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Howard Community College’s Arts Collective’s production of Prelude to a Kiss treats an absurd premise with sensitivity, shedding light on the themes of love and loss. The story concerns two young neurotics, Rita and Peter. On the day of their wedding, a strange old man asks to kiss the bride— causing his and Rita’s souls [...]
If you’re looking for a breath of fresh air after a winter of somber drama, look no further than Rep Stage’s production of Boeing Boeing. A lively cast drives this bedroom comedy of errors with kinetic energy. It’s one whole shebang of a farce, too— complete with slamming doors, mistaken identities, and outrageous foreign accents. [...]
Spotlighters’ production of Peter Shaffer’s Equus takes a firing-on-all-cylinders approach to a play with inherent subtlety. Rather than employ a sensibility of understatement, this version goes for hyperbole. The director steers the production toward spectacle, but a cast of committed actors ground the play in reality. A drama that explores the nature of madness is [...]
In Strand Theater Company’s U Probably Think This Play Is About U, writer/performer/protagonist Maija DiGiorgio struts and frets her hour upon the stage, filtering her woes about love through a Shakespearean lens. DiGiorgio’s point is not to shed light on Shakespeare’s characters, but to use Shakespeare as a means of expressing herself. The result is an [...]
James McLure’s Laundry & Bourbon and Lonestar are two separate plays, but function in Fells Point Corner Theatre’s production as a complete work. The play explores the lives of six deceptively simple, salt of the earth folk in the small town of Maynard, Texas. There are women who only want to talk about men, and [...]
Caridad Svich’s The Tropic of X, now playing at Single Carrot Theatre, is a stylized saga set in a hypothetical future where thrills are cheap and true love comes at a high cost. A strong ensemble of actors ground the fantastical elements in reality, and the director adds structured dimension to the chaotic text. The [...]
Break out the spyglass and buckle your swash (or is it swash your buckle?), because with a ticket to Colonial Players of Annapolis’ production of Donald Margulies’ Shipwrecked, you will set off on a high-seas adventure that takes you from the deck of a pearling ship, under the sea, to forgotten islands, and back to [...]
Bowie Community Theatre’s production of Del Shores’ Daddy’s Dyin’… Who’s Got the Will? is akin to spending an evening watching The Lawrence Welk Show at your grandmother’s farmhouse— if your grandmother is armed with a shotgun and all of your relatives are two sheets to the wind. Daddy’s Dyin’ presents a good-natured mélange of vaguely [...]
Stephen Spotswood’s We Tiresias, presented at the Forum Theatre, is a lyrical reimagining of a classic Greek character. Three actors portray the blind seer at three different stages of his life. While the concept is intriguing, the production feels more like an exercise in style than a compelling character study. The story itself is not lacking [...]
Some theatre folk believe that theatre and film are on opposite sides of the artistic spectrum, and never the twain shall meet. Beth Tfiloh Community Theatre’s production of The 39 Steps would give these naysayers a run for their money. The 39 Steps is a stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s film adaptation of the novel [...]
Musical Artists Theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol spreads Christmas cheer in abundance, but does not breathe new life into the story of Scrooge and his ghosts. Patrons looking for faithfulness to Dickens’ original work will not be disappointed, but patrons looking for a new spin on the old tale will find this adaptation lacking. [...]
You know the story. It’s Christmas Eve, and Ebenezer Scrooge dons his nightcap and bah-humbugs his way into bed, the same thing he does every year. Much to Scrooge’s surprise, four ghosts come a-calling, and teach the old grouch the real meaning of Christmas. While you can certainly argue that Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol [...]
Othello is “the greatest love story Shakespeare ever wrote,” explains Marshall B. Garrett in his director’s note for Mobtown Players’ production. He’s not talking about the doomed romance of Othello and Desdemona. He means the love Iago has for Othello. He means a story of betrayal and jealousy, but from the villain’s perspective. It’s a [...]
The Strand Theater Company’s Inexcusable Fantasies is an ode to skeletons in the closet. Playwright and lead actress Susan McCully opens the play with a nervous wringing of her hands and a sudden outburst of words, like a slam poet who has waited anxiously for her turn at the mic all night. She takes the [...]
