The National Ballet of Canada presented an exotic bouquet of contemporary choreography Tuesday by William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, and Alexei Ratmansky. The works, all but one performed to music from a live orchestra conducted by music director David Briskin, displayed a superbly prepared company brimming with energy and artistic ambition. The opener, Forsythe’s “The Vertiginous […]
Review: Bourne’s New Adventures: ‘Swan Lake’ still shocks with its transgressive beauty
It seems like just yesterday that Matthew Bourne’s groundbreaking reinterpretation of a classic triggered gents to walk out at the sight of two men partnered and young girls to cry when confronted with a narrative so different from the storybook tutued tale they had anticipated. A quarter-century later, his radical take still shocks, but less […]
2020 Visions. Theatre leaders tell us what lies ahead.
We asked area theatre companies to tell us what they were most looking forward to in 2020. Their answers surprised us! Contributors: 4615 Theatre Company . American Ensemble Theater . American Shakespeare Theatre Company . Arena Stage . Avant Bard Theatre . Brave Spirits Theatre . Capital Fringe . CulturalDC . Folger Theatre . Happenstance […]
Our 22 most memorable performances of 2019
One last standing ovation for these performers whose work quite simply blew us away this year. Ian Merill Peakes, Amadeus, Folger Theatre In Amadeus, Ian Merill Peakes brought Peter Shaffer’s Salieri to brilliant, anguished life. He was a childishly sweet-scarfing confidant explaining to future generations the way his young court-rival genius, Mozart, curdled Salieri’s heart and activated […]
Our Most Memorable Operas and Dance Performances of 2019
Prufrock, Chamber Dance Project Leading my most memorable performances for 2019 would have to be the Chamber Dance Project’s premiere of “Prufrock” in June at Sidney Harman Hall. Choreographed by the company’s founder and artistic director, Diane Coburn Bruning, “Prufrock” turned five dancers into a teeming but lonely city of suited, bowler-hatted strivers running, colliding, […]
Review: Bartlett Sher’s My Fair Lady, a fresh, loverly production with a curiously unsatisfying end
Everyone has a special memory of their first musical. Mine was My Fair Lady. It had opened in London in 1958 on Drury Lane after taking Broadway by storm, and, as a young child living there, I already knew the tunes when I was taken to see Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. Last night as […]
Our 20 most memorable shows of 2019
What matters most, when all the theatrical offerings for 2019 have been made, is what lingers in the minds and hearts of the audience. We asked our writers and the Gary Maker Audience Award recipients to think back over the year, and tell us their most unforgettable shows. Here they are in alphabetical order. Ain’t […]
Adam Grupper plays a radicalized Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady
When director Bartlett Sher mounted an acclaimed production of the classic Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center last year, it reminded many theater lovers why – with songs like “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly – this musical remains so dear to […]
Review: Second City’s Love, Factually takes aim at its rom-com movie cousin
Romantic comedy movies can be saccharine, especially when they’re set during the holidays. Some people love these fluffy flicks, and others love to riff on them. But no matter how someone feels about holiday rom-coms, The Second City’s Love, Factually is a silly jaunt that’s sure to make both romantics and cynics laugh out loud. […]
Dance review: Atlanta Ballet’s innovative and first-class Nutcracker
Washingtonians are unusually lucky to have two top-notch Nutcrackers to choose from every year. The Washington Ballet’s charming D.C.-themed production is an area favorite and it is always interesting to see productions from the ballet companies the Kennedy Center presents annually. This year’s offering by the Atlanta Ballet, which opened Wednesday night and runs through […]
Review: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (The Musical!). Perfection and the scene stealers keep coming
If you think you hear the gloriously ingenious cackling of delighted children, it may be emanating from the Family Theater at The Kennedy Center. If it is mixed with some lower-pitched guffaws, those may be coming from the same place, emanating from the adults who have accompanied kids to the world premiere musical Don’t Let […]
Dance review: Mark Morris’s Beatles tribute ‘Pepperland’ lacks an emotional core
The deconstruction of a cultural touchstone by an acclaimed choreographer is an appealing notion, all the more so to live music. But although it was superbly performed Wednesday night, Mark Morris’s 2017 Pepperland, riffing off the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, feels conceptually slapdash. As brilliant and original as Morris is, that’s not […]
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