August Wilson’s 20th Century: Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Produced by the Kennedy Center Reviewed by Alan Sharpe, Guest Reviewer Not even last-minute tornado warnings kept excited theater patrons away from the opening of the Kennedy Center’s month long celebration of playwright August Wilson. Those who […]
The Phantom Tollbooth
Music and Lyrics by Arnold Black and Sheldon Harnick Based on the book by Norton Juster Directed by Timothy A. McDonald Produced by The Kennedy Center Reviewed by Jonny Perl Imagine a show that teaches kids academic subjects such as words and numbers, as well as explores subjects like the power of thinking, overcoming fear, […]
Happy Days
Happy Days by Samuel Beckett Directed by Deborah Warner Produced by The National Theatre of Great Britain Presented at the Terrace Theater of the Kennedy Center Reviewed by Rosalind Lacy When Samuel Beckett’s wife asked him to write a cheerful play, he wrote Happy Days in which a mid-life woman is buried in an earth […]
Carnival!
Produced by The Kennedy Center Reviewed by Gary McMillan Michael Arnold (center) as Jacquot with the cast of Carnival!. (Photo: Joan Marcus) Carnival! is seldom staged, so I awaited the Kennedy Center’s production with great anticipation, never having seen the show nor heard the full score. When the show debuted on Broadway in 1961, it […]
The Light in the Piazza
Produced by The Kennedy Center Reviewed by Rosalind Lacy You either love the mother. Or you hate her. But by the end of The Light in the Piazza, you love the mother because she’s transformed into something warmly human. This simple love story is a deep psychological journey about the seasons of love. The […]
What’s in the oven, Page to Stage Monday
It is easy to think now, nearly a half-century after his time, that Jack Kennedy was a patron of the arts. This big building bears his name, and carries an enormous Robert Berks sculpture of his head in its Millennium Foyer. The gift shop is full of his biographies, and of accounts of his short […]
Mame
By: Tim Treanor Mame, at the Kennedy Center It’s easy to see who the hero is in Eric Schaeffer’s immensely likeable Mame, now playing at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. In case we had any doubt, the hero’s profile looms over the final scene – over Mame herself, over her nephew, Patrick Dennis, wiser but […]