All stories by Tim Treanor on BroadwayStars

Monday, August 24, 2015

Washington's Theatre District by Tim Treanor

On August 20th, a panel of DC Theatre Scene writers presented a preview of the 2015-2016 theatre season at the Smithonian Museum’s S. Dillon Ripley Center. Tim Treanor was one of the p…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:07PM[SHARE]
Thursday, July 16, 2015

315 at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

I grew up near Niagara Falls. Every month in the good weather, a couple of people will step over the guard rail, slip into the river and surrender to its astonishing power, to gravity and to…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:52AM[SHARE]

Here/Hear at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

This is the most tentative assessment I’ve ever given a show, Fringe or otherwise. This is because the featured player in this production is…well, it’s you. And I have no i…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:33AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Neda Wants to Die at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

Neda wants to die, and if this play had worked as I think it was intended, you might have wanted to die a little, too. Regrettably, Luigi Laraia’s earnest, plodding script has a surfei…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:36PM[SHARE]

BrouHaHa at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

“This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.”   –   T.S. Elliot, “The Hollow Men” Or, if you are Happenstance Theater, the DC area&#…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:44PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, July 14, 2015

God: The One-Man Show at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

The God of Heaven, by whatever name, is the Creator of the Universe, the Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused Cause, the Inventor of time and the Proclaimer of the laws of physics. We do not know for…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:28AM[SHARE]
Monday, July 13, 2015

Cold as Death at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

About three-quarters of the way through this play, I realized that I was watching the theatrical equivalent of the 1930s horror movies I used to watch at 2 AM in the rec room when my parents…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:32AM[SHARE]

From Seven Layers to a Bikini Top in Less than Five Hours by Tim Treanor

A Teutonic instructor (Andrea Schell) stares at her class, then barks out her instructions. You are not fat, she says. You are human beings. If you were fat you could not have picked up the …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:26AM[SHARE]

El Sueño or The Delightful Nightmares of the Ladies by Tim Treanor

Let me make a confession up front: this play is not my cup of tea. Inspired by passages from various Tennessee Williams plays, it seems to me to be alternatively over-dramatic and murky. I w…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:26AM[SHARE]
Sunday, July 12, 2015

ROGER (Not His Real Name) at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

Behold the wretch. He squats before you, sputtering and muttering, shaking his sweat-drenched, alcohol-infused head and slapping his thigh repeatedly. He sorts through his bag of garbage, oc…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:16PM[SHARE]

Never Never at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

The Washington Post humor columnist Alexandria Petri has here written a play about the least funny subject imaginable: pedophiles. And is it funny? Yes, uproariously so. And is it heartbreak…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:16AM[SHARE]
Saturday, July 11, 2015

Lathem Prince at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

Brothers and sisters, if your plans for the 2015 Fringe Festival do not include Lathem Prince, change your plans. It's that good. The New York City-based Hunger and Thirst Theatre Collective…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:45AM[SHARE]
Friday, July 10, 2015

The Life of King John at Capital Fringe by Tim Treanor

Perhaps you've wondered what would happen if Monty Python produced Shakespeare's The Life and Death of King John. Well, it probably would look a little bit like this production: fierce, anxi…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:20AM[SHARE]

BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG by Tim Treanor

"We're sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll," Will Durst announces with a twisted little smile. "And…and maybe a little nap." Durst is talking about h-h-h-his generation (and mine), the baby boom…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:18AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, June 23, 2015

DC Theatre Scene celebrates its tenth year by Tim Treanor

Ten Years and Counting, DC Theatre Scene is Still Going Strong One June evening in 2005, a woman named Noelle Wilson walks into the Gunston Arts Center's Theater II to watch a production of …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:57PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Politicos get in on the act at STC's Will on the Hill 2015 by Tim Treanor

We are all actors, but none more so than our public representatives. It is one thing to invite the wind to blow and crack its cheeks, but quite another to introduce legislation which would a…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:16AM[SHARE]
Thursday, June 4, 2015

Source Festival, opening June 5, hopes to grab third straight New Play Award by Tim Treanor

