Pamela Roberts News

Mosaic Theater Company of DC completes its whirlwind inaugural year with WHEN JANUARY FEELS LIKE SUMMER, a play that is relevant, engaging and sweetly funny.

Like the musical icons who inspired the work, The Washington Ballet's program BOWIE & QUEEN toys with the art form - respectful of classical roots yet pushing forward. The pieces innovate, celebrate and they have fun. While BOWIE & QUEEN is full of heart and poetry, the irreverent and humorous moments remind us all to lighten up and enjoy.

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.

For a brief moment when the opening night performance of IN A WORD ended there was quiet. A stillness fell as the audience collected itself, took a breath, and processed the intensity of the experience. Then, after a beat, the well-deserved applause began.

ANTIGONE NOW is based on the nearly 2,500-year-old Sophocles drama, but in Scena Theatre's hands it could use even more time to gel. From missed lines to erratic pacing, ANTIGONE NOW squanders its interesting potential and never hits its stride.

Combine strength and humor, a dash of curiosity, a pinch of whimsy, and a generous dose of inventiveness, mix thoroughly and you have Aura Curiatlas Physical Theatre's compelling brand of storytelling and movement.

Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, the rhythm of his words, echo the human heartbeat: ba-BUM, ba-BUM. But Synetic Theater gets to the beating heart of ROMEO AND JULIET without a single utterance of any of the Bard's famed words. In its innovative merging of drama and movement, Synetic's silent exploration of the classic work is an extraordinary vision of wonder and passion.

This week, we go around our Broadway World to feature stories in Washington DC, Boston, Sydney, and more. Check out our top 10 stories around our Broadway World below, which include BRIGHT STAR and WEST SIDE STORY in DC, NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET in Boston, and THE SOUND OF MUSIC in Sydney, just to name a few.

Signature Theatre's WEST SIDE STORY, directed by Signature Associate Artistic Director Matthew Gardiner (Signature's Sunday in the Park with George, Cabaret), has just announced a one-week extension through January 31, 2016. 

Signature Theatre's WEST SIDE STORY brings freshness and exuberance to the classic work. The exceptional production in an intimate space allows us to consider anew the songs and scenes that have been part of our lives for half a century.

PERICLES, on stage at the Folger Theatre, is a gorgeous and focused production - this from a work that travels through decades and around the Mediterranean in a plot that layers incest, mistaken death, pirates, murder plots and selling a woman into prostitution. But in director Joseph Haj's capable hands the lighter moments bring balance and relief so in the end PERICLES reminds us of both the deep challenges and moments of beauty and light in the human experience.

AVENUE Q is an irreverent and big-hearted look at life once you've graduated from Sesame Street and from college but Real Life hasn't quite kicked in quite the way you'd envisioned. Constellation Theatre Company's production is full of fun, featuring a magnificent ensemble of talented and appealing actors.

This week, we go around our Broadway World to feature stories in Connecticut, Cleveland, Atlanta and more. Check out our top 10 stories around our Broadway World below, which include Goodspeed's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, THE CRUCIBLE at Cleveland Play House, and Serenbe's THE SLEEPY HOLLOW EXPERIENCE, just to name a few.

SALOME is a visually stunning world premiere that brings us deeply complex characters struggling for command and dignity in one of history's most highly contested strips of land. Yael Farber, the award-winning adaptor-director, returns to the Shakespeare Theatre Company. With SALOME she has shaped a compelling work of power and contradiction. This production upends the traditional view of Salome, considering her as principled and calculated rather than a monstrous harlot. Here, Salome uses the tools she has - access, sensuality, brains - to effect change. Even within the limitations society placed on her, Salome sees opportunity.

UPRISING, premiering at MetroStage, is a powerful and engaging work that asks what choices we make to ensure freedom and for what would we sacrifice it.

As the wheel spins and two sisters clomp around the board with their plastic cars playing the game of LIFE, we recognize Renee's own life has much higher stakes ... and she is not necessarily winning at her attempt. She has recently lost custody of her young son and has had to face her ex- at a school disciplinary meeting. The tumblers of whiskey clue us in to deeper problems. Yet Renee herself is oblivious to how pain has marked her, how relationships shaped her, and how opportunities eluded her.

This week, we go around our Broadway World to feature stories in Austin, Milwaukee, Toronto, and more. Check out our top 10 stories around our Broadway World below, which include HEATHERS in Austin, THE ISLAND in Milwaukee, and the Canadian premiere of KINKY BOOTS, just to name a few.

Happenstance Theater's IMPOSSIBLE! is impossibly inventive, whimsical, and tender. The tribute to classic Depression-era circus life uses period music, a clever costume choice or the arch of an eyebrow to convey far more than mere words are able. IMPOSSIBLE! is a family-friendly production that hits just the right tone - funny not ridiculous, kindhearted not cloying, smart not pretentious. The original piece of physical theater was devised by the Happenstance ensemble. We venture both under the big top and behind the scenes to witness the camaraderie, loneliness, frustrations and foibles of the band of performers.

Summer in DC brings great opportunities to celebrate and discover new plays, the first of which is CulturalDC's Source Festival, which opened June 5 and runs through June 28 with varied offerings of full-length plays, 10-minute plays and artistic blind dates. Based on Love & Botany, a collection of six 10-minute plays, the Source Festival gives audiences a refreshing range of voices riffing on the intersection of relationships and plant life with plays taking us from a backyard garden to across the universe.