Ed Higgins, as Alan Turing says in one scene, “It’s about right and wrong.” How Do You Like Me Now Productions (HDYLMNP) understands this and gets it right again with Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code. If there is one thing that we have learned about HDYLMNP throughout the years, it’s that they will take an issue, put it in your face, and make you aware of something that you needed to be made aware.
Well it’s been a long— been a long— been a long— been a long time…since How To Succeed in Business Without Really trying has seen boards the likes of a Broadway-style stage. Six years may not seem that long ago to some, when Harry Potter film legend Daniel Radcliffe teamed up with Emmy-star John Larroquette as the big-name duo starring in the 2012 Broadway revival. Landing in The Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre as a part of the 2017/2018 Broadway Center Stage Concert Series initiative,
Well the world keeps spinning round and round and my heart’s keeping time to the speed of sound— I was lost ‘til I heard the drums and I found my way— all the way down to Fort Washington where the Tantallon Community Players to see their current production of Hairspray. Directed and Choreographed by Jonathan Jackson with Musical Direction by Paul Rossen, the Tantallon Community Players are going to shake and shimmy it the best that they can to really shake up this production of the iconic Baltimore musical.
The best friends show up unannounced, terrified for no reason whatsoever to continuing living in their own home, so they’re moving into yours. The alcoholic live-in sister is at the brandy again and has learned how to yodel and play the accordion. The only child is returning home after her fourth failed marriage. And the wife is bent on going mad, intentionally or otherwise. It must be an episode of The Twilight Zone,
What else could you possibly need to know about the facts of Chad Deity?
Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre opens their 2018 season with a bang—literally—in the madcap musical version of Woody Allen’s Academy Award winning film Bullets Over Broadway. When an up and coming playwright is paired with the financial backing of the underworld, expect all the standard screwball hijinx of the Roaring 20’s told with the sounds of the Jazz Age hit parade. Armed with a book by Woody Allen (adapted form his Academy Award nominated original screenplay with Douglas McGrath) and a score,
It’s bad and beautiful; it’s bawdy and bizarre! For just who is who and what is what is quite the question at— well— Harvey Fierstein’s other smash-hit show, Casa Valentina, making its community theatre area debut at Colonial Players. Directed by Mickey Lund, this edgy, inspiring, and potently poignant dramedy will give you, as the modern phrasing goes, “all the feels.” Despite its early 1960’s setting, the show’s relevance to the world of 2018 is remarkable;
Most people ain’t people. Because people strive to treat each other with dignity and respect. Of course, that was the point Arthur Miller might have been trying to make when he scribbled down A View From the Bridge. Horrifically relevant and strikingly topical in today’s political climate, this intense family-driven drama is an exacting fit for the style of ensemble performance work which the Maryland Ensemble Theatre prides themselves on and does exceedingly well.
Proposition: A show consisting of little more than pageantry and sentimental idealism can still find sturdy footing in the modern world with potent relevance to the happenings of today’s society in the hands of the right director.
Proposition: The right director, in this case Alan Paul, can take Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot, which is filled with pageantry and sentimental idealism, and transform it into something relevant and intriguing which reaches modern audiences on a relatable and interesting level.
It was a white dress with pink floral patterns all over it, A-frame and 50’s vintage style cut with a singular crinoline layer that peaked out from the bottom. I wore it with a pink hat dotted in flowers and pearls, the hat that my partner calls “…that flower bucket on your head…” I got the dress in Vegas, at a retro-chic wannabe vintage shop called Rockin’ Betty’s over in the Arts District— that’s off the strip— on the last Sunday of our family trip there.
Tonight is the eve of humanity’s reckoning! Because The Baltimore Rock Opera Society is absolutely going to raise some hell— quite literally— in what could arguably be the most fantastic sendup to B-grade horror films of yesteryore with their latest original creation: Incredibly Dead! The B-Horror Rock Opera. Co-Directed by Michael Ziccardi and Sarah Gretchen Doccolo, with Musical Direction by Paul Joyce, and Choreography by Caitlin Rife, this zany, whacky, so-bad-it’s-good comedic musical is all of their own creation and it’s a thoroughly hilarious encounter.
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a young man named William Shakespeare who was a huge science fiction playwright. No, wait. That’s not right. Let’s try that again. There was once a man named Bob Carlton, who penned a science fiction play called Return to the Forbidden Planet, an homage to the classic works of William Shakespeare – and of course the classic 1956 film,
You cannot know where you are going until you know where you have been; those who are ignorant of history are bound to repeat it. Never have words felt truer; the times in which we live call for a drastic examination of history to give us hope for moving forward as a society. A true historical event, recognized nationally in 1968 put 21228— the great community of Catonsville— on the map. Daniel Berrigan, a priest turned playwright,
There’s a face that we hide till the nighttime appears…and what’s hiding inside behind all of our fears— is our true self— locked inside the façade! Who knew that Third Wall Productions’ true self was an astonishing masterpiece of brilliance locked behind the façade of community theatre? In their finest and most extraordinary production since the company’s inception in 2015, Third Wall Productions brings you the stuff of legends, the stuff of nightmares, their true inner workings…with their production of Jekyll &
Hello, Possums! Welcome to The Kensington Arts Theatre— the drag capitol of the world! Because they have the most dragulous show all lined up for you over these next few weekends! That’s right, Possums! It’s— *GASP* Priscilla Queen of the Desert! Directed by John Nunemaker with Musical Direction by Valerie A. Higgs and Choreography by Rikki Howie Lacewell, this area community theatre premiere has lots of dragtastic potential and a heart-warming story about embracing yourself no matter who you are!
