Jeffrey Shankle News

Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia unwraps Meredith Willson's MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, THE MUSICAL, which has enough sweetness to suit the season, enough sass to not be saccharin, and the delightful song 'It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.' The many beautiful ensemble numbers that feature Macy's employees or happy holiday shoppers in their happy holiday coats and hats deliver a cozy, satisfying sugarplum, with moments of pure delight.

If you love Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, there's not a single reason you wouldn't like the show at Toby's Dinner Theatre. It's a fun production. There's a lot to love about it. Dinner is tasty. Everyone at Toby's is unfailingly polite, cheerful, helpful and speedy, including each member of the actor/wait staff. The productions are done with attention to detail and the actors are well cast. That combination of elements is rare in ANY public forum these days, so all credit to the management for creating this wonderful environment. If you enjoy dinner theatre, you will be pleased.

Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, MD presents SHOW BOAT, an old-fashioned treasure of musical theatre history, complete with troubling ethical issues, a cast packed with talent, vintage choreography, a fashion parade of costuming and vocals that will alternately haunt you and have you humming. Including a tasty buffet meal pre-show, comfortable venue and impeccably congenial staff, an outing to Toby's is the complete package for a date or family fun day.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as Christmas rolls around, A Christmas Carol appears in theaters. And it's no wonder; Charles Dickens' irresistible holiday tale is irresistibly theatrical. It is machine-tooled to go right for the heartstrings. A lot of different things can be done within this framework, a versatility well-illustrated by two distinct takes on A Christmas Carol currently on offer at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore at Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia.

The characters are all compelled by circumstances to go back into the woods, and this time they encounter there such things as infidelity, divorce, the death of parents, the death of children, abandonment, catastrophe - and overarching this the absence of a narration (the narrator becomes a casualty) or any other authoritative guidance as to the choices that need to be made. As one of the characters observes: 'The path has strayed from you.' The unsettling conclusion: 'You decide what's right / You decide what's good.' This is all incredibly sad and confusing, not to mention frightening, and yet as the core of surviving characters gels, so does the indomitability of the human spirit they evince.

There are times it's hard to credit that 1776 is even a musical. In this retelling of the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence, there is some singing and some dancing, and even some laughs, but little effort to follow the tried-and-true path to rousing musical success. This is fundamentally a tale of a group of men sitting in a room debating, and Peter Stone, author of the book, gives us - a group of men sitting in a room debating. And yet the work has considerable power and appeal, and it is not strange either that it won the Tony for Best Musical in 1969, or that Toby's has revived it.

Tonight before a crowd of 1,200 theatre-makers and theatre-lovers at the historic Lincoln Theatre, theatreWashington celebrated excellence on Washington stages at the 2015 Helen Hayes Awards. The awards celebration was a night of excitement and surprise as 57 Washington theatre artists, theatres, and ensembles received honors in 47 categories for their outstanding accomplishments during the 2014 theatre season. Scroll down for the full list of winners!

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. theatreWashington will host The 2015 Helen Hayes Awards ceremony tonight, April 6, 2015 at the historic Lincoln Theatre.

Tonight before a crowd of 150 theatre makers and theatre lovers, theatreWashington announced the nominees for the 2015 Helen Hayes Awards. 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. Watch the full announcement below, and scroll down for the list of nominees!

It's your last week to vote for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Baltimore Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 26th. Voting closes at the end of the year, in under one week!

Time is ticking on your last chance to vote for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Baltimore Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 19th. Voting closes at the end of the year!

Voting has now opened for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Baltimore Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 4th.

There's nonsense delivered in true Cantabridgian style, i.e. with insane argumentative rigor. There are dazzling scantily-clad showgirls and showboys. There are songs that are wonderfully self-referential and songs that push the limits of taste. And there are lots of tag-lines and tropes for Monty Python fans - and who isn't? Hard to quarrel with an assemblage of attractions like that.

You may know it as Here's Love. You may know it as It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. (The show has been produced under both titles.) Currently the 1963 Meredith Willson musical based on the film Miracle on 34th Street goes under the name of its source material, the 1947 classic movie, and Toby's Columbia is presenting it in a very impressive revival.

Fiddler traffics in the safest kind of nostalgia, reminiscences of a world no one would want to return to. It's a lovely flirtation with a way of life that is safely dead. The only real question is whether it is done well. And I'm pleased to say that it's done very well by Toby's.

Votes are cast, polls are closed, and results have been tabulated! This was our BIGGEST year yet! After a record number of voters in over 30 regions worldwide, BroadwayWorld is VERY excited to announce the 2012 Washington, DC Winners! Thanks to all who voted and HUGE congrats to all the winners!

Voting is now underway for the Washington, DC Awards and continues until December 31, 2012. Winners will be announced in early January.

Voting is now underway for the Washington, DC Awards and continues until December 31, 2012. Winners will be announced in early January. Check out the live standings below.