293 stories by "Jayne Blanchard"
Side Show lets its freak flag fly with a glorious production that combines astounding visual artistry, a ripping yarn and a tingly emotional score, stirringly sung by the company, which is a…
Goofiness is not a term normally associated with grief, but in Colman Domingo's sparkly play Wild with Happy, the mourning process becomes a madcap romp, a Disney-fied fantasy that is both s…
Normally, a feeling of weariness accompanies seeing two productions of the same play so close together. Wasn't it just yesterday that Studio Theatre in Washington did Tribes, British playwri…
It's a relief to be retired from the meat market after seeing Cock, the pugilistic, punch-drunk comedy by British playwright Mike Bartlett about relationships and shifting identities that se…
Rollicking, driving and at times as plaintive as a blues song sung against a starless night, Olney's production of The Piano Lesson by August Wilson plays a melody of feelings you can't get …
The X-Men and other morphers have nothing on Nanna Ingvarsson, the local actress fluidly shape-shifting into seven characters that form a community united by tragedy in the one-woman show Th…
Let's face it. This winter sucked the very marrow out of our bones. These days, we're feeling as hollow as a chocolate bunny left over from Easter. If you're wondering where your whoops-a-da…
Once you meet Vera Stark you can't forget her. The title character of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage's 2009 masterwork By the Way, Meet Vera Stark has been lost to the ages"a…
Talk about your surreal moments. At the world premiere Thursday night of Lawrence Wright's Camp David, a dramatization of the 13-day contretemps in 1978 between President Jimmy Carter, Egypt…
"I'm here!" Elaine Stritch proclaims in Chiemi Karasawa's 2013 documentary ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME and she isn't just whistling Sondheim. She takes a stand against the notion that old age i…
Addiction binds and tears apart the characters in Quiara Alegria Hudes' potent and poetic play Water by the Spoonful, currently casting a pensive spell over Studio Theatre. Under KJ Sanchez'…
A blockheaded wooden puppet is hero of Pinocchio, a cautionary tale for children about the importance of obedience winsomely staged in a co-production between the Faction of Fools and NextSt…
Donny and Marie would not approve. Â But South Park lovers and fans of filth will no doubt herniate themselves chortling at The Book of Mormon, the shibboleth-shattering Tony and multi-aw…
When something terrible happens, we go to another planet. Time warps and stops. Pain presses against the glass, begging, demanding to be let in. In Steve Yockey's lovely, unsettling play, th…
The Hollywood dream factory proves both a boon and a bane for the residents of a small Irish town in Marie Jones' Stones in His Pockets, a play that gives us a laugh as well as moments of so…
Everybody needs a sister. Whether by blood or a sister from another mister, we need someone who drives us crazy, who knows us better than we know ourselves, who criticizes us but will cut th…
The dinner table is rarely just a place to plop your plate and in the case of the bourgeois English family depicted in Nina Raine's engrossing Tribes, it is an intellectual battlefield. Slos…
Resistance is futile. Not succumbing to the cheeky charms of Gypsy at Signature Theatre is like planting a raspberry on the pugnacious puss of Mama Rose herself. Not a good idea if you v…
“Just because I yell, doesn't mean I don't love you,” my mother used to say. If that maxim holds true, then the Lyons must be the most loving"and hoarse–family in existence…
With A Civil War Christmas, playwright Paula Vogel affectingly achieves her ambitious goal to create an American, non-Anglo worshipping Christmas Carol. There are no figgy puddings, Cratchit…
In a time where kvetching over the Kardashians passes for civil discourse, it is bracing to watch a play like Red that depicts genuine intellectual arguments and two men passionately arguing…
Fangs you very much, Matthew Bourne, for reimagining the classic story ballet Sleeping Beauty as a gorgeous, gothic, vampire-filled romance that substitutes brimstone for the treacle. Not mu…
Don't let the Roman columns and Magritte-green manicured lawns fool you. Those posh McMansion suburban communities have problems of trailer-trash magnitude, according to playwright Paul Down…
Memory can be a devious thing. It can snake around you like tendrils of cigar smoke and cloud your reason or it can keep you company so snugly you feel no need to seek other amity. Oscar Cli…
Tease and gel your hair into a heavy metal mullet, slap some glitter on those cheeks and traipse on down in your platform shoes to the Hippodrome in Baltimore to catch the North American pre…
