1,020 stories by "Nelson Pressley"
The truth hurts in "Seminar," the sharp-tongued comedy by "Smash" creator Theresa Rebeck that's being acted with magnetic bad manners and casual sex appeal at the Round House Theatre in Beth…
Don't be fooled by the sweet little old lady nattering innocently as she offers cookies to audiences in the front row at Columbia's Rep Stage. Mrs. K, as the retired piano teacher was called…
The siren call of Africa inspired Jackie Sibblies Drury to write the heroically titled "We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South-West Afric…
If you remember the 1970 hit song "Band of Gold," then you know Freda Payne's voice. Payne is holding forth at Alexandria's MetroStage, not crooning Motown-style but swinging and scatting as…
Will Eno's melancholy "The Flu Season" poses all kinds of tantalizing questions about love and life, but a new production in Baltimore also makes you wonder: What sort of build-a-theater bug…
In the Pulitzer-winning 1961 musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," the workplace is a blast. Adrenaline and moxie pulse through the title tune and through songs like "C…
Picture mermaids and shipwrecks, lonely orphan boys long deprived of sunlight and suddenly racing toward danger with pirates. Picture "Peter Pan": That's what the happily rambunctious "Peter…
The prize for cheekiest title in 2013 Washington theater had already been snatched by Aaron Posner's "Stupid F---ing Bird," a free-spirited rewrite of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull." In a bri…
Roger Rees has a tip for whacking novels down to a theater-ready size. "You have to have a good lathe in your hand," the Welsh-born actor-director says. "A good scalpel or something, to real…
Washington's theater prom is getting a makeover. Party! The Helen Hayes Awards, the black-tie gala and open bar after-party long dubbed the "theater prom," is migrating from its longtime hom…
Who is this brooding, bearded European exile moping about in a Chicago apartment building? Why does his cheerful female friend wear a white hat that actually lights up? What's with this dark…
Paul Robeson doesn't fit into "a comfortable black history," says one of the dozens of characters played by Daniel Beaty in his slick, sober solo drama, "The Tallest Tree in the Forest." Ind…
NEW YORK " What does it take to produce new American plays? Money and nerve, and lots of it " especially in the biggest institutions, where the rewards can be great but the risks never end. …
How can Welsh actress Siân Phillips be so in demand at age 80? The roles keep rolling in. "There is a lot on offer," says Phillips, in Washington to play the imperious Lady Bracknell in O…
"Late: A Cowboy Song" is an early work by Sarah Ruhl, now well-established through "The Clean House" and "Dead Man's Cell Phone" and a MacArthur "genius" grant as one of the country's top pl…
"The Old Masters" turns on a famous case about one of the paintings hanging in the National Gallery of Art, "The Adoration of the Shepherds." According to the gallery's Web site, the paintin…
MTV lifted off in 1981, and two years later "Flashdance" became a huge movie hit by slicking up the fresh new music video style. The stage musical of "Flashdance" now at the Kennedy Center (…
The "Porgy and Bess" that's muscling into the National Theatre this week for a brief run is the same one that caused such a theater-world rumpus two years ago. That's when musical theater gi…
How extreme is the craze for adapting movies into musicals? Consider what's singing out at the Kennedy Center: "Elf the Musical," based on the 2003 Will Ferrell hit, is currently hopping thr…
The main thing to know about "Elf the Musical" is that it makes the 2003 Will Ferrell movie look nuanced. This hyperactive version of the popular film is as over-sugared as Ferrell's syrup-g…
Now co-starring at the Studio Theatre: Edward Snowden, George Orwell, the National Security Agency and Cold War East Germany. Not literally, of course, but the shadows of snooping and whistl…
When an audience gets hit with a sustained case of the giggles, how can you adequately describe what's causing it on stage? Because in "The Pajama Men: Just the Two of Each of Us" at Woolly …
Patina Miller could do no wrong Friday night at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, even when things weren't quite going right. The Tony-winning star of Broadway's current "Pippin" nearly …
One of the most fascinating shows in Washington right now will barely cost you any money. It's never been rehearsed. It's performed by a different actor each night, and it's only being done …
Christmas Eve, 1864: Abraham Lincoln frets over the present he bought for his high-strung wife, while Mary Lincoln is in a tizzy over a tree. Not far away, John Wilkes Booth schemes to captu…
