319 stories by "Robert Michael Oliver"
Gordon Craig, one of the early giants of modern theatre, provocatively wrote: “There is only one actor " nay one man " who has the soul of the dramatic poet, and who has ever served as…
Are you tired of Christmas shows that urge you to give turkeys to the poor, or lumps of coal to bad children, or sweets to your beloved nutcracker? Are you tired of listening to news about t…
A man staggers onto the stage at Arena’s Kreeger Theater. Nomax, played with deep loss by Kevin McAllister, has offended his girl with yet another drunken night. He sings “Early …
To be sure, some of Lisner’s audience came for the sex–explicit, diverse, and environmentally conscious. Some came for the celebrity–a noted model and film actress (Blue…
Nightfall with Edgar Allan Poe is an adaptation of four of Poe’s better known tales of horror: The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Tell-Tale He…
When I think of Hip-Hop my imagination immediately flies to urban America, to a gritty, “tougher than leather” New York City filled with N.W.A, LL Cool J, and of course Public En…
Shakespeare, the humanist; Shakespeare, the poet; Shakespeare, the political playwright; Shakespeare, the fatalist. Before he passed away, my 87-year-old father used to quiz members of the y…
This weekend at Gallaudet’s Eastman Studio Theatre WSC Avant Bard and Gallaudet University Theatre and Dance Program opened their world premiere, historically based musical, Visible La…
The National Civil War Project presents the work of “a multi-city, multi-year collaboration between four universities and five performing arts organizations to commemorate the 150th…
Michele Rimi’s Rage made its US premiere this week at Flashpoint’s Mead Theatre Lab. A production of Ambassador Theater, directed by Joe Banno, Rage explores the dynamics of adol…
Shakespeare’s Shrew is always a challenge. Misogynistic in sentiment, slapstickishly machismo in design, its story of how to tame a headstrong, stubborn woman couldn’t be more et…
The American musical does not lend itself well to big ideas, particularly if they possess any degree of complexity. Keep the ideas as simple and melodramatic as the plots that drive them. In…
In Luigi Pirandelo’s most famous play, Six Characters in Search of an Author, the frustrated theatrical director demands that the father of the wandering character-clan stop his endles…
Oedipus the King has long been considered the archetypical tragedy. Jam packed with irony, Sophocles lays bare the heartbreak of the human condition. People and especially the ruling elit…
In Margaret Atwood’s futuristic novel Oryx and Crake, the cutting-edge of modern science creates the Crakes, genetically modified human beings whose beauty is only matched by the he…
In Woolly Mammoth’s Marie Antoinette the doomed, dark-shades donning Queen of France enters with two ladies-in-waiting. She slips off her robe, revealing an oh-so-modern two-piec…
The under-affluent of this country find small change on America’s stages: under-represented more often than not, they are the butt of jokes and edgy satires and, on DC stages, are pres…
Round House Theatre has opened its 2014 season with Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love (1983), one of his many scripts–Curse of the Starving Class (1976), Buried Child (1979), …
The power of Shakespeare’s tragedies lies in their ability to speak to both the political and the personal. King Lear is an exemplar in this regard. Not only does the empire coll…
Baltimore’s Single Carrot Theatre has a new theatrical home, a new artistic director, and a new season with a brand new series of contemporary plays. Shawn Reddy’s White Suit Sci…
Are you sick and tired of yet another big-budget Hollywood action-adventure film with angry tornados, humongous sharks, or killer asteroids? Are you sick and tired of yet another celebrity p…
Stupid Fucking Bird, Aaron Posner’s 2013 adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s late 19th century The Seagull, returns like the phoenix to Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company with its stell…
Women in uniform in the military. Women in uniform in the foxholes. Women in uniform. Sexual assault. Of both men and women. Charles Fuller’s new play, One Night, tackles head on…
We are definitely a culture acraze with technology. I-Phones are only on the lower end of the spectrum: we have virtual realities, simulated sports, robotic housecleaners, robotic ware…
Despite the deus ex machina that ends the show"the miracle that I don't mind mentioning because playwrights that resort to miracles as conclusions should have their audiences warned in…
