at the Anacostia Arts Center, Brave Spirits Theatre is undertaking a little experiment, or “Shakespeariment”, if you’re as into silly made-up words as I am (which, if you’re a Shakespeare fan, you very well may be.) They’ve taken A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of the Bard’s single most popular, outright comedic plays, and placed […]
Richard III
Brave Spirits Theatre plays dress-up in this jaunty production of Shakespeare’s Richard III, staged minimally with a cast of ten in the Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Lab Theater. With sparse lighting and no set other than a bench, Brave Spirits nevertheless succeed in conveying the poisonous hubbub of the Plantagenet court thanks to crisp blocking […]