111 stories by "Terry Byrne"
"If Carole King can do it, I can do it," Neil Sedaka told an indulgent, golden-oldies crowd at the Music Center at Strathmore on Friday night. And with that, the 75-year-old pop songwriting …
I attended Shout! The Mod Musical braless. TMI? Well, Creative Cauldron invited us to dress like something out of the Sixties-Seventies, so there we were, women in our 50s and 60s, grooving …
For one night only, North Bethesda, MD., was Diva City. Four luminous songbirds swept in to The Music Center at Strathmore on Friday night to lead a largely snowbird audience on a mind-jog d…
If piano men Elton John and Billy Joel got together to have a son, he might look and sound a lot like Ben Folds. Wait. That's talkin' 'bout my generation. Still, 47-year-old singer-songwrite…
Ryan Landry has a sharp eye and ear for contemporary foibles, skewering stereotypes and pop culture icons with equal aplomb.
Venerable plays get made into acclaimed movies (August: Osage County of recent note), and some movies translate successfully to the stage. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is that famous amalga…
Do you suppose composer Mark Hollamann and writer Greg Kotis got the loo-dicrous idea for Urinetown while waiting in line for the facilities during intermission at the theater? The campy, sa…
Live theater is thrilling. How better, then, to celebrate the remaking of the volunteer-sown Elden Street Players into a major professional troupe than with a remake of a film from thrill ma…
A Fire in Water, a modern, one-act chamber opera in Silver Finch Arts Collective's cooker, has all the elements of a masterwork: timeless themes of love and war, a stunning score by Terrance…
As a working journalist who had spent the day sorting through graphic photos of a terror attack on shoppers in Kenya, I was in the right frame of mind to take in a performance of the Tony Aw…
In a week when the world's buzzing about whether *N SYNC will stage a reunion at the VMAs and news of One Direction's feature film has fans swooning, the stage is set for the ultimate boy ba…
 When you put horns in a rock band, everything else gets amped waaaay up. We know this because we sat behind the yo-yoing knobs of the sound board at the Chicago concert at Wolf Trap on …
How liberating — while driving home from Hello, You Assholes! — to note how many times I referred to other drivers as assholes. We all do it, but few confess. Look out, here come…
Three good reasons to see How to Have It All: The Musical. 1. Freshly baked cookies. A nurturing, maternal figure will even warn you away from the chocolate chip if you have a peanut a…
Imagine a world in which more women composed operas. Since Francesa Caccini unveiled what is considered the first opera by a female composer in 1625 (performed in Florence to celebrate the v…
"Shakespeare does not need your help," barks Franz, the jaded, tyrannical director character in WSC Avant Bard's world premiere of Caesar and Dada. The irony is that repackaging the bard's t…
Calling all J.R.R. Tolkein geeks. If last year's Hollywood blockbuster The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey left you dangling, W.T. Woodson High School Theatre Department's lip-smackin…
Back in the day when musical theater spawned chart-toppers, “The Impossible Dream” became an anthem not only for every hopeless romantic, but also for never-say-die American drea…
The words “world premiere” don't always translate to “Must-See,” but in the case of Paul's Case, a post-minimalist, compact opera unveiled by UrbanArias at Artisph…
April is “The Music of New Orleans” Month at The Kennedy Center, and it takes a big tent to accommodate the eclectic artistic styles of the Crescent City. That explains the ci…
Fresh from snaring eight 2012 WATCH awards, mostly for technical excellence, the Providence Players of Fairfax are serving up some refreshingly meaty artistry in Dinner With Friends, a 2000 …
Budding love that is "star-crossed" with budding artistry is the magic potion that should move fine-arts lovers to flee their houses and partake in Catholic University's School of Music̵…
Forget, for the moment, all you know about quantum physics. It's history that matters in Copenhagen, Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning, World War II drama. Make that revisionist history, wh…
The 25th-anniversary production of “Les Miserables,’’ now playing at the Opera House, qualifies as a truly extraordinary theatrical experience when high-tech wizardry blend…
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES Musical with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. Book by Harvey Fierstein. (cq) Directed by Terry Johnson. (cq) Choreography, Lynne Page. (cq)Sets, Tim Shortall. (cq) Lights…
