On Friday, December 26, a mystery donor presented Washington theatre with a gift. It wasn't the usual holiday card or end-of-year donation. Instead, an anonymous theatre patron developed the…
Spoiler alert: The whale dies. Edward Grue who dressed as a deer dies. The squattish bald man in his business tie dies. In Famous Puppet Death Scenes, produced by the Old Trout Puppet Worksh…
The moment you lay eyes on the magnificent set, you know: This is no ordinary youth production. A far, and far more professional, cry from what most of us recall of elementary school recital…
Certainly there are elements of the much-beloved Mary Poppins tale that could, in the retelling, seem sinister. She flies in on the wind with an umbrella"not much of a departure from the bla…
Nothing spreads holiday cheer quite like the unearthly wolf grunts and throaty insistent howls of the Klingon species. In advance of WSC Avant Bard's one-night-only staged reading of A Kling…
When Round House Theatre's Ryan Rilette approached Joe Calarco about directing The Nutcracker, visions of sugar plum fairies and toys come to life initially gave Joe pause. "I thought it was…
In 1989, a certain Disney film swore to every attentive child that "life is the bubbles under the sea." Now, 25 years later, Olney Theatre Center's The Little Mermaid confirms that it's stil…
For college professors Bernard and Ellen, nothing brings sexy back quite like the poems of William Blake. Unfortunately for them, they've been caught demonstrating the romantic nature of the…
Like one of the phantoms in Folger Theatre's production, Julius Caesar revisits us to impart its message time and time again. And while Shakespeare's tragedy is a familiar experience for som…
Travel is a magnifying lens. Our personalities expand, our behaviors exaggerate. We do things we wouldn't consider at home. We confide in strangers, we make risky and terrible decisions in t…
To say that Unexpected Stage's production of Danny Boy comes up short would be a cruel pun, if an apt one. Not to be confused with Dani Girl which Unexpected Stage produced this past sum…
Not to eat flesh. Not to chase other men. Not to claw the barks of trees. That is the law. The dictums that guide Dr. Moreau's island will stay in your head long after you see Synetic's prod…
We all do things that bend the rules. Sometimes we break them, sometimes we ceremoniously throw them out the window. In Arena Stage's season opener, the world premiere of Morris Panych's The…
For those among us who remember reading Choose Your Own Adventure books as children, Venus Theatre's latest production will be a welcome treat. We Are Samurai, a promenade-style play by Dari…
Nearly every generation and geographical region interprets the plight of the outsider in its own way. The end result is a literary canon of outliers and misfits, counting in their ranks Hold…
The theatre knows its wars. From King Lear to Black Watch, the tradition of soldier on a stage has a long, rich, and male-dominated history. Less often told"or staged"are the tales of women …
Science is a creative enterprise. Let's start there. If you survey the unassuming objects of your daily life"hair dryer, stapler, scissors, fridge"you can see the moments in time that someon…
"Exit, pursued by a bear." If there's anything about The Winter's Tale that audiences might know in advance, this–arguably the best stage direction ever penned–will be it. The Wi…
When asked about his play The Seagull, Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov described it as "a great deal of conversation about literature, little action, tons of love." For Aaron Posner's Stupid…
If SNL and Girls had a one-night-stand after meeting at the hipster bar, their bastard kid would be Relationsh!t. (If you know exactly what this means, go see the show. Now. You don't need t…
A glimpse at the Peter's Alley Theatre website suggests that small, emotionally-loaded relationship plays are the company's specialty: To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, Proof… incidentally …
I'll refrain from using phrases like "monkey business" and "going bananas" in the opening of this review, but that's not for any disdain for bad puns. It's simply because the show doesn't wa…
France has given the world many important contributions to arts and culture. Literature. Fashion. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Superior cheeses and wines. Voltaire. Cezanne. Pr…
Ballet has traded its tutus for hashtags, projections, and rock music in #albatross. Through three short works, MOVEIUS Contemporary Ballet presents us with a program which redefines ballet …