Jacob Yeh News

4615 Theatre Company's 'Separate Rooms' is a great display of how love and loss can affect a group of people - it balances the raw emotions of the moment with the very human need to push on. Despite some story arc issues, it is a touching, intimate, and funny insight into humanity.

It is difficult to think of another work of American literature that has so captured the imagination or has inspired more reincarnations than L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This summer, Synetic Theater manages to make a mark on this prolific field with their own adaptation.

This evening, the 34th Annual Helen Hayes Awards celebrated Washington's diverse and vital theatre community with a gala event at The Anthem, recognizing 258 Helen Hayes Award nominees and 48 award recipients drawn from 202 eligible productions presented at 64 theatres in 2017. GALA Hispanic Theatre's Spanish-language production of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes' In The Heights received nine awards, putting them at the top of a list of 20 theatres receiving Helen Hayes Awards this year.

The preshow speech of VIETGONE is spoken by the playwright, in which we learn that the play is a love story of how Mom and Dad got together. We also learn that the Vietnamese characters will speak like action heroes/Joss Whedon archetypes and that the Americans will speak... Well, some of it will be words. As Marc de la Cruz, who plays Quang, the playwright's father, says, 'The characters speak and relate to each other as many young Americans today despite the fact that they are Vietnamese and it's 1975... Also, the play is hilarious in an 'omigosh I can't believe they went there' kind of way.' Instantly, we are aware that the universe of VIETGONE is a one of a kind place. Director, Natsu Onoda Power, elaborates: '...it allows audience to perceive 'Vietnamese' characters NOT as the 'other'; it is so rare. (In this play, 'American' is the other).' Regina Aquino, who plays Tong, the playwright's mother, adds, 'From the very first page I was immediately impressed by Qui's flipping of the stereotype script... doing to the Americans what is done to Asian characters in film/tv/theatre all the time. It was shocking and I was totally in love with how subversively clever the writing was throughout the entire play.'

A musical/play about Vietnamese refugees you will always remember.

Studio Theatre is serving up a spectacle of a show that mashes satire and high emotion. VIETGONE, directed by Natsu Onoda Power, presents a truly diverse story with the potential to challenge entrenched ideas about the Vietnam War and the immigrant experience. Playwright Qui Nguyen's fresh voice bounces off the rafters and finds its fullest embodiment in the company's impressive and expressive physicality.

Vietgone by Qui Nguyen is the Vietnamese-American playwright's own creation story-a telling of his parents' 1975 refugee camp romance in a "geek theater" spectacle that's at turns affecting, sage, raucous, and fantastical. A screenwriter for Marvel Studios and founder of Obie Award-winning company Vampire Cowboys, Nguyen's work champions representation and diversity on stage while dripping with pop culture nods, contemporary music, and action-adventure narrative. The production pairs this Studio-commissioned playwright with director and Studio Cabinet member Natsu Onoda Power. Drawing on Vietgone's comic book aesthetics, Studio's Stage 4 is transformed into a garage concert with a live band and original funk-rock-punk-n-roll score, giving audiences a front row seat to this anything-but-typical story of boy meets girl.

The 34th Annual Helen Hayes Awards will take place on Monday, May 14, 2018 at The Anthem, the cultural center of Southwest D.C.'s new District Wharf, with a celebratory party to follow.

The 34th Annual Helen Hayes Awards will take place on Monday, May 14, 2018 at The Anthem, the cultural center of Southwest D.C.'s new District Wharf, with a celebratory party to follow. Esteemed Washington theatre artists Michael J. Bobbitt, five-time Helen Hayes Award nominee, choreographer and Artistic Director of Adventure Theatre MTC, and Alyssa Wilmoth Keegan, recipient of last year's Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play-Hayes Production for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, will host an evening showcasing the vibrant and diverse community of professional theatre artists in the Washington region. There are 258 Helen Hayes Award nominations-selected from 202 eligible productions from 64 theatres in 2017. Tickets for the event are $100 for reserved seating and $275 for VIP premium seating. Reduced-priced tickets will be available to artists and administrators in the community at an industry rate, subsidized by Artist Supporter tickets. All tickets are now available for purchase through the theatreWashington website.

It seemed unlikely to me that a play set in a fantastical arcade, complete with the old favorite Dance Dance Revolution, would be able to stir deep emotions in an audience. But Rorschach Theatre's impactful production of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's 410[GONE], directed by Gregory Keng Strasser, does just that. It uses unlikely imagery to tell a highly personal but universal story of trauma and recovery.

As directed by Alex Levy, THE FARNSWORTH INVENTION is theatrically inventive and mostly compelling recounting of of Farnsworth and Sarnoff's parallel stories. The production is also performed by a skillful company of actors who take the audience on this little known historical journey.

In his return to playwriting, celebrated film and television writer Aaron Sorkin's signature style lends itself to the remarkable story of the invention that changed our lives. In 1929, two ambitious visionaries race against each other to invent a device called "television." Separated by two thousand miles, each knows that if he stops working, even for a moment, the other will gain the edge. Who will unlock the key to the greatest innovation of the 20th century: the ruthless media mogul, or the selftaught Idaho farm boy? The answer comes to compelling life in the regional premiere of this "firecracker of a play" (The Chicago Sun-Times).

Rorschach's dark wit and visionary approach to design have met their match in Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's sharp, fantastical adventure through the Chinese Land of the Dead - coming to Atlas Performing Arts Center March 23 - April 15.

In his return to playwriting, celebrated film and television writer Aaron Sorkin's signature style lends itself to the remarkable story of the invention that changed our lives. In 1929, two ambitious visionaries race against each other to invent a device called "television."

The Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (FSO) salutes the next generation of classical musicians with a special performance by string virtuoso, In Mo Yang and the premiere of the 2018 Fairfax County All-Stars Youth Orchestra, featuring outstanding student musicians from across Fairfax County.

The Hub Theatre presents a nativity play like you have never seen by DC-native Anne M. McCaw. In PEEKABOO! A Nativity Play Mary and Joseph learn they are to be parents - of the world's savior no less - they get caught up in something much, much bigger than a couple of na ve kids are ready for. Directed by Hub Artistic Director Helen R. Murray, with musical arrangements by Jonathan Feuer, PEEKABOO! is a heartfelt farce of biblical proportions.

The Hub Theatre presents a nativity play like you have never seen by DC-native Anne M. McCaw. In PEEKABOO! A Nativity Play Mary and Joseph learn they are to be parents - of the world's savior no less - they get caught up in something much, much bigger than a couple of na ve kids are ready for. Directed by Hub Artistic Director Helen R. Murray, with musical arrangements by Jonathan Feuer, PEEKABOO! is a heartfelt farce of biblical proportions.

The Hub Theatre will present THE LATE WEDDING by Christopher Chen. The production is a marriage of firsts! Hub's production marks the play's DC area premiere and the company's first collaboration with Helen Hayes Awards-Nominated Director Kate Bryer (Associate Artistic Director, Imagination Stage).

1st Stage, Tysons Corner's award-winning professional theater, announces the extension of their critically-acclaimed production of Trevor by Nick Jones, directed by 1st Stage Artistic Director, Alex Levy until March 5.  

Living in Connecticut eight years ago when a chimp being kept as a pet ripped the face off a neighbor, I found it tough to see anything but stark horror in the attack.