G. Blaise Hoeler

Theater J opened the 2014 & 2015 Locally Grown Festival with an original one man piece: The Prostate Dialogues, created and performed by Jon Spelman. At the core of this one man show is the reality and strength of human nature. Spelman straps the audience in for a journey that battles with mortality, masculinity and family.

But more than just a play about trying to bypass the Nazi regime and their cruelty, this play is about loss. Not just one loss, but continual and mounting loss. De Bonheur first loses his country, then his family of actors and finally bids farewell to his most abiding love-his art.

The Spelling Bee is as American as Abraham Lincoln. Its cultural and historical significance for the legions of American students who participate in them each year makes the Ford's Theatre an incredibly fitting venue for the much beloved musical, 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.'

Who knew that a romp through the Austrian countryside could leave one so bedazzled?

According to the news, on the same day that a giant horde of sea hawks from Seattle, Washington, pulverized an equally as large but not quite as majestic army of broncos from Colorado in East Rutherford, New Jersey, another battle was being waged in the Folger Shakespeare Theatre. This battle, however, was between Richard III and the rest of the world.

Seeing plays such as 'The Importance of Being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde reminds modern theater audiences that they can experience excellent drama even when the play is full of silly words and sillier characters. In fact, many plays, both past and present, use humor in order to communicate a possibly greater, deeper meaning than the dramas of lovelorn romantics and war-torn monarchs can graze.

I feel that Irish-American theater typically goes in one of two ways. The first way, the most typical way, is down a dark, winding path of alcoholism, bitterness and dirty jokes. The other way is lighter, filled with wise-cracking Irish humor and charm, and probably still more drinking than recommended but warm. Of course, this is by no means the rule, but it seems to be a standard especially around Christmas

"A Broadway Christmas Carol" proves to be an exception to the endless litany of Dickensian themed Christmas tradition. This production was not just a retelling of a timeless literary classic, but a highly entertaining show to help ring in the holiday season.

The Keegan Theatre tries their own hand at The Woman in Black under the direction of Colin Smith and Mark A. Rhea. The show features two actors: Matthew Keenan and Robert Leembruggen who play the Actor and Mr. Kipps, respectively. Another character lurks around the set dressings and fixtures, without a face and without a voice. You will not find her in your play program, nor at the curtain call, yet she is there. She is the woman in black.

Inventing Van Gogh opened on Oct. 31, 2013, and will be running at the Undercroft Theater in the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church through November 24, 2013.

The Quotidian Theatre Company of Bethesda, MD, open their sixteenth season with a show of whisky-drenched realism in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh.

The Washington Rogues and Cultural DC production of In the Forest, She Grew Fangs-written by Stephen Spotswood and directed by Ryan S. Taylor-tries very hard produce a Little Red Riding Hood story with a bloody, murderous twist.