These are the plays that won’t let go. They are there as I drift off to sleep, or, unbidden, come to me during the day. This happens more often now, as work here slows to a close. You probably have your list of best plays and performances. This is not that list. These seem to […]
Review: A Protest In 8: Strategize, Organize, Mobilize from Theater Alliance
A daughter confronts her police officer father. An absurdist game show tries to determine who is the most Black. A candidate for district attorney confronts her traumatic past. A sex worker encounters a magical restaurant. These are just a few of the snapshots from Theater Alliance’s virtual play festival, Strategize, Organize, Mobilize: A Protest In […]
Theater Alliance continues the fight for justice and change with film series, A Protest in Eight
As Black Lives Matter protests filled D.C.’s streets this summer, Raymond O. Caldwell, Artistic Director of Theater Alliance, considered how he and his Anacostia-based theatre company could carry those calls for justice and change beyond the protests. The result: Strategize, Organize, Mobilize: A Protest in Eight, a series of 8 short films, each addressing a […]
Review: This Bitter Earth, an inspired production of a boundaries crossing love story
The Theater Alliance production of This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers is a lusty, delirious, time-suspending and pulse-pounding journey. It is also – as intimated by the title – both a vigil that is being kept for hope and “chronicle of a death foretold.” Instead of being related to us in a linear way, […]
Justin Weaks is working two very different characters at the same time. How he keeps his balance
Justin Weaks is well-known to DC audiences these days. He’s worked over 20 productions since 2015, won a Helen Hayes James MacArthur Award in 2017 (Word Becomes Flesh), and, after finishing up Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline at Studio Theatre, will take on This Bitter Earth at Theater Alliance starting February 22. Amidst this busy schedule, Weaks […]
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 […]
Thoughts upon seeing Day of Absence at Theater Alliance
In Joy Ikekhua’s insightful reflection on School Girls: or, the African Mean Girls Play at Roundhouse Theater, they noted their discomfort with watching, in public, a play that exposed and explored painful scars endured by “Black” people that result from the effects of internalized ”white” supremacy. School Girls focused primarily on “colorism,” which can manifest […]
“I’m Not Interested in More Allies. I Need Advocates.” A conversation with Michael J. Bobbitt and Raymond O. Caldwell
What is it like for leaders of Color to work in White theatres? This Howlround Theatre Commons interview is between two well-known Washington area leaders: Michael J. Bobbitt, former Artistic Director of Adventure Theatre MTC, now Artistic Director of New Repertory Theatre in Boston, and director Raymond O. Caldwell, Artistic Director of Theater Alliance. ———————- […]
Theater Alliance’s next season: dramas and new Psalmeyene 24 hip hop musical
Theater Alliance’s first season under the helm of Producing Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell will take a hard look at the experience of being Black in America in its three-play 2019-2020 season. The Theater Alliance season will kick off with Douglas Turner Ward’s 1965 play Day of Absence. In a sleepy Southern town, White residents […]
“Theater Alliance is on the precipice of something big.” Jennifer Clements, newly appointed Managing Director of Theater Alliance
Theater Alliance has appointed Jennifer Clements as the company’s Managing Director. She joins Raymond O. Caldwell, who became the company’s Producing Artistic Director in January, 2019. Clements, an essayist, poet and playwright and a former theater critic for DC Theatre Scene, most recently served as Associate Creative Director at Impact Communications, where she crafted strategies […]
Dane Figueroa Edidi talks about Klytmnestra and working as a Black, Trans Woman in DC
Dane Figueroa Edidi: “To be Black, and a woman and trans means each time someone experiences you or your work there is a shift that has to happen in others for them to even begin to lean in.” Dane Figueroa Edidi and I had the chance to work together back in 2013 at Spooky Action […]
Review: Klytemnestra: An Epic Slam Poem, a courageous act of revolution in the Trump era
Dane Figueroa Edidi is many things. She is a playwright, poet, choreographer, performance artist, priestess, and advocate. She is also a Nigerian, Cuban, Indigenous transgender woman. To understand Klytemnestra: An Epic Slam Poem at Theater Alliance is to witness all aspects of her identity laid bare on the stage, and not only acknowledge them, but […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.