WASHINGTON, DC THEATER REVIEWS

As if there weren't enough scary things in the world right now, I've come to realize that I have been going to live theatrical productions for over 43 years. That means I have been sitting in the dark for a long time (no jokes please)....

With the juggernaut that is Hamilton playing DC this summer, it was probably a good marketing strategy for the Kennedy Center to use its new Broadway Center Stage series to (re)-introduce local audiences to Lin-Manuel Miranda's first Broadway musical, the Tony Award-winning In the Heights. Avid loca...

Brooklyn the Musical is one of those rare gems of a show that the back story of its creation can influence what you experience on stage. The duo behind the show, Mark Schoenfeld and Barri McPherson were songwriting partners in the early 1980's and lost touch and about 20 years later, Mr. Schoenfeld ...

Don't be fooled by all of the bright colors. The Mark Morris Dance Group's (MMDG) newly commissioned Layla and Majnun, which opened last night at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, lacks the necessary energy to elevate this tragic yet formulaic love story. It's evident from the star...

I often state that a solo show is the hardest kind of theater performance to put together because it's just the performer and the audience. In most cases, the show would be an actor telling his/her story or portraying multiple characters. Most of these are easy to follow because there is a clear sto...

Rather than simply characterized as a comedy or tragedy, this Winter's Tale is a poignant tale about forgiveness, the passage of time and folly of old men....

Serene in his knowledge of what he has done, and why he had to do it, Jon Hudson Odom's performance of Nat Turner never wavers; the man is determined to die the death of a martyr-unrepentant, unafraid, certain of his reward....

So "start the car, I know a whoopee spot. Where the gin is cold, but the piano's hot," and it is Keegan Theatre....

Few productions can claim to be as much of an institution as Shear Madness is to Washington, D.C. Celebrating 30 years at the Kennedy Center, this show has become once of theater's most notorious tourist traps. This comedic caper whose plot can vary wildly each night incentivizes repeat viewings to ...

THE BIG APPLE CIRCUS is stopping at the National Harbor during its historic 40th anniversary season, with an aim toward modernizing for contemporary audiences while still maintaining its ethos. THE BIG APPLE CIRCUS (which filed for bankruptcy in 2016 only to make its triumphant return) features glob...

The Women's Voices Theater Festival may be winding down in D.C. proper, but Alexandria's MetroStage is looking to keep the focus on female-centered stories with their Spring Solo Series. The second of these one-woman shows, George-Don't Do That: The Music and Magic of Joyce Grenfell, is a love-fille...

The show, aptly titled 'The Story Goes On,' featured an eclectic set list, but there was one common thread - each song was exceptionally well sung....

The premise is promising: when a group of porn stars decides to make a "real movie", hilarity ensues. Veteran director Joe Banno and a talented cast make the absolute most of it in the Klunch's production of Elaine May's play ADULT ENTERTAINMENT - to fun, fizzy, and surprisingly human effect....

The Kennedy Center kicked off its multidisciplinary contemporary cultural assault Tuesday with something thought to embody the approach, Taylor Macs 'A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (1776-2016).'...

Godspell is one of those shows that is reinvented with each production. There is a timelessness about it that makes it just as applicable today as it did when the first production opened off-Broadway in 1971. NextStop Theatre Company's current production, Godspell is more grounded in our obsession w...

Giuseppe Verdi's epic opera is being staged for the first time in two decades at WNO and features a sterling cast in a grand production....

This production is worthy of an audience based on the story alone....

Madeline Joey Rose's solid research and attention to detail set her solo play apart from the myriad of others that have tried to introduce typical theatergoers to cultures (especially religious ones) that might be less familiar to them....

What if gospel music was taken out of church? What if its structure, soul and power were applied to some other ancient stories, such as, for example, Sophocles, where actors talk about gods plural?...

Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer's true life story of becoming "America's favorite sex therapist" is a fascinating and unlikely one. Naomi Jacobson portrays Dr. Westheimer with charm and vigor in the one-woman show BECOMING DR. RUTH at Theatre J, combining autobiography with a broader tale of Jewish origins a...

Last season on Broadway there was a play called Time and the Conways presented at Roundabout Theatre Company. The play hadn't been seen on Broadway since 1937 and after seeing it I understood why. That said, the production had a great look and a very good cast so you could forget about the stodgines...

While not entirely rare for a single family to possess multiple musical talents, it's certainly unusual to see two people from the same family as leads in the same performance. Washington Concert Opera's Sunday evening performance of Maria di Rohan was such an anomaly: an opera featuring sisters. Ma...

There is something to be said about being present in historical plays. But when the characters in the Theater Alliance's powerful production 'The Raid,' begins with the characters sitting alongside the audience in the seats that ring the performance space and announce their impending demise, we real...

'We believe in the power collaboration, between artists and with the audience' - These words are the mantra of dog & pony dc, and do they deliver. Their latest offering, Peepshow, is the ultimate in audience interaction. Before you enter the theater, or rather the Rehearsal Hall at Woolly Mammoth, y...

We all have bad days; it's inevitable. Something happens to us every once in a while that turns our day from good to bad. However, nothing can top the day that twelve-year-old Alexander has in Adventure Theatre's latest offering, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day....