Roc Lee News

It's December! Voting is now underway for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! Now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatres and performers are recognized. Check out the first set of stats below.

It's great there is a family-friendly musical ready for the holidays.

Voting is NOW OPEN and the first votes are in for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! The nominees are set, and now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatres and performers are recognized!

This rap-infused, woke update of Mark Twain's The Prince and The Pauper, a world premiere theater piece for young audiences commissioned by the Kennedy Center, has many charms and much humor, even if it goes more than a little heavy on the agitprop for audiences under the age of 10.

Olney Theatre Center presents its biggest, most technically challenging musical to-date when it produces Singin In The Rain, November 8, 2019 - January 5, 2020, directed by Marcos Santana. Santana, who directed and choreographed In The Heights, which won the 2018 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Musical Production, is joined by choreographer Grady Bowman who choreographed 2017's My Fair Lady. Press is invited to attend the performance on Thursday, November 14 at 8:00pm. Keeping with its tradition of partnering with community oriented non-profits during its holiday productions, Olney Theatre will be accepting donations of new or gently used coats to be distributed to community members in-need by One Warm Coat.

Jackie Sibblies Drury's play, Fairview, currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, is a show that desperately calls for conversation. It's no wonder, then, that each performance is immediately followed by community discussions led by Build With, a DC-based anti-racist training, facilitation, and consulting practice focused on people, power, and partnership. While I wasn't able to stay for this event following Saturday night's performance, it is an important step in ensuring this work's complicated themes are digested in a clear way. Fairview is one of the most conceptual shows in recent memory. Not every idea can be fully explored in this production, which has a tight 100-minute run time that director Stevie Walker-Webb keeps clipping at a good pace. Nevertheless, Fairview is a necessary piece for anyone looking to dive deeper into discussions of race and identity in America.

Let me admit when I saw MATILDA on Broadway in 2013 (winner of 5 Tony Awards), I did not enjoy it. I just could not understand the character of the buffoon Miss Trunchbell, the Olympian hammer throwing athletic principal of Matilda's school. He was the villain of all villains.

When you leave the theater and you immediately purchase a copy of the play, that should indicate that you have really enjoyed it. This does not happen often but it happened to me as I left the Lansburgh Theatre (temporary home of the Round House during renovations) in DC. I loved A DOLL'S HOUSE, PART 2, I had to read it and enjoy it some more...and I did!

Tiger Style! by Mike Lew, an outrageous and cutting satire of Asian-American identity, completes Olney Theatre Center's 81st season in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab (July 17 - August 18, 2019). The production is directed by the boundary-pushing director Natsu Onoda Power, who recently pulled off the rare feat of winning two Helen Hayes Awards (one for direction, one for design) in a single evening. Invited press night is Saturday, July 20 at 7:45pm.

Notable for being the final selection of Woolly's incomparable Founding Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz, Rajiv Joseph's 'Describe the Night' is a must-see for any serious DC area theatergoer

Olney Theatre Center offers its fourth musical production of the 2018-19 Season on the Mainstage, with the Tony Award-winning Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical (June 21 - July 21, 2019), directed by Peter Flynn, fresh off the rave reviews for his acclaimed revival of Into the Woods at Ford's Theatre. Invited Press Night is Thursday, June 27 at 8:00pm.

Luis Salgado is quickly becoming known as an acclaimed director and choreographer. He has just returned from Germany where he served as Associate DirectorChoreographer for Cirque du Solieil's PARAMOUR. Two years ago he directed and choreographed the Helen Hayes winning musical IN THE HEIGHTS at the GALA Hispanic Theatre. He is now returning to GALA with his own version of FAME, The Musical.

The 35th annual Helen Hayes Awards honored local theater on Monday, May 13, at The Anthem.

Starting May 9th, 2019 GALA Theatre in Washington D.C will conclude its' 43rd season with the U.S. premiere of a bilingual adaptation of the unforgettable FAME, The Musical

National Players, America's longest-running touring company and the hallmark outreach program of the Olney Theatre Center, conclude their 70th tour with a homestand featuring repertory presentations an adaptation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days from May 22-May 26 and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night from May 29-June 2 in Olney's Historic Theatre.

After a successful adventure in Germany as associate director/choreographer for Cirque Du Soleil's Paramour, Luis Salgado returns to GALA Hispanic Theatre to helm the new latinx adaptation of the iconic FAME, The Musical. Conceived and developed by David De Silva, the shows Book writer is a cuban artista named Jose Fernandez.

Mary Kathryn Nagle's world premiere play Crossing Mnisose weaves together Sacajawea's story with that of the contemporary fight to protect the Mnisose (what Europeans named the Missouri River) from the Dakota Access Pipeline. As in her celebrated playsManahatta and Sovereignty, Nagle draws a clear, urgent line between the past and the present. Nagle's frequent collaborator Molly Smith (Sovereignty at Arena Stage) will direct.

Monumental Theatre Company will workshop Dress Up Day beginning March 2, 2019, as part of the Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival and Monumental's New Work Series. Dress Up Day follows a spunky first-grader who discovers that all her friends have the same plans for their school's "dress up" day. The young protagonist embarks on a quest to find out who she truly is as she and her classmates explore their individuality to find the perfect costume. D.C.-based actor, writer and teaching artist Jenna Murphy (Book, Lyrics, and Music) teams up with composer and sound designer Roc Lee (Music) to bring this family-friendly production to local audiences. Dress Up Day will have two additional performances at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 16 and 23, 2019.

On its surface, 'Oh God!' is a fun and witty comedy. And yet, what makes it a masterpiece isn't just the humor, but also the deeper philosophies and truths of humanity that it touches on. The show balances comedy with a clear and pensive look at the world, at religion, and at how we treat ourselves and others.

Everyman Theatre's next show in the 2018-2019 season is The Importance of Being Earnest, a light-hearted romantic comedy packed with twists, turns, and witty repartee.  Directed by Joseph W. Ritsch Artistic Director of Rep Stage, the tale of worlds turned topsy-turvy with assumed identities lampoons the absurdity of Victorian virtues.  The Everyman production showcases a subtext that is as relevant today as it was to its intended 19th-century audience-Wilde's "bachelor" compatriots-inside jokes abound through subtly scripted details.  The play runs December 4 - December 30, 2018.