WASHINGTON, DC THEATER REVIEWS

It's Christmas Eve 1946 in Washington, DC and you've ventured out into the cold with your family to the local radio station to see a live performance of Frank Capra's yet-to-be-classic, It's a Wonderful Life. Taking the stage among dozens of sound effects tools are some of your favorite local radio ...

Twyla Tharp has been a major player in the dance world for fifty years, and is one of the most prolific, living American choreographers. While many know her from her work in Hair, Tharp's body of work is much larger. According to the program, Tharp has created over 160 works including "129 dances,...

When the lights come down, we're treated at first to the sort of amiable, snarky chit-chat one associates with Comedy Channel. The two performers, James Long and Marcus Youssef, skim the surface of American culture and even ask the audience for suggestions. But after luring us with the sort of 'Cana...

Even 21 years later, the horrific atrocities of the Rwandan genocide is hard to wrap one's head around. How could 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis be macheted to death in just over three months by the country's other ethnic group, the Hutus - including thousands cowering in a single church?...

DEATHTRAP is an old fashioned, twisty thrill ride. NextStop Theatre Company puts the thrill back in thriller with a briskly directed, well cast production of the venerable potboiler. If we gave out ratings at Broadway World, I would offer NextStop four big ones for a production that crackles with wi...

The Cripple of Inishmaan features solid performances. However, you can't help but feel that the material is rather fruitless. Many of McDonagh's works have been featured in DC over the past few seasons. Unfortunately, this isn't one of his better ones and Scena deserves credit for giving it their...

August Wilson play is a superb production....

Part of the Women's Voices Theatre Festival, author Brandli shows great promise....

"What's the buzz? Tell me what's-a-happening?" Anyone familiar with JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-lived rock musical, will find those lyrics familiar. And the buzz, in my opinion, is that an excellent production of the musical is showing now through November 21 courtesy of th...

What happened Thursday night though, was not only a trip down memory lane with a woman who created roles in Les Miserables, City of Angels, and one of my all time favorites, A Class Act, but it was a master class in how to perform a song. She wouldn't still be around if she wasn't damn good at what ...

DARIUS & TWIG brings societal relevance to younger theater....

AVENUE Q is an irreverent and big-hearted look at life once you've graduated from Sesame Street and from college but Real Life hasn't quite kicked in quite the way you'd envisioned. Constellation Theatre Company's production is full of fun, featuring a magnificent ensemble of talented and appealing ...

All in all, one might chalk this one up as a 'miss,' but it's not a complete miss thanks to the talent involved....

Stripped to the essentials - a stage, a handful of actors, a rapt audience - ANTIGONE recently proved once again its place in the pantheon of the world's finest tragic plays. The international production of the Sophokles drama made a short stop in Washington for the last leg of a national tour of se...

Stacy Gregg's latest play about 'Peace Walls' in Belfast....

Arena Stage puts beloved columnist, author and women's advocate Erma Bombeck front and center in a show that, while full of wit and memories, needs a more fulfilling script....

Act locally, think globally is exactly what happened to Anu Yadav's innovative piece of activist theatre, 'Capers.' Her finely observed, remarkably accomplished reflection of families at a D.C. housing project forced from their home for development has come a long way since it first appeared more th...

One of the contributions to the Women's Voices Theatre Festival is The Keegan Theatre's THE DEALER OF BALLYNAFEIGH, a new dark comedy/farce from Rosemary Jenkinson, and directed by Abigail Isaac Fine....

VelocityDC Dance Festival is true to its name.  It showcases over 20 DC-based dance companies and individual artists over four days.  Blink and you will miss it.  This festival, started in 2009, is presented in partnership with Dance Metro DC, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Shakesp...

Sarma, an Irish-Indian playwright, gives us a glimpse of the despair of a Celtic Tiger weighed down by debt and economic depression. A country that once had so much optimism is still struggling to get back on its feet, after the financial crisis wiped out many of the gains it had made. Sarma writes...

Our famous 'Lady in the Tutti Fruti Hat' has been revived in Pointless Theatre's Women's Voices Theater Festival show, GIMME A BAND! GIMME A BANANA! THE CARMEN MIRANDA STORY. Under the direction of Roberta Alves and Matt Reckeweg and written by Mel Bieler and Patti Kalil, GIMME A BAND, GIMME A BANAN...

Molotov Theatre Group's Lovecraft: Nightmare Suite is a piece of Halloween candy: sweetly frightening but not enough to fill you up.  The outline of the script and the excellent technical work promise captivating thrills which the performances never quite deliver....

Longtime Broadway performer TERRI WHITE took The Kennedy Center stage in a farewell solo performance that covered her many roles, thoughts on life and love of her family and the theatre....

'I will do so. Till then, think of the world,' Cassius says this to Brutus in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar is Shakespeare's gripping political drama about the fall of Julius Caesar in the hands of a group of conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius. Prince William Little Theatre'...

SALOME is a visually stunning world premiere that brings us deeply complex characters struggling for command and dignity in one of history's most highly contested strips of land. Yael Farber, the award-winning adaptor-director, returns to the Shakespeare Theatre Company. With SALOME she has shaped a...