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 […]
The gloves are off in Second City’s She the People: The Resistance Continues!
For those who were lucky enough to catch Second City’s original sketch comedy She the People when it rolled through town last December, you might be wondering how the all-female cast of comedians could hope to top itself. Fear not: in its return to Woolly Mammoth Theatre, the famed Chicago comedy troupe’s She the People: […]
Review: What to Send Up When It Goes Down, coming soon to Woolly Mammoth
Aleshea Harris, author of What to Send Up When It Goes Down wrote: “The idea was to hold people accountable, be confrontational, let it be messy, let it be angry, and let it tread as absurdly as the idea that a Black person could be killed on camera unarmed and the person who killed them […]
Dat’s Love. We take you to the first Spit Dat spoken word night at Woolly Mammoth
Drew Anderson (poetically known as “Droopy, The Brokeballer”), one half of the #DynamicDuo that is responsible for producing the weekly Thursday open mic Spit Dat since 2002, describes the new monthly residency at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre as an event with “big stage quality” and a “living room vibe.” This poetry veteran and his co-producer […]
Review: Puliter Prize-winner Fairview at Woolly Mammoth
If someone were to ask me to describe the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury, I would start with Shattering. I would add Visceral, Iconoclastic, and Stinging. The playwright has fashioned a story that reflects feelings and words that have gone unspoken. At least not in public and rarely onstage. Now they are. […]
Free Community Days at DC area theatres start this Saturday. DC shifts into party mode
With 32 shows rehearsing for September openings, the 2019-2020 season is about to start in earnest and there are some awesome free celebrations going on. Round House Theatre Bethesda, MD August 24 11:30am – 6pm More details With the completion of its massive makeover, Round House Theatre, out of house for much of last year, […]
Review: Rajiv Joseph’s Describe the Night at Woolly Mammoth Theatre
“Fiction carries a greater amount of truth in solution than the volume which purports to be all true,” wrote British novelist William Makepeace Thackery, author of Vanity Fair. This simple sentence seems to be the mission statement behind Rajiv Joseph’s Obie Award-winning play, Describe the Night, currently closing out Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s 2018–2019 season. […]
The Peculiar Patriot review: Liza Jessie Peterson uses humor to expose our mass incarceration of African Americans
Actress, playwright, and advocate Liza Jessie Peterson is a force of nature fighting to expose the wrongs of America’s sprawling prison system, one performance at a time. Her rousing one-woman show, The Peculiar Patriot, catalogues the ruinous effects of mass incarceration on communities across the U.S. in a spellbinding 90 minutes. Peterson relies on a […]
Review: BLKS, poet Aziza Barnes’ breakout play, is cracking them up at Woolly
BLKS at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company starts and ends with a scream, for reasons you cannot guess. Despite unexpected turns in the plot, you can count on BLKS to consistently provide a front-row seat to the physical and emotional feelings of Black women and femmes. In a society that so often censors Black women for […]
Lottery opens today for As Far as My Fingertips Take Me – a Woolly one-on-one experience
Most theaters want big audiences, of course. But there are some subtle, intimate plays which are best performed before a small audience — a hundred or so. And some experimental pieces are designed for an audience of only twenty or less, and hang the economics of it. Woolly Mammoth is staging a play for an […]
Review: She the People, Second City’s raucous, racy, irreverent sketch comedy
The patriarchy has fallen. Women are in charge. At Woolly Mammoth, anyway (sorry to get your hopes up). The all-female cast of Chicago’s Second City has taken on the mantle of power and taken over the stage with She the People, a raucous, racy, often irreverent sketch comedy show about the trials and tribulations of […]
Review: The Fever at Woolly Mammoth won’t be the same without you
Sitting in a circle of chairs facing inwards, arranged at the outermost edges of an otherwise empty stage, it is impossible to discern the actors from the audience. There is a playful tension in the air as we eye each other in friendly appraisal—silently placing our bets as to who is most likely “in on […]