Kenny Neal News

Factory 449's 'Agnes of God' is an emotional, intimate play that speaks to inner struggles. With a sharp script and an exceptional cast, it's an insightful and aching performance that is both enjoyable and heartbreaking to watch.

On Saturday November 9, 2019, Factory 449, a Helen Hayes Award-winning theatre company in residence at Anacostia Arts Center, opens 'Agnes of God' by John Pielmeier. 

Director Paige Hernandez does a masterful job in a play about boxing and racism.

A dramatic comedy about the world of fantasy role-playing games, SHE KILLS MONSTERS tells the story of Agnes Evans as she comes to terms with the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When she finds Tilly's Dungeons & Dragons notebook, she embarks on an adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly's refuge. In this high-octane comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed playwright Qui Nguyen (VIETGONE) offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.

Olney Theatre Center and 1st Stage combine forces to co-produce the first show of the 2019 - 20 Season in the Olney Theatre's Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab: The Royale by Marco Ramirez, directed and choreographed by Paige Hernandez. Inspired by the story of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion boxer, the New York Times praised Ramirez's play that a?oeboldly takes on and reorients a familiar genre and a familiar tale.a?? The area premiere runs at Olney Theatre Center September 25 - October 27, 2019 with Invited Press Night on Saturday, September 28 at 7:45pm. The production, with the same actors and set, moves to 1st Stage for a run January 30 - February 23, 2020

National New Play Network, the country's alliance of nonprofit theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays, in association with the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and Stanford University's National Center for New Plays, announce the 14th Annual MFA Playwrights' Workshop. The Kennedy Center will host more than 60 theater-makers from July 27-August 4, 2019 as part of the week-long Workshop featuring new works by graduate students or recent MFA graduates from the University of California, San Diego, Iowa Playwrights' Workshop, Boston University, National Theatre School of Canada, and Brown University. 

Theater Alliance closes its Season 16 with Klytmnestra: An Epic Slam Poem by two-time Helen Hayes Award nominee Dane Figueroa Edidi. 

The Nurs'n Blues Music Fest takes place at The Cove, 4701 Transit Rd., Saturday, May 25. Showtime: 3pm to 10pm. Tickets: $20. Donation in advance, $25. at the Door. Info: (716) 870-3600 or visithttps://www.musicisart.org. Proceeds benefit Nurs'n Blues Therapy Program, that uses Blues Music Therapy for those struggling with chemical dependency. Presented as a non-profit collaborative by the Blues Society of Western New Yorkand Music Is Art.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosts more than 120 outstanding theater students from colleges and universities across the nation as part of the 50th annual Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), which runs April 16-20, 2019 in multiple locations throughout the Center. The Center also announced the national awardees for the KCACTF. Selected awardees and representatives will be brought to Washington, D.C. for an expense-paid trip to participate in the National Festival. These student artists from across the United States have been recognized for their outstanding work from the eight regional festivals that were held January 8 through February 28, 2019.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the deadly shooting at Columbine High School, 1st Stage brings us a columbinus that, tragically, is as frightening, significant, and topical today as ever before. In the two decades since the massacre at Columbine High-the deadliest school shooting at the time-we have now experienced tragedies at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Parkland, and more. columbinus mixes documentary fact with fiction to delve into the alienation, social pressure, intimidation, and rage of adolescent life in high school.

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the tragic 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, this docudrama combines fact and fiction to illuminate the dark realities of adolescence. Weaving together excerpts of real interviews with parents, survivors, and community leaders and powerful characterizations of contemporary teens, columbinus thoughtfully explores the Columbine shooting and the conversations that continue to this day. The New York Post hailed columbinus as 'a powerful and important piece about the churning rage that's all too likely to bubble over again.'

Let me start this review with a comment by Olney's Artistic Director, Jason Loewith's comment in the program. 'After all my years in this business, many of them championing playwrights and new plays, it takes a lot to knock my socks off. I can count on two hands the experiences that reshaped by understanding of live theater and its possibilities. The world premiere of Ella Hickson's OIL in London two years was one of them. It is a blazingly, ambitious, as intellectually thrilling, as emotionally resonant as most the great works I've seen this century.'

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the tragic 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, this docudrama combines fact and fiction to illuminate the dark realities of adolescence. Weaving together excerpts of real interviews with parents, survivors, and community leaders and powerful characterizations of contemporary teens, columbinus thoughtfully explores the Columbine shooting and the conversations that continue to this day. The New York Post hailed columbinus as "a powerful and important piece about the churning rage that's all too likely to bubble over again."

With all of the media options at their disposal today, creating theater pieces that will keep young people totally engaged is getting to be more and more of a challenge. Kennedy Center's Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) division's latest attempt at something fresh sometimes succeeds and sometimes doesn't. Most of the success in She A Gem can be attributed to the oh so fly direction of Paige Hernandez and her talented cast and design team. Whether or not the playwright Josh Wilder was up for the challenge is open to debate.

The American Premiere of Ella Hickson's Oil directed by Tracy Brigden begins its Olney Theatre Center run in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab on February 27 and runs through March 31.  Invited Press Night is Saturday, March 2 at 7:45pm.

Grammy nominee Mark Hummel returns, kicking off the new year with the latest iteration of his all-star blues revue, the 2019 Southern Blues Harp Blowout. As always, his guests are stellar: Grammy Award-winner Bobby Rush is a ten-time Blues Music Award winner, B.B. King Entertainer of the Year, and Rolling Stone "King of the Chitlin' Circuit" winner. Alabama harpman James Harman- one of the great performers, writers and unique characters in the blues today - has employed some of the all-time great blues musicians in his bands. Kenny Neal is a second-generation southern Louisiana bluesman, 2017 Grammy nominee and winner of two Blues Music Awards for his Bloodline recording. And Jumpin' Johnny Sansone studied harmonica with Junior Wells and James Cotton; his former band Jumpin Johnny's Blues Party was the foundation of the New Orleans-based The Iguanas. Rounding out the good times is blues supergroup Golden State/Lone Star Blues Revue.

Presented by The Reel Blues Fest, Inc., more than 16 blues musicians from around the country including James Montgomery, Bob Margolin, Jerry Portnoy and many others will come together on Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 8:00 p.m. for an all-star tribute to the late blues harmonica legend James Cotton.

Signature Theatre presents the DC premiere of Heisenberg by Tony Award-winning playwright Simon Stephens and directed by Signature Theatre Director of New Works Joe Calarco. The production stars Michael Russotto as Alex and Rachel Zampelli as Georgie. Heisenberg will run September 18 - November 11, 2018 in Signature Theatre's ARK Theatre.

Signature Theatre has announced the full cast and creative team for the DC premiere of Heisenberg by Tony Award-winning playwright Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) and directed by Signature Theatre Director of New Works Joe Calarco (Signature's The Flick, The Scottsboro Boys). The production will star Michael Russotto (Rep Stage's The Whale, Signature's Art) as Alex and Rachel Zampelli (Signature's The Gulf, Midwestern Gothic) as Georgie. Heisenberg will run September 18 - November 11, 2018 in Signature Theatre's ARK Theatre.

Few and far between are the times that we reviewers have a perfect night in the theater. Generally, we can find something to complain about in any given production. It could be we love the performances, but not the script or vice versa.