I think the minimalism and starkness is intended to be clarifying; we are meant to be focused on the hearts of the various intertwined stories Shakespeare presents, and perhaps less distracted by other things going on at the very large periphery the playwright has laid out. Whatever the purpose, we find ourselves deeply drawn in, so that by the time all the bodies bestrew the stage at the end, the horror and the catharsis of it all has not only engulfed us – but thrilled us as well.
The latest standings as of Monday, December 19th, have been released for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites.
The Keegan Theatre is presenting a moving and sensitive production of composer William Finn’s Elegies: A Song Cycle. This is a work of disarming autobiographical elements that underscore Finn’s alternately quirky and elegiac lyrics. Finn’s music is shot through with a sense of longing and pain abetted with a sense of holding on to whatever one can grasp at in times of despair and loss.
The Keegan Theatre has announced the cast and creative team of Elegies: A Song Cycle, a celebration of life and music penned by Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist William Finn (Falsettos, A New Brain, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee).
The Outsider by Paul Slade Smith, now playing at the Keegan Theatre, is a skewering send-up of all the shenanigans that polls, pollsters, and the media are involved in. Laughs aplenty ensue as a governor must resign and a decidedly “outsider” type of candidate, Ned Newley (played by a perfectly cast Zach Brewster-Geisz), is thrust into the spotlight without any of the political and media-savvy intuition that politicos believe are so necessary to appeal to the voters. Soon the tables are turned, and the outsider becomes the darling of the media due to his unerring honesty and complete lack of guile.
The Keegan Theatre has released production photos for the Regional Premiere of THE OUTSIDER by Paul Slade Smith, which runs from August 27 through September 24th.
The Keegan Theatre has announced the cast and creative team of the hilarious (and timely) political comedy THE OUTSIDER, by Paul Slade Smith, making its regional premiere as the first show in Keegan’s 26th season.
What did our critic think? Sophisticated New Ones, written by well versed television actor, writer and show creator Keith Powel is not a throw away play. Set in the time leading up to President Barack Obama's first election, this story centers an antique repair shop owned and operated by a divorce' and her adult son. It explores the conflict between what one has to give up in order to move forward. It's directed by Unexpected Stage Company board member and stage veteran, Dawn Thomas Reidy.
As part of its thirteenth season, Unexpected Stage Company presents Sophisticated New Ones by Keith Powell (This Is Us, 30 Rock), directed by Dawn Thomas Reidy (Raisin in the Sun at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company). The production will run June 15 to July 3 in the Fireside Room, an intimate 30-seat venue, at the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation building, located at 6301 River Road in Bethesda. The production will also be offered virtually.
The Keegan Theatre has announced the 2022 Boiler Room Series (BRS), a series of presentations and events that take audiences into the world where new plays get made.
It is, of course, mere coincidence that former South African State President F.W. de Clerk died only three days before Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa! opened at Washington Stage Guild, but it sets a mood. de Clerk was the last President of apartheid-afflicted South Africa; he led the government’s sometimes acrimonious negotiations with Nelson Mandela to bring democracy to that benighted country, for which they shared a Nobel Prize.
The Washington Stage Guild will return to the stage with a masterwork by one of the modern theatre’s most important figures: My Children! My Africa!, the great South African playwright Athol Fugard’s meditation on education and its role in the struggle for justice, along with its sad limits in a culture of oppression and bigotry.
The Keegan Theatre announces the cast and creative team of Brandon McCoy's heartwarming new play WEST BY GOD, making its world premiere on September 27, 2019 at The Andrew Keegan Theatre in Washington, DC. Following its premiere in DC, WEST BY GOD will travel to West Virginia in the first ever KeeganConnects tour, a new annual initiative designed to take original, provocative plays to small towns and communities nationwide. The press opening is slated for October 1, 2019.
A child injures another in a playground confrontation. The parents of each meet to discuss. It's a parenting moment so universal that the familiar premise in Yasmina Reza's 'God of Carnage' was originally written in French and first presented in London. It was a Tony-winner on Broadway a decade ago in a production with James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden.
The Keegan Theatre is pleased to announce the cast and creative team for the upcoming production of the 2009 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, GOD OF CARNAGE by Yasmina Reza (also the playwright of the 1998 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, ART). In this shrewd and vicious comedy, Reza ferociously and hilariously strips her affluent, over-achieving characters down to their savage core, as they gleefully flout the terms of human civility.
The 1st Stage production of HARVEY by Mary Chase features Tonya Beckman, Jonathan Lee Taylor, William Aitken, Elliott Bales, Robert Grimm, DeJeanette Horne, Carolyn Kashner, Kelsey Meiklejohn, Emily Morrison, Sue Schaffel, and Tim Torre. Michael Chamberlin returns to 1st Stage to direct the production. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!
With World War II raging on in Europe, Veta Simmons and her daughter, Myrtle Mae Simmons are fighting a battle of their own against Elwood P. Dowd, Veta's brother, in order to try to keep their social lives intact. However, all of their tactics cannot keep Elwood from inviting his friend, Harvey, to their social events. Harvey is Elwood's best friend and they do everything together. The only problem is that Elwood is the only person who can see Harvey, a pooka in the form of a six foot tall rabbit. One afternoon after a disastrous Wednesday forum, Veta decides that it is time to commit Elwood to Chumley's Rest, a sanitarium.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, this beloved classic is a treat for the whole family. Veta Simmons and her daughter Myrtle Mae have just moved back into town and are making quite a splash on the social scene. Gatherings and engagements abound as Myrtle Mae peruses for a viable suitor. However, to Veta and Myrtle Mae's great dismay, uncle Elwood insists on involving his best friend Harvey in all their social affairs. Harvey is a precocious, humorous, and mischievous character who just so happens to be an imaginary, six-foot-one-and-a-half-foot tall rabbit. When Veta and Myrtle Mae decide to seek respite from Elwood and his pooka, a case of mistaken identity leads the town on a journey to discover the true 'lunacy' at play. This delightful, timeless classic challenges us to embrace our imaginations and to resist, at all costs, 'being perfectly normal human beings.'
One Man, Two Guvnors, the British import that wowed audiences in New York in 2012, has landed in Tysons! 1st Stage in Tysons has assembled a show that is a combination of farce, improv, and music hall, is the complete evening that will make you roll in the aisles with laughter.
