Over the past five years, winning words at the National Spelling Bee have been knaidel, guetapens, cymotrichous, stromuhr and Laodicean. Keep those in mind when Ford’s Theatre presents the quirky Tony-winning musical comedy The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, as actual audience members will be invited on stage to compete.
Violet
Violet is a musical that’s not big and brassy and flashy. Based on a short story, its concerns, like that form’s, are more with character and local color than with, say, life and death events such as storming the barricades or catching the last helicopter out of Saigon. However, if a musical with a twang, […]
Necessary Sacrifices
Nothing truly prepares one for the remarkable resemblance of the actors David Selby and Craig Wallace to the characters they portray, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass in the world premiere Necessary Sacrifices just opened at Ford’s Theatre.
Looming government shutdown means loss for Liberty
The impending shutdown of the Federal Government would also close Ford Theatre’s performances of Liberty Smith, the Ford Theatre Society announced last night. The announcement reverses a previous decision to continue the show regardless of whether the government is authorized to spend money after midnight on Friday, April 8.
Liberty Smith
As many in the music-theatre world will tell you, three main genres of musicals are being produced today. There’s your “classic” fare from the golden days of 30’s and 40’s American musical. There’s your Sondheim and Sondheim spinoffs. And then there’s Disney. The last is marked by amiable tunes supported by somewhat witty if anachronistic lyrics in […]
Director Matt August on Liberty Smith
Matt August returns to direct Ford’s Theatre’s world premiere of the musical Liberty Smith following up on the popular run of his direction of A Christmas Carol, that played at Ford’s from 2004 through 2008. His previous directorial credits include the Broadway production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2006, 2007) and subsequent national tours […]
History will haunt Ford’s 2011-2012 Season
The ghosts of American history will join the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Be in Ford Theatre’s 2011-2012 season which the Company announced yesterday.
The Carpetbagger’s Children
The past and present don’t collide in Harrison, Texas so much as they come to an uneasy truce. In the early years of Reconstruction, when townsfolk feared and distrusted the southern migration of Union families, the challenge to overcome the recent past was steep indeed. A few decades later, swept up in the industrial boom […]
A Christmas Carol
Tonight, you will be visited by three spirits. Watch for when the clock strikes one… then two… then three. You won’t believe what emerges from the dark shadows. Well, Scrooge won’t believe it. Not for a few scenes. As for us, we’ll eat it up, no questions asked. I can think of few stories more […]
Sabrina Fair
Ford’s Theater opened its 2010-2011 season last week with a charming production of Samuel A. Taylor’s romantic comedy Sabrina Fair. Written in the early 1950s, Sabrina Fair opened on Broadway in 1953 and tells a Cinderella-esque story about a young girl who is looking for true love but finds her hopes and dreams stunted by […]
Tuesday’s performance of Sabrina Fair is canceled
Ford’s Theatre announced today that it has canceled the October 12th performance of Sabrina Fair, due to a death in the immediate family of one of its cast members. Anyone holding tickets to this performance have until October 17th to either exchange them for any other performance – the show closes October 24th – or […]
Little Shop of Horrors
With inspired performances, dazzling costumes, and one of the most magnificent stage monsters you’ll ever see, Ford’s Theatre’s Little Shop of Horrors provides a welcome blast of campy, energetic fun.