Many 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“We create only from familiar elements, the possibilities of which are enhanced by imagination.”– May Miller, “The Creative Urge,” Journal of National Association of College Women …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 04:01PMAt one point in his six-minute curtain speech, Spotlighters’ Executive Director and Managing/Artistic Director, Fuzz Roark, gives a telling description of “[title of show].” “It’s …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 11:57AMThe career of Neil Simon nestles neatly between two periods of daring exploration. He followed Beckett and Ionesco, toiling away writing for television while they made a revolution. When his…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 11:05AMThe holidays are a time when many of us entertain out-of-town guests. It serves as a wonderful opportunity to show off our area to them. Family and friends whose ideas of Baltimore come from…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 10:44AMThere’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the gloriesof Christmases long, long ago– Eddie Pola & George Wyle, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” There’s a pecul…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:38PMFor some of us, October is too short. Come Thanksgiving, we still crave the creepy and desire the demonic. Luckily, Stillpointe Theatre is serving up a frightening feast with all of the ghas…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 01:56PM“Four white people can’t do a Thanksgiving play that doesn’t p*ss off the funders, or the parents, or the universe.” In a minefield, no movement is safe. When movement is the stated …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 02:34PM“People try to label you. Put you in a box. Try to make you one way, even if you’re not.” It began thirteen months ago, with a conversation. Multi-hyphenate artist Nate Couser called d…
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 11:22AMIn the fifteen years since its founding, the Baltimore Rock Opera Society has been responsible for some incredibly ambitious productions of original material. The latest of these is “Love …
SOURCE: mdtheatreguide.com at 11:41AM