WASHINGTON, DC THEATER REVIEWS

Under all the pressure of finishing the novel, Myra finds herself having to explain her circumstances to an inquisitive visitor. Quotidian Theatre Company (QTC)'s Ghost-Writer, written by Michael Hollinger and directed by Laura Giannarelli, is a slow-paced, yet unexpected "love" story with a layer o...

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'I like this place, and willingly could waste my time in it.' This line, spoken by Celia (Rebecca Speas) early in As You Like It, is an appropriate way to describe the vibe of Brave Spirits Theatre's new production of Shakespeare's comedy, directed by Jessica Aimone. It's an amiable production of on...

All of the cultural offerings in Washington, D.C. can be easy to take for granted. There are now so many options for theater, music, dance, opera, ballet, or any other art form that it's easy to forget this wasn't always the case. The robust arts scene of today is possible thanks to long-established...

Puppetry is one of the realms of the New York's Phantom Limb Company, so their latest environmental opus 'Falling Out' begins with some rough human-figures that look more like mannequins being slowly swept or carried across the stage like detritus from the ocean's edge....

Sometimes ballet can be tricky. It's an art form that, when misunderstood, can come off as stuffy and out-of-date. Neither of those labels are an accurate description of the program New York City Ballet is showcasing at the Kennedy Center. With a skillful blend of contemporary and classic techniques...

'Native Son' is a heavy drama with an important story to tell. But what makes this production really shine is Psalmayene 24's guiding emphasis on "radicalizing empathy." In Mosaic Theater Company's production, the audience isn't asked to excuse Bigger, but to try to understand him. That understandin...

The new artistic director and co-director of the New York City Ballet looked a little nervous Tuesday as they awkwardly welcomed the Kennedy Center audience to their annual week-long residency....

To mark the 20th anniversary of the deadly shooting at Columbine High School, 1st Stage brings us a columbinus that, tragically, is as frightening, significant, and topical today as ever before. In the two decades since the massacre at Columbine High-the deadliest school shooting at the time-we hav...

Demo: Now, a complex seven-part showcase of dance, music and spoken word, defies expectations by never allowing the audience to set them in the first place....

The second section of Bill T. Jones' Analogy/Trilogy, Lance: aka Pretty the Escape Artist, uses sound design, collage, projection, samples, a score by Nick Hallett, and quotations from Jones' conversations with his nephew Lance T. Briggs along with Jones' choreography to abstract Briggs' biography i...

Monday night's production of Bon Iver and TU Dance's Come Through at the Kennedy Center is one of the most quintessentially contemporary performances on record. Filled with emotional dancing, strobing projections, and barely discernible and highly auto-tuned vocals, the night was a celebration of al...

'Dora: Tramontane' may be the first of a trilogy, but it has the power to stand on its own as well as part of a set. The work is breathtaking and emotional, and - like any good piece of art - stays with you long after the final bows. If the rest of the 'Analogy Trilogy' is even half as good, it's we...

The first words sung in A Bronx Tale, the tonally uneven and musically disappointing touring show that opened at D.C.'s National Theatre on Tuesday, are literally "this is a Bronx tale." The artistic subtleties don't get much better from there, as the musical (based on a movie based on a one-man sho...

Life in the theatre is hard enough without having a diva in your show. As the title character in a well known play by a certain Norwegian playwright you would think that she would play along with what she was given. In this case the playwright is that king of mirth himself Henrik Ibsen and the diva ...

The only wrong notes in La Paloma at the Wall, the current InSeries production at GALA, take place when the performers stop singing and try to act the clumsy script of this adaptation of the zarazuela, La Verbena de la Paloma (1894). No parallels exist between the migrant mother from Guatemala separ...

Third on the list of identifying traits for St. Patrick's Day (behind binge drinking and the color green) is the amount of fun the holiday elicits from devoted celebrants. This sheer joy was on full display at The Washington Chorus's St. Patrick's Day Celebration presented at the Kennedy Center on t...

Middle East conflict is normally not thought of a rich source of laughter, but Hassan Abdulrazzak's 'Love, Bombs & Apples' finds a way to be amusing as well as a thought-provoking way to reconsider the conflicts....

If the cultural and historical relevance weren't enough incentive, Theater J's production of 'The Jewish Queen Lear' will make you glad for the current revitalization of Yiddish theater. The play is an emotional journey, with insights into family, power, pride, and love. 'Mirele Efros' is a surprisi...

For once, being conned is all it is cracked up to be....

Peter Flynn tackles Sondheim's darkly imagined INTO THE WOODS at Ford's Theatre and the result is sensational. Flynn leads an exceptional cast and, with support from Michael Bobbitt's choreography, Milagros Ponce Leon's set design, and Wade Laboissonniere's costume design, has a hit on his hands....

Few works have inspired such a long-lasting legacy as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust. The Faustian bargain has become a common expression for metaphorically selling one's soul in order to obtain their goals. Of course, the metaphor is much less metaphorical in von Goethe's work and, subsequently...

Noel Coward's charming and witty Fallen Angels, first performed in 1925, had a bit of a sordid beginning. Prominently featuring two women who admit to premarital sex and contemplate adultery, it very nearly didn't make it past the censors. The Lord Chamberlain allowed it - with small edits - conside...

A number of families packed the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theatre Friday for the world premiere of 'The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963.'...

The Last Supper, a Temple Independent Theater Company Performance, written and directed by Ahmed El Attar with music by Hassan Kahn premiered in the U.S. at the Kennedy Center between March 14-16 2019 after several productions around the world. It is a comedic satire performed in Arabic with English...