All stories by Nelson Pressley on BroadwayStars

Friday, March 4, 2016

Singer-guitarist Benjamin Scheuer purrs his life and times in 'The Lion' by Nelson Pressley

Benjamin Scheuer is a mesmerizing guitarist, and he tells his story strumming in his solo show "The Lion." Scheuer pours his heart into his own coming-of-age tale, dealing with a difficult d…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 05:20PM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 3, 2016

Ntozake Shange's famous 'choreopoem' gets a hip-hop dance partner by Nelson Pressley

The empowerment of Ntozake Shange's "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" doesn't date, and the simmering verbal style of this 1976 "choreopoem" will land …

SOURCE: Washington Post at 06:09PM[SHARE]
Friday, February 26, 2016

Laurie Anderson: An artist like no other by Nelson Pressley

Laurie Anderson endures as the poster child for performance art, although the wry sprite with spiky hair and an electric violin prefers the term "multimedia artist." The writer-composer-film…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 11:04PM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 25, 2016

So your rowdy comedy is a hit during a theater festival. Do you have a real show on your hands? by Nelson Pressley

Rowdy comedies with a late-nite vibe can be catnip at the summertime Capital Fringe Festival, and why not? It's a free-form, open invitation playground where the main rule is to get off the …

SOURCE: Washington Post at 05:46PM[SHARE]
Friday, February 19, 2016

The harsh road from East Africa to Israel in 'The Promised Land' by Nelson Pressley

Facts on the ground have changed since "The Promised Land" premiered in 2012 at Tel Aviv's Habima Theatre: Israel has stemmed the flow of East African immigrants streaming into its country b…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 07:51PM[SHARE]

Sondheim's 'Road Show' on the rebound at Signature by Nelson Pressley

A show called "Wise Guys" was announced with fanfare in 1995 as the Kennedy Center commissioned Stephen Sondheim to write a new musical to premiere the following year, opening the 1996-97 se…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 11:22AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Boy meets girl with endless possibilities in brainy 'Constellations' by Nelson Pressley

Nick Payne's "Constellations" is based on the idea of a multiverse where all the possibilities are always playing out. Guy meets girl, and they're too awkward to hit it off. Or they kind of …

SOURCE: Washington Post at 02:02PM[SHARE]
Friday, February 12, 2016

Olney swings for the fences with Moisés Kaufman's jazzy 'Carmen' by Nelson Pressley

The Murderers' Row of talent lined up for the new "Carmen: An Afro-Cuban Jazz Musical" makes it one of the most anticipated premieres of D.C.'s theater season. Moisés Kaufman ("The Laramie …

SOURCE: Washington Post at 12:11PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Monsters take the stage in a new Gothic musical and a delayed play by Nelson Pressley

We knew that Romantic poet Lord Byron was a bad boy, but a sassy rock star? That's how Sam Ludwig plays him in the premiere of "Monsters of the Villa Diodati" at the tiny Creative Cauldron i…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 02:50PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Black comedy turns to horror in 'Guards at the Taj' by Nelson Pressley

The two simpletons yakking on the job look awfully familiar. Talking about how they are not supposed to be talking, they are Abbott and Costello doing "Who's on first?" Philosophizing as the…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 12:45PM[SHARE]
Friday, February 5, 2016

Manners and politics collide in Arena Stage's 'City of Conversation' by Nelson Pressley

Moments after Thursday's Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders debate ended, MSNBC host Chris Matthews asked Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz whether she thought Republi…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 01:50PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Vampire-friendly critic in 'St. Nicholas' has the right kind of bite by Nelson Pressley

A jaded theater critic falls in with vampires in "St. Nicholas," the popular monologue that helped make Irish playwright Conor McPherson's name roughly 20 years ago. It has a couple things i…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 02:21PM[SHARE]
Monday, February 1, 2016

'West Side Story,' 'Salome,' 'Avenue Q' top 2016 Hayes nominations by Nelson Pressley

Big established musicals and new plays by women lead a rangy field in the 2016 Helen Hayes Awards, announced Monday evening at the National Theatre. The Shakespeare Theatre Company's "Kiss M…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 08:14PM[SHARE]
Sunday, January 31, 2016

Shakespeare Theatre still faces hurdles for new administrative center by Nelson Pressley

The saga continues for the Shakespeare Theatre Company as it tries to consolidate its scattered operations into a new administrative facility two blocks from Arena Stage.On Wednesday, STC wi…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 09:34AM[SHARE]
Thursday, January 28, 2016

Musical theater nerds? Not here. by Nelson Pressley

If you audition for a Thomas W. Jones II show with a standard tune from a Broadway musical, you may be told, "Great. Now, can you sing us something that's not in that tradition? Because we w…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 12:58PM[SHARE]
Monday, January 25, 2016

Center Stage moves to Towson U. with all-female 'As You Like It' by Nelson Pressley

TOWSON " Center Stage aimed to open "As You Like It" Friday, but the company responded to the blizzard forecast and let critics in Thursday night. Nimbleness is the watchword for the troupe …

SOURCE: Washington Post at 12:28PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Wasserstein's "Sisters Rosensweig" coasts on comedy at Theater J by Nelson Pressley

