All stories by Susan Galbraith on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

WNO’s Alcina casts its spell at The Kennedy Center (review) by Susan Galbraith

Old things may become new. Handel’s opera, Alcina, which premiered in 1735 has done just that – quite magically so. Washington National Opera has dared to take on the classic sorceress f…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:24PM

Vicuña and The American Epilogue Review: a perfect fit for DC by Susan Galbraith

Jon Robin Baitz fairly sprays the audience with lines that atta-tack-tack like an AK47. You hear the moans of each hit and then explosion after explosion of laughter. In this way, his play V…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:24PM
Tuesday, October 17, 2017

New opera: Shining Brow, Frank Lloyd Wright in love (review) by Susan Galbraith

One doesn’t go to Urban Arias expecting masterpieces. The whole adventure is about sharing in Founder and Artistic Director Robert Wood’s risk-taking in mounting new or almost new operat…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:54AM
Thursday, October 12, 2017

Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes (review) by Susan Galbraith

Experiencing a Matthew Bourne ballet is like indulging in a whole box of Christmas crackers from Harrods – stuffed with surprises. It also reminds me of reading something by the late write…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:33AM
Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Word Becomes Flesh loses none of its strength in its return to Theater Alliance (review) by Susan Galbraith

Hey, put down your guns!  I’m not talking about hand-carrying, capitalist-and-NRA-endorsed devices you can buy on DC streets. I’m talking about the weapons of words we use to hate on ea…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:24PM
Monday, September 11, 2017

A sizzling Don Juan Tenorio opens GALA’s season (review) by Susan Galbraith

A legendary Spanish character, that has inspired work by luminaries including Moliere, Goldoni, and Mozart, has leapt onto the stage at GALA Hispanic Theatre in a sizzling new adaptation, Do…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:36PM

Aida at Washington National Opera (review) by Susan Galbraith

Aida opened Washington National Opera’s season, and the production is stunning grand opera. From the remarkable singing to the stage pictures filled with RETNA’s startling, rich iconogra…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:36PM
Thursday, September 7, 2017

Considering Talkbacks: the art of after-show discussion and its takeaways by Susan Galbraith

Everyone is doing them, doing them, doing them. Well, actually no. Some artists say they hate them, notably David Mamet who recently threatened to fine theaters the hefty sum of $25,000 if t…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:42AM
Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Howard Shalwitz on why the time is right for Woolly to produce The Arsonists by Susan Galbraith

Susan Galbraith and Howard Shalwitz, longtime friends and colleagues, talk about Howard’s return to the stage for The Arsonists as he prepares to depart from the company he co-founded …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:24PM
Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Woolly Mammoth remount of An Octoroon (review) by Susan Galbraith

An Octoroon is a big play. It makes you sit up and take notice.  It makes you laugh and it makes you wince. More often than not it makes you squirm uncomfortably.  I’d say that it is tha…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:33PM
Monday, July 24, 2017

Thurgood at Olney Theatre Center (review) by Susan Galbraith

It’s a great time in Washington to re-evaluate through drama the weights and balances of our justice system. Downtown at Arena Stage we’re watching Scalia’s story, penned as The Origin…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:48AM
Thursday, July 20, 2017

Wildhorne’s Bonnie and Clyde musical (review) by Susan Galbraith

Times is hard in Bonnie and Clyde. Some would say not so different from now. Climate shifting, turning the land into a dustbowl. Whole businesses destroyed. Banks going under.  People out o…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:54AM
Wednesday, July 19, 2017

BON VOYAGE! A Happenstance Escapade (review) by Susan Galbraith

BON VOYAGE! A Happenstance Escapade is a soupçon, a patisserie, a confection, and, in its smellier moments, a big fromage! But most of all it is Mark Jaster’s love letter to Paris. And th…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:33AM
Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Raw. Hungry. Brilliant. RENT’s 20th anniversary tour (review) by Susan Galbraith

Some believe that if we keep people who have died in our thoughts and words then they are not really dead. Well, if so, then last night lights were blazing and the world was happily peopled …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:48PM
Monday, June 19, 2017

Sound of Music at The Kennedy Center (review) by Susan Galbraith

The Kennedy Center was alive with The Sound of Music on Friday night. Almost every seat was taken in the vast Opera House auditorium for the opening night of the latest Broadway-style tourin…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:48PM
Wednesday, June 7, 2017

In the midst of European tensions, Prague Fringe is undaunted by Susan Galbraith

DCTS writer Susan Galbraith returns to the Prague Fringe festival with Protest by Vaclav Havel, produced by her company Alliance for New Music-Theatre. —————&…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:42AM
Monday, May 8, 2017

