139 stories by "Alan Katz"
Since the DC area is filled with non-profits, charities, museums, and arts organizations, we have something of a specialized industry in one of the quirkiest event types: the Benefit. Known …
From the seed of Robert Moses' "ghettofication" of the Bronx via urban planning to the first time DJ Kool Herc spun tables on a makeshift sound system, the birth of hip-hop has been consider…
What do you expect when you see a play called Rage? Yelling? Violence? Gunshots? Ambassador Theater's US premiere of Rage by Canadian playwright Michele Riml definitely delivers there. But t…
"Doesn't the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in an American theater make everything else that's ever happened in an American theater before or since seem kinda trivial?" That's one of the Q…
When I first found out about Our War at Arena Stage, I was fascinated. The production is massive in scale, a conglomeration of monologues about and reacting to the Civil War, spanning more t…
Fine dining has a principle that can be paraphrased like this: "If your restaurant serves a simple, homestyle meal with only a few elements on the plate, each of those elements has to be per…
Last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to head down to Signature Theatre to have a chat with Charlie Pollock, who plays the title role in Elmer Gantry, (opening October 7th,) recently on…
What do you imagine when you think of "going to the Opera?" Vast theaters, draped entirely in tacky red velvet? Huge casts with elaborate sets in sprawling shows that go on for hours in a la…
These are things that break hearts: worn letters to and from a war, recalling memories with loved ones in your newly-sold childhood home, and a triangularly folded flag with a single dog tag…
Kimberly Gilbert is starring in David Adjimi’s Marie Antoinette, running through October 12th at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Alan Katz had a chance to talk with her a few days before openi…
One of the things you have to know about Memphis: the Musical is that the hardest and hardest-working gig on the DC theatre scene has to be an actor/server at Toby's Dinner Theatre. They hus…
Theater J's Yentl has quite a bit to compare to, given the expectations set by the immensely popular movie starring (and written and directed and produced by) Barbra Streisand and the long-r…
People do crazy things for charity. If you haven't been living under a social media blackout, you've probably seen people dumping buckets of ice water on their heads for a charity fighting A…
Many people who attend the theater don't know it, but theater is a race. The finish line is set months in advance and is cheekily called "Opening Night," even though it is the closing of a l…
