All stories by Roger Catlin on BroadwayStars

Friday, September 12, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Fool for Love’ at Round House Theatre by Roger Catlin

The “MOTEL” sign flickers and sputters its message before showtime, forlorn and unforgiving as the Mojave desert landscape, as it awaits the production of Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love t…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 12:02PM
Monday, September 8, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Belleville’ at Studio Theatre by Roger Catlin

When a young woman named Abby returns home unexpectedly one afternoon after nobody showed for her yoga class, she finds her husband Zack home even more unexpectedly. That he was in the bedro…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 09:15PM
Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Heat Got Ya Beat? Tune in to These Chilly Ideas for Summer by Roger Catlin

A taste of Iceland is only a train ride away this summer as the new rock musical REVOLUTION IN THE ELBOW…, by Iceland’s Ívar Páll Jónsson, opened Off-Broadway at New York’s Minetta …

SOURCE: www.vnews.com at 05:06PM
Saturday, August 23, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘She Kills Monsters’ at Rorschach Theatre by Roger Catlin

It seems fitting that LARP and theater would eventually meet. After all, LARP – or Live Action Role Playing, that fringe group of costumes, swords and adopted personalities – involves so…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 09:27PM
Friday, August 22, 2014

Heat got ya beat? Tune in to these chilly ideas during the last days of summer by Roger Catlin

A taste of Iceland is only a train ride away this summer as the new rock musical REVOLUTION IN THE ELBOW OF RAGNAR AGNARSSON FURNITURE PAINTER, by Iceland’s Ívar Páll Jónsson, opened of…

SOURCE: Washington Post at 01:29PM
Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Shining City’ at Scena Theater by Roger Catlin

The current post-Fringe, pre-fall lull in D.C. theater is being filled admirably by Scena Theater, which is packing the Atlas Performing Arts Center with two Irish dramas, the first of which…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 12:32PM
Monday, June 16, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Happy Days’ at SCENA Theater by Roger Catlin

The role of Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days” is supposed to be one of the prized roles for women of a certain age. “One of those parts,” Dame Peggy Ashcroft once said, “ac…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 04:49PM
Friday, June 13, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Private Lives’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company by Roger Catlin

You’d be hard pressed to find a better night at the theater than the terrific production of Private Lives at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Doffing the Bard in a season where they’ve p…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 04:55PM

Theatre Review: ‘Grounded’ at Studio Theatre by Roger Catlin

As the audience files into Studio Theatre’s “Grounded,” Lucy Ellinson is already standing at attention, almost imperceptibly. In the Gate Theatre production directed by Christopher Hay…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 04:45PM
Monday, June 9, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘The Totalitarians’ at Woolly Mammoth by Roger Catlin

Politics is such a relentless, fulltime obsession in D.C., it may never occur to you to duck into a theater to take in more of it. Peter Sinn Nachtreib’s The Totalitarians, which is closin…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 07:41PM
Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Kwaidan’ at Spooky Action Theater by Roger Catlin

After being told I couldn’t even get in the door at the Spooky Action Theater until my cell phone was shut off, I thought: They are really cracking down on these electronic devices! Actual…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 09:34PM
Friday, May 23, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight’ at Keegan Theatre by Roger Catlin

The American sex farce Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight begins in the throes of passion, when what would normally just be spontaneous and embarrassing bedroom barking escalates sudde…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 10:53PM
Thursday, May 15, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Bloody Poetry’ at Taffety Punk Theatre Company by Roger Catlin

By the time Bloody Poetry,  Howard Brenton’s 1984 play of the romantic poets, begins in the current Taffety Punk production, Percy Byshhe Shelley is already en route to Switzerland with h…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 12:05PM

Theatre Review: ‘Charm’ at Taffety Punk Theatre Company by Roger Catlin

In the modest black box theater where Taffety Punk Theatre Company is in residence in Capitol Hill, there is currently the kind of brash, invigorating literature lesson any teacher would cov…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 11:39AM
Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Living Out’ at the GALA Hispanic Theatre by Roger Catlin

Judging from the news headlines nearly every week, race relations in the U.S. remain a social minefield that is difficult to navigate. One of the most direct intersections of race and cultur…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 10:32AM
Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ at The Folger Theatre by Roger Catlin