WNO presents a bold, modern Madame Butterfly (review) by Susan Galbraith

In most productions, Madame Butterfly is unabashedly atmospheric in its romanticism.  “Orientalism” carries us back to composer Giacomo Puccini’s time when the West imagined a fancif…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:02PM
Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Protest Theatre. Schenkkan pushes back on a Donald Trump promise with Building the Wall by Susan Galbraith

It’s in the air – an urgency to use theatre to get people into the conversation about what many see as our national crisis: the Trump presidency. Now Forum Theatre gets into the act pres…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:02PM
Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Kipling’s Jungle Book meets the creative team at Imagination Stage (review) by Susan Galbraith

Starting with Kendra Rai’s gorgeously hued Indian-spice costumes, conjuring tamarind, cinnamon and saffron, Imagination Stage’s production of The Jungle Book brings to life the rich imag…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:12PM
Monday, April 10, 2017

Mosaic gives voice to Africa now with A Human Being Died That Night (review) by Susan Galbraith

Mosaic Theater Company is only in its second year of producing but, planting itself firmly on Washington’s H Street corridor in northeast Washington, the team of Ari Roth and Serge Seiden …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:36PM
Monday, April 3, 2017

Lucy, the latest short opera from UrbanArias (review) by Susan Galbraith

UrbanArias has gone wild! The company that pushes boundaries, reconceiving opera that is short, smart and fast, has given us an opera about a chimpanzee. Luckily, the chimpanzee, which we le…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:48PM
Friday, March 31, 2017

Peter Brook’s vision, Battlefield, on stage at The Kennedy Center (review) by Susan Galbraith

Minimal. Stripped-bare. Essential. Pure. Questioning. Uncomfortable. Profound. Spiritual. This is what you must expect when you experience a production by Peter Brook, one of the world’s g…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 03:12PM
Thursday, March 23, 2017

Don Giovanni gets a youthful outing at Washington National Opera by Susan Galbraith

Mozart would have been grinning at this youthful production of his tried-and-true opera that reached out to a new younger and diverse audience Friday night, March 17th. Washington National O…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:54AM
Monday, March 20, 2017

Suffrage comedy takes the stage at Venus Theatre (review) by Susan Galbraith

Seeing something unlike anything you’ve seen before can be curious, mystifying, and even jarring. That was my experience this weekend with Venus Theatre’s presentation of what was, …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:24AM
Friday, March 17, 2017

A deeply moving Ragtime at Ford’s Theatre (review) by Susan Galbraith

Ford’s has given us a magnificent and deeply moving musical about where we’ve come from, featuring, as its main character, America. The superbly attuned ensemble announces with full emot…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:12PM
Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Fickle: A Fancy French Farce, frothy fun at Olney Theatre Center (review) by Susan Galbraith

Hard-hitting, issue-packed, relevant plays are all the rage right now, but if you are weary of such emotional drain, and would just like some old-fashioned fun, look no further than Olney’…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:06AM
Monday, March 6, 2017

Champion at Washington National Opera (review) by Susan Galbraith

The air was electric at Kennedy Center Saturday night with the promise of a great fight mounted as opera on stage, and I had what amounted to ringside seats.  Champion clearly had some heav…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:03PM
Monday, February 27, 2017

Dead Man Walking at Washington National Opera (review) by Susan Galbraith

The opera Dead Man Walking is a journey of harrowing truth and compelling beauty. If, as Sister Helen Prejean says, “ Grace is waking up to the gospel of encounter,” then Director France…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:32PM
Monday, February 13, 2017

Rehearsing Dead Man Walking: digging deeper in Week 2 by Susan Galbraith

I am being given an intimate look inside the rehearsal rooms of Washington National Opera’s Dead Man Walking under the direction of WNO’s Artistic Director Francesca Zambello. This repor…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:18AM
Thursday, February 9, 2017

Chronicling Washington National Opera’s Dead Man Walking: Rehearsals begin by Susan Galbraith

A rare inside look at the making of an opera. Washington National Opera’s Artistic Director Francesca Zambello invited Susan Galbraith to sit in on rehearsals of Dead Man Walking. T…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:06AM
Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Kennedy Center (review) by Susan Galbraith

Big News at the Kennedy Center. Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater rocked the place last night.. And no one rushed to exit the Opera House auditorium (as they often do at the KC) until …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:06PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic
TBA: Ragtime