To leap, bound, and twirl through Narnia is to enjoy the storied fantasy world anew, watching the Pevensie children learn the value of sacrifice, friendship, family, love, and, of course, th…
If you think you hear the gloriously ingenious cackling of delighted children, it may be emanating from the Family Theater at The Kennedy Center. If it is mixed with some lower-pitched guffa…
How does one process unspeakable pain in losing a loved one to violence? Sanguine expressions of "thoughts and prayers" have no place in The Powers That Be, a hard rocking contemplation …
It's always a risky proposition to transform a beloved film into a musical, and for every Beetlejuice or Mean Girls success story, there's a Ghost or Pretty Woman that just couldn't muster t…
Make no mistake about it, I had this guy pegged in the first two minutes: a bumbling, bald-headed bungler trying to string together a show based on his own hoarding. Worse, an amateur! M…
With steam wafting from the factories painted across the backdrop of Washington Stage Guild's production of Hard Times, it doesn't take long before issues about industry and social progress …
Though written over 75 years ago, Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit endures as a staple in Existentialist thought. Set in hell, the play focuses on three damned souls set to share the same room for…
Dear Friends, We were saddened to learn this week that Tia Shearer Bassett, a valued member of the DC theater community and a bright shining light of a human, has recently been diagnosed wit…
Celebrating Opera Lafayette's twenty-fifth season, Ryan Brown has brought a rare and truly exquisite small gem of an opera to Washington audiences. To do so, Brown has left his more familiar…
How are we to recover from what divides us? How do we maintain hope in the face of catastrophe from climate crisis? Such questions are not new; in fact the clamor of them pounding for our at…
"The Inheritance," a long, ambitious play about three generations of gay men in New York, pays homage to two masterpieces, without being one itself. Yet the play by Matthew Lopez, making his…
Antony and Cleopatra is Shakespeare's saga of love and war, in which " spoiler alert " war wins. Our situation is this: Julius Caesar has been assassinated and, after some skirmishing, the s…
The best and worst part of toddlers is their Big Feelings. Just the morning of me writing this piece, my toddler (who we call The Shark) has displayed righteous indignation at not being allo…
Despite being one of the last books Roald Dahl ever wrote, Matilda has remained one of the British author's highest-selling works. Even so, The Guardian notes a significant jump in Matilda's…
It's surely pointless, four decades and two billion dollars after its debut, to rant about Evita, and silly to blame Andrew Lloyd Webber's theatrical canonization of the amoral historical fi…
"The whole impetus of air guitar is world peace," earnestly intones a grown man who goes by the name Golden Thunder right before he goes out on stage in a dingy bar to play a pretend instrum…
The end of your life starts slowly, and after some incomprehensible incident. Everything seems dreamlike. They are talking to you " the policeman, the lawyer, the judge, the doctor " and you…
A Hollywood classic gets the royal treatment resulting in a heaping helping of theatrical magic courtesy of Olney Theatre Center's staging of Singin' in the Rain. As Hollywood ballyhoo might…
Newsies is a frolicking, joyous musical with a healthy dose of "kid power:" the perfect recipe for families this holiday season. Based on the original Disney film and drawing from the real-l…
"Take me for what I am. Who I was meant to be." So sings Maureen in one of RENT's most famous ballads. Those famous lyrics are also perfect advice for people headed to the National Theatre f…
"I think that anybody coming in will go, 'Oh wow: look at those people; look at that time in life; look at that relevancy to now. That man is being so horrible to that other person; why?' In…
The deconstruction of a cultural touchstone by an acclaimed choreographer is an appealing notion, all the more so to live music. But although it was superbly performed Wednesday night, Mark …
Got tickets for a night of theater, but running a little tight on money and time? We've compiled a list of dining spots near popular venues where the service is quick, the food is good, and …
"It's not the person," cries the sculptor Louise Nevelson (Susan Rome) in Edward Albee's Occupant, "It's the work they do!" Would be it that Albee had heeded his character's advice. Then we …
There were, at various points, half a dozen versions of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus floating around. The playwright was trying to square the circle and make his metaphorical work about the tragi…