Roger Catlin

Julia Masli was a hit when she first came to the Woolly Mammoth Theatre for her 2024 one-woman performance piece “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,” soliciting problems from the audience and conjuring community, whimsy and sometimes magic on the way to solving them.

There are terrible things going on in the world and specifically at the Kennedy Center, where the staff’s been decimated, attendance is way down, booked engagements have withdrawn, and others have been cancelled in a few weeks  to make way for activities related to the World Cup or maybe eventually the UFC.

What did our critic think of FURLOUGH'S PARADISE at Theater Alliance. “Furlough’s Paradise” runs through Nov. 23 at Theater Alliance, 340 Maple St SW.

Dating is a whole different beast these days, fueled by phone apps, texts, Google checks, reality shows and who knows what else. It makes the goings on in the Nu Sass Theatre’s new production “Fifth Date” look positively quaint.

The attention to detail in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s terrific production of “The Wild Duck” extends to preshow atmospherics, with a distinct chill  not attributable to the cooling autumn temperatures outside.

When a husband is as hyper, irresponsible and over-the-top as the one in the movie “Mrs. Doubtfire,” a lot of flaws can be forgiven if he’s played by Robin Williams.

It was a rainy summer in Cologny, Switzerland in 1812, where the gathered literati — including Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John William Polidori, Mary Shelley and her stepsister Claire Clairmont -- tried to amuse themselves in the gloom by creating their own ghost stories.

In a small coastal town in Ireland, a pair of brothers greet each other one glorious morning on the Emerald  Isle. Except one of them announces he is dead. And he spends a lot of time convincing his brother he’s talking to a ghost.

It’s an odd thing to consider, especially in a week that began with Labor Day. But that’s an early surprise turn in Mary Glen Fredrick’s fiercely strange play “Fire Work” that is having part of its “rolling world premiere” at Theater Alliance.

The Signature cabaret succeeds because it gets the irony. Even while they play up the captain’s hats, cold drinks and ocean sunsets that help frame the genre, they realize the era’s hits can be at once catchy and silly — a good mix for a summer night of entertainment.

The best-selling book series in history, which in turn became one of the highest-grossing franchises of filmdom would naturally spawn a big Broadway hit, the nationally touring version of which is playing D.C. at the National Theatre after four months each in Chicago and Los Angeles. 

Two years of cancellations because of Covid helped lead to the dissolution of Capital Fringe in January after 20 years. To salvage the idea — and help the creators who had in some cases spent years on creating their own upcoming Fringe productions — a new, smaller District Fringe was established this summer up at the University of the District of Columbia.

Inappropriate crushes are best left to oneself, especially when it involves a married person — a lesson never learned by Owen (Ryan Sellers), the lead character in Greg Kalleres’ comedy “Apropos of Nothing” making its DC premiere at the Keegan Theatre.

The final play of the season at Studio Theatre comes with some environmental warnings. The production includes “nontoxing vaping, loud music, and controlled water spray, some of which might hit the audience.”

When it came to gender fluid plays, William Shakespeare was way ahead of the curve even 400 years ago. At the time, young males routinely played the female roles anyway. He had already made cross-dressing  hidden identity a part of “The Merchant of Venice” and would do so again in “As You Like It.” 

Among its other achievements, the world premiere of the Spanish language “Choke” at GALA Hispanic Theatre should also be noted as perhaps the first play to incorporate the collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge.

It’s not so strange, really, that there’s  a serious opera about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. His life’s work is usually invoked before every production of the last decade or more, when audiences are asked to silence their smartphones.

After “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” first premiered on Broadway in 1998, Signature Theatre became one of the first regional theaters to stage the brash hit in its own very successful production in 2002.

At a time when the reckless cruelty of the current administration has been decimating the city of federal workers and shuttering NGOs, there may not be much appetite for a comedy romp about infighting among such agencies.