Sugar.
Butter.
Flour.
A recipe for perfection— that’s what’s cooking up at The National Theatre in Washington DC as the national tour of Waitress makes stops over in the nation’s capital for a three-week engagement. The Broadway sensation that was inspired by the film, written by Adrienne Shelly, has arrived— featuring book by Jessie Nelson and music & lyrics by Sara Bareilles.
Palindrome by Max Garner holds a special element of history with two important men of music in the two plays he wrote. With each one act play explaining the fantastic yet tragic stories of Thelonious Monk and Marvin Gaye. With subtle touches of musical aspects in each play, the audience’s ears ring with the smooth sounds of jazz and other genres that were produced by the focused artists.
Allan Sean Weeks who took the responsibility of lighting director really took on the “less is more” saying for each play.
Who among us is not guilty of embellishing a story here and there? Whether exaggerating about our feats of derring-do, or adding a few inches to that fish we caught when we were a child, stories have a way of taking on a life of their own when we tell them. In this case, there is “Magic in the Man” through the larger-than life stories Edward Bloom tells his young son. But all children must grow up,
Can you remember what you had for breakfast this morning? Do you recall what pair of shoes you wore out last Friday night? Or what you were doing three years ago on a Saturday afternoon? Most of us can’t. But on the morning of September 11, 2001— a Tuesday morning not quite 17 years in America’s past, everyone can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when the news broke that planes had crashed into the twin towers.
Deathtrap: A play of one set, two acts, five characters.
One Set: A writing den in a converted church. A typewriter. Walls decorated with posters from previous plays and various prop implements of persuasion and destruction.
Two Acts: Running an hour each with a 15-minute intermission.
Five Characters: The established writer. His wife. The new writer. The psychic neighbor. The lawyer.
Pardon my conceit as I continue the review by repeating this again with further variations,
Artistic Synergy of Baltimore (ASoB) presents a splendid rendition of Much Ado About Nothing, one of Shakespeare’s most well-known classic comedies. Most are probably familiar with the material already through literature class, seeing it performed elsewhere, or from the various movie versions (most notably the 1993 version directed by Kenneth Branagh), but for those who are not familiar, it can be summed up briefly as two love stories intertwining with misdirection,
I say this with humility in this— online open space! They’re your responsibility in— good ol’ Havre de Grace! If you want to see their show and all the feelings that they spill, in Havre de Grace Opera House that’s halfway down the hill, then for God sakes get thee to it! For Congress never will! Yes, yes, it’s not even July and the Tidewater Players are calling to order the second continental congress of America with their production of 1776.
You can’t stop an avalanche as it races down the hill! And CMP is stopping their season here, with a show that’s such a thrill! And you can try to stop their dancing feet, but they just cannot stand still! Cause the world keeps spinning round and round and their hearts are keeping time to the speed of sound, they were lost ‘til the heard the heard the drums (go Lisa Wood, go, go,
What happens when you mix love and science fiction? You get Weird Romance, a show described as two one-act musicals of Speculative Fiction, which is now being performed by the Music and Drama Club (a.k.a., MAD) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Glenn Dale, MD. The production, Directed by Randy Barth and Produced by Eliot Malumuth, is based on a book by Alan Brennert, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by David Spencer.
Would you choose to be you if you had to choose? What if at the end of the bright, white light there’s a form with boxes that you have to check? Sex: Male or Female? Orientation: Heterosexual or Homosexual? Would you choose to be the you that you had just been, the you that you know yourself to be? Playwright Maureen Chadwick examines exactly that with her edgy and riveting work The Speed Twins,
War makes us blind. Love makes us blind. Life makes us blind. But Theatrical Mining Company is opening our eyes to clearly see their new production of Antigone. Directed by the company’s Artistic Director, Barry Feinstein, this modernized edgy production takes snippets and snatches of the original text and melds them with a more accessibly modern style of speaking, rendering the Greek tragedy down to its most basic essence for all to experience.
Words, words, words. Not to read, but to hear, and Shakespeare did write so many of them, five act’s worth for arguably his most infamous tragedy, Hamlet. Appearing now as a limited engagement, the Royal Shakespeare Company brings their evocative conflagration of a production to The Eisenhower Theatre inside The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Directed by Simon Godwin, this spellbinding, razor’s edge modernity casts new light on the Bard’s most treasured tragedy,
They’re live in living color! Dundalk Community Theatre’s got something special on tonight! They’re live in living color— ‘cause life ain’t lived in black and white. Their production of Catch Me if You Can is live in living color and it’s something you should see! It’s God damn and gumbo fabulous— it won’t fit in your TV! Directed by Robert W. Oppel, with Musical Direction by Cecile Audette, and smashing choreography by Vincent Musgrave,
For first-time audience members, it is hard to predict just what you’re getting into with Off the Quill’s new staging of Violent Delights: A Shakespearean Brawl-esque Sideshow. An original production created first for the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival by company members Patrick Mullen, Leanne Dinverno, J. Peter Langsdorf, Katie Wanschura, as well as William Shakespeare, and directed by Mullen, the show bills itself as a blend of stage combat, dance, clowning,
What’s inside the box? More like what isn’t inside the box when it comes to Alex & Olmsted’s latest production: Homebodies. An original devised work that is gloriously magnificent in its own right, Homebodies explores the life of two individuals and their ordinary, everyday life. Inside their box. Devised and performed by Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas this quaintly quirky, highly expressive, physical exploration of movement and life has a little bit of something for everyone.