Baltimore theatergoers will remember Jaclyn Backhaus’ brilliant “Men on Boats” from its local premiere with Cohesion Theatre Arts in 2017 (Center Stage produced it a season or two late…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 07:37PMI am God – Without one friend, Alone in my purity. – Langston Hughes God is a concept by which we measure our pain. – John Lennon It still humbles me that this force that makes leave…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 07:39PMTwo up, eight to go. The Baltimore August Wilson Celebration has hit its stride. After Arena Players’ triumphant production of “Gem of the Ocean” in April (read our review), Chesapeake…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 03:44PMSofie Treadwell’s “Machinal” is an important play with a fascinating back story. It’s regarded by many as a crucial member of the 20th century American theatrical canon, but has been…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:12PMHog Island, Maryland isn’t really an island. At least, it doesn’t look like one on a map. Scan the Eastern Shore southward to a point in Dorchester County that’s due east of Lexington …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 05:03PMWhen Chesapeake Shakespeare Company unveiled its soulful adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” this spring, fans came out in droves. They loved the way this classic was re-framed with the sig…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:21PMThere’s just something about Irish playwrights, especially the current generation. In 2017, Baltimore audiences saw the American premiere of “Voices in the Rubble” by Darren Donahue at…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:05PMThose who were fortunate enough to catch Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ Queens Girl trilogy in recent years will find familiar terrain in Priyanka Shetty’s “The Elephant in the Room.” Mak…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:37PMDescribed by its publisher as an unromantic comedy and darker cousin of “Almost, Maine,” John Cariani’s “Love/Sick” premiered as a collection of nine short plays sharing themes tha…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:19PMMany of us would like to think that when Ntozake Shange’s first play premiered Off-Broadway, the world was a vastly different place than it is now. Surely, the intervening years have produ…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:29PMAgatha Christie’s considerable contributions notwithstanding, it is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who is credited with inventing the modern detective procedural. Three years before Christie’s b…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 08:23PMWhen the Baltimore August Wilson Celebration was announced last week, the project was already off to a head-start. Arena Players had already planned “Gem of the Ocean” for their 70th sea…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:20AMIn the familiar Grimms’ Fairy Tale version of the Hansel and Gretel story, a young brother and sister are left to starve in a forest, their father forced by a wicked stepmother to sacrific…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:19PMMany theater companies like to talk about “challenging” their audiences or delivering “art with a message,” perhaps as an apology for forcing us to eat our proverbial vegetables. Som…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:47PMJane E. Nitsch and Sam David. Photo by Machpe Protography. In “Guys and Dolls,” the character Nicely-Nicely experiences a rebirth of spirituality, scared straight by a dream which taught…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:38PMFor many years the short play form has been a well-respected point of entry into writing for the stage. In the late 20th century, The Humana Festival popularized a sub-genre: the ten-minute …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 09:29AMIf you had the ability and the means to customize your afterlife experience, would you do it? Baltimore’s Submersive Productions’ latest project casts its audience in the role of marketi…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 11:55AMThe season of summer blockbusters is upon us. Movie theaters everywhere are filled with big stories, employing big casts, and consuming big budgets. It’s enough to give one a sense of scre…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 07:37PMAmerican linguist Einar Haugen coined the term “code-switching” in 1954, to describe “the mixing of languages or dialects across different ethnic or racial demographics.” A later wor…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 08:22PMMaryland’s last historically recognized lynching happened on October 18, 1933. Playwright Jack L.B. Gohn used the date (but none of the other details) of George Armwood’s brutal torture …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 11:27AMIn 1946, 13-year-old Eunice Waymon made her piano concert debut. Her parents were forced to vacate their front row seats in the segregated venue. Eight years later, she found herself gigging…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 12:43PM“Cool Hand Luke” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” are both high on any list of classic films of the modern period. They’re the same kind of hero/martyr story, centered on on…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:25PMFrom established stage authors to wannabe first-timers, playwrights from all over the region are drawn each year to create a unique ten-minute play festival called The Variations Project. Fo…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:14PMBarbara Kahn’s screwball comedy, “The Lady Was a Gentleman,” is a hilarious mélange of six disparate women in 1858 St. Louis. Charlotte Cushman (Julia Williams), a famous actor, is on…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 12:32PMIn October, 1972, a new play made its world premiere in Cape Town, South Africa. Published under the title “Sizwe Bansi [sic] is Dead,” the piece was devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 12:19PM“Henry VIII” is one of Shakespeare’s less frequently produced plays. It actually isn’t Shakespeare’s alone, rather, it was a collaboration with John Fletcher. Here is a fun fact (t…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 03:01PMIn the 1980s and ‘90s, Christopher Durang was at the peak of his popularity. He’d arrived at precisely the right time, when the world of American stage comedy desperately needed an heir …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:42PMIt is a chaotic time for several of Baltimore’s small theater companies. Stillpointe Theatre, Rapid Lemon Productions, and Baltimore Shakespeare Factory all lost their performance spaces a…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:08PMIt’s late at night. There’s a thunderstorm. A man unlocks the door to a moldy motel room and steps inside. He hopes to get a little rest after a long day of travel and giving speeches. T…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 08:14PMThrough partnerships with Everyman, Olney, and Center Stage, Baltimore’s ArtsCentric is presenting its mainstage works in regional theaters all across the state. In fact, it’s been a min…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 06:11PMFresh on the heels of a four million dollar grant award, Baltimore’s Arena Players is in high spirits. Renovations are still two years away, though, and the company is currently focused on…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 03:46PM
