WASHINGTON, DC THEATER REVIEWS

THE FREDERICK DOUGLASS PROJECT is an innovative and ambitious world premiere musical commissioned by Solas Nua. The production blends two fresh and significant dramatic voices, each with a unique perspective on the same time and themes. Staged on a pier jutting into the Anacostia River, the producti...

Malpaso Dance Company's troupe of talented dancers harness a striking synchronicity while showcasing each dancer's strength, talent, and grace. The result is mesmerizing, distinctive, and artfully impressive....

The kind of well-worn rock club set designer Matthew J. Keenan creates for the production of Laura Easton's 'The Undeniable Sound of Right Now' at the Keegan Theatre is so authentic, with its decades of rock posters, stickers and graffiti, you can almost smell the stale beer in the floorboards. The ...

There's something incredibly rewarding about a simplistic production. Once you strip away the lights, sounds, costumes and set there are shockingly few shows that can stand on their own merits. Thankfully, classic storytelling is alive and well with the talented Rosemary Cipriano who, if her recent ...

If, like me, you missed Mosaic Theater Company's HOODED, OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES last season, here's your second chance: a remount, featuring almost all of the original cast, has arrived by popular demand. As timely as ever, it uses elements of realism, surrealism, and Greek mythology to convey w...

Candide's little delights can't quite atone for the production's original sins: injecting far too much self-importance and taking itself far too seriously....

It was on a May evening 105 years ago when the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet 'The Rite of Spring' caused booing, catcalls and near riots in Paris....

The combination of all of these voices and musicians sharing this powerful story set the concert on a good footing, initially. Unfortunately, the evening ended up being a disappointment....

If you've somehow missed the buzz surrounding Paapa Essiedu in the title role of Royal Shakespeare Company's HAMLET, let me be the one to tell you: get thee to the Kennedy Center before the end of its very short run. Simon Godwin directs this contemporary, graffiti-splashed, West Africa-set take on ...

If you've never read George Orwell's 1984, the seminal classic examining a world that's fallen under the rule of the nameless Party and their omnipotent leader Big Brother, stop what you're doing and read it now. Or you can just see Scena Theatre's new production playing at the Atlas Performing Arts...

Studio Theatre is serving up a spectacle of a show that mashes satire and high emotion. VIETGONE, directed by Natsu Onoda Power, presents a truly diverse story with the potential to challenge entrenched ideas about the Vietnam War and the immigrant experience. Playwright Qui Nguyen's fresh voice bou...

While the musical itself may not be my personal cup of tea as a whole, some catchy music (performed by a killer all-female band and two endearing actors) and the sweet, throwback story make it worthy of some positive attention....

Adventure Theatre's visionary Artistic Director Michael J. Bobbitt has, for many years, pushed the boundaries of Theater for Young Audiences (TYA).  For example, out of its location at Glen Echo Park, Adventure Theatre has created original productions of the popular comic strip Garfield, Big the ...

It's strange to think a Shakespeare production could render words unnecessary, but Synetic Theater's most recent wordless Shakespeare play, TITUS ANDRONICUS, gives you the impossible idea that dialogue might ruin the drama. Without speech, and without stage blood, this incarnation of TITUS is a viol...

Sometimes, classics are dangerous production choices. But sometimes they're reminders of why we love a story in the first place. Washington National Opera's 'Barber of Seville' is most decidedly the latter....

While the musical is not quite perfect, it's the strongest one I've seen this season in the DC area. I hope it has a future life beyond the production in Juneau later this year. It deserves it....

It seemed like a clever in-joke when the first lobby announcement at the Shakespeare Theatre Company began, 'We appreciate your patience...'...

The tale of Robin Hood has provided source material for several famous screen adaptations over the years, including the classic Hollywood film with Errol Flynn and the Disney animated feature that portrayed all the characters as animals. With the exception of Young Robin Hood at Round House Theatre ...

No matter the work, it is important to leave a theater feeling some sort of emotion. Any emotion will do, just as long as you were able to feel for the performance happening in front of you. Unfortunately, the double bill of zarzuelas produced by The In Series that opened Sunday night (playing at GA...

Witches are not sexy. They are a representation of centuries of oppression women did (and still do) experience for doing things they shouldn't. Creative Cauldron's new production of Witch, part of their Bold New Works for Intimate Stages initiative, simultaneously educates audiences of the injustice...

It's never a good sign when, during an opera, you pay more attention to the orchestra than the people onstage. This is the kind of situation that befalls George Mason University's School of Music and Mason Opera's new revival of Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring. Britten's complex score is indeed a ...

For being the centennial of Ingmar Bergman's birth, there seems to be very little evidence of the Swedish director's work around. It's hard to find even his best known films; his name is known to some generations only as a reference in the work of Woody Allen....

Athol Fugard is one of the most difficult modern playwrights to perform. His shows are largely punctuated by blunt dialogue, devoid of noticeable metaphor, and rely on the creation of highly realistic scene scapes defined oftentimes by the most mundane. None of his works exemplifies this style more ...

One thing can be said about award-nominated playwright Annie Baker. She captures the human condition in the most realistic of ways. This is no more apparent than in Signature Theatre's production of Baker's latest work, John. Director Joe Calarco delivers his finest staging to date. He's assembled a...

I have seen and worked on plenty of solo shows in my more than twenty years in the business and sometimes I see one that just leaves me asking, 'How did this performer get to do this show?' Unfortunately Deb Filler is in that situation right now at MetroStage with her concoction called I Did it My W...