Lisa Hodsoll

What did our critic think of SONNETS FOR AN OLD CENTURY at Spooky Action?

What did our critic think of MY CALAMITOUS AFFAIR... at The Corner At Whitman Walker? Voices Festival Productions' presents My Calamitous Affair with the Minister of Culture and Censorship or Death of Dialogic in the American Theater by founder and playwright, Ari Roth as its season opener. My Calamitous Affair...is directed by DC theatre veteran and six time Helen Hayes Award Nominee John Vreeke.

Recriminations, reprisals and heart wrenching ruminations ensue as a group of five women face a time of purges and fear in the harrowing play Pankrác ’45.  Set in the infamous Pankrác Prison of Czechoslovakia during the end of the Nazi occupation in the year 1945, this trenchant and absorbing play by Czech Playwright Martina Kinská is an interesting melding of an historical context set against five very interesting character studies.

Returning to Spooky Action Theater to kick off their 2021 Reopening Season after its original run was cut short in March 2020, The Realistic Joneses is a touching and humorous examination of human mortality and the curious ways we can find hope--or, at the very least, a little bit of comfort--in one another.

Expats Theatre will present its third production Pankrác 45 written by Czech playwright Martina Kinska and translated by Barbara Day.

How could you not love a play about theater critics? Especially where, as in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, now available in virtual format through Spooky Action Theater’s website, the critics are pompous, abrasive and criminally uninformed. Moon (Robert Bowen Smith) and Birdboot (Steve Beall), critics both, are the only audience – perhaps we should say witnesses – to the butchery known as Murder in Muldoon Manor. Muldoon is an enterprise so catastrophic that it makes Nothing On (the calamity being performed by the actors in Noises Off) seem like Beckett, or Shakespeare, or – Stoppard.

What Comes Next, or Meet the Dunnes, a new comedy by award-winning playwright Drama Desk nominee and Edgar Award recipient Laurence Klavan, is now available online from the 21st Century Players with free access to all. What Comes Next asks the question to which just about everyone who has ever lived has sought an answer: where do we go after we die, and can a person get a decent meal there?

It may have been unrealistic to open a new play amid the coronavirus pandemic, but 'The Realistic Joneses' did just that on Saturday at Spooky Action Theatre, a group whose name inspires no further confidence (it's named after Einstein's term for quantum entanglement - the ability of separate objects to share a condition at a distance).

Keegan's Boiler Room Series has announced the 4th Annual WOMXN on Fire Festival at Keegan Theatre, March 9-15, 2020.

Hero's Welcome weaves a twisted and darkly comedic tale of relationships shaped by love, redemption, jealously, and deceit. When Murray, a war hero, returns to his home town after 17 years away he hopes to settle down with his new wife and refurbish his family's old hotel

There's nothing quite like a British dark comedy to usher in the unofficial start of autumn. The poignant regional premiere of HERO'S WELCOME at 1st Stage in Tysons fits the bill, with its undercurrent of personal drama that quickly rises to the surface, engulfing a town in figurative flames that could turn literal at any moment.

Roger Sanders and Dana Scott Galloway present the New York premiere of The Klunch's production of LAURA BUSH KILLED A GUY by Ian Allen. Directed by John Vreeke, the production stars Lisa Hodsoll, who received a 2018 Helen Hayes Award nomination for her portrayal of the former First Lady in the acclaimed Washington DC premiere. Previews begin June 14 at The Flea Theater with opening night slated for Thursday, June 21.

Constellation Theatre Company's new production of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle isn't perfect. It is undoubtedly a celebration of what smart allegory can be. As this small theater company stretches itself to the limits to ensure they do Brecht's seminal work justice, they make great cases for both why more people should be visiting Constellation and why Brecht's work should be examined more often.

The nominees for the 2018 Helen Hayes Awards were announced on February 5, 2018. One of the country's most prestigious cultural honors, The Helen Hayes Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in professional theatre throughout the Washington metropolitan area. The National Theatre's Helen Hayes Gallery set the scene for the announcement of nominees in 47 categories for artistic excellence, and the theatre companies eligible for the 2017 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company. The recipient of the 2018 Helen Hayes Tribute will be announced shortly.

As effervescent and fun as it is filled with the world of ideas (and equations), 'Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight' is a heady evening, bringing a great women back to brilliant life both onstage and in our collective memory.

Avant Bard begins Season 28 with Lauren Gunderson's Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight - a witty reincarnation of a passionate and defiant woman who in 18th-century France dazzled Voltaire and blazed a trail for women in science. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Avant Bard announces full casting and creative team for its first production of the season, Lauren Gunderson's Emilie: La Marquise Du Ch telet Defends Her Life Tonight--a witty reincarnation of a passionate and defiant woman who in 18th-century France dazzled Voltaire and blazed a trail for women in science.

Playwright Cordelia Lynn's is well aware of the intense, yet important journey examined in LELA & CO. "I knew that the play could be horrifying and shocking and upsetting - and all those things you can get out of visual violence, without actually showing it," says Lynn. "I want the audience to leave and think there are things happening that I don't see -- maybe because I don't want to see".

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.

Laura Bush is an enigma wrapped in another enigma. She's shy, beautiful, bookish, and in 1963, she blew through a stop sign and killed a guy. It was probably just an accident. Or maybe, just maybe - it was murder. Join Mrs. Bush for this hilarious and heartfelt evening of real-life reminiscences of her childhood in Texas (untrue?), of her marriage to George W. Bush (a sham?), and of their rapid ascent to the very pinnacle of world power (an abomination?). Scroll down for a first look at LAURA BUSH KILLED A GUY at The Klunch!