Matthew Pauli News

Everybody needs a friend, and finding out if Lisa and Corduroy will become forever friends is theatrical magic.

Imagination Stage is an institution of the DC/MD theatre community and has been bringing theatre to children and audiences alike for over 40 years. With their new production of ‘Spy Academy & The Lost Treasure of Atlantis’ Imagination stage brings interactive theatre directly into the household. Children ages 5+ are invited to participate in an online interactive adventure where they assist Spy Team 7 with a series of puzzles and decisions to help retrieve the heart of the dragon from the wicked Dr. Levinious. Before showtime, adults are instructed in secret, to put together a few household items as well as printing out an instruction packet as props to be used in the interactive performance.

Imagination Stage meets this unique moment with Spy Academy & the Lost Treasure of Atlantis, an immersive online experience for children ages 5+. The show – part escape room, part spy adventure, and part online game – engages children in an interactive performance as meaningful as it is delightful.

Avant Bard Theatre has announced the full cast for the launch of their 30th Anniversary Mainstage Season, the Avant Bard Spring Repertory. The Rep features Avant Bard's long-awaited return to Tennessee Williams with Suddenly Last Summer, directed by Artistic Director Emeritus Christopher Henley.

There's a lot of energy and creativity onstage during 4615 Theatre Company's world premiere of The Infinite Tales -- and they come not only from the actors. The performers are accompanied by live and recorded music, props that take up a good part of the stage (mostly suitcases and trunks, suggesting the long-distance travel the main characters must undergo), shadow puppets and screens, and paper cut-outs, among others.

Prologue Theatre's 'The Explorers Club' is both immensely funny and immensely profound. The careful attention to detail and context pays off greatly, and the result is a wonderful experience for the audience.

One of the newest professional theatre companies in the DC region, Prologue Theatre, is continuing its inaugural season with Nell Benjamin's The Explorers Club. This hilarious satire explores societal, workplace, gender, economic, and racial inequalities.

The central performance in Sarah Ruhl's The Oldest Boy, now playing at Spooky Action Theater through June 30, belongs to the ensemble as a whole. The title character, a reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist lama, is brought to life not by a single actor, but by the seven actors that create his world. Some are more directly responsible than others - the puppeteers, for example, move him from one place to another, help him to look where he needs to, help him to hold things - but all are crucial to helping us believe in him. When his mother looks into his eyes, we think we can catch him breathing. It's a leap of faith on our part, one that yields some of the richest results any show will bring this summer.

Constellation Theatre is closing its season of love stories with a big one from the East. Thankfully 'The White Snake' is not about the 80s English metal band. Instead, it's an ancient, oft-told Chinese folk tale, which was breezily interpreted by Mary Zimmerman originally for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2014. It's brought to lyrical life in a production directed by Allison Arkell Stockman that combines puppetry, movement and a beguiling, underlying musical performance.

Jeffrey manages to be funny, heartbreaking, and incredibly profound, with its core message of embracing life radiating throughout. It's a wonderful show produced by a wonderful team.

Rainbow Theatre Project will continue its sixth season with Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey. Performances will begin January 17, 2019 and run through February 10, 2019 at the District of Columbia Arts Center.

Something is clearly rotten in the state of the DFL and perhaps America itself. Whipping, or the Football Hamlet, written, directed, and choreographed by Kathleen Akerley, is entertaining and humorous as it is stirring and thought-provoking.

Imagination Stage's production, directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer) takes elements of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and adds a bit of his poem, 'The Jabberwocky' to create a musical filled with catchy rock and roll tunes.

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).

A superb cast, great voices, clever choreography, and magic combine to make a great night at the theater for the whole family.

Faction of Fools Theatre Company presents William Shakespeare's THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, pairing heightened text with heightened physical comedy in the style of Commedia dell'Arte. One of Shakespeare's most rich and intricate plays is also one of his most controversial, as it explores a burgeoning merchant class and what happens when things get personal. By utilizing masks and physical characterizations from Commedia dell'Arte, Faction of Fools puts the comedy back into the text, allowing the tragic junctures to cut all the more profoundly. Performances run November 18th - December 11th, 2016 in the Eastman Studio Theatre at Gallaudet University.

A Summer classic for the entire family, ASC's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' will open on Friday, July 8 at 7:30pm and will run two weekends only, Friday-Sunday at 7:30pm, with a final performance on Sunday, July 17 at 7:30pm. The Charles Carroll House is located behind St. Mary's Church on Duke of Gloucester Street.  Grounds will open for seating at 6:30pm.  Ticket prices range from $25-$50 with additional discounts for families.  Please call the box office at 410-415-3513 or visit AnnapolisShakespeare.org for ticket details.  All performances are accessible for wheelchair patrons.  Please call the box office to arrange any special seating needs. 

Tonight, before a gathering of theatre artists and patrons, theatreWashington announced the winners of the 2016 Helen Hayes Awards, drawn from 202 eligible productions presented in the 2015 calendar year. Scroll down for the full list of nominees and winners!

JOURNEY TO THE WEST is visually stunning and highly inventive production that features an expert ensemble of actors bringing both humor and humanity to an epic story.

Tonight, before a gathering of theatre artists and patrons, theatreWashington announced the nominees for the 2016 Helen Hayes Awards, drawn from 202 eligible productions presented in the 2015 calendar year. Scroll down for the full list of nominees!