Josh Kemper News

Maryland Ensemble Theatre's family theatre, The Fun Company, present Hansel and Gretel, the classic fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812.

Maryland Ensemble Theatre's family theatre, The Fun Company, present Hansel and Gretel, the classic fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812.

Maryland Ensemble Theatre's family theatre, The Fun Company, present Hansel and Gretel, the classic fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812.

Maryland Ensemble Theatre presents the funny, irreverent musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee from September 10 through Oct. 9th at 31 W. Patrick St., in Frederick, MD.

Maryland Ensemble Theatre presents the funny, irreverent musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee from September 10 through Oct. 9th at 31 W. Patrick St., in Frederick, MD.

In September, DC area theatres are filled with almost a dozen musical productions opening -- classics, family shows, and many wonderful plays being performed on our over 200 theatre venues. The humidity is finally melting away, and it's a perfect time to welcome the cooler weather and the colors of the Fall by making a trip to the Nation's Capital and catching a show or two or three. There are family shows with canines and rabbits, a Labor Day weekend theatre festival that's FREE, a new jazz musical with some of the area's most talented singers, and bugs and ants that swing on trapezes. Mr. Ripley is finally coming to town, while I'm hoping that all will be well at Shakespeare Theatre. Someone is trying to deal with a very troubling inch, a Bar-Mitzvah boy has to deal with his crazy family, spelling champions battle it out, and a beagle pilot takes flight. There's so much to choose from, so read on and see what's playing in September in this monumental town. Happy New Year to all my fellow Jewish lovers of the theatre!

Maryland Ensemble Theatre presents the funny, irreverent musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee from September 10 through Oct. 9th at 31 W. Patrick St., in Frederick, MD.

It's never easy being a teenager, no matter what century you live in, but one can guess it was particularly difficult for adolescents in 19th century rural Germany where playwright Frank Wedekind sets his 1891 play, Spring Awakening.

Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening may have been banned from the stage in the 1890s, but unlike the troubled adolescents whose lives it chronicles, the play survived those growing pains to become one of the seminal works of German drama, not to mention the template for just about every teen tragedy from Rebel Without a Cause onward.

bare is a contemporary new musical that tells the story of a group of students at a Catholic boarding school struggling to find their own voices in a modern world that both embraces and isolates them.