Just in time for those winter, presidential inaugural blues, Pinky Swear Productions comes along offering the ultimate rock-scream therapy session with Lizzie, a musical dedicated to America's most famous real-life axe-murderer. Not for the faint-of heart, this is a musical that by rights should be featured in this Saturday's women's march, a reminder that women are perfectly capable of getting in their digs (or whacks, as the case may be) when pushed to the edge.
On an August morning in 1892, in a small town in Massachusetts, Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally murdered in their home with an axe. Their daughter, Lizzie, was tried and acquitted for the crime and in the process captured the morbid fascination of the entire nation. Created by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Tim Maner, and Alan Stevens Hewitt, LIZZIE is a tale of sex, rage, and murder told by Lizzie, her sister Emma, her friend Alice Russell, and her maid Bridget Sullivan-all set to a pounding riot grrrl beat.
Somewhere between the ancient rituals of our pagan ancestors and the tacky office holiday party you attended last night lurks an answer to the question that haunts your dreams: 'How did I get here?'
It is timely to have a show that focuses like a laser on the complex psychology of young women, as they make their first awkward steps into adulthood. Mosaic Theater's commitment to confronting our deepest community issues continues with Jennifer Nelson's stellar production of Milk Like Sugar, Kirsten Greenidge's Obie-award winning drama about teenage girls navigating their way through their high school years, the most treacherous of all.
Hot on the heels of the record-breaking, critically hailed Satchmo at the Waldorf, Mosaic Theater Company of DC's Season Two continues with Kirsten Greenidge's riotous, Obie Award-winning MILK LIKE SUGAR (November 2 - 27, 2016), under the direction of Mosaic Theater's Jennifer L. Nelson (The Gospel of Lovingkindness). The play, Mosaic's second DC premiere this season, is a rousing story about young women coming of age in a time when issues of acceptance, mentorship, and materialism challenge the dreams and ambitious of so many teens. It is the first of three plays in Mosaic's 2016-17 season to highlight issues affecting young urban teens and millennials, to be followed by the DC premiere of Philip Dawkins' intergenerational LGBTQ comedy Charm, and the world premiere of Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm's Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies.
LOVE'S LABEERS LOST is Shakespeare in a frat house in a bar. Director Sara Bickler has always wanted to direct Shakespeare's LOVE'S LABOURS LOST, a little produced comedy without a happy ending.
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.
The Kennedy Center hosts its 15th annual Page-to-Stage New Play Festival from Today, September 3 to Monday, September 5, 2016, featuring more than 50 theaters from the D.C. metropolitan area, all with a mission to produce and support new work.
The Kennedy Center hosts its 15th annual Page-to-Stage New Play Festival from Saturday, September 3 to Monday, September 5, 2016, featuring more than 50 theaters from the D.C. metropolitan area, all with a mission to produce and support new work.
The Welders-Washington's only playwrights' collective devoted exclusively to developing and producing new work-have launched their fifth production. Transmission, by Gwydion Suilebhan, opens April 30, 2016 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.
Flying V has carved out a niche in the DC theater scene by producing unabashedly joyful, adventurous and original material. Their latest offering, the rock musical You, or whatever I can get, is a creation of an ensemble that is tight, talented, and as ready for prime time as it gets.
The hardest parts of a journey are staying the course and overcoming obstacles. The Oregon Trail, written by Bekah Brunstetter, follows Jane though her own struggles from a teenager in the late 1990's to a present day adult with depression. Whenever Jane hits rock bottom, she relies on escaping into the world of the computer game, The Oregon Trail. Simultaneously, another Jane from Missouri is told that she must leave her home with her sister, Mary Jane, and her father, Clancy, to journey to Oregon in a small covered wagon. Flying V Theatre's The Oregon Trail, directed by Amber McGinnis Jackson, does not successfully complete its journey due to a bumpy production that is full of too much 90's nostalgia, unrelatable present day female characters, and stale jokes.
'Flying V Fights: Heroes & Monsters' marks a return to truly exciting form, performed by this year's Aniello Award-winning emerging theatre, a thrilling evening devoted to stage combat. If you are a big fan of action on the screen, on your hand-held, wherever, this is just the dream spectacle you need to get your summer off to a roaring start.
Returning for its fifth year, The Theatre Lab's Dramathon, May 15 at 10:30 p.m. at Theater J, once again joins together the talents of some of the DC area's most well-known actors and accomplished playwrights - along with Theatre Lab students and alumni - in world premiere staged readings of short plays written for that night. All proceeds generated by the event go toward The Theatre Lab's scholarship fund.
Director Amber Jackson has assembled a brilliant cast, creating an anarchic and, yes, surreal atmosphere in which anything and everything can happen. Zachary Fernebok's performance of Dali is priceless, and Jos. B. Musumeci Jr.'s set is a perfect evocation of the surreal atmosphere of Obolensky's play.
Love. Toxic frustration. Pillow fight weapons that look like something George R. R. Martin would design for Playskool. These are just a few of the things to be seen in FLYING V FIGHTS: LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD, currently playing at The Writer's Center in Bethesda.
Round House Theatre and the New York based company, The One-Minute Play Festival (#1MPF) have created a dynamic partnership to present The 1st Washington, D.C. One-Minute Play Festival, to be performed July 12 - 14, 2014 at Round House Theatre. Following sold-out performances in more than 20 cities, this festival aims to celebrate local voices and investigate the local zeitgeist through this exciting process. Performances are at 8pm on Saturday, July 12, Sunday, July 13, and Monday, July 14.
Cultural DC's production of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days offers audiences a fresh look at a play that has become a legend in theatre circles, not least because of its unprecedented demands on the actress who has to perform the lead role. How refreshing it is, then, to see Karen Lange's resilience in the role; she understands that Winnie's quest for survival is what gets her up every morning like clockwork, and drives her with only an occasional glimmer in her eyes of the panic that most of us would feel.
