Olney Theatre’s 2017-2018 season will include early works by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ayad Akhtar, co-productions with Round House and Everyman theaters, and a return of the Hypocrites in a production schedule with more choices than some cities get in a year, the company announced.
Evita at Olney Theatre Center (review)
As the story goes, when composer Andrew Lloyd Webber first sent his original recording of the Evita songs to Hal Prince to get the producer involved, Prince responded, “Any musical that begins with a funeral can’t be all bad.” And so the show has proven in its thirty-eight years. The new production at Olney Theatre […]
Steven McKnight’s Top 10 shows of 2015
10. Murder Ballad, Studio Theatre Recent explorations of “immersive theatre” received a boost with this rock musical about a scorching love triangle headed for trouble. The four performers careened through the realistic bar setting (featuring full service drinks for patrons before and after the show), making special use of the pool table for the […]
Once on This Island
Once on this Island, the diverting Caribbean-themed musical running at Olney Theatre Center through May 4, is more than just a pastel-colored stroll through island culture to a calypso beat. Of Calypso there is plenty, and the strong cast delivers the musical’s 19 numbers, ranging from upbeat, Broadway-style ensemble pieces to solo ballads, with soul […]
From a blown interview, Muraoka gets directing job for Once on This Island
Some phone calls you never forget. For Alan Muraoka, it was a call he took this winter from Olney Theatre’s artistic director Jason Loewith, who was interviewing him for the chance to direct Once on This Island, which has long-been a favorite musical of Muraoka’s. When he hung up the phone after the interview, one […]
Gunderson’s I and You wins $25,000 Steinberg/ATCA Award at Humana Festival
Lauren Gunderson, whose I and You played at Olney Theatre Center to significant critical and audience success, has won the prestigious Steinberg/ATCA award for that play, the American Theatre Critics announced Saturday night at the Humana Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. The award identified I and You as the best new play produced by regional theater […]
Lauren Gunderson’s living the playwright’s dream
Lauren Gunderson, at 32, is a very busy playwright. She has two plays being produced in multiple theatres around the country, another, based on artist Rudolf Bauer, is heading for New York. She has rehearsals and openings to attend, and was just named the keynote speaker for the American Theatre Critics Association’s annual meeting at […]
I and You
There is an astonishing turn of events toward the end of I and You, but let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about Walt Whitman instead. Whitman was a revolutionary who overthrew poetry. He trashed the self-conscious, hyperstylized European tropes which had dominated the art and substituted something purely American: a rough, colloquial, muscular free […]
He’s got this – Jason Loewith launches his first season at Olney with How to Succeed
“How to Succeed at Olney Without Really Trying,” is how Jason Loewith described his game plan for Olney Theatre Center, the venerable Montgomery County institution whose reins he took over recently. “Bad joke,” he added, almost instantly.
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
You’d never think “Pulitzer Prize-winning drama” to look at How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It’s too unpretentious. Too breezy. Too fun.
“Goodbye”, “Hello!” Sherri L. Edelen closes in Gypsy, opens in How To …
“Top billing Monday, Tuesday you’re touring in stock…” If there was a Helen Hayes category for quick turnaround, the award would undoubtedly go to Sherri L. Edelen. Last weekend, she closed Gypsy at Signature Theatre, where her Mama Rose won rave reviews. (On DCTS.com, Jayne Blanchard wrote that “Miss Edelen’s Rose commands the stage in […]
Paolo Montalban and YoonJeong Seong, the King and Tuptim now at Olney
Olney Theatre Center has just announced an extended run for its holiday production of The King and I. Keith Loria talks with two of the reasons why audiences have so embraced this musical: Paolo Montalban and YoonJeong Seong. —————————- The first time Paolo Montalban takes the stage as the titular King of Siam in Olney Theatre […]
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