Roger Catlin - Page 10

One of my first big assignments after I moved to Washington was tracking all the places that Duke Ellington lived, went to school, worked, hung out and performed with his orchestra in the city. I could walk to most of them.

When the opening night curtain rose on the final work of an emotional night - the last performances of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet that has been in residence at the Kennedy Center for 15 years - there was applause even before there was any movement.

Nina Simone didn't write her most iconic song inside Birmingham's bombed out 16th Street Baptist Church just after four girls were killed there in 1963. But she was so full of rage she could have. It's not the only flight of fancy in Christina Ham's dynamic theatrical work 'Nina Simone: Four Women' at Arena Stage.

So one expects nothing more than laughs when an original show called 'The Second City Presents: Nothing to Lose (But Our Chains)' takes up residence at Woolly Mammoth.

There was sufficient buzz about the booking of a new Daniel Kitson show at Studio Theatre this season that they would apparently take anything.

Two days was an exceedingly short time to take in the innovative collaboration project this week titled 'Digital Eye.'

A condensed 'Antony and Cleopatra' at the Folger Theatre still has time for a couple of ensemble dance numbers straight out of 'Solid Gold,' a battle scene that's almost as well choreographed and a whole lot of kissing.

The current worldwide refugee crisis is the right time to recall the tragedy of the U.S.S. St. Louis, the German ocean liner that set sail in 1939 with 937 Jews seeking new homes. Cruelly denied entry to Cuba, the U.S. and Canada, the refugee ship had to turn back to Europe where hundreds of the once hopeful passengers subsequently perished in the Holocaust.

With its emphasis on both 1960s psychedelic rock music and the Three Stooges, it would seem the latest offering at the Round House Theatre was tailored precisely for my taste.

In its 30 seasons as a community-based, portable opera company, the In Series organization has appeared on a number of local stages, in colleges, revamped movie houses and contemporary theater spaces.

The riveting story of 'Lela & Co' occurs in a country that is not named; it could and, sadly, probably is going on in a number of places.

Being called 'the Tennessee Williams of Transylvania' is just about the coolest moniker a playwright could receive.

The Mosaic Theater Company ignites its third season with a sure hit, a proven crowd-pleaser about the Empress of Blues.

The Mosaic Theaatre Company closes its second season with a perfectly realized and humane play about real life in the Middle East precisely 50 years after the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

At its core, Mollye Maxner's 'Still Life with Rocket' is one of those complex, emotional theatrical dramas that grow out of an uneasy reunion, where cracks in the family unit become increasingly and tragically clear. After its secrets are revealed, there's a climax from which no one can return.

For three decades, the In Series has been presenting intimate, small scale works - what it calls 'pocket operas' on a variety of stages in the city.

As Capitol Hill seems to talking nonstop about the state of American health care at a time when it all might change, a couple of one-man plays at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop was breaking down the issues in terms that are immediate, emotional and human.

Half the fun of going to see plays at Spooky Action Theatre is seeing how they've transformed the basement of the Universalist National Memorial Church for each production. Sometimes they completely obscure its identity; other times they embrace very nook.

Ian Merrill Peakes begins and ends his role as 'Timon of Athens' standing in the center of Folger Shakespeare Theatre's stage. At the start, he's basking in his glory as a prosperous master of the universe, happily dispersing his gold; in the end he's alone, torn down, penniless emotionally, at the mercy of gods, or fate, or something quite different than the riches that once defined him.

Lisa Hodsoll emerges as fully First Lady in The Klunch world premiere 'Laura Bush Killed a Guy.' She's got that soft West Texas accent, the omnipresent smile as shiny as her pearls, a cream colored ensemble, and poise to burn.