All stories by Robert Michael Oliver on BroadwayStars

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Review: ‘Legacy Street’ at The Catholic University’s Department of Drama by Robert Michael Oliver

Legacy Street, a new play by Lauren Jane Redmond, an MFA Playwriting candidate at The Catholic University of America, premiered last night at the Callan Theatre. A gritty look at violence in…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 02:38PM
Saturday, February 6, 2016

Spine: ‘Guards at the Taj’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company by Robert Michael Oliver

Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj, now playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, provokes its audience with grand flamingo visions, with horrific buckets of blood, with aesthetic debat…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 11:37PM
Friday, January 29, 2016

Spine: “I Shall Not Hate” Mosaic Theater’s Journey to the Gaza Strip by Robert Michael Oliver

Visit the Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Sprenger Lang Theatre over the next few week and you’ll find Gaza. “He who looks at the  sea does not know the sea, He who sits on the…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 06:18PM
Monday, January 18, 2016

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at WSC Avant Bard by Robert Michael Oliver

Each year, Shakespeare is the most frequently produced playwright in America, and his A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the Bard’s most frequently produced plays. So if youR…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 02:33PM

Review: ‘Chocolate Covered Ants’ at Restoration Stage by Robert Michael Oliver

Chocolate Covered Ants, a new play by Steven A. Butler, Jr., and now on stage at the Anacostia Playhouse, is that rarity of theatrical experience in that it explores the psyche of the Africa…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 12:58AM
Saturday, January 16, 2016

Review: ‘Exit the King’ by 4615 Theatre Company at the Classroom at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company by Robert Michael Oliver

From what I can gather, 4615 Theatre Company consists of actors, directors, and designers who are, by their own declaration, under 25 years old. They select a play, find a space (basement, r…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 04:47PM
Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Review: ‘The Critic’ & ‘The Real Inspector Hound’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company by Robert Michael Oliver

The theatre critic might well be the focus of the satiric lampoon, now on stage at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Lansburgh Theatre, but it is the entire Theatrical Industry that gets s…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 04:04PM
Friday, January 8, 2016

Review: ‘Wrestling Jerusalem’ at Mosaic Theatre Company of DC by Robert Michael Oliver

Aaron Davidman’s deeply personal solo performance, Wrestling Jerusalem, the opening gambit in Mosaic Theatre’s Voices from a Changing Middle East Festival, takes its audience dee…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 06:27PM
Monday, December 21, 2015

‘Javon Jackson and Sax Appeal’ at the KC Jazz Club at the Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

With Sax Appeal, no other “appeal” is necessary. The soul is satisfied. What happens when you bring four world-class saxophone players, a phenomenal pianist, a fingers-flying bas…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:00AM
Friday, December 18, 2015

‘Bright Star’ at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

Bright Star officially opened last night in its pre-Broadway engagement at the Kennedy Center. And there is plenty for audiences to like and enjoy. Let’s start with that banjo. Steve M…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 12:23PM
Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Spine: Mosaic’s ‘The Gospel of Lovingkindness’ and a Call for a Better World by Robert Michael Oliver

Mosaic Theatre Company’s second offering in its inaugural season is the emotionally rich The Gospel of Lovingkindness by Marcus Gardley. In it Gardley tackles the loss of innocence by …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 08:44AM
Thursday, December 10, 2015

‘Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind’ by the Neo-Futurist at Woolly Mammoth by Robert Michael Oliver

I’m blind. No, actually, during a merciless chanting of “God, God, God, God, God…” in a piece entitled “Two Minutes of Organized Religion,” I put my head …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 02:00PM
Saturday, December 5, 2015

‘Glory Us’ by Rabble Crew at The Fridge by Robert Michael Oliver

Conceptual Art: “the notion that the essence of art is an idea, or concept, and may exist distinct from and in the absence of an object as its representation.” Conceptual Theatre…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 08:01PM
Sunday, November 29, 2015

‘Catone in Utica’ by Opera Lafayette at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

In Opera Lafayette‘s Catone in Utica, which opened last night at The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, the greats have come out to sing. And Antonin Vivaldi’s opera bursts…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 05:23PM
Monday, November 23, 2015

Spine: ‘Pericles’ by Oregon Shakespeare Festival at Folger Theatre (Review #2) by Robert Michael Oliver

The rarely performed Pericles by William Shakespeare, now on stage at Folger Theatre, is that even rarer of manuscripts: a folk play with epic plot, with virtuous storytelling and song, and …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 06:10PM
Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Spine: ‘Appomattox’ Cracks the Color Line at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

Appomattox, the world premiere opera now playing at The Kennedy Center Opera House in a new production by the Washington National Opera, tackles that most epic of America’s sins, ̶…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 08:52AM
Monday, November 16, 2015

