When MetroStage’s artistic director Carolyn Griffin pursued staging Becky Mode’s comedy Fully Committed, a huge hit on Broadway this year with Jesse Tyler Ferguson playing a myriad of 40 characters, she knew who she wanted in the Ferguson role: DC fave Tom Story with Alan Paul as the show’s director.
Blackberry Daze creators on turning a popular murder mystery into a jazzy musical
In 2012, Ruth P. Watson’s novel Blackberry Days of Summer became a critical darling. The story is an exciting historical whodunit, where a young black man is murdered at the beginning of the 20th Century, and even though suspects abound, no one is trying too hard to find his killer. The show was adapted into […]
Blackberry Daze debuts at MetroStage (review)
The long-awaited Blackberry Daze has the signature style of a MetroStage production with Thomas W. Jones II at the helm, but the piece also swerves its own way with unusual stylistic touches. Based on the novel Blackberry Days of Summer by Ruby P. Watson, it is a tale about a community in the post- “Great War” […]
My won’t-miss shows for this season
If you’re like me, you’ve already done your Christmas shopping, filled out your budget for the next fiscal year, and made arrangements for your final repose after The Event Which Awaits Us All occurs. Now it’s time for something much more difficult: planning your theater season.
Black Pearl Sings! at MetroStage (review)
Black Pearl Sings! is a powerful, entertaining story of two women from vastly different walks who have life-changing interactions that revolve around snippets of historical music.
Shake Loose at MetroStage (review)
If ever you feel that local talent can never be as good as what you’ll see and hear in New York or LA, consider this: sometimes people come here to see new stuff. ‘Local’ is relative.
Susan Galbraith’s Top 10, a celebration of Women’s Voices Theater Festival
I continue to celebrate the voices and the productions that were heard in Washington this Fall as part of the Women’s Voices Theater Festival. Frankly, I’m also still mulling over the questions and the challenges that surfaced then and continue to send ripples through the community.
Shows from 2015 I’d pay top dollar to see again
I’m retired now as a critic and when I see a play it is generally as a civilian. In days of old, I might see upwards of a hundred fifty plays a year, and the experience was as commonplace for me as swatting mosquitoes or filing lawsuits. It became like going to an art gallery; […]
A Broadway Christmas Carol at MetroStage (review)
I have one complaint about A Broadway Christmas Carol at MetroStage. What took me so long to discover this hilariously festive show?
Uprising at MetroStage (review)
Sunday night I stepped into a theatre filled with a diverse group of people: young, old, black, white, and brown. The faces surrounding me had one thing in common, a smile; a smile that seemed to be filled with anticipation for the world premiere of playwright Gabrielle Fulton’s new work, Uprising.
UpClose: Gabrielle Fulton, Women’s Voices Theater Festival
Gabrielle Fulton’s Uprising is receiving a rolling premiere, opening at MetroStage on September 17. 2015. She was the 2011-2012 National New Play Network Playwright-in-Residence at Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre Company. Her directorial debut, Ir/Reconcilable, was selected as an HBO® Short Film Competition Finalist at the 2014 American Black Film Festival. Fulton, who earned her B.A. at […]
Stage Briefs
A roundup of some of this week’s theatrical news and notes from Synetic Theater, Molly Smith, Bohemian Caverns, Source Festival, Studio Theatre and Infinity Theatre.