DC's Source Festival of new plays will try to extend its two-year streak of award-winning plays when it opens Friday, June 5  at " this will surprise you " the Source Theatre, 1835 14th S…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:51AM[SHARE]
Monday, June 1, 2015

Congressional Chorus has Sondheim on its mind by Tim Treanor

OK, let's say you work for a member of Congress. (Maybe you do work for a member of Congress. It's hard for me to tell from here. But if you don't, just pretend.) You work ten hours a day ke…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:50AM[SHARE]
Monday, May 25, 2015

The Arabian Nights at Arena Stage by Tim Treanor

Tim Treanor says that Mary Zimmerman's 'The Arabian Nights' is "now being given sweet and vigorous voice at Arena Stage".

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:58PM[SHARE]

Steinberg Award nominations announced by Tim Treanor

Nominations for the richest national prize for playwrights, the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, were announced today. One premiered at Washington's Source festival.

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:58PM[SHARE]

Bobbitt develops TYA version of musical Big by Tim Treanor

Harry Connick, Jr. picked Michael J. Bobbitt to premiere his musical The Happy Elf; Stephen Schwartz okayed his original take on the Schwartz songbook with The Stephen Schwartz Project. Now …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:58PM[SHARE]

McNally-revised Pal Joey heads up Kennedy Center Season by Tim Treanor

The Kennedy Center announced yesterday that its 15 production 2011-2012 mainstage season will include the award-winning Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey with a new book by Terrence McNally,…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:58PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Shakespeare-appointed Supreme Court rules on the insanity of impossible dreams by Tim Treanor

So you run your lance full-bore at windmills, recruit a barber in your fight against the muleteers, believe a local prostitute to be your damsel of grace, and then fall into a coma. Should s…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:04PM[SHARE]
Friday, April 24, 2015

One less critic: How Hedy Weiss and New Orleans changed my life. by Tim Treanor

When I was in law school I did some acting. I wasn't very good but I was a big guy with a big voice and there's always room for that in theater. Sometimes I got paid and sometimes I didn't, …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:25PM[SHARE]
Monday, April 13, 2015

Rebecca Gilman wins Steinberg; Source Festival play is runner-up by Tim Treanor

Luna Gale, Rebecca Gilman's tale about a social worker struggling to place a newborn who has methamphetamine-addicted parents and a grandmother who belongs to an apocalyptic cult, last night…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:56AM[SHARE]
Monday, April 6, 2015

Lights Rise on Grace at Woolly Mammoth Theatre by Tim Treanor

There is not much of a story to Lights Rise on Grace, but what there is is told beautifully, and with " it must be said " grace. It begins like Romeo and Juliet, (an observation a character …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:40AM[SHARE]
Friday, March 20, 2015

In the battle over the Constitution, The Originalist emerges the winner by Tim Treanor

The business of judges is to understand and interpret statutes, and in order to do that they commonly try to uncover the intention of the legislature which passed that law. When your job, li…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:31PM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 19, 2015

Source Festival play among six Steinberg Award finalists by Tim Treanor

For the second year in a row, a play which debuted at DC's Source Festival is in line for a playwriting award. Last year, Topher Payne's Perfect Arrangement received the American Theatre Cri…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:38AM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 12, 2015

Puppet gets major role in classic horror Doctor Caligari by Tim Treanor

What keeps you up at night, little brother? Is it that seemingly random tax audit notice you received in the mail yesterday? Perhaps your spouse has become distant, or else developed a disco…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:39AM[SHARE]
Monday, March 2, 2015

A near victory for Kander and Pierce's Kid Victory by Tim Treanor

At its best, Kid Victory is a secular high mass, both sacred and profane, with insight as sweet as its music, and music as sweet as honey from the Garden of Eden. And then, there are other t…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:13PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Uncle Vanya at Chesapeake Shakespeare Theatre by Tim Treanor

I know what you're thinking: is Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya just like Life Sucks, except with a bunch of Russian guys? Let me turn the question around for you: do you think that Uncle Vanya …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:57AM[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