Wendy Wasserstein's "The Sisters Rosensweig" is a tough play: Wasserstein thought it was a Chekhovian drama but was surprised at how much early audiences laughed. It's a drawing-room comedy,…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 06:37PM[SHARE]
Thursday, January 14, 2016

Tony winner 'Gentleman's Guide' is good but not a killer by Nelson Pressley

"A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder" tidily wraps serial murder into an operetta packet with a big ribbon of farce. The 2013 show, touring through the end of this month at the Kennedy …

SOURCE: Washington Post at 10:42PM[SHARE]
Monday, January 11, 2016

The one-man "Georgie" offers a thorny portrait of George Rose by Nelson Pressley

Ed Dixon has two distinct gears in his new backstage autobiography "Georgie: My Adventures With George Rose" " adoring, and aghast. For a pleasantly conversational hour, Dixon recalls himsel…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 02:22PM[SHARE]
Sunday, January 10, 2016

'Wrestling Jerusalem' revives Roth's Middle East Festival at Mosaic by Nelson Pressley

When and how did it all go so wrong in the Middle East? Aaron Davidman provides a breathtaking litany at the opening of his solo show "Wrestling Jerusalem.""Golda blew it," Davidman declares…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 03:22PM[SHARE]
Friday, January 8, 2016

Nottage and Parks talk shop, politics as their new dramas come to D.C. by Nelson Pressley

NEW YORK " Suzan-Lori Parks interrupts herself to look up a word on her cellphone, because that's the kind of thing the Pulitzer-winning playwright does. She's playful yet exacting: Is it fa…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 01:45PM[SHARE]
Friday, January 1, 2016

The wrath of Michael Kahn in comedies about critics by Nelson Pressley

Michael Kahn can quote the first review he ever got as a student director in the 1960s. It was cruel."You remember the bad ones," the Shakespeare Theatre Company's artistic director says, wa…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 12:26PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, December 23, 2015

A festival, a Fringe move and a firing mark D.C.'s theater year by Nelson Pressley

It's a rare year when D.C. theater generates a lot of news, but 2015 was that year. Artistic director Ari Roth launched a substantial new troupe after being fired last December by Theater J.…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 01:15PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Marcus Gardley play testifies to Chicago murder rate, in poetry by Nelson Pressley

In "The Gospel of Lovingkindness," playwright Marcus Gardley throws his arms around the appalling murder rate in Chicago. His plot is partly based on the tragedy of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-ye…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 01:40PM[SHARE]

A football play and a Shanley romance: punch-drunk on Baltimore stages by Nelson Pressley

If you'd like an alternative to Washington's seasonal shows and big musicals, Baltimore's two most established theaters are keeping the new plays coming. The NFL's concussion crisis is the s…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 12:42PM[SHARE]
Friday, December 11, 2015

Most foul: Senator singles out Synetic's 'silent' Shakespeare by Nelson Pressley

In a bit of bumbling political theater, Arlington's Synetic Theater is being caricatured in Sen. James Lankford's new "report" on government waste, "Federal Fumbles." The report is a kind of…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 11:50AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Truman Capote done right in 'Holiday Memories' by Nelson Pressley

You can feel when a director is in sync with a script, and that's the situation with Tom Prewitt's staging of Truman Capote's "Holiday Memories." Prewitt handles Capote's nostalgic first-per…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 05:55PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Kiss me again, and again, and again, and . . . by Nelson Pressley

The smooching is sensational in "Stage Kiss," Sarah Ruhl's backstage comedy about ex-lovers cast as the leads in a ditzy 1930s romance. In the amusing new Round House Theatre production of t…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 02:46PM[SHARE]

Be his guest: Morella's solo 'Christmas Carol' is an inviting ghost story by Nelson Pressley

It's not the season to be pitting versions of "A Christmas Carol" against one another. Interpretations of the Dickens classic must run into the thousands, and if you have a favorite " well, …

SOURCE: Washington Post at 12:40PM[SHARE]
Thursday, December 3, 2015

Hitsville goes glitzville in 'Motown the Musical' by Nelson Pressley

Is there any chance that people buying tickets for "Motown the Musical" at the National Theatre don't know exactly what they're getting? Jukebox musicals are mechanical things, ritually unpa…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 02:44PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, December 1, 2015

'Cinderella,' being what it wants to be by Nelson Pressley

The enduring charm of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" has become more of a charm offensive now that it's a full-blown Broadway show. Not to worry, though: Although the 1957 TV special…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 02:16PM[SHARE]

All that Chat

2025-2026 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 12, 2025: Call Me Izzy - Studio 54
Sep 16, 2025: Art - Music Box Theatre
Oct 08, 2025: Beetlejuice - Palace Theatre
Nov 13, 2025: Oedipus - Studio 54
Nov 16, 2025: Chess - Imperial Theatre
Mar 23, 2026: Giant - Music Box Theatre
Apr 06, 2026: Becky Shaw - Hayes Theater
Apr 16, 2026: Proof - Booth Theatre
Apr 26, 2026: Drama Desk Cut-Off