C. Harris News

The city lights of Washington may typically obscure the night sky, but a portal to the cosmos has opened in downtown DC. Playwright Lauren Gunderson has gifted us a corner of the galaxy through the telescopic lens of astronomer Henrietta Leavitt's life and scientific discoveries. Leavitt's work may have been rooted in facts and figures, but SILENT SKY is bursting with imagination.

Ford's Theatre Society announced full casting and the design team for Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson, a captivating play based on the life of trail-blazing astronomer Henrietta Leavitt. The Ford's Theatre production is directed by Seema Sueko and features Laura C. Harris (Arena Stage's The Heiress, Signature Theatre's The Flick) as Henrietta Leavitt, Nora Achrati as Annie Jump Cannon, Emily Kester as Margaret Leavitt, Jonathan David Martin as Peter Shaw and Holly Twyford as Williamina Fleming. Performances are January 24 to February 23, 2020. A media performance is scheduled for January 29, 2020 at 7:00 p.m.

Jackie Sibblies Drury's play, Fairview, currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, is a show that desperately calls for conversation. It's no wonder, then, that each performance is immediately followed by community discussions led by Build With, a DC-based anti-racist training, facilitation, and consulting practice focused on people, power, and partnership. While I wasn't able to stay for this event following Saturday night's performance, it is an important step in ensuring this work's complicated themes are digested in a clear way. Fairview is one of the most conceptual shows in recent memory. Not every idea can be fully explored in this production, which has a tight 100-minute run time that director Stevie Walker-Webb keeps clipping at a good pace. Nevertheless, Fairview is a necessary piece for anyone looking to dive deeper into discussions of race and identity in America.

The Pulitzer Prize winning play, Fairview, recently opened at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Find out what critics had to say!

Pack a picnic, take a blanket and some bug spray and commune with nature and your fellow lovers of the Bard at this free 25th anniversary performance by the Rochester Community Players: Shakespeare Program. You will experience Shakespeare as a rich shared experience.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, in association with activist and actress Jjana Valentiner, recently held a public, nonpartisan 11-hour marathon reading of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Report. 

EIGHT NIGHTS, a new play from award-winning playwright Jennifer Maisel, is having a unique introduction to audiences - a series of benefit staged readings across America. The 8 Nights of EIGHT NIGHTS series will occur on at least 8 different nights in at least 8 different cities, to raise funds and awareness for HIAS.

Award-winning playwright Andrea J. Fulton's acclaimed, AUDELCO award-winning play UGLY IS A HARD PILL will get performances in Brooklyn on Saturday, April 13 at 2pm and 6pm at the Camba Cultural Center (1958 Fulton Street, Brooklyn), presented by the 81st Precinct Community Council and the Anderson & Bert Cade Fulton Foundation.

Award-winning playwright Andrea J. Fulton's acclaimed, AUDELCO award-winning play UGLY IS A HARD PILL will get performances in Brooklyn on Saturday, April 13 at 2pm and 6pm at the Camba Cultural Center (1958 Fulton Street, Brooklyn), presented by the 81st Precinct Community Council and the Anderson & Bert Cade Fulton Foundation.

Award-winning playwright Andrea J. Fulton's acclaimed, AUDELCO award-winning play UGLY IS A HARD PILL will get performances in Brooklyn on Saturday, April 13 at 2pm and 6pm at theCamba Cultural Center (1958 Fulton Street, Brooklyn), presented by the 81st Precinct Community Council and the Anderson & Bert Cade Fulton Foundation.

Theater J Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr and Managing Director Jojo Ruf announce the 2019-2020 season, welcoming home audiences to a beautiful and refreshed theater located in the newly renovated Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center on 16th Street. The season includes four plays and one musical, all being produced for the first time in DC, as well as the triumphant return of a recent Theater J hit. From an intoxicating new musical set in Tel Aviv based on the Song of Songs to the late-career masterpiece by multiple Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee, Theater J's season celebrates journeys of every kind with a provocative and ambitious slate of plays. Of the six shows, three have future runs: two in New York City and one at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

THE HEIRESS is playing at Arena Stage in Washington, DC through March 10, 2019. Finding one's voice is never easy. Socially awkward and plain Catherine Sloper has struggled her entire life under the disapproving and resentful gaze of her father. It is the unexpected visit from a suitor full of sincerity and instantaneous devotion that awakens Catherine's long abandoned hopes of true love and the opportunity for a fresh start. A devastating betrayal forces the scorned Catherine to learn how to roar, realize her truth and take control of her destiny.

Perhaps the biggest problem with 'The Heiress' is that it's difficult to invest in. It's hard to root for Catherine beyond hoping she tells Morris off, and that's more about dislike of him than support for her. After all, we can all get behind telling off a bad ex. It's just a shame that The Heiress doesn't give us the opportunity to go deeper than that.

The play seems to be a retrospective of Shakespeare's career, with a strong note of self-parody. And with a playwright as fecund as Shakespeare, a 'greatest hits album' would have to be full to bursting. And so that's what Cymbeline is: a 'greatest hits' that refuses to take itself seriously, and invites us to participate in Shakespeare's gentle laugh at himself.

Arena Stage presents Ruth and Augustus Goetz's melodrama, The Heiress, suggested by the Henry James novel, Washington Square. After growing up subjected to her father's disinterest and strong resentment, a young woman in the 1850s discovers what love is in her journey towards independence, growth and strength, without an impactful female role model in her life. Directed by Deputy Artistic Director Seema Sueko, The Heiress runs February 8 - March 10, 2019 in the Fichandler Stage.

Arena Stage presents Ruth and Augustus Goetz's melodrama, The Heiress, suggested by the Henry James novel, Washington Square.

Today's subject, Jonathan David Martin, came to Washington, DC after accepting a job as Associate Producer of Theater J, but he is currently living his theatre life back onstage in The Heiress at Arena Stage in the role of Morris Townsend This production, which marks his Arena Stage debut, begins performances on February 8th. It plays through March 10th in Arena's Fitchandler Stage space.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the full company for Ruth and Augustus Goetz's melodrama, The Heiress, suggested by the Henry James novel, Washington Square. After growing up subjected to her father's disinterest and strong resentment, a young woman in the 1850s discovers what love is in her journey towards independence, growth and strength, without an impactful female role model in her life. Directed by Deputy Artistic Director Seema Sueko, The Heiress runs February 8 - March 10, 2019 in the Fichandler Stage.

Arena Stage presents Ruth and Augustus Goetz's melodrama, The Heiress, suggested by the Henry James novel, Washington Square.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the full company for Ruth and Augustus Goetz's melodrama, The Heiress, suggested by the Henry James novel, Washington Square. After growing up subjected to her father's disinterest and strong resentment, a young woman in the 1850s discovers what love is in her journey towards independence, growth and strength, without an impactful female role model in her life. Directed by Deputy Artistic Director Seema Sueko, The Heiress runs February 8 - March 10, 2019 in the Fichandler Stage.