George Mason News

Columbia University School of the Arts is thrilled to announce its inaugural International Play Reading Festival, set to take place in the new Lenfest Center for the Arts from June 15 to 17, 2018. Organized by Dean Carol Becker and David Henry Hwang, the festival will present readings of three plays by living international playwrights that were not originally written in English:  

If you've never read George Orwell's 1984, the seminal classic examining a world that's fallen under the rule of the nameless Party and their omnipotent leader Big Brother, stop what you're doing and read it now. Or you can just see Scena Theatre's new production playing at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. The show takes a while to amp up but the thrilling climax is performed with such vigor and authenticity that the true dangers of Orwell's devised society come to fruition.

An original one-man rendition of the Kurosawa epic "Seven Samurai" will be performed by David Gaines at Honolulu Theatre for Youth's Tenney Theatre, June 1, 2018 at 7:00pm.  Tickets are $10.

On the afternoon of April 22nd at the Joyce Theater in NYC, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company gave the final performance of a six-day run that offered three different programs to celebrate Lubovitch's 50th anniversary as an internationally acclaimed choreographer. Program A featured the Martha Graham Dance Company while Programs B added Joffrey principal dancers to Lubovitch's own roster of superb dancers, and Program C added students from the George Mason University School of Dance to the list of performers.

No matter the work, it is important to leave a theater feeling some sort of emotion. Any emotion will do, just as long as you were able to feel for the performance happening in front of you. Unfortunately, the double bill of zarzuelas produced by The In Series that opened Sunday night (playing at GALA Hispanic Theater) left minimal impact on the audience. Zarzuelas, or short Cuban operettas, take the operatic form and infuse it with the sounds of Cuba. The music throughout the evening is beautiful but almost none of the performances are nearly as beautiful or compelling as their source material.

Witches are not sexy. They are a representation of centuries of oppression women did (and still do) experience for doing things they shouldn't. Creative Cauldron's new production of Witch, part of their Bold New Works for Intimate Stages initiative, simultaneously educates audiences of the injustices 'witches' throughout history face while paralleling the tales with modern struggles for equality. The evening is largely a success, revealing the ways this once deadly moniker can be a beacon of girl power for the 21st century. With America at a crossroads for gender equality, works like this are essential in sparking conversations necessary for our society's advancement.

It's never a good sign when, during an opera, you pay more attention to the orchestra than the people onstage. This is the kind of situation that befalls George Mason University's School of Music and Mason Opera's new revival of Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring. Britten's complex score is indeed a difficult one and Mason Opera tackles it head-on. They're never able to reach the necessary heights this work allows. This calls into question whether this selection was the right choice for this class of students.

The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts can be called a lot of things: enormous, vital, intimidating… the list can go on for a while. But the most crucial descriptor which Kennedy Center leadership is looking to cement is ambitious. Convening for the fifth year in a row, the 2018 Kennedy Center Arts Summit, titled The Future States of America: Using the Arts to Take Us Where We Want to Go, served as a reminder for how far artistic advocacy has come. The day also served as a sobering reminder of just how far the arts have to go.

Athol Fugard is one of the most difficult modern playwrights to perform. His shows are largely punctuated by blunt dialogue, devoid of noticeable metaphor, and rely on the creation of highly realistic scene scapes defined oftentimes by the most mundane. None of his works exemplifies this style more than his most famous work, Master Harold… And the Boys. This is what makes Master Harold such a challenging work. Round House Theatre's new revival, which opened Monday in Bethesday, tries hard but doesn't prove up to the challenge of this dense work.

Court Theatre, under the continuing leadership of Charles Newell, Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director, concludes its 2017/18 season with the Asolo Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Pasadena Playhouse production of The Originalist by John Strand, directed by Molly Smith with Associate Director Seema Sueko, and featuring Edward Gero as Antonin Scalia. The Originalist runs May 10 - June 10, 2018 at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. The press opening is Saturday, May 19, 2018 at 8:00pm.

Brooklyn-based dance education non-profit Dancewave is pleased to announce that over 65% of the students who participated in the 2017 college dance audition program, Dancing Through College & Beyond (DTCB), have been offered over $3.4 million in scholarships to participating colleges, universities and professional dance programs. Held in October 2017 at the 92nd Street Y, DTCB welcomed more than 300 students from all over the country for an opportunity to explore college dance programs. DTCB includes a college fair, master classes, and panels on health, wellness, careers, and financial aid for all high school dancers and a live audition for high school seniors.