‘See Between The Lines’ by Jane Franklin Dance at Dance Place by Robert Michael Oliver

Jane Franklin Dance presented three performance pieces last night at Dance Place: “Incidence,” “Nested, and “Wash Over You, Part 1.” As a whole, they are entitl…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:15PM
Saturday, November 14, 2015

Dorado Schmitt and the Django Festival All-Stars at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

Dorado Schmitt and the Django Festival All-Stars came to The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater last night. And for a beautiful 80 minutes, the terror of the day vanished, syncopated out…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 05:21PM
Thursday, November 12, 2015

Spine: JOY and Twyla Tharp’s 50th Anniversary Tour by Robert Michael Oliver

Twyla Tharp’s 50th Anniversary Tour came to the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre last night. Four pieces: two short “Fanfares,” a Preludes and Fugues, and a Yowzie…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 04:34PM
Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Spine: Studio Theatre’s Apple Family Cycle, ‘Sorry’ and “Us” by Robert Michael Oliver

One of the most frequently read quotes about Richard Nelson’s four play Apple Family Cycle comes from Ben Brantley’s article, “One Man, 10 Shows, Guvnor.” (Dec. 13, 2…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 03:29PM
Monday, November 9, 2015

‘Regular Singing’ in Repertory with ‘Sorry’ at Studio Theatre by Robert Michael Oliver

Regular Singing, the 4th play in Richard Nelson’s Apple Family Cycle and now playing in repertory with Sorry (the 3rd play) at Studio Theatre, is a 2-hour dirge, a threnody if you will…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 03:36PM
Thursday, November 5, 2015

Spine: Mosaic Theater Company’s ‘Unexplored Interior’: A ‘Theatre of Conscience’ by Robert Michael Oliver

The Mosaic Theater Company has arrived, and Washington’s dense theatrical geography has a different colored star on the horizon. Its inaugural production, the world premiere of Unexplo…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 03:58PM
Monday, November 2, 2015

‘World Builders’ by Forum Theatre at Woolly Mammoth by Robert Michael Oliver

I first saw Johnna Adams’s World Builders this summer, when it premiered at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I was immediately struck by the …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 03:32PM
Sunday, November 1, 2015

‘The Metal Children’ at Silver Spring Stage by Robert Michael Oliver

Silver Spring Stage does it again. With Adam Rapp’s The Metal Children, now playing at the Stage through November 21, they once again venture outside DC’s theatrical “sa…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:41PM
Saturday, October 31, 2015

Women’s Voices Theater Festival: ‘Darius & Twig’ at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

Darius & Twig, now playing at The Kennedy Center’s Family Theater, tackles issues confronted by inner city kids throughout the country. And it does so with a mixture of hope and ha…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 10:33AM
Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Spine: Is ‘Avenue Q’ Just What the Doctor Ordered? Constellation Theatre’s Marvelous Production by Robert Michael Oliver

Let me be absolutely clear. I loved Constellation Theatre Company’s production of Avenue Q, which opened last night to a packed, laughing audience. Fast paced, precisely choreographed …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 02:34AM
Monday, October 26, 2015

Bowen McCauley Dance 20th Anniversary Celebration at Dance Place by Robert Michael Oliver

Bowen McCauley Dance is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary season with a four-piece retrospective. All choreographed by Lucy Bowen McCauley, the opening number takes the audience bac…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 03:57PM
Sunday, October 25, 2015

Spine: ‘Raw’ and Revolution at Venus Theatre and Women’s Voices Theatre Festival by Robert Michael Oliver

Revolution is in the air. As Arab Spring lies bloodied beneath military dictatorships in Egypt and religious extremists in Libya and the same ol’ same ol’ dictatorship in Syria (…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 04:48PM
Sunday, October 4, 2015

‘Tiny Island’ at Washington Stage Guild by Robert Michael Oliver

As the audience waits for the Washington Stage Guild’s Washington premiere of Michael Hollinger’s Tiny Island to begin, they look curiously at two humongous carbon-arc movie proj…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 04:55PM
Saturday, September 12, 2015

Spine: An Interview with Playwright Jennie Berman Eng on ‘Whenever You’re Near Me I Feel Sick’ and The Women’s Voices Theater Festival by Robert Michael Oliver

The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, more than fifty world premiere plays written by women — now that’s a happening! I am as excited by the notion that stories from a woman…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:12PM
Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Women’s Voices Theater Festival: Jennie Berman Eng’s ‘Whenever You’re Near Me I Feel Sick’ Opens September 17, 2015 by Robert Michael Oliver

Did the one who got away really get away? Does the right match come down to timing, or compatibility, or courage to take a leap?  In this tale of a friendship-turned love affair, two friend…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 11:03AM

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