It is the rare meditation on race in America that includes a parable about an exploding wading bird. But you get a crane-combustion fable in "The Shipment," the bracingly provocative and fun…
Adevastating theater fire. A desperate, stranded French ballet troupe. A script that suggests a Stephenie Meyer rewrite of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's " Faust ." There's sensation aplenty i…
"Leth be normal, okay?" Count on the laughs when the mysterious Limping Man lisps this appeal in the dark comedy "Fuddy Meers." After all, he's hanging out with an amnesiac, a grandmother wh…
What does glass really sound like when it shatters?
What Ford's Theatre brings to the stage this month in a revival of the Samuel A. Taylor romantic comedy "is going to be a revelation," Paul Tetreault, director of the Ford's Theatre Society,…
Caution and Mary Zimmerman do not go hand in hand. The acclaimed Chicago-based director and adaptor is known for daring undertakings: dramatizations of epics and mythology; a lyrical, gymnas…
"Charming Billy," a slender, elegiac play having its world premiere at Round House Theatre Bethesda, muses on faith, hope, love and disappointment, but also sandwiches and tableware.
Sometimes research into ancient history requires the use of a curling iron.That's what Katherine Schwab discovered when she turned her attention to the hairstyles of the Caryatids, the six m…
You can say one thing for traveling by mule: Running out of gas is never a problem.In 2014, Spanish photojournalist Janire Nájera retraced the footsteps of trader Antonio Armijo, who had …
"Who do you think polished the silverware for the Last Supper?"Issued in a saucy tone by a wild-eyed woman in black, the question invited " and got " a laugh. But the subtext of the line was…
"How wide to let things stray " that's the question in world music," says composer and oud player Zach Fredman, the founder of the Epichorus, a Judeo Arabic retro-folk ensemble. You can see …
Action movies are a dime a dozen, but there can't be too many like "Man on High Heels," a moody, poignant and violent cop-and-gangsters flick by South Korean director Jang Jin. The 2014 film…
The solution to climate change: more plays?In real life, probably not. But a fictional theater troupe helps humanity address a devastating drought in "The Fire and the Rain," a marvelous pla…
A puppet fire. Mirror-generated hordes. A tent that seems to be made of molten gold. These are some of the niftier effects in "Alchemia," the striking, if gimmicky and sometimes over-solemn …
To watch Factory 449's "Closet Land" is to undergo an unpleasant ordeal: This fact reflects credit on the artists who have mounted Radha Bharadwaj's excruciatingly grim play about willpower …
On April 28, Mary-Louise Parker and Bruce Willis will host the nomination announcement for the 2015 Tony Awards. If the past is any guide, the live webcast of the event will trigger a five-w…
The performing arts have not yet finished with Mark Rothko.In recent years, Arena Stage and other theaters across the country have staged productions of "Red," John Logan's popular play abou…
Disembodied hands " or so they seem " reach up from the floor. Sheets draped over rows of seating transform into a turbulent sea. An enigmatic pink-robed figure reinforces the brooding air o…
The woman's fiercely moving hands should, by rights, be at an easel. Instead, they're peeling and slicing a root vegetable in a bowl on her lap. As the middle-aged woman, Mariela, sits strai…
The woman's fiercely moving hands should be, by rights, at an easel. Instead, they're peeling and slicing a root vegetable in a bowl on her lap. As the middle-aged woman, Mariela, sits up st…
California's water woes have been in the news. But with its concert at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on April 26, the Nile Project aims to direct your thoughts toward H2O in anoth…
Few of us are passionate about the look of the cedilla, that squiggle beneath consonants in certain foreign words (e.g., garçon in French). But Margaret, the title character in Adam Bock'…
"For me, music is the first language of the Lord," says Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara."You can use melody to talk about very difficult things, and it can be the only way to make…
Some days, it is hard enough to draft a thank you note or make salad dressing from scratch. How hard would it be to generate a more rarified entity " a ghost? That's a question that intrigue…
Murder. Adultery. Real-estate shenanigans. The escapades of two floundering hit men. The unknown Elizabethan playwright " or team of playwrights " responsible for "Arden of Faversham" certai…