47 stories by "Stephanie House"
"A Winter's Tale" according to Standford University's Stephen Orgel, "is a story to be told or read in front of a fire on a long winter's night." In this season of never-ending, blistering N…
One Sunday night in 1983, New York City's WYNY-FM made radio and television history by introducing the world to a little German-Israeli American woman. What she talked about that night was a…
One of the most influential and inspiring artists of our time, the late Ursula K. LeGuin was a pioneer in the genre of science fiction and a literary behemoth. Nestled amongst her collection…
Think back. When was the last time you visited the theatre and experienced a show starring Native Americans? "Annie Get Your Gun" does not count. Now think back and tell me when was the last…
In 2015, Washington DC's theatre community came together to form the Women's Theater Voices Festival, a festival of plays composed by female playwrights. Three years and a ton of hard work l…
In Nina Simone's "Sinnerman" a man runs all over creation looking for a place to hide, while Simone asks him repeatedly, "Oh Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?" It's not unlike the mother in…
In the original 1982 New York Times review of the Public's production of "Top Girls," critic Frank Rich explained the way that the playwright Caryl Churchill sees the theatre as "an open fro…
There are plays that leave you breathless, there are plays that leave you speechless. "Wilderness" is one of those plays that doesn't leave you when you walk out of the theatre, in a truly u…
Recently, I was watching a movie from a franchise that deals heavily with superheroes, and one scene, in particular, gave me pause. In this scene, a character triumphantly throws a bag of pr…
Tucked away in the heart of America's capital is a little slice of the Emerald Isle known as the Keegan Theatre. This theatre is so connected to their Irish roots, in fact that they have put…
On August 18th, 2016, in the height of the campaign season months before election night, The New Yorker published a cartoon from Paul Noth that is still eerily relevant over a year later. It…
Dominique Morrisseau began writing "Skeleton Crew" when she met a woman who was living in her car in the parking lot of a hotel in her hometown of Detroit. She remembers being devastated, "T…
"Big Fish" is one of those shows whose origin feels a little bit like a game of telephone. Before it was a musical, it was a critically acclaimed movie by Tim Burton, with a screenplay by Jo…
In a 1986 interview with the New York Times, screenwriter and playwright Horton Foote once said, "I've known people that the world has thrown everything at to discourage them, to kill them, …
We drove up in our car and were faced with huge blown up signs of fetuses, babies, and a man on a megaphone screaming things at a couple of peaceful women in simple red sashes who blocked th…
Tennessee Williams once said, "There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. …
From Sarah Treem, the woman who brought you the incredibly nuanced and stimulating play "The How and The Why" comes another incredibly stimulating and nuanced play, "When We Were Young and U…
Before Patti Lupone took on the role of Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's "Master Class," the New York Times hailed it as "actor proof.” Â However, as "art is domination" is La Divi…
My acquaintance with Gilbert and Sullivan began, as most high school theatre kids' do, with the tongue twister song "Modern Major General" from "The Pirates of Penzance.” We would gath…
A play about the biological origins of menstruation? When he first heard about it, even Theatre J's esteemed artistic director, Adam Immerwahr, remembers being skeptical. But as he worked on…
Does the curse of the Scottish play still apply when the play is stylized "Mack (comma) Beth"? If the audience's reception is any indication, I would say no. Keegan Theatre has shown once ag…
After a tirade from her tutor about the nature of human beings being derived from their status as animals and not from any superiority to the other creatures living in the world, Hilary reto…
Sydney Poitier said it best when he said "So much of life, it seems to me is determined by pure randomness." John Guare might have had this quote in mind when he was writing "Six Degrees of …
"I'll give this letter to a worm and hope that it reaches you." With those words Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice's absurd and ancient world is encapsulated. The play is an award-winning modern adaptat…
There are few mythical creatures in our culture as pervasive as the witch. Especially around this time of year, it's hard to go anywhere without seeing them leering at you from advertisement…
