Jennifer Perry - Page 16

Overall, there's much to like about this production. The acting alone is worth the ticket price.

Director John Benitz, who has been with the show since making its world premiere at Chapman University where he teaches, graciously answered a few questions over email about the project, and how it came to the Kennedy Center, what draws him to the material, and what experience the show will offer to Kennedy Center audiences.

Whether one was looking for original tunes by the artists and those closest to them, covers of popular country or R&B music, or songs they performed on the television series, the DC stop of the nine-city concert tour offered a little bit of everything.

Factory 449's Washington, DC premiere of Radha Bharadwaj's CLOSET LAND is, in many ways, the kind of theatre that truly excites me.

With so many Sondheim revues, this begs the question of whether there is room or a need for yet another one. With SIMPLY SONDHEIM, Signature Theatre makes a strong case for an affirmative answer to that question.

At Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, strong direction by Company Member Michael John Garces and tour-de-force acting performances from all three cast members bring out the best of Beckim's tightly written script.

A local theatre educator, Kevin Kuchar of the Act Two @ Levine Program, has been nominated for the inaugural Excellence in Theatre Education Award, presented by Carnegie Mellon University and the Tony Awards. We talk to some of his current and former students about why they nominated their teacher.

I could probably write a one sentence review of Audra McDonald's concert at Bethesda's magnificent Music Center at Strathmore that would sum up my reaction quite well. It would read something like this: Audra is perfection and can do anything.

On the heels of Kander and Pierce's KID VICTORY comes Blaemire's SOON. Much like KID VICTORY, this premiere production is bit quirky, wholly original, daring, and seeks to advance our understanding of what we know musical theatre to be.

It's likely of little surprise to anyone that follows the workings of the highest court in our nation that any legal battle situation involving conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and an opponent is ripe for theatricalization. Arena Stage's resident playwright John Strand has done just that with his world premiere play, THE ORIGINALIST. However, the play he wrote is not the one we all might expect.

Leonardo Moreira's Portuguese language O JARDIM (translated as 'The Garden') is perhaps one of the more creative entries in the ongoing Iberian Suite festival at Kennedy Center.

Peter Hilliard and Matt Boresi answered a few questions from BroadwayWorld DC about what audiences might expect from the world premiere of BLUE VIOLA, their writing partnership, history with UrbanArias, and of course the whole contested debate about musical theatre vs. opera.

Famed Mexican singer Eugenia Leon made her Kennedy Center debut this weekend and put succinctly, at least musically, it proved to be a debut to remember.

One of the greatest things about the Kennedy Center is its long history of exposing Washington, DC audiences to a healthy selection of international theatre, music, and dance artists. A major facet of this programming is an annual international arts festival, which, this year, is focused on the Iberian Peninsula and, by extension, other countries that have been heavily influenced by Spain and/or Portugal. Particularly exciting is the Washington, DC premiere of Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras' VOCES, SUITE FLAMENCA.

Let's just get right to it. There's a lot to like about much anticipated world premiere of John Kander and Greg Pierce's 'Kid Victory' at Signature Theatre.

She can do it it all.

'Chicago' returns yet again to DC's historic National Theatre. Even if you've seen the tour the other times it has come through our fair city, the current engagement is worth the return visit.

Celebrated Japanese artist Miwa Yanagi's play, Zero Hour: Tokyo Rose's Last Tape is making the rounds to various American cities (before playing Washington DC's Kennedy Center this past weekend, it played New York). Fundamentally, the North American tour is a great idea because it takes a more or less comparatively lesser known segment of World War II history involving Japanese Americans and presents it to American audiences in an intriguing way. Underpinning the history-based narrative is also the idea of young, impressionable females being pawns for their older male counterparts - an idea which transcends historical, geographical, and sociocultural contexts.

At Round House Theatre, all that is exceedingly good about Gionfriddo's play 'on paper' is leveraged in the best way possible for this production, and made even 'better' by exceptional acting, direction, and production values. I'd even go as far to say that it's one of the best executed productions I've seen in the area in recent years.