Roger Catlin

The current production ,“Get Down Tonight: Classic Funk,” is a engaging array of familiar songs from the 60s and 70s that didn’t have any trouble getting people to clap along, and a few to eventually get up and groove.

Aguardiente is the name of a firey drink from Colombia that’s sugary and strong. So it’s also a good name for the world premiere musical comissioned for the 50th anniversary season of GALA Hispanic Theatre in Columbia Heights. 

Dragons are fire-breathing their way back into the culture, from the animated series “How to Train Your Dragon” to the fierce special effect triumphs in “Game of Thrones.” Their images date back thousands of years to ancient Mesopotamia.

It’s a little surprising that in 40 years, that a production from the Royal Shakespeare Company has never before visited Washington’s Shakespeare Theatre Company (though the opposite is true — a Shakespeare Theater Company production of “Love’s Labor’s Lost” played Stratford-upon-Avon 20 years ago). 

The sign of a good play is that it can ring out its truth through different eras and still seem utterly relevant to the moment. 

The title of Rebecca Dzida’s play  “Cake Eaters” of course borrows from the “Let them eat cake” phrase that originates from before the French Revolution and was often attributed to Marie Antoinette. 

It was a harrowing winter storm that blocked streets, closed schools and generally paralyzed the city for days. But it wasn’t quite bad enough to qualify as one of the 'festive near-death adventures' that comprise Iris Bahr’s “Stories from the Brink!” though it certainly affected its run. 

Ghosts are not infrequent in Shakespeare’s work, from the spirits of Hamlet’s father to Banquo in “Macbeth.”  Is that enough of a connection to bring the theatrical creation “Paranormal Activity” to the Shakespeare Theatre Company?

What are the odds of two cartoonists submitting to the New Yorker both living in Cleveland? Or that one was hired to be the caretaker of the other? 

What did our critic think of the national touring company production of DR. SEUSS' HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! THE MUSICAL, running at the National Theatre.

Most know the musical “West Side Story,” where Puerto Rican and white gangs rumble on the Upper West Side 1950s New York in the manner of the Montagues and Capulets.

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.