An Interview With Kieyontaye D. Johnson-Carter, Author of ‘Love in Time...
When I first saw Love in Time of HIV in May 2012, I was deeply impressed. Giving voice to a young generation’s encounter with...
Magic Time! ‘Cock’ at The Studio Theatre
If this were a theater review it would be an effusive rave. The production of Mike Bartlett’s play Cock now at The Studio Theatre...
Magic Time! ‘The Threepenny Opera’ at Signature Theatre
Signature Theatre’s new production of The Threepenny Opera—directed and choreographed with unerring cunning by Matthew Gardiner—is cringe-inducing, snarky, impudent, and jarring. Everything it’s meant...
A Report on ‘Jarman (all this maddening beauty)’ at force/collision
For as long as there have been movies, theater artists have tried to integrate film with live performance. Something about celluloid (these days, video)...
‘Magic Time!’: ‘Moth’ at The Studio Theatre’s 2ndStage
Up on the fourth floor of The Studio Theatre is a great big black box of a performance space, which isn’t actually black because...
‘Golda’s Balcony’ at Theater J
There’s not a long list of great actors who, through their indelible bravura depiction of a great historical figure in a solo performance, warrant...
Magic Time! ‘Arguendo’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company by John...
Watching Arguendo—an actual Supreme Court transcript staged cheekily for chuckles by Elevator Repair Service, the New York–based troupe specializing in literary vérité—is like watching a...
‘If/Then’ at The Richard Rodgers Theatre
If/Then, the musical with the biggest heart you can imagine, is now back home in the Big Apple, and just like its main character,...
Magic Time! ‘Hair’ at The Keegan Theatre
When I saw the original Broadway production of Hair in the late sixties, my hair was shoulder length, and the slogan “Make love not...
‘Normal’ at Molotov Theatre Group
Molotov Theatre Group has an uncanny knack for converting its tiny black-box nook into an auditorium-scale operating theater for surgical dissection of the dark...
‘American Idiot’ at The National Theatre by John Stoltenberg
Among the exhilarating pleasures of seeing American Idiot now on tour at the National Theatre is experiencing this angsty, amped-up ode to antiestablishment disaffection performed full...
Magic Time! ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ at Arena Stage at...
It takes a wagonload of courage to take on Brecht these days. His “alienation effect” esthetic challenges every theatrical convention that makes a show...
‘Yellow Face’ at Theater J by John Stoltenberg
If there was an open casting call for the role of you, who should get the part and who shouldn’t? Must the actor be descended from...
Playing (with) Gender in WSC Avant Bard’s ‘Orlando’: Acting Insights from...
Orlando, WSC Avant Bard’s upcoming production, is based on Virginia Woolf’s classic 1928 novel in which Woolf based the character Orlando on the woman...
Magic Time! ‘Miss Nelson is Missing’ by John Stoltenberg
I had not been to kid’s theater since I was a kid. As an inveterate theater buff, I was dimly aware there was much...
Magic Time! ‘The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess’ at The National Theatre...
History hit an astounding “rewind” and “refresh” button last night at The National Theatre. An abundantly assorted audience of Washingtonians rose as one to...
‘Seasonal Disorder’ at Washington Improv Theater by John Stoltenberg
Washington Improv Theater has been tickling DC audiences for 15 years. When I discovered the madcap company a while ago, I got hooked on...
dog & pony dc’s ‘Toast’ (a Workshop Production) by John Stoltenberg
“Audience integration” is a buzzword that has been flying around awhile but only recently landed in my brain. In live theater, it means going...
‘Man in a Case’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company by John Stoltenberg
It is one thing to amble through a modern art gallery and appreciate an innovative multimedia installation—some videos and audio here, some projections and...
Magic Time! Reflections on ‘Woody Sez: The Life & Music of...
Hootenanny is a word one hardly hears anymore. Whole generations have come along for whom it elicits blank stares and a big ”Huh?” The...