Ambition is in no short supply at Lumina Studio Theatre. Tackling an epic is not only not beyond their sights, but rather standard with this adventurous little theatre in Silver Spring/Takoma Park
‘STAY’ at Theater of the First Amendment
November 16, 2011 by
As one sits expectantly for Stay, looking at the fascinating stage space prepared, Death Cab for Cutie’s intensely dramatic pop epic “Transatlanticism” plays and one feels… a lot. Something big is coming. A stage is open, no curtain, no layers built with various flats or deeper masking to hide some later stage. We see great space, a [...]
Tough! at Flying V Productions
October 29, 2011 by
Sometimes an actor is alone on stage with the other performers, working near them but not with them. This can be fine if the play allows for it. Flying V Productions‘ newest play, Tough!, has a very human script. It presents all kinds of varied and humorous angst in a single, unbroken 90 minute scene. It’s [...]
Church at Single Carrot Theatre
October 18, 2011 by
Believe it or not, no one wants to see the real thing in a theatre. Reality is mundane. A facsimile, the imitation of life, is required to make boring reality all the more accessible — real-seeming — to a viewer. The dream of the right way to approach a thing, of just how to say [...]
Tea and Sympathy at Spotlighters Theatre
October 6, 2011 by
It is 1953, and a question of propriety exists in a boarding house for a private school regarding the sexuality of Tom Lee, a student there. Through rumor and an apparent thirst for scandal amongst both the students and the leadership at the school, what begins as a non-event soon becomes an incident. An innocent, sensitive young man and [...]
The Stenographer at Venus Theatre
September 2, 2011 by
Zoe Mavroudi’s The Stenographer, only her second play, in its world premiere here at Laurel’s Venus Theatre, features as its centerpiece one huge confession. It is a play about the writer and the person that shares the writer’s pen. They say that for every great man in history there’s a greater woman behind him. A [...]
BUMP: A Tabloid Story at Theatre Project in Baltimore, MD
August 22, 2011 by
The worshipped icons of our age are on TV and tabloid covers. When nobility is no longer a part of the equation, and mere physical beauty and wealth bring enough notoriety to a personage to attract hero worship, the quality of our heroes becomes questionable. That is to say, Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, and Lindsay Lohan might [...]
Unraveled on the Gravel at The Baltimore Playwrights Festival at Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre
August 9, 2011 by
Hitchhiking has not gone extinct. People still do it and the myth and mystery of the road definitely still exist. This might be the only play about a man with hitchhiking habit, though, and an entertaining one it is. The Baltimore Playwrights Festival offers up not necessarily raw works, but still fresh plays, all quite [...]
Fringe Review: Sanyasi
July 18, 2011 by
In a word, mesmerizing. This is a transporting little play by Rabindranath Tagore, written almost a hundred years ago, that illustrates the life and role of a Sanyasi, a holy man who has cut himself off from the rest of society. There is not a great deal of conflict or complication, merely a portrait, but [...]
Fringe Review: Night Sky-A New Play
July 18, 2011 by
Though simple, Night Sky… is a production that attempts a somewhat realistic set, with a good bit of trimmings. While some shows at Fringe are totally minimal, suggesting great worlds of wonder and elaborate environments with as little as an umbrella or a folding chair, this show feels smaller than its stage, and tightened up [...]
Fringe Review: A Year of Living Dangerously
July 18, 2011 by
The title may refer to a “four seasons” theme here, as there are four short plays, disconnected in plot, but somewhat united by a theme of seemingly ordinary people doing something a little bit risky in different seasons of the year. A group of six actors, really two separate sets of three, an older group [...]
