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 […]
Review: Sam Hunter’s The Few: excellent performances from Unexpected Stage
“Only connect,” wrote the novelist E.M. Forster, “Live in fragments no longer.” Ah, but that’s easier said than done, E.M., particularly in the windblown wilds of the Western U.S., the so-called “empty corridor”, and particularly among the men and women who make it their profession to drive trucks across the country. It is so difficult, […]
Review: Be a Good Little Widow
Don’t let the unsettling title scare you away. Yes, it’s direct and upfront but the characterizations build and the interactions usher us into precious reflections on life.
Oblivion, an unexpected pleasure (review)
When we are young we do not hide our naked souls from the Godlike scrutiny of our parents, so we do not lie about our thinking. We lie only about our acts. Since we are all sinners, our acts are shameful, but honest confession before our parents brings relief, and redemption. But as we grow […]
An Unexpected Zombie Prom (review)
Zombie Prom, now playing at Unexpected Stage Company, has great provenance, with a book and lyrics by John Dempsey and music by Dana P. Rowe. Both went on to adapt The Fix and The Witches of Eastwick into musicals which were nominated for London’s prestigious Olivier Award.
Deb Margolin’s 8 Stops at Unexpected Stage (review)
Deb Margolin approaches the stage with deliberate movements and looks into the eyes of the audience with the ease of someone comfortable with their own story and on a mission to share. A series of monologues, the opening pieces relay the two basic elements that form the crux of her story-line: a maternal sense of caring, […]
Deb Margolin on 8 Stops, her comedy about motherhood, life and death
Deb Margolin is a woman of many, incredible talents: playwright, professor, mother, and solo performer. She was founding member of the feminist Split Britches theatre company and has written numerous plays and solo pieces. Her play Imagining Madoff was produced by Theater J in 2011. She returns to DC to perform her newest piece 8 STOPS […]
Trish Tinkler Gets Saved at Unexpected Stage
The measure of a mature culture is not that it celebrates success, but that it accepts failure and moves on. Thus the great thing about the Women’s Voices Theater Festival is not that Sheila Callaghan has written another great play — she has been writing great plays for years — but that a writer can […]
UpClose: Jacqueline Goldfinger, Women’s Voices Theater Festival
Jacqueline Goldfinger’s Trish Tinkler Gets Saved opens October 8, 2015 at Unexpected Stage. Skin & Bone won Best New Play at the 2014 Philadelphia Critics Awards and was nominated for the Blackburn Prize. Her 2012 drama Slip/Shot, won the Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play, was nominated for the Weissberger Award and developed at PlayPenn […]
Claire Schoonover: acting knows no age
“It picks you rather than you picking it.” That is how Claire Schoonover describes acting. DC theater lovers are certainly finding Schoonover and her craft a perfect fit. The British native made her regional debut this summer as the co-lead in director Christopher Goodrich’s re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet at Unexpected Stage’s Randolph Road […]
Romeo and Juliet: Love Knows No Age from Unexpected Stage Company
The short answers to my two biggest questions about Romeo and Juliet: Love Knows No Age are yes and yes. The questions themselves were as follows: Does the white hot, love at first sight romance ignite as quickly when Romeo and Juliet are old enough to have seen Truman in the White House? And does […]
Danny Boy at Unexpected Stage
To say that Unexpected Stage’s production of Danny Boy comes up short would be a cruel pun, if an apt one. Not to be confused with Dani Girl which Unexpected Stage produced this past summer, Marc Goldsmith’s Danny Boy centers on the experience of a man with dwarfism. While Danny has friends, his social circle […]
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