Spooky Action’s production of The Man Who is a remarkable theatricalization of reality as experienced by patients with brain damage. The play was inspired by neurologist Oliver Sacks’ book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and other Clinical Tales, based on 24 case studies of his patients with neurological disorders.
The Wedding Dress
Only perfect-pitch direction and excellent casting could get this quirky expressionist work off the ground. Luckily Spooky Theater has just what it takes to get juices flowing like you wouldn’t believe.
Holderness on directing the area debut of Brazilian playwright’s noir Wedding Dress
Director Rebecca Holderness describes The Wedding Dress as a psychological thriller and the audience is tasked with trying to figure out what really happened, in the vein of a film noir murder mystery. The plot shifts quickly from reality to the past, and to the imagination of the main character’s confused mind. “It was very […]
The Two-Character Play
In Tennessee Williams’ The Two-Character Play, the brother-and-sister acting team of Felice (David Bryan Jackson) and Clare (Lee Mikeska Gardner) are backstage, ready to open “The Two-Character Play” in which they play two agorophibic siblings, Felice and Clare whose lives have been defined by a childhood tragedy: their father shot and killed their mother and […]
OPTIMISM! or Candide’s Voltaire, sparkling wit in rhyme at Spooky Action
In which Spooky Action Theater’s production of OPTIMISM! and its bow to the great Voltaire inspires Hunter Styles to let loose his inner poet.
Kafka on the Shore
Two generations of Japanese men search for their destinies not knowing where their journeys, which span the time and space continuum, might lead them. That is the fundamental conception of Haruki Murakami’s acclaimed 2002 novel Kafka on the Shore, which was later translated into English in 2005.
Are we about to lose two theatres?
It’s not a Halloween trick. Two theatre companies, facing opposition to their presence, are preparing legal defenses in order to protect their rights to remain in their DC locations. Here is now you can help them.
Reckless
On April 30, 1951, the day playwright Craig Lucas was born, his mother took him to a gas station in Atlanta, Georgia and put him in the back seat of a car. She pinned a note to his outfit. It said that he was related to Admiral Dewey, the famed World War II military leader. […]
The Water Engine
I was on my way to the basement of a church in NW Washington to see a play I had never heard of, a minor work from a major voice in theater, one of my favorites, in fact. I was directed around back and down the stairs of the Universalist National Memorial Church to see […]
Theatres get ready for gala season. Here’s your invitation to join them
Well, all right, you’ve got some money in your pocket, and you feel like unleashing your own personal stimulus program for Washington area theaters. You know the primary benefit of your tax-deductible contribution: quality theater, DC-style. But what’s the icing? How are you going to have fun at the same time you’re handing cash over […]
Spooky Action given $1.6 million bequest
Spooky Action Theater, a small company which has faced misfortune in the past, has become the recipient of a bequest valued at $1.6 million, Spooky Action’s Artistic Director Richard Henrich announced yesterday.
Einstein’s Dreams
Elegant and delicate as the gossamer wisps of a spider’s web, Spooky Action’s Einstein’s Dreams is a work of enchantment which might actually be true. For what is scientific advancement if not the consistent recognition of things which could not possibly be? (Do you mean to tell me that the whole earth is moving around […]