Round House Theatre is providing a rare opportunity to catch one of August Wilson’s most mystical productions, Gem of the Ocean. It is magical, theatrical, and historical all rolled into one. Director Timothy Douglas is the perfect medium to lead the cast on this legendary journey. Over the years I have watched his amazing ability […]
Review: How I Learned to Drive. Round House production shows why it won Vogel the Pulitzer Prize
It took a brave playwright to write How I Learned to Drive and it takes a brave company to stage it now, and if you go to see it with an open heart, you are a brave person, too.
Review: Small Mouth Sounds, oddly beguiling
The last place you’d think to go for a little peace and quiet is the theater. But that’s what happens in Round House Theatre’s production of Bess Wohl’s 2015 off-Broadway hit, Small Mouth Sounds, an oddly beguiling play that sneaks up on you like an unexpected flash of enlightenment.
Rick Hammerly’s back in heels, fab gowns and boas for Georgia McBride but directing brings out his serious side
When two-time Helen Hayes winner Rick Hammerly woke up recently, a “morning” after taking the stage as fiercely funny drag queen Miss Tracy Mills in Round House Theatre’s The Legend of Georgia McBride, his left shoulder was pulled, he had a bruise on his left hip, he had blood on his sheets from a knee that […]
Review: The Legend of Georgia McBride, a drag-to-riches comedy
Break out the Bedazzler and falsies and shimmy into your Spanx. It’s high season for drag in downtown Bethesda, thanks to the fierce and funny The Legend of Georgia McBride, playwright Matthew Lopez’s mash note to queens, all gussied up with sequins, sentiment and spectacle.
Review: Athol Fugard’s confessional play, “MASTER HAROLD” … and the Boys
What does radical empathy look like? Look no further than the plays of Athol Fugard. He has made his life’s work giving voice to the Black Africans of South Africa who were not allowed to tell their own stories and breaking down the imposed divides between the races of the system called apartheid. Fugard is a […]
Next season, Round House Theatre offers a slate of 5 dramas, and a mid-season move to make way for renovations
Bethesda’s Round House Theatre will kick off its 41st Season with a $14-million capital campaign — designed to raise money to improve both the company’s physical plant and what it can offer its artists and audiences. Round House will move out of its present space and into DC’s Lansburgh Theatre in Penn Quarter for the […]
Handbagged at Round House Theatre (review)
Forget everything you have assumed about Handbagged, Moira Buffini’s marvelous play about Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It is different, and better, than that. Here, consider: Our current Chief Magistrate makes people uncomfortable with his insulting and divisive rhetoric, but what if we had a leader who was all that, and actually […]
I’ll Get You Back Again review
I’ll Get You Back Again uses a band’s reunion as the basis for a combined comedy, drama, memory play, and meditation on the meaning of life. While the Round House Theatre world premiere production has some jammin’ moments, the elements never fully gel in a Sarah Gancher’s well-meaning but ultimately underwhelming play.
In the Heights at Olney Theatre Center (review)
In the Heights, now packing them in at Olney Theatre Center, has a visceral and emotional score coupled with a story of finding your home and your heart closer than expected. Behold the power of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s freshman effort – being followed next year by his Hamilton at the Kennedy Center. In the Heights is brought […]
August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned, simple, evocative. (review)
In a moving memorial, director and co-conceiver Todd Kreidler uses solo actor Eugene Lee to call his friend and mentor’s spirit back to the world. Playwright August Wilson seized the opportunity to take us back to his young adulthood, sharing hard won lessons with wisdom, care, and righteous anger. How I Learned What I Learned […]
Twyford and company delight in Or, a bawdy tale of mistaken identities and royal intrigue (review)
The true story of Aphra Behn is the epitome of “stranger than fiction.” In Round House Theatre’s rollicking production of Or, director Aaron Posner, Holly Twyford, and company gleefully romp through the fertile comedic ground of Behn’s journey from British royal spy to prison inmate to female playwriting pioneer. It’s sort of a Noises Off or […]