Columns

It is rare that theater seriously asks us to believe something far beyond itself. Typically we are asked to suspend disbelief about let's-pretend that...

Broadway fans are in for a treat as Matthew Morrison (Glee, The Light in the Piazza) and Shoshana Bean (Wicked, Waitress) will be headlining...

Even in this theater town abounding in innovation, The Tarot Reading stands out as an original. I can’t think of anything it’s quite like....

I have an ongoing interest in how theaters in DC with predominantly white audiences raise and represent the issue of race. And one of...

The splashy opening is spectacularly preconception-smashing. We know we're about to see a play premised on a 1953 meeting in a Paris café between...

Actor and Playwright Liza Jessie Peterson is an extraordinary artist/activist. Tucked inside her uproarious one-woman show, The Peculiar Patriot—which she performs through April 20,...

We like to think that the Holocaust could never happen here. We want to believe that it shouldn't so it couldn't. And then comes...

There is one role that Tony Award-winner Laura Benanti cherishes above all others: Mother. The My Fair Lady star gave birth to daughter Ella Rose...

Spooky Action Theatre continues to beguile with its distinctive play selections. Under Artistic Director Richard Henrich’s open mind, Spooky Action regularly produces the usually...

An embittered wife. A “painted queen.” A virago who curses all who have crossed her. At first glance, the women of Shakespeare Theatre Company's Richard...

Beyond cracker-jack, comic allure, the Folger production of Jessica Swale’s Nell Gwynn is a class act. The Robert Richmond-directed production is built upon Swale’s...

Complex villains are irresistible on stage and screen. They can be so magnetic. Their restlessness and shadings of evil keep my brain’s neurons firing....

"You fucked up! You fucked up! You fucked up!" rails the older brother, berating the younger. "You fucked up! You fucked up! You fucked...

Cross-racial casting can be totally wrongheaded—as when white actors impersonate characters of color. It can also be speciously universalizing—as when actors of color play...

How any of us deal with the death of a loved one is so very personal. With the passing of her beloved brother Carl,...

"Some of my best friends are white men," says Sherri, the very liberal white woman who handles admissions at a small New England prep...

If there's such a thing as gay wit, Paul Rudnick's got a load of it. Imagine Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward if they could...