208 stories by "Anne Valentino"
Usually, when reviewing a play, I will sleep on it. The next morning, if I have lingering questions, I want to see the "sequel" or I am unusually reflective about what I saw"then I know it w…
Last week I had the opportunity to see four shows. Three of them were larger-budget productions. The fourth was a much smaller show staged in a fairly intimate space. In my humble opinion, b…
Some musicals don't fit inside of a neat little box. Some musicals actually blow up said box in presenting a show that dares to defy conventions. Tony Winner (for Best Orchestrations) "Girl …
The trend for turning movies into big-budget Broadway musicals has definitely been picking up steam in the past few years. From "Beetlejuice" to "Mrs. Doubtfire," numerous iconic 90s movies …
The idea of wrestling with one's inner demons is given a slightly different spin in acclaimed Irish playwright Conor McPherson's "The Seafarer," now playing at Round House Theater. For those…
Shakespeare has something for everyone"a  little romance, some sword fighting, jealousy, greed, the most tragic of deaths, but is Shakespeare suitable for children? What's more, can Shake…
While technically there is no public obscenity in this play, the content offers a complex, edgy, and, at times, risqué look at modern Indian culture as framed through the literal and metaph…
The world premiere of Iris Bahr's "See You Tomorrow" at Theater J invites audiences along on a frantic, guilt-driven, and semi-neurotic journey about a woman who is determined to help her mo…
Nicole Burton's "Wednesdays in Mississippi" depicts a snapshot of the Civil Rights movement as experienced by a group of women from northern regions of the country who traveled to cities and…
Perisphere Theatre's production of "Hazardous Material" by Beth Kander paints a post-World War II, Lavender Scare-era portrait of two women whose "scandalous" behavior sets the tone for thei…
Spooky Action Theatre has deemed this season, under new Artistic Director Elizabeth Dinkova, as one that extends "Beyond Borders""both literal and also more metaphorical as far as the border…
The DC theatre scene is on fire this fall! Just about every theatre I've had the opportunity to visit and every production I've thus far seen has had a critical hand in helping define what r…
As is the case with many of her plays, Dominique Morisseau is not afraid to depict what many are hesitant to say out loud. "Confederates" is no exception. Tackling racism, sexism, slavery, a…
David Auburn's "Proof" won both the Pulitzer and the Tony for Best Play. It has become a widely produced American classic. Ostensibly, it centers on mathematical equations and the heady worl…
Musicals are notoriously difficult to get off the ground. Local DC-area composer, Neal Learner, was not deterred. Inspired by the often-passionate conversations centered around urban land-us…
Plays that "rewrite" history are always intriguing to me. Positioning history as something other than a static set of dates or names or images allows you to draw lines that perhaps weren't p…
The plays of August Wilson are indeed theatrical treasures. The pieces comprising the acclaimed Pittsburgh Cycle (10 plays spanning every decade in the 20th century) are among the most treas…
When thinking about how far the fight for women's rights has come, how much has been accomplished, and how many glass ceilings have been shattered over the course of the past 100 years, cert…
When people conjure images of superheroes, what generally comes to mind are more traditional caped figures in six-pack outlining body suits with personal branding emblazoned across their che…
Not all plays are about the story. In fact, with many Harold Pinter plays, the story is the least interesting part. His works tend to center on character, the turbulence inherent in the rela…
Stunning, haunting, and entrancing are the words that came to mind as I watched Olney Theatre Center's production of Prince Gomolvilas' play "The Brothers Paranormal." The show's deeply enga…
 Intergenerational stories that spotlight that moment, or moments, when a younger person suddenly "gets" what an older person is going through and vice versa can be difficult to pull off…
I had no idea what to expect going into Brian Feldman's "Dishwasher 2: I Pay You." Was this going to be some sort of performance art piece? A no-holds-barred theatrical experiment? An ingeni…
The emotional stakes are high in Nilo Cruz's "Baño de Luna" ("Bathing in Moonlight"). Cruz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, also directs GALA Hispanic Theatre's production of his pla…
"My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion" defies genre. It defies any sort of easy categorization. In many ways, it even defies a label like "play," and that is precisely why it is so mesmerizin…
