Articles Tagged With: David DiFalco

The Thanksgiving Play at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews November 8, 2025 Amanda N. Gunther

“Facts are facts. They don’t loosen or tighten. They just are.” ~The Thanksgiving Play; Larissa FastHorse.

Opinions, however, can be loose, tight, and all over the place. Popular or unpopular, we all have them, and we all share them. And that’s an important notion to keep percolating just at the back of the brain as you settle in for this 90-minute, no-intermission, genre-questionable work that is Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play at the Maryland Ensemble Theatre as the second offering of their 2025/2026 main stage season.

Kevin Corbett (left) as Robert Shaw with Steven Todd Smith (center) as Roy Scheider and Willem Rogers (right) as Richard Dreyfuss in The Shark Is Broken at Maryland Ensemble Theatre 📸spencephoto

The Shark Is Broken at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews September 13, 2025 Amanda N. Gunther

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” ~Chief Brody; Jaws 1975

Who knew that a line like that would still be titillating audiences literally 50 years later? I mean, “The human race won’t exist someday and here we are worrying about some stupid movie.” (Ian Shaw & Joseph Nixon; The Shark Is Broken.) As the Spielberg iconic film enters its actual 50th year of cinematic relevance, the Maryland Ensemble Theatre kicks off their 2025/2026 Main-Stage season with this wild new production The Shark Is Broken,

Clyde’s at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews May 17, 2025 Amanda N. Gunther

You never what you’re going to do when you meet the devil at the crossroads. Offer him a sandwich maybe? But does the perfect sandwich exist? Can it be created? A spicy egg salad with avocado-mayo and Greek-yogurt, with a garlic-zaatar aioli, fresh crisp romaine lettuce, sharp and pungent Manchego cheese, the ripest, firmest tomato, and fresh basil leaves on a toasted thyme and olive ciabatta. With a fresh parsley garnish on top. Pickle on the side.

Jane Anger at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews April 8, 2025 Amanda N. Gunther

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Shakespeare, ammiright? WRONG. Like so many of those popular “of the times” lines attributed to the plagiarizing bastard, this one also doesn’t belong to Billy Shakes. (It’s actually a deeply distorted misquote from William Congreve’s The Mourning Bride, 1697 but that’s a tale for another time.) But the sentiment is definitely there. Famous. Timeless. Universal appeal. All percolating up and out of the Jacobean Era of England from that historically renowned master of page and pen,

A Very Jewish Christmas a Maryland Ensemble Theatre 📷 David S. Spence

A Very Jewish Christmas at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews December 4, 2024 Amanda N. Gunther

“Embracing happiness is f**king terrifying.” ~Sarah Shulman A Very Jewish Christmas

We don’t usually censor words around here but tis the season and you never know which little ones might be reading alongside the adults in hopes that Santa Claus or Hanukkah Harry or whichever present-bringing seasonal deity will see them being a good little offspring, reading the theatre review of the Maryland Ensemble Theatre’s latest new work to grace their mainstage.

Courtney McLaughlin (left) as Chordata with Tad Janes (center) as Sciurus and Matthew Harris (right) as Sciuridae in The Squirrels at Maryland Ensemble Theatre ???? Meech Creative LLC

The Squirrels at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews March 30, 2024 Amanda N. Gunther

Our subject tonight?

The Squirrels. Better still— The Squirrels at Maryland Ensemble Theatre as the penultimate production of their 2023/2024 main stage season. Written by Robert Askins (Hand To God) and Directed by Julie Herber…well… buckle up, you discerning patrons of the arts, because this one’s a doozey. Hell— I’ll say it. It’s nuts!

Playwright Robert Askins is wringing audiences in Frederick through the high-octane spin-cycle of this satirical washing machine.

Inebriated Holiday at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews December 1, 2023 Amanda N. Gunther

Deck the MET with cans and corks! Fa-la-la-la-laa! La-la-la-laaa!

Gather round ye hist’ry dorks! Fa-la-la-la-laa! La-la-la-laa!

Don you now your drunk apparel! Fa-la-la-la! La-la-la! La-la-laaaa!

And hear the tale of A Christmas Carol! Fa-la-la-la-laa! La-la-la— hold-up. Nah. That’s not right. Shoot.

Inebriated Holiday. D’oh! That’s the one this one is about! Good grief, how many Three Kings draft beers did I have at Maryland Ensemble Theatre last night!?

Craft Town at The Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews April 7, 2023 Amanda N. Gunther

They come across my inbox like they always do; a cool drink of water— code for ‘new play’— just asking to be looked over. Not in distress or nothing, see? These ‘new works’ they hold their own. But I wouldn’t be a very good T.I. if I didn’t give it a once over, now would I. T.I.? What’s that? You don’t know? Theatrical Investigator. That’s me— Amanda Gunther, T.I. – and this new one— Craft Town?

Angels In America Part 1: Millennium Approaches at The Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews February 13, 2023 Jimi Kinstle

Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America, was ambitious in 1993, taking on difficult subject matter, and the Maryland Ensemble Theatre is ambitious to take on such a challenging production. ‘Set in the mid-1980s amid the AIDS crisis and the Regan administration, the characters struggle with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell’*. Originally intended for a season three years ago but sidelined by COVID, Angels now marks the MET’s 150th production overall and falls during its 25th anniversary,

Miss Bennet Christmas At Pemberley

Reviews December 9, 2022 Amanda N. Gunther

Is there anything more shocking and wonderful than a true literally classic done up and decked out for Christmas? I jest not; Jane Austen never had the chance to show us the festive holiday season in her romances, but Lauren Gunderson & Margot Melcon have done exactly that! Miss Bennet Christmas at Pemberley, now playing on the main stage of the Maryland Ensemble Theatre, nestles itself in the cozy bosom of three days before Christmas…two years after the conclusion of Pride &

Sean Byrne (left) as Jim Fingal and Jack Evans (right) as John D'Agata in The Lifespan of a Fact. ????michaelmasonstudios

The Life Span of a Fact at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews September 30, 2022 Amanda N. Gunther

Story is the way organize our lives. Narrative is how we make sense of what’s happening around us; it serves as a way to conceptualize, to frame our existence. But what about truth? What about facts? And where do they fit into our narrative? Our story? Opening their 25th Anniversary season with a play that feels topically relevant to this day and age, with a prescience that is unmistakable given that the essay, book, and play itself predate the concept of ‘fake news’,

No, Virginia- A Grown-Up Holiday Farce at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews December 10, 2021 Amanda N. Gunther

Up on the housetop, reindeer paws— out jumps good ol’ Santa Claus. And Sandy Claws! And Odin!? Why, yes, Virginia! There is— someone on your roof— or something— heck— it could even be— THUNDERSNOW! Put on your believing hat and your holiday hat and wind your way on over to the Maryland Ensemble Theatre this December season for a MET original— No, Virginia— A Grown-Up Holiday Farce. Written by company member J.D.