140 stories by "Peter Orvetti"
(This is the first in a series of profiles of nonprofessional and small professional theatres in our coverage area.) Since 1996, 2nd Star Productions has been bringing nonprofessional produc…
David Muse's dour production of "Richard the Third" at the Shakespeare Theatre Company opts for nerve-wrenching tension at the cost of some of the protagonist's joie de vivre. "Richard the T…
Constellation Theatre Company continues its run of visually lush and challenging productions with its current mounting of Edward Kemp's adaptation of "The Master and Margarita." My guest for…
To a certain generation of theatre kid, "Rent" is a landmark, a seminal work that is also a personal milestone, akin to "A Chorus Line" a generation before and "Hamilton" a generation later.…
I brought my friend Maddie along with me to review the Adventure Theatre MTC world premiere production of "Blueberries for Sal." While I have the experience of some years as an actor and the…
Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" is today seen as a sentimental bit of corn that reflects an idealism about American government that has little in common with the real thing. But…
Sarah Ruhl's "Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce," which is opening Constellation Theatre Company's "Epic Love"-themed 2018-19 season, is a delightful confection of surrealism and silline…
With "Heartbreak Hitman," which just ended its run at the Capital Fringe Festival, Washington journalist Leigh Giangreco serves up what she calls a "love letter to D.C." in the style of oh-s…
Caitlin M. Caplinger's "Riot Brrrain" is a messy, confusing, raw, and real piece of theatre that takes the experimental nature of the Capital Fringe Festival and runs with it, sometimes in s…
The stated premise of A Muse Zoo's Capital Fringe Festival offering "The Truth*" — an "over-the-top comedy about political power and the winners of war" — might lead one to antic…
Happenstance Theater Company's "Barococo" is a delightful hour that illustrates the full potential of the Capital Fringe Festival. Happenstance got its start with the very first Capital Frin…
"Titus Andronicus" can be viewed as many things. Some have called it William Shakespeare's effort to out-gore his macabre rival Christopher Marlowe; others say Shakespeare was satirizing the…
Erik Harrison's "A Slow Bullet" is a rare example of a Capital Fringe Festival show that deserves to be longer. It's also something of a "meta-show," to borrow a phrase from one of its chara…
"The City Of…" at Capital Fringe, by Matthew Capodicasa and based on a short story by Argentine magical realist Jorge Luis Borges, is a funny, creepy, scary, and thought-provoking hour of …
In "Andromeda Breaks," one of the five Fringe Curated Series productions at this year's Capital Fringe Festival, prolific D.C. playwright Stephen Spotswood gives voice to a voiceless figure …
As I was enduring New Paradise Laboratories' "O Monsters," one of the five productions in the Fringe Curated Series at this year's Capital Fringe Festival, I thought often of "The Emperor's …
With Fred Zirm's mounting of "A Delicate Balance," Silver Spring Stage has created a very good production of a very odd play. To mark its semicentennial, Silver Spring Stage — which co…
The elevator to Studio Theatre's Stage 4 opens onto a corridor lined with crates, packing materials, and the stenciled words "Made in Vietnam." Entering the tight performance space, the audi…
For a very limited run this week, Denmark by way of West Africa by way of Britain is in residence at The Kennedy Center. The Royal Shakespeare Company has created a sub-Saharan "Hamlet" that…
"Potted Potter", the good-natured send-up of J.K. Rowling's seven Harry Potter novels, is back at the Shakespeare Theatre Company for another brief run of dumb fun. Daniel Clarkson and Jeffe…
"Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert" taught me to have faith in NBC, or at least in its live musical endeavors. I was a Doubting Thomas about the Peacock's plans to mark Easter with a s…
David Ives first came to the attention of many theatergoers with his "Venus in Fur" eight years ago or with his adaptations of Pierre Corneille's "The Liar" and Jean-Francois Regnard's "The …
"Godspell" has been an American theatrical mainstay for so long that it's easy to forget just what a strange show it is. It has no linear plot, no particular setting in either time or space,…
John Adams once wrote that he devoted his life to politics and war so that his children could devote theirs to science and philosophy. That sentiment is at the core of the American immigrant…
Actor Ashley Austin Morris and costume designer Linda Cho are the true stars of "The Way of the World," Theresa Rebeck's new comedy of the indiscreet, charmless One Percent currently running…
