Robert Pike News

Shakespeare's HENRY V gains new perspective with a retelling by We Happy Few Productions that takes a closer look at the stories and stakes of the everyday foot soldiers. It is a fascinating, resonant, and important new take on a known work that's only around for another week, so make plans now to take it in.

Adventurous theatre-goers, take note: a short drive beyond the Beltway, just off the Dulles Access Road, sits Next Stop Theatre Company, a troupe with a growing reputation for solid acting; their current production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is an excellent introduction to the growing theatre scene in Herndon, Reston and beyond-a scene which will become much closer as the Silver Line makes its progress to Dulles Airport.

As the 2017 inauguration arrived, leaving many in the Washington, D.C.-area fleeing the city to avoid crowds, NextStop Theatre opened their first two performances of 2017 to packed houses of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", now appearing through February 12, 2017. Inside a 114-seat black box theatre, just 20 miles west of the nation's capital, in Herndon, Virginia, "the original romantic comedy", whisks audiences off to the sun-drenched sandy beaches of Messina, Italy.

NextStop Theatre presents their first production of 2017, Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" starting January 19, 2017. Billed as "the original romantic comedy", the story of Beatrice and Benedick will be directed by Abigail Isaac Fine at NextStop's black box theatre in Herndon, Virginia.

Rorschach Theatre often tackles strange and sometimes difficult productions, and A BID TO SAVE THE WORLD fits right in with that lineup. My mind hurts nicely from all the thinking in what is a surprisingly cerebral experience. Written by Erin Bregman and directed by Lee Liebeskind, the play explores death and saving the world with a light hand and an intellectual cudgel. 

From the theatre company that brought you Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and the five-times Helen Hayes nominated Very Still & Hard to See, comes a locally grown world premiere. As its season opening production, Rorschach Theatre presents  A Bid to Save the World by Erin Bregman- a funny and moving new play about life without death.

We Happy Few productions, named by DCist as one of the Best Small Theatre Companies of 2015, delves into this moral conundrum with CHALK presented at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, June 22 - July 9.

NEXTSTOP Theatre's production of Crimes of the Heart provides a few bursts of heart-stopping drama with minimal laughs and leaves the 1970's aesthetic at the door.

'Crimes of the Heart,' by Beth Henley, plays Thursdays through Sundays through March 20, 2016 at NextStop Theatre Company, in Herndon, Virginia.

NextStop Theatre Company's third professional season continues in February 2016 with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Southern Gothic tragicomedy, Crimes of the Heart. NextStop's production will open February 25 and run through March 20, 2016.

WSC Avant-Bard's magical production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream offers is an absolute delight. It doesn't matter if you are the most hardened grown-up or the most precocious, spoiled brat the world has ever seen. You will be entranced by this production's creativity for much of the show's 2+ hours' traffic on the Gunston Arts Center stage.

As part of the citywide Women's Voices Theater Festival, Unexpected Stage Company-the fast-growing, Washington, D.C.-area professional theater company-will present the world premiere comedy Trish Tinkler Gets Saved, by Jacqueline Goldfinger. Trish Tinkler Gets Saved follows former Whitesnake groupie Trish as she waits for a visit from a divine presence at the Eat 'n' Save mini-mart. The production is running October 8 through 18, 2015, at Randolph Road Theater, 4010 Randolph Road, Wheaton, MD (the former home of Round House).

The Washington Stage Guild begins its 2014-15 Season of Love and/or Marriage with the Washington area premiere of PEN by David Marshall Grant, playing tonight, October 30 through November 23.

The Washington Stage Guild begins its 2014-15 Season of Love and/or Marriage with the Washington area premiere of PEN by David Marshall Grant, playing October 30 through November 23. In the production directed by Kasi Campbell, a divorced couple wrangle over their college-bound son's future, and while the boy's life is about to change, he and his mother undergo perplexing changes themselves.

The catchy and clever script more than makes up for the drags during movement pieces, and that dragging might have been as much from my desire to get back to the story and its characters as from anything else. I was giggling throughout, and there were some nice moments of genuine tenderness. Most of the characters were lovable, and those that weren't were eminently hateable, which is just as useful and twice as hard. If you lived through the 1990's, and especially if you were young during that time, you'll recognize these characters instantly, and this production is made to tickle your nostalgia thoroughly

We Happy Few Productions has once again brought its signature commitment to enlivening classic theatre through bare-bones, ensemble storytelling to this year's Capital Fringe Festival. Happily, they have re-energized a 90-minute version of the Jacobean drama, THE DUCHESS OF MALFI by John Webster, and placed its prescient outrage at the subordination and persecution of women before a 21st century audience still battling this oldest of injustices.