As William Shakespeare hits his 450th birthday this week, what better way to celebrate it than at the Folger Theatre, the classiest showcase for the Bard in town and possibly the nation. On …

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 04:01PM
Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Moth’ at Studio Theatre 2nd Stage by Roger Catlin

One of the realizations from the brash, surreal play Moth, by Melbourne’s Declan Greene, is that teenagers are pretty much the same in Australia as they are in America – for better…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 02:45PM
Saturday, April 5, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Camp David’ at Arena Stage by Roger Catlin

Because he was witness to history — Jimmy Carter’s 13 day peace summit between the heads of Israel and Egypt in 1978 — former White House Communications director Gerald Raf…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 05:42PM
Monday, March 31, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ by Visible Fictions Theatre Company (Scotland) at Kennedy Center’s 2014 International Theatre Fes by Roger Catlin

The more than a dozen productions that make up the World Stages International Theater Festival in Kennedy Center, most are listed for mature audiences. Others are listed for those at least t…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 07:26PM
Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘An Inspector Calls’ at Saint Mark’s Players by Roger Catlin

There must be a reason that most fusty drawing room dramas of yore stay buried in the past. J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, currently being revived by the St. Mark’s Players…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 12:03PM
Friday, March 14, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Water by the Spoonful’ at Studio Theatre by Roger Catlin

The “spoonful” symbolizes both the innocence of childhood and the sinister swirl of drug addictions. Think Mary Poppins’ merry “Spoonful of Sugar,” or Willie Di…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 11:25AM
Monday, March 3, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Back to Methuselah’ at Washington Stage Guild by Roger Catlin

The famous quote: “Some look at things that are, and ask ‘why.’ I dream of things that never were and ask ‘why not?’” is often associated with Robert…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 10:35AM
Monday, February 24, 2014

Opera Review: ‘Moby Dick’ by Washington National Opera at Kennedy Center by Roger Catlin

The epic quest for a white whale in Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick seems an apt subject for an epic staging, operatic in its intentions and soaring in its scale. … this &#…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 08:00PM
Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘The Wedding Dress’ at Spooky Action Theater by Roger Catlin

The physical space used by the Spooky Action Theater is a good reflection of how the innovative company works. Seemingly with every show, they find a new way to turn the subterranean space a…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 12:30PM
Saturday, February 8, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Impossible!’ by Happenstance Theatre at Round House, Silver Spring by Roger Catlin

The circus today has morphed in a couple of directions: to the streamlined arena fare of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey and the gymnastic spectacles of Cirque du Soleil and their …

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 09:00AM
Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’ at the Kennedy Center by Roger Catlin

With the recent announcement that “Peter Pan” would be the next live musical for NBC this year, Bill Murray flying into David Letterman’s show in costume this week, and Lea…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 10:00AM
Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Theatre Review: ‘Late: a Cowboy Song’ by No Rules Theatre Company at Signature Theatre by Roger Catlin

Sarah Ruhl is one of the most interesting playwrights in the country these days, with popular works like Dead Man’s Cell Phone, The Clean House, and In the Next Room, all of which hav…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 11:00AM
Friday, December 20, 2013

Cabaret Review: ‘Holiday Follies’ at Signature Theatre by Roger Catlin

A big crowd gathered at Signature Theatre in Arlington earlier this week — not necessarily for the opening of Holiday Follies, the annual Christmas cabaret, but for the start of previ…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 11:00AM
Friday, December 6, 2013

Opera Review: ‘A Family Reunion’ by In Series at Gala Theater by Roger Catlin

The most performed operas usually reflect stories of long ago times and foreign cultures, which can sometimes be distancing for an audience.  There is no such problem in A Family Reunion, m…

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 12:00PM
Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Opera Review: ‘Le Villi’ by In Series at Gala Hispanic Theatre by Roger Catlin

Great composers have to start somewhere and, for Giacomo Puccini, it was a one-act called Le Villi. He submitted it for a competition. It didn’t win or place. Still, he reworked it, added …

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 05:00PM
Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Theatre Review: ‘The Iceman Cometh’ by Quotidian Theatre Company at Bethesda’s Writer’s Center by Roger Catlin

Let us now praise the Quotidian Theatre Company, which dedicates itself to classics, and crafts performances so good they remind us why the works are considered classics in the first place. …

SOURCE: Maryland Theatre Guide at 04:00PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards