When the play opens with the infamous “To be or not to be…” you start to think time is out of joint. Or maybe that you’ve just misremembered how Hamlet starts? You ever look at one of those maps of the United States where all the states have been shoved around into different spaces in the outline but it still mostly looks like the outline of the country even though everything is all discombobulated?
What do you get when you mix three actors clad in colored and patterned tights, a giant prop box filled with an assortment of goodies, and a script full of comic gold? Hilarity, that’s what. Baltimore’s Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s (CSC) production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] [Again] opened to a boisterous house, complete with a swanky after-party in their upstairs lounge.Â
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) was conceived and written by Adam Long,
“What does it mean to be a girl, Dominic Republican, a Beastgirl?”
Don’t be fooled. You may think you are entering Studio K at the Kennedy Center, but you are actually on the rooftop of the Amsterdam Ave. Apartments in New York City. From the moment you scan your ticket, you are transported to the rooftop of this humble apartment building in NYC; though you may not be sure at first why you are there.Â
Never rouse love. But once love has been awakened, never put
it back to sleep! The chilling and inspiring message behind a new musical now
on stage with Theater J, not only kicking off their 2019/2020 season, but
welcoming the company home to their space in residence at the Edlavitch DC Jewish
Community Center on The Trish Vradenburg Stage inside the Aaron & Cecile
Goldman Theater. Love Sick, an evocative and timeless musical,
Adam Grant wrote, “The culture of a workplace – an organization’s values, norms and practices – has a huge impact on our happiness and success.” Never has this been truer than in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria, Directed by Kip Fagan at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
Fagan has a clear understanding of Jacob-Jenkins’ work, and his staging is brilliant. Life, especially in the work place, is full of ups and downs,
Everything burns, but not every fire is determined by fate. And Washington DC is certainly on fire in various meanings of the word. Politically, socially, and now thanks to Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, theatrically as well! This is one fire that fate will not put out! The kickoff to Woolly Mammoth’s Incendiary 2017/2018 season— The Arsonists, by Max Frisch and newly translated by Alistair Beaton, is setting the stage and minds of audience members alike ablaze with a conflagration that just won’t quit.
We are all proof and conjecture. But proof of what? And conjecture of what? The human condition? Gender non-binary fluidity? Who can say with the plethora of topics being tackled in Obie Award-Winning playwright Taylor Mac’s Hir, now appearing on stage to conclude Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s 37th season. Directed by Shana Cooper, this edgy and evocative powder-keg of a conversation starter falls well within the wheelhouse of the sort of productions that the theatre is known for,
You never know how many secrets stay hidden beneath the surface until you start digging. Don’t dig too far down into Virginia or you’ll miss all the sordid secrets that come tangled up in the world premiere of Midwestern Gothic, a new musical with Book by Royce Vavrek, Music by Josh Schmidt, and Lyrics by Vavrek & Schmidt. Appearing now in The Ark Theatre of Signature Theatre, this freeze-frame capture of dystopian life in the American Midwest circa the late 80’s/early 90’s is a questionable venture with a welcomed,
When you experience something so beautiful, you have to put it into words just to make sure that it is real. Though I purport no ability that will come close to doing Guillermo Calderón’s work an inkling of justice, finding word to convince you to see Kiss at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company for its sheer horrifying beauty and stunning emotional weight is now my mission; the must-see show of the season has risen to the stage with harrowing political relevance,
The fourth act of a play is known as “the sensation scene.” This is the point where the play unites the A-plot with the B-plot, crams the moral of the story down the audience’s throats, and then overwhelms the senses with something spectacular, usually a lot of smoke and flames. But what happens if you’ve not only overwhelmed the senses of your audience but completely shocked and stunned them with an unabashedly forward and unapologetically galvanizing performance charged with racial controversy?
Te adoro, Signature Theatre, te adoro. Blowing the minds of every theatergoer that snaps their way into the Max Theater at Signature Theatre in Shirlington, Virginia this holiday season, West Side Story is a smash-hit that steals the heart, captures the soul, and brings the audience to a standing ovation. A stunning tale of star-crossed lovers set to inspiring Music by Leonard Bernstein, with Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and Book by Arthur Laurents,
These are the games, the tools and the tricks, of making brilliant theatre with a musical called The Fix. Signature Theatre is revolutionizing political corruption; they’re not accentuating the foul filth of America’s crooked political climate, they’re flaunting it and making it look devilishly delicious. With Book and Lyrics by John Dempsey, and Music by Dana P. Rowe, this rarely produced musical sensation is a riveting and electrifying political scandal that has all the razzle dazzle of Broadway and all the unctuous sleaze of Washington DC.
Dreams are what sustain the human need for remaining alive. They perpetuate the notion of living until they are achieved. But what happens when one’s dream is to no longer be living? Reality implodes upon itself in a chaotic and cosmically imbalanced sense the result of which is life viewed through the lenses of comically dark reality. Everyone has problems, some more than most, and Theater J proudly presents the Washington DC area premier of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures,
Beauty is a function but there is more to life than glittery things. The raw and striking humanity that is viciously exposed beneath the opalescent and lavish lifestyle of the spoiled queen of France kicks off Season 35 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Marie Antoinette, a revolutionary work written by David Adjmi, is starting off the season with an illustrious bang. Lavish extravagance never looked so good as it does strutting down the stage at Woolly but in the eyes of the masses such expenditures have their price.