Pamela Roberts News

STOMP is here for a brief five-performance run through April 7 at Capital One Hall in Tysons. In STOMP, anything can be used to drive a beat and set the rhythm. Brooms, trashcans, grocery carts, inner tubes, suitcases – everything including kitchen sinks are objects to play with and explore. Zippo lighters, plastic bags and the performers’ bodies are pressed into action to create surprising and exuberant music.

Horrors! Ford’s Little Shop disappoints. Little Shop of Horrors is a cult favorite with catchy score of rock and doo-wop tunes. But the latest version at Ford’s Theatre underwhelms. The fun has run out.

The Lehman Trilogy, directed by Arin Arbus at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, is an extraordinary feat of storytelling. It is simultaneously epic and spare. With just three actors it unfolds the captivating and intimate story of one immigrant family that evolves its company, navigates pious lives, innovates new ways of doing business, and ultimately unravels over time into instability and a crushing financial crisis.

Tick, tick …BOOM! is a raw and moving semi-autobiographical musical by Rent's Jonathan Larson. The Kennedy Center revisits the work with a spiffy new Broadway Center Stage production directed by Neil Patrick Harris and brings together three of Broadway’s most exciting and award-winning talents: Brandon Uranowitz Denée Benton and Grey Henson.

Jonathan Larson's tick, tick... BOOM! is now on stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The musical is directed by Emmy® and Tony Award® winner and New York Times bestselling author Neil Patrick Harris. What did the critics have to say?

The Folger Theatre welcomes audiences back to its jewel box theatre with The Winter’s Tale – a story of friendship, betrayal, loss and second chances. With glorious production elements and strong performances, this production reminds audiences of everything that is unique and significant about attending a show at the Folger.

Mosaic Theater Company's production Confederates, by MacArthur “genius” fellow and two-time Tony-nominated playwright Dominique Morisseau, is a smart and moving satire about the struggles of two formidable women who must stand up to subjugation as they consider whom they can trust and how they move forward.

THE CHOSEN at 1st Stage is a fascinating coming-of-age story of two boys and their fathers, and their extraordinarily different Jewish communities located just “five blocks and a world apart.”

Cirque du Soliel’s ECHO, now making its U.S. premiere, is chock full of wonder and spectacle. There’s no CGI or stunt doubles here, these 52 artists amaze with their strength, agility, artistry and precision.

Compagnie Käfig merges elements of hip hop with modern dance, circus, and technological wizardry in its highly innovative production, Pixel, which has been seen by audiences in more than 30 countries around the world.

Seeing To Kill a Mockingbird, now at the Kennedy Center, isn’t the same experience as the novel you were quizzed on in high school or the classic 1962 film. Aaron Sorkin’s script and Bartlett Sher’s direction gain heightened context and nuance from the rise in racial violence in the last decade. The national tour with Richard Thomas as Atticus Finch, which visited D.C. in June 2022, is again at the Kennedy Center though August 27.

Synetic Theater’s wordless Cyrano de Bergerac is gorgeous to behold and packs a powerful emotional wallop.

Keegan Theatre’s SEUSSICAL: THE MUSICAL is bright and exuberant. It’s a production full of heart and hope. The Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty musical is ambitious for the company – and the tiny stage. The company delivers. The twelve cast members and the six-person band fill the space with music and movement, working on tiers and in every nook and cranny of the stage.

Puzzles and patterns, stories and magic are artfully woven together by David Kwong in The Enigmatist at the Kennedy Center. The immersive experience is a little bit theatre, a little bit magic show, with some codebreaking, word games and storytelling thrown in for fun. Who knew that constructing a crossword puzzle together could be so fun?

In Good Grief: Songs of the Moon and The Unbroken Circle creator Tariq Darrell O’Meally explores how we become more than what we’ve lost. His answer: we must grieve a person as much as we have loved them and balance loss with praise and celebration. The world premiere is the culmination of the 2022–23 Local Dance Commissioning Project.

Exclusion, a thought-provoking and witty world premiere by Kenneth Lin at Arena Stage, explores the tug-of-war between what is true and what sells

Fashioned from the real words and personal experiences of DC-area asylum seekers, Theatre Prometheus’s new work, The Cassette Shop, explores the magical sensory connection of music to link us with others and transport us through time. The devised theater work was created in partnership with the local nonprofit AsylumWorks.

The Trip to Bountiful at Ford's Theatre is an incredible showcase for Nancy Robinette, one of Washington’s foremost actors, who skillfully drives the production as Mrs. Carrie Watts who yearns to leave the small Houston apartment of her son and daughter-in-law to return to her Texas homeland, Bountiful.

The Board of Directors of the African American Arts Alliance, and the Black Excellence Awards Committee have announced the nominations for the 22nd Annual Black Excellence Awards. The Awards were established in 2002 to honor the outstanding works of art by African Americans in Theater, Dance, Music, Film, Literature, Visual Arts and Digital Media.

What did our critic think of THE BAND'S VISIT at The Kennedy Center?