Your Ticket to Theatre News in MD, DC & VA!
“America’s Got Talent” child prodigy singing sensation Jackie Evancho made her local concert debut at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore with her Songs of the Silver Screen Tour. Jackie Evancho performed with the world-class Baltimore Symphony Orchestra led by conductor John Mario. The song choices, featuring splendid musical arrangements, ranged from movies and musical theatre [...]
Here is the scenario. A cricket in Connecticut gets a whiff of some food in a picnic basket and ends up in a busy Times Square subway station where he becomes a sensation for his musical talents. How do you translate this to the stage? Well…. you commission a second generation world class musician to [...]
The Washington National Opera revives the Broadway standard Show Boat for local audiences. In the program notes by Thomas May, we find out the original Hammerstein libretto was first performed in Washington DC at the National Theatre on November 15, 1927. Originally running 4 hours, this racially charged stage show is an adaptation of Pulitzer [...]
![The men of Hot Metal (l-r, Malcolm [Matthew Acquard], Dave [Micah Chalmer], Jerry [Dean Allen Davis], Ethan [John Aquila], Harold [Matt Melenas], and Horse [Bobby English].](http://www.mdtheatreguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/full-100x100.jpg)
Silhouette Stages’ production of The Full Monty strips bare and shows more of men’s hearts than of their “unmentionables.” Co-directors Conni Ross and Debbi Mobley have put together a cast that works well together. I felt their hardships and pain, from their struggling employment situations and relationships to their lost loves and their determination to [...]
It is a rare and valuable moment when music brings out a collective emotional experience. When it goes beyond something that’s pleasing to the ear, to touching something deep inside our humanity, “Underground Railroad: A Spiritual Journey” was just that – a journey through a musical time period, characterized by the deep longing of a [...]
Echoing out of 1920′s Berlin, songstress Ute Lemper brought the songs and history of her homeland to the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue this past Saturday. Singing the songs of Weill and Brecht, as well as other period classics, the German-born Lemper wove a tale of memories, evoked and brought to life through music. Her [...]
Yes, “the little dog laughed” is a familiar line from a beloved children’s nursery rhyme; but make no mistake, the play by the same name is exclusively for grown-ups. Playwright Douglas Carter Beane’s rendition may have an ending reminiscent of “Hey Diddle Diddle,” but his 2006 comedy drama is a far more brazen fable about [...]
Centerstage is up and running with the second half of their Raisin Cycle, Beneatha’s Place, Playwright and Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah’s impressive complement and response to their concurrent production of Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park. While the latter play expands the story of the family home in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha’s Place [...]
To help celebrate the bicentennial of Verdi’s birth, The Lyric Opera Baltimore is presenting his tragic opera Rigoletto as the final selection for their season. If you are familiar with the design of The Lyric, you will know that the names of famous classical composers are etched magnificently on the top portions of the walls surrounding the [...]
The current popularity of composer Stephen Schwartz begins and ends with Wicked, so a National Symphony Orchestra Pops Concert saluting him at the Kennedy Center does so as well. Conductor Steven Reineke began with a medley of themes from the Oz derived musical marking its 10th anniversary and he ended with Jennifer Laura Thompson and Julia [...]
Washington, DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company is well known for its remarkable talent, fearlessness, and ingenuity in reproducing the Bard of Avon’s plays for a contemporary audience. The Winter’s Tale constitutes a particular challenge, because its tone shifts between the third and fourth acts between tragedy and comedy (the reason it is sometimes grouped with Shakespeare’s [...]
Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Columbia has hit all the marks with its fabulous regional premier of the four-time 2008 Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights. With music by Lin-Manuel Miranda and book by Quiara Alegría Hudes, it can best be described as a spicy stew of rap/hip-hop/musical/operetta. It is as fresh and infectious as the [...]
If you’ve ever participated in a writing class or workshop, you’ve likely been told to “write what you know.” It’s pretty standard advice for beginner artists, but may not yield much material if you’ve a limited supply of life experiences. Not to mention, telling someone else’s harrowing tale appeals to the people-watcher in all of [...]
The Colonial Players of Annapolis, a community fixture for decades in Maryland’s capital, has branched out into new and intriguing territory with its production of Sarah Ruhl’s Tony-nominated comedy about the wages of ecstasy, In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play. Director Carol Youmans has assembled a wonderful cast and created just the sort [...]
