55 stories by "Barbara Trainin Blank"
Nothing is as certain in the arts as change. Born near the banks of the Susquehanna River (in Harrisburg, Pa.), Sheldon Bair started out playing drums and bass. “By my senior year in h…
Animals may not know enough on their own to come in from the rain. But at least some of the inhabitants of ZooAmerica, which is part of Hersheypark, were given a little prodding. Because of …
When you ask children a question, they usually give you an honest answer. So, when Allison and Jeremy Goldman of Ellicott City asked their children during the school year of 2017 what they w…
It was a cruel irony. Adventure Theatre MTC was about to launch its production of “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” when it entered a “run”…
It's a beautiful fall day in Montgomery County when many potential audience members are probably outside enjoying the weather. But those inside the Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center wa…
Bleak fascination: The legacy of Sam Shepard Within a few days of Sam Shepard's passing from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) on July 27, the Red Theater…
MD Theatre Guide: This is your directorial debut at Mosaic. What drew you to this particular theatre company? Logan Vaughn: I met Ari Roth (founding artistic director) at a directing worksho…
If any work of art epitomizes despair, it is Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters." The Prozorova sisters of the title, stuck in a provincial backwater, dream of returning to the Moscow of their y…
As often happens when a play has been "hyped" a great deal and receives more awards than one can count, I resisted, in the beginning, the lure of Mike Bartlett's King Charles III. But not…
If you're looking for a strictly traditional "King Lear," you won't find it in the Lumina Studio Theatre production, now having a sadly short run at Silver Spring Black Box Theatre. However,…
Now playing at Signature Theatre through January 29, 2017, "Titanic" is set on the ocean liner RMS Titanic. More than 1500 individuals lost their lives when the luxury ship sank on its maide…
Since seeing a performance of Aaron Posner's "Stupid F*cking Bird" at Silver Spring Stage on October 30, I find my mind racing in a blend of contradictory emotions. Is Posner paying homag…
No one ever tires of "Romeo and Juliet," a tale of young love thwarted by poor choices, bad luck, and warring families. So the production of the Bard's beloved comedy-turned-tragedy at Shake…
Not much time left to catch one of the theatrical hits of the decade at Silver Spring Stage. Seeing Clybourne Park in a week punctuated with racially tinged violence makes Bruce Norris's Pul…
Through the centuries actors, directors, and audiences have had a complex attitude of both attraction and revulsion to The Merchant of Venice. Somewhat perplexingly labeled one of Shakespear…
Miss Witherspoon refers to a theoretical character who might appear in an Agatha Christie mystery–an older woman who has accumulated crotchiness along with age. Veronica, the protagoni…
In The Body of an American, written by Dan O'Brien, the subject of the play, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who has been assigned to many war zones, asks: "If I'm not crazy anyway, ho…
At a time when refugees are streaming out of the Middle East and seem to be engendering fear and mistrust rather than compassion, Mosaic Theater Company is presenting a solo show that offers…
Remember those romantic comedies of the '30s and '40s, in which two people who dislike each other end up falling in love? Or realizing they loved each other all along? It could be said that …
Arguably the most widely performed of Tennessee Williams's play, and according to many, his personal favorite, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is more rooted in reality and less in symbolism or the Go…
You don't have to know about origami to appreciate Rajiv Joseph's play Animals out of Paper, on view at Silver Spring Stage. But it helps. There's mystery to how origami is created, but simp…
Mosaic Theater Company's mission expresses a commitment to powerful, transformational, and socially relevant art. That certainly describes The Promised Land, a play about East African refuge…
If you've ever (as I have) attended a production of The Glass Menagerie lacking the poetry and turbulent emotions inherent in the Tennessee Williams classic, you'll delight in the current pr…
Want to see critics in the hot seat? Then run, don't walk, to Shakespeare Theatre Company's Lansburgh Theatre (STC), where they’re getting what many actors and directors think they des…
No pun intended, but the water main brake near Silver Spring Stage on January 9–causing heavy traffic delays and a late curtain at the performance–did not dampen the enthusiasm o…
