Benjamin Scheuer is a mesmerizing guitarist, and he tells his story strumming in his solo show "The Lion." Scheuer pours his heart into his own coming-of-age tale, dealing with a difficult d…
The empowerment of Ntozake Shange's "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" doesn't date, and the simmering verbal style of this 1976 "choreopoem" will land …
Laurie Anderson endures as the poster child for performance art, although the wry sprite with spiky hair and an electric violin prefers the term "multimedia artist." The writer-composer-film…
Rowdy comedies with a late-nite vibe can be catnip at the summertime Capital Fringe Festival, and why not? It's a free-form, open invitation playground where the main rule is to get off the …
Facts on the ground have changed since "The Promised Land" premiered in 2012 at Tel Aviv's Habima Theatre: Israel has stemmed the flow of East African immigrants streaming into its country b…
A show called "Wise Guys" was announced with fanfare in 1995 as the Kennedy Center commissioned Stephen Sondheim to write a new musical to premiere the following year, opening the 1996-97 se…
Nick Payne's "Constellations" is based on the idea of a multiverse where all the possibilities are always playing out. Guy meets girl, and they're too awkward to hit it off. Or they kind of …
The Murderers' Row of talent lined up for the new "Carmen: An Afro-Cuban Jazz Musical" makes it one of the most anticipated premieres of D.C.'s theater season. Moisés Kaufman ("The Laramie …
We knew that Romantic poet Lord Byron was a bad boy, but a sassy rock star? That's how Sam Ludwig plays him in the premiere of "Monsters of the Villa Diodati" at the tiny Creative Cauldron i…
The two simpletons yakking on the job look awfully familiar. Talking about how they are not supposed to be talking, they are Abbott and Costello doing "Who's on first?" Philosophizing as the…
Moments after Thursday's Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders debate ended, MSNBC host Chris Matthews asked Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz whether she thought Republi…
A jaded theater critic falls in with vampires in "St. Nicholas," the popular monologue that helped make Irish playwright Conor McPherson's name roughly 20 years ago. It has a couple things i…
Big established musicals and new plays by women lead a rangy field in the 2016 Helen Hayes Awards, announced Monday evening at the National Theatre. The Shakespeare Theatre Company's "Kiss M…
The saga continues for the Shakespeare Theatre Company as it tries to consolidate its scattered operations into a new administrative facility two blocks from Arena Stage.On Wednesday, STC wi…
If you audition for a Thomas W. Jones II show with a standard tune from a Broadway musical, you may be told, "Great. Now, can you sing us something that's not in that tradition? Because we w…
TOWSON " Center Stage aimed to open "As You Like It" Friday, but the company responded to the blizzard forecast and let critics in Thursday night. Nimbleness is the watchword for the troupe …
Wendy Wasserstein's "The Sisters Rosensweig" is a tough play: Wasserstein thought it was a Chekhovian drama but was surprised at how much early audiences laughed. It's a drawing-room comedy,…
"A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder" tidily wraps serial murder into an operetta packet with a big ribbon of farce. The 2013 show, touring through the end of this month at the Kennedy …
Ed Dixon has two distinct gears in his new backstage autobiography "Georgie: My Adventures With George Rose" " adoring, and aghast. For a pleasantly conversational hour, Dixon recalls himsel…
When and how did it all go so wrong in the Middle East? Aaron Davidman provides a breathtaking litany at the opening of his solo show "Wrestling Jerusalem.""Golda blew it," Davidman declares…
NEW YORK " Suzan-Lori Parks interrupts herself to look up a word on her cellphone, because that's the kind of thing the Pulitzer-winning playwright does. She's playful yet exacting: Is it fa…
Michael Kahn can quote the first review he ever got as a student director in the 1960s. It was cruel."You remember the bad ones," the Shakespeare Theatre Company's artistic director says, wa…
It's a rare year when D.C. theater generates a lot of news, but 2015 was that year. Artistic director Ari Roth launched a substantial new troupe after being fired last December by Theater J.…
In "The Gospel of Lovingkindness," playwright Marcus Gardley throws his arms around the appalling murder rate in Chicago. His plot is partly based on the tragedy of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-ye…
If you'd like an alternative to Washington's seasonal shows and big musicals, Baltimore's two most established theaters are keeping the new plays coming. The NFL's concussion crisis is the s…