What does radical empathy look like? Look no further than the plays of Athol Fugard. He has made his life’s work giving voice to the Black Africans of South Africa who were not allowed…
In 1991, singer/songwriter Matthew Sweet became something of a radio staple after the release of his third album, "Girlfriend," which was hailed by critics and fans alike, and established th…
It's happened: global warming has brought the world to the brink of an environmental apocalypse. Earth's atmosphere can only support human life for one more year"maybe less.  What do …
Memory can be a warm blanket, a cruel knife, and a revolutionary act all at once. Gala Hispanic Theatre's must-see En el Tiempo de Las Mariposas (In the Time of Butterflies)Â unfurls a gri…
In the morning we go down, you and I, to the bowels of the Washington Metro Transit system and there jostle and sway, with hundreds of strangers, in metal rectangular boxes through tubes dri…
Maria Manuela Goyanes will take over as Woolly Mammoth’s new Artistic Director next season, and her first season itself will be full of familiar Woolly friends — Branden Jacobs-J…
The new "Carousel" has the most glorious singing on Broadway, as well as thrilling choreography and picturesque sets and costumes that seem lifted from great American paintings by Thomas Eak…
In the darkness, a disembodied voice tells us we are embarking on a journey and instructs us to ready ourselves for take off and to put our cell phones to airplane mode. Then so many thousan…
King Lear begins with a foolish ruler swayed by flattery, and ends with what Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Greg Doran calls "a strange, profound unease." Shakespeare's tragedy …
This past week brought a powerful confluence of "wake up" energy to Washington, DC. Sunday, people gathered at Washington's National Cathedral to remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who ga…
Cirque du Soleil's Luzia is opening tonight and here through June 17, performing under its familiar big top in Tysons II, McLean, VA.  And just like every Cirque show, this one prom…
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will be serving a nine-course meal next season, with six musicals and three non-musicals occupying the five principal venues of the place f…
Theater is traditionally thought to be a place of communion, a meeting of like-minded souls who crave a good story. Playwright Annie Baker turns that expectation on its head, along with so m…
With a bare set and only two seen characters, Roz and Ray draws your focus to the weight of words between people. This intimate production, directed by Adam Immerwahr, Artistic Director of T…
JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, which has had a profound effect on many people including me (see Background below), can only be called a cultural phenomenon of titanic proportions.The two …
Brittany Alyse Willis used to commute to work by riding the Red Line from Maryland into Metro Center to work at one of the shops at the Natural History Museum, and although she didn't know i…
Rapture, Blister, Burn is a masterful exploration of feminism in practice, and Maryland Ensemble Theatre (MET) gives it a sharp, engaging production sure to stoke important conversations ove…
When I last encountered Landless — full disclosure, I performed with the group in a 2006 production — they seemed to delight in being charmingly slapdash and a bit ramshackle in …
The title alone – The Underground Railroad Game – gives you hint of the slippery slide towards impropriety and breach of all kinds of correctness about to happen. And …
Molière's Don Juan"the 17th Century tale of a rakish nobleman whose insatiable libido and incorrigible charm lead him from town to town, deceiving (and deflowering) damsel after damsel to h…
Seeing Two Trains Running at Arena Stage marks the halfway point of my consummation of playwright August Wilson's decalogue of dramas expressing the 20th century black experience in America.…
With Florida, the world premiere of an opera by composer Randall Eng and librettist Donna Di Novelli, Urban Arias just got bigger. It's not just that the piece of ninety-five minutes didn't …
Rainbow Theatre Project's production of Kevin Michael West's comedy Top and Bottom contains total male nudity"of both the physical and emotional varieties. What begins as a bondage-filled…
Murder. The conquest of France. Learning to become an actor. And food. Lots and lots of food. Gut-busting portions of foods; enough to last a decade. What could be better subjects for a litt…
Wit and intelligence are under attack in today. So is faith. And the idea of intelligence working in tandem with religious convictions are often at odds with one another. The argument could …