Friday, January 31, 2020
Among the many treasures of world theatre, the tradition of shadow puppets is one of the most fascinating. From Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean, the deceptively simple spectacle of fla…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 03:39PMMonday, October 22, 2018
One of the great pleasures of being part of the Washington, D.C. theatre scene for so long is that I get the chance to kick back and talk shop with former colleagues—especially those whose…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 11:01AMMonday, May 28, 2018
Once upon a time Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright, had a huge problem: his director, Konstantin Stanislavsky (not his real name, by the way) kept on treating his comedies as if they wer…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 01:52PMSaturday, December 16, 2017
Given the plethora of productions this time of year, it’s a struggle to make Charles Dickens’ classic story your own. The characters of Scrooge, Marley, Cratchit et al. are practically…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 09:05AMSaturday, December 9, 2017
To appreciate what Lauren Gunderson has accomplished with her latest historical play, “The Book of Will,” it pays to leaf through your Norton Facsimile of the First Folio, as the…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 12:26PMSaturday, October 14, 2017
The “Pope of Trash” hosts a sleep-away camp in Litchfield County, Conn. Yes, there were marshmallows, polyester and nudity.
Linked From The New York Times Subscription at 06:00AMThursday, October 12, 2017
So when did the 60’s end for you? When Jimi and Janis died? When the Beatles broke up? When Reagan got elected? Or did it take the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency, fo…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 03:19PMFriday, June 9, 2017
Oh, for the days when a snappy prologue got you in the mood for a night of great theatre. Time was when someone would come out before curtain with a little witty patter, a bit of poetry to…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 08:11PMTuesday, May 16, 2017
The great French novelist Victor Hugo was a notorious provocateur; when he wasn’t writing plays so partisan the government banned them after one night, he was firing up the popular imagina…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 10:16PMTuesday, April 25, 2017
Normally when a theatre company rolls out its new season there’s little to do but listen to boring speeches, nosh a little, drink a lot, and pretend to schmooze with Board members you’ll…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 07:23PMMonday, February 27, 2017
Broadway hits have a mixed record when it comes to longevity. Some capture the zeitgeist but don’t maintain a strong presence in the repertory in later years; others appeal to New Yorker…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 10:10AMThursday, February 9, 2017
Deep down we’re all apes, right? Kissing cousins with the monkeys, gorillas and of course those adorable chimps. We’ve got the bananas, we’ve got our instincts, our sense of turf a…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 07:15AMTuesday, February 7, 2017
Playwriting being a solitary task, it should come as no surprise that playwrights often enjoy pursuits that are equally solitary. Take fishing, for example – given the crush of audiences…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 07:04PMWednesday, January 11, 2017
Watching President Obama’s farewell address from Chicago this week was an occasion to think of all the progress we have made in this country over the past eight years—as well as the vast…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 08:29PMSunday, November 27, 2016
Face it, we’ve all survived a brutal presidential election season; it was especially brutal if you found yourself on the losing side. You look around at your neighbors, wondering who vot…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 02:59AMWednesday, September 28, 2016
‘Tis the season for nostalgia, it seems; hipsters of a certain age are flocking to the Avalon Theatre to catch the Beatles documentary “Eight Days a Week” coming face-to…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 11:00PMSaturday, September 10, 2016
Director/artist Thomas W. Jones II is a theatrical threat on many fronts: he choreographs, he directs, he writes scripts and lyrics—you name it he does it. What’s more, he has some o…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 02:13PMTuesday, July 12, 2016
One of the attractions of the Contemporary American Theater Festival is Artistic Director Ed Herendeen’s willingness to challenge his audiences with audacious work that takes you right up …
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 08:32AMFew classics of the American stage loom quite as large as A Long Day’s Journey into Night, Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical account of a theatrical family, of means, plagued by the da…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 08:22AMWhen we last caught Christina Anderson two years ago she was solidly in the present, examining the complex psychology of the neglected and dispossessed in the American Northwest with her pla…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 08:12AMCan there be anything in the world more annoying than late arrivals? You know the ones – harried, apologetic, sitting right in front of you and so-o-o-o-o self-obsessed? And do they ev…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 08:05AMWe’re in a nicely-appointed New York flat, the kind with stairs down to the couch that you never see in real life apartments but I swear I saw everywhere on TV in the 80’s. There is a …
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 07:55AMFriday, June 3, 2016
It is a rare gift to see an established performer live onstage – and even rarer to see her making her way through a new piece informally. As odd as it might sound, it can be a thrill to se…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 04:06PMFriday, May 20, 2016
Just when you thought the Irish were going to get all ‘Danny Boy’ on us with the Centenary of the Easter Rising, that ill-fated but auspicious attempt to occupy the General Post O…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 10:07PMTuesday, May 17, 2016
In an age when we are all held hostage by click-bait and personal algorithms—which, as the news keeps reminding us, distort reality for commercial and political gain—it is a comfo…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 10:40PMMonday, May 2, 2016
In the early years of the new South Africa, with Apartheid buried away and Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela elected President, there was ample room for optimism and hope for the future. The g…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 05:13AMSaturday, April 30, 2016
For years there has been a vogue for documentary plays and films—typically involving familiar historical figures in their formative years, or retelling a famous historic event. Addi…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 02:52PMWednesday, April 27, 2016
For many of us who got our start on the Washington, D.C. theater scene back in the 1980’s, it really is amazing to return to the Source Theater on 14th Street. The once-gritty, cavernous…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 12:01AMSunday, April 17, 2016
If you’re a Jukebox Musical junkie, you know the scenario: take a beloved artist, scan through the back catalogue for a cluster of solid hits, then cook up a paper-thin plot line to…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 09:59PMMonday, April 11, 2016
When you first enter the space for Hub Theatre’s latest production, you see what appears to be a typical domestic scene; French doors, some autumn leaves, a comfy couch, a couple of storag…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 04:39PMThursday, March 31, 2016
A dissident musician, a concert pianist, returns to his homeland and attempts—however awkwardly—to reconcile with his estranged family. That alone is the stuff of drama; but when the p…
Linked From mdtheatreguide.com at 02:21PM 
