Roger Catlin - Page 4

Devotees of Downton Abbey may be be surprised when Hugh Bonneville pops up as title character in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s first rate staging of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.

Professor Woland’s Black Magic Rock Show continues through April 13 at Spooky Action Theatre, operating at the Universalist National Memorial Church. Check here for the review.

It’s fitting that the Theater Alliance’s terrific new offering “The Garbologists” is presented in a temporary pop-up in the sprawling ground floor of a new apartment building — an industrial, no-frills empty retail space that could serve as a truck garage for the two workers featured in Lindsay Joelle’s sharp play.

The latest offering from Washington Stage Guild, “Escape from the Asylum: A Madcap Mystery,” is a sequel to the Patricia Milton play presented there last season, “The Victorian Ladies Detective Collective.”

Health care systems and society in general has never adjusted to just how long people are living these days. It’s fallen largely to family members to do their best to help their elders stay at home as long as possible. The strained efforts have had a huge effect on all these volunteer caregivers, trying to help loved ones, in addition to life’s usual work and family obligations.

Even after serving jail time, they get something of a life sentence with ankle bracelets monitoring every move, large swaths of the city cut off from them because of proximity to elementary schools, forced to live with no WiFi among people they probably wouldn’t have chosen and forever carry the scorn of passerby.

What did our critic think of STEP AFRIKA! MAGICAL MUSICAL HOLIDAY STEP SHOW at Arena Stage?

Kathy Mattea remembers the time when she was moping around the house, worried about making “an album nobody would hear.” It was 1993 and she was making a Christmas album minus the usual holiday standards or well-known carols. Santa was nowhere to be found; jingle bells, as subject or sound effect, was absent. 

Of the too-many stage variations of Charles Dickens’ Scrooge story this time of year, the one that’s found its place in my cold, black heart is the Keegan Theatre’s “An Irish Carol.”

What did our critic think of SHAW'S SHORTS at Washington Stage Guild?

Signature Theatre’s cabaret series has been mining the riches of the 1960s for some time, from Bacharach to Woodstock, with repeat visits to Motown. A new show diverges to Memphis for its own flavor of gritty soul and the gems that came from its own indelible record label.

The latest Second City production at Woolly Mammoth aims to bring “Black joy” in the tradition of its past successes there, such as 2016’s “Black Side of the Moon.” That show came to D.C. on the teeth of a dispiriting election, as does the new one, “Dance Like There’s Black People Watching.”

As the first person to serve as Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra, Ben Folds has had several opportunities over the past few years to perform with the organization.

It was 20 years ago when 'Mean Girl' first hit movie theaters, cementing a certain kind of malevolent high school clique even as it launched a million memes, introduced a generation of actresses and established a pink dress code for its female fans years before “Barbie.” A rite of passage in itself, “Mean Girls” has never really gone away.

It was 30 years ago this week that a stylish Portland, Ore. lounge combo played its first gig, motivated by something with which Washington D.C. audiences could easily relate: politics.

It figures that a Riot Grrrls version of “The Tragedie of Macbeth” at Taffety Punk would focus on the witches - or three wyrd sisters, as they’re called here 

But the new play by Dave Harris at Studio Theater is framed the same way: Six people marooned in an afterschool detention classroom on the Friday before Martin Luther King weekend, who bicker, flirt, nearly fight, and wonder if the presiding teacher will ever come to sign forms allowing them to go home. 

Bandhouse Gigs, an outfit that assembles top local musicians to honor a variety of artists from Bob Dylan to the Stones, began its life outdoors at the Strathmore, honoring Nils Lofgren. For a big event Saturday with the full title “Strathmore Presents A BandHouse Gigs 20th Anniversary Tribute to DC Legends,” an attempt was made to honor no less than 24 acts over three and a half hours, involving, by one count, 75 different musicians.