Manoa Valley Theatre is proud to present a hilarious who-dun-it comedy that has been running continuously for the past 37 years in the United States live on stage from May 3 - 20. When the landlady who lives above a unisex hair salon is murdered, the audience gets involved in solving the crime by openly questioning the strange array of characters and attempting to solve the crime. All are suspect: the flamboyant hairdresser, the flirty yet ditzy assistant, the prim and proper uptight matron, and an older fellow who is a "used antique dealer." Much of the humor revolves around topical references to current events. It keeps every audience laughing as they try to outwit the suspects and catch the killer. New clues and up to the minute improvisation deliver a different show every night. Shear Madness is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the longest running play in the history of the USA and has enjoyed productions staged all over the world.

Constellation Theatre Company's new production of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle isn't perfect. It is undoubtedly a celebration of what smart allegory can be. As this small theater company stretches itself to the limits to ensure they do Brecht's seminal work justice, they make great cases for both why more people should be visiting Constellation and why Brecht's work should be examined more often.

Martin Luther King, Jr. declared 'I've been to the mountaintop' almost exactly 50 years ago on April 3, 1968. His words, a confident assessment on the future of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, echo with the same power as when he bellowed them all those years ago. Dr. King never made it to the promised land, having been assassinated only one day after his 'Mountaintop' speech. His spirit, however, lives on beautifully in Katori Hall's play The Mountaintop at George Mason University's Center for the Arts on Saturday, April 14 as part of Los Angeles Theatre Works's 38-city touring production.

There is something profound about the simple. Such is the driving force behind the Nederlands Dans Theater's (NDT) program currently playing at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Three shockingly different dances fill this two hour program and, while the dancers wrap themselves about in complex positions regularly, the emotions portrayed are always simple and translate brilliantly. Artistic Directors Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon are to be commended for their diverse and cutting-edge selections.

10 Hairy Legs returns to New Brunswick for its sixth consecutive season at a new location. Tickets for the weeknight show are $10 General Admission.  Tickets: 10HL.org. The evening features works performed in 10 states during the company's national tour in the fall and winter, including debuts at The Kravis Center in West Palm Beach and Dance Place in Washington, DC, and a Preview of a World Premiere by Yin Yue that will debut at the company's 2018 New York Season at Baryshnikov Arts Center. The performance is underwritten in part by a grant from The MagyarBank Charitable Foundation. Loree Dance Theatre is located on the Douglass Campus of Rutgers University, 70 Lipman Drive. Parking and directions.

A cappella singing and New Age music align in a fascinating concert entitled Northern Lights presented by the National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale on Saturday, April 28, 8pm at the Music Center at Strathmore. Philharmonic Chorale Artistic Director Stan Engebretson leads a concert juxtaposing the rich traditions of Rachmaninoff's  Vespers with new sounds by popular Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo (pronounced Yay-lo) and local wunderkind composer Alistair Coleman, currently studying at the Juilliard School. The Philharmonic will also be joined at the piano by these two contemporary composers. In addition, the concert features guests from the Montgomery College Chorus and the Strathmore Children's Chorus. A pre-concert lecture by Philharmonic Associate Director Victoria Gau begins at 6:45pm in the Concert Hall. After the concert, Mr. Gjeilo and Mr. Coleman will join Artistic Director Stan Engebretson for a Member Q&A. Tickets start at $23 and can be purchase at nationalphilharmonic.org or by calling the Strathmore Ticket Office at 301-581-5100. Kids 7-17 are free.

If you've ever thought what it would be like to cross an episode of Ru Paul's Drag Race with a searing Middle East drama and set the action to pop hits of the early aughts, Paper Dolls the perfect show for you. Mosaic Theater Company's newest entry to their Voices from a Changing Middle East cycle is a delightful piece of sheer entertainment. The show unfortunately tries to cover too many topics, however, and is thus unable to reach the dramatic heights some of its subject matter calls for.

George Mason University is a bit of a trek when discussing arts organizations in the DMV area. If Saturday night's School of Dance Fete and Gala Concert is any indicator, then this trek is worth making. Celebrating the strides Mason's (still young) dance program has made in recent years, the evening was a unique combination of educational panels and dance showcases. With four moving performances capping off the evening, Mason's dance program cements itself as one to not be underestimated.

Rainbow Theatre Project will close out the 2017 / 18 season with a production of Kevin Michael West's Top and Bottom. A gay comedy that was a hit at the NY Fringe Festival, Top and Bottom will run from April 5 - 29, 2018 at the District of Columbia Arts Center.