744 stories by "John Stoltenberg"
When Dear Evan Hansen debuted at Arena Stage four years ago, I was so moved by the show I wrote it a love letter, republished below. Now a Broadway hit, it returns to DC for a run at Kennedy…
It always sparks joy when Cirque du Soleil comes to town, and its latest Big Top production, Volta, is a crazy-wondrous delight. The show is inspired by amateur street sports, and its theme …
Over a period of 16 days in Washington, DC, in July 2019, Mike Daisey gave 18 different performances, each about an hour and 45 minutes long, of his epic look at America's past, present, and…
John: Before you brought A People's History to DC, you performed all 18 parts three times"once through in Minneapolis and twice through in Seattle. I can imagine people could be picking and …
Chapter 1: The Gold Earring, July 5 8pm Mike Daisey's marathon retort to Trump's Fourth of July "Salute to America" kicked off in the Kogod Chapel last night before a sold-out crowd. Daisey'…
Midway through this fast, furious, in-your-face poetic explosive about anti-black racism, one of the three cast members stops the action and says: "I'm sorry, I'm trying to keep up the pace …
Flashing a wide smile and a V sign, outfitted in power suit, sensible pumps, and her trademark glasses and bouffant, Shirley Chisholm enters the Anacostia Playhouse blackbox waving to the ap…
This power plant of a play knocked me out two years ago during the Capital Fringe Festival and knocked me out all over again in the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival. The Heroes' Tale deb…
One looks for hope where one can find it. And sometimes hope pops up on its own, unexpected. That kind of hope, not sought out, can catch in one's throat, can even move one to tears. Such wa…
Twisted Melodies is a spectacular finish to Mosaic's fourth season. Written by and starring Kelvin Roston, Jr., the show sweeps us into Donny Hathaway's world of magnificent music-making and…
With the recent release of I Am Not Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk, the eminent writer James Baldwin received significant cinematic attention. This has been followed in DC …
I remember being so bored by my high school American history class that I got a D in it. This was not normal. My report cards always had A's and B's. So the kindly elderly woman who taught t…
I have to marvel at all the ways the national culture temple named for our 35th president reaches out to an audience that looks like America. There's no such uniform audience, of course"no p…
How do I love this play? Let me count the ways. My colleague David Siegel's review heaps accolades on the Round House Theatre production of Lucas Hnath's A Doll's House, Part 2, now playing …
The pivotal character in this profoundly moving comedy is Laurel, a young woman who has relocated from Jackson to Byhalia, Mississippi, to make a life with the young man she plans to love fo…
Sara Ruhl's The Oldest Boy tells a gut-wrenching story serenely, almost gently. At the heart of it is the bond between mother and child, a tie that Ruhl knew intimately when she wrote the…
Antiquity is in the house and what's old is new again. Taffety Punk is presenting two short theater pieces featuring its signature integration of dance, drama, and music based on voices from…
Dane Figueroa Edidi is one of DC's most original and multitalented theater artists. A dancer, actor, poet, playwright, and choreographer, she is also a teacher, novelist, political commentat…
A rom-com about manhunting…at Mosaic? That's probably not the sort of fare you'd expect from DC's preeminent theatrical platform for social-justice programming. But who is to say that fair…
It was nearly 70 years ago that Carson McCullers adapted her beloved 1946 novel The Member of the Wedding into a prizewinning Broadway play. Set in a small Southern town, the story centers o…
The circusy-party vibe begins before showtime. The place is festooned with streamers, furnished with comfy sofas, bedecked in colored light, and stocked with bags of popcorn to share. A …
One night five years ago, a horror happened in Chibok, North Eastern Nigeria. The Boko Haram"Islamicist terrorists who believe that Western education is evil"abducted 276 girls from the scho…
The set foreshadows the coming fracas. There's a fault line down the middle where this living room seems sliced in two. And something's out of whack. The halves do not align. Like two st…
Three retired nuclear physicists meet in a quaint cottage not far from the nuclear power plant where they once worked and where a catastrophe has occurred. Earthquake, tsunami, tidal wave, r…
It is rare that theater seriously asks us to believe something far beyond itself. Typically we are asked to suspend disbelief about let's-pretend that happens on stage. The gripping and insp…
