DCMetroTheaterArts
Your source for theater news, reviews, and interviews in DC, MD, Northern VA, and New York
With admirable nerve and imagination, Constellation Theatre Company has mounted an endlessly inventive production of a work by a playwright who dares us to enjoy him. Bertolt Brecht wrote plays to make a point. He was not one of those writers, so fashionable nowadays, who eschew messages and proffer experiences devoid of consequences. Thus with […]
In the DMV area, there are plenty in the political and social elite who can be found clicking away on their social media working hard to make us aware of what we should think. These same folks are likely sitting down to have wonderful foodie experiences making deals while many a public school student is lining […]
If you have yet to experience a Faction of Fools Theatre Company production, then you are missing out on something truly brilliant and one-of-a-kind. With a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company in 2012, and a Nomination for their production of Pinocchio! in 2015, Faction of Fools has more than proven the worth […]
But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters, they want to know which tools; They never ask why build. — Anne Sexton, “Wanting to Die” Laura Rocklyn and Ty Hallmark’s new work, Clover, now playing at Ally Theatre Company’s CAOS on F space, is a marvel in miniature, with the spareness and depth of an Emily Dickinson poem. […]
Shakespeare in the park is a long-held American tradition. From venues in places such as New York City’s Central Park and Washington, DC’s Carter Barron Amphitheater, watching the Bard’s works under the stars is a summertime treat. Since 2003, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) has produced their version of that pastime, “Shakespeare in the Ruins” at […]
Refreshing Charles Dickens’ beloved family holiday classic with a Baltimore-centric twist, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) spices up A Christmas Carol with local cultural history, festive music and special smoky effects, returning for its third annual season. Set in the Dickens’ era circa 1843, on Daniel O’Brien’s functional but fetching three-story row house, Founding Artistic Director […]
The hypnotic new production of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice at NextStop Theatre Company is more like a painting or a poem than a movie or a book. It’s a fantastical canvas of broad brushstrokes and bright colors. The language is strange and pretty, the kind that gets stuck in your head like a catchy pop song. […]
In the program note for Rock the Line, Playwright Kathleen Warnock describes her new play as, “Kind of like Waiting for Godot, if Godot really came and played electric guitar.” As it turns out, this is actually a pretty accurate sentiment. As in Beckett or Chekhov, nothing much happens in Rock the Line, at least […]
If Shakespeare is your bag, Timon 2016 will be just what you are looking for, but with a modern air. Directed and adapted by Katie Wanshura, this play is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. It would help to know before you set out to see this production that you are going to […]
Macbeth: A Bloody Good Show In his time, Macbeth was a successful, lauded warrior. He owned a castle and had an attractive wife whose ravenous ambitions, drive and ego matched his own. Neither was afraid to get their hands dirty to accomplish their goals. Today, Macbeth might have succeeded as a new tech lord, a […]
Middletown, written by Will Eno, is a play with heft. It is not an easy play that you can relax and let wash over you. Timid souls who are out for an evening of light entertainment may struggle with it. The play engages and pushes, forcing the audience to question ourselves, and it is well […]
The staff of DCMetroTheaterArts is honored to announce that their Best of 2015: Best Performances in Plays in Professional Theatres go to: BEST ACTOR IN A PLAY Josh Adams as Billy in The Cripple of Inishmaan at Scena Theatre. Matthew Ancarrow and Robby Rose as ‘The Twins’ in The Comedy of Errors at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. Aaron […]
The eagerly anticipated Women’s Voices Theatre Festival kicked off with the opening of Longacre Lea’s production of two world-premiere one-acts, which the company collectively dubs #DeathParty. The plays are stylistically distinct but share a cast and have an intriguing thematic kinship: Both tap into the anxious zeitgeist about global contagion and human extinction. Prescience? Paranoia? […]
A “seemingly guilty mass-murdering white supremacist terrorist” is the phrase dramaturg Alan Katz uses to describe the character at the heart of “The Word and the Wasteland, a full-length play receiving a fine production at this year’s Source Festival. The Word and the Wasteland is a commentary for our times. It is written by Timothy […]
At the center of this taut, trenchant play by Timothy Guillot is a fascinatingly enigmatic character named Benjamin Harding. He has very few lines. For the better part of two hours, Joshua Simon performs the role in eloquent silence. With his hollow, glaring eyes, his haunted face and calibrated body language, Simon keeps the character’s […]
This confection of a girl’s-night-out show deserves seven stars, one for each of the six actresses, who depict 29 characters in 28 vignettes about fashion, plus one for Director Lorraine Magee. The play is by the hilarious novelist Nora Ephron, whose credits also include When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, and her screenplay-writing […]
I last partook of this tasty audience-integration treat from dog&pony dc last December when I saw Toast as a workshop production in the Kogod Cradle Series. The immersive experience was all about innovation and invention, and it was (literally) tasty: There was a table where you could interact with the premise by creating your own […]
After a two-year incubation period, local company dog & pony dc brings their new devised theater piece Toast to the stage. It is billed as an exploration of innovation and scientific discovery – tracing the advent of the toaster to Benjamin Franklin’s electricity experiments during a fake meeting of a secret scientific society called T.O.W.L. […]
Whether it’s real life narratives or mythological tales, common themes found in women’s stories include self-identity, motherhood, transformation, abuse, aging, and love. The entertaining and ultimately uplifting production The Goddess Diaries, written by Carol Lee Campbell and directed by Gregory Stuart, explores these themes as ten women of diverse ages converge for a birthday party, […]