It's hard to put a finger on what exactly doesn't gel in Folger Theater's The School For Scandal. The performers, by and large are first rate -- we have Kate Eastwood Norris, she of the impeccable comic timing, as the social-climbing Lady Teazle, and David Sabin as her husband, blustering conspiratorially to the audience at her antics. When it comes to playwrights, Sheridan's no slouch, and it's at times surprising how well the 18th century......

That Mark Antony was really a master manipulator. Watching the statesman (Andrew Long) effortlessly work a crowd is one of the many joys of Shakespeare Theater's Julius Caesar, now playing at Sidney Harman Hall. The company has finally found a production that, in the capable hands of director David Muse, befits the grandeur of the company's massive new space. Dan Kremer plays Caesar as an out-of-touch, ego-driven leader bound by superstition and plagued with bouts......

Signature Theater's Glory Days was only the second show in history to transition from D.C. to Broadway - and its run only lasted one night. The musical both opened and closed its doors this Tuesday, after running for 17 preview performances. What happened? Producers attributed the show's short shelf life to poor advance sales and negative overnight reviews. We didn't get the chance to catch the show when it was in D.C., but SanDiego.com theater......

Karen Eleanor Wight and Max McLean get demonic in The Screwtape Letters. Photos by Gerry Goodstein. Though I had never written anything more easily, I never wrote with less enjoyment . . . though it was easy to twist one’s mind into the diabolical attitude, it was not fun, or not for long. The work into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst, and itch.......

Restoration comedy...very hungry caterpillars...and Justin Timberlake. The D.C. theater scene has a diverse set of offerings this May, to say the least. Speaking of the former bye-bye-bye-er, Catalyst's Crumble (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake) sounds intriguing...and if it isn't, their tickets are only $10, so not much lost there. (May 7). Kate Eastwood Norris just snagged her second Helen Hayes award in a row for best supporting actress. See her strut her comic stuff in......

Only at the Helen Hayes awards will you have three acceptance speeches referencing the word "girdle." The celebratory, at times irreverent ceremony took place in front of a sold-out crowd at the Warner Theater last night. The big winners of the evening were Synetic Theater, the edgy dance-dominant Rosslyn troupe, solidifying its place as one of the most innovative companies working in the area right now. Five out of the group's six trophies were for......

If you see a bunch of people milling around the Warner Theater tonight in evening dress, no, it's not prom; tonight, the D.C. theater community gets its chance to shine at the Helen Hayes Awards, our city's version of the Tonys. Along with winners in 24 categories, the Helen Hayes Awards will give out a few special honors. Planned are a special tribute to British stage actor Sir Derek Jacobi, a The Washington Post Award......

Stephen Schwartz isn't exactly a songwriter known for his pathos, but something about The Stephen Schwartz Project at MetroStage makes his music seem even more sanitized. The revue, which focuses on the show tune composer behind such works as Pippin, Godspell and Wicked, does its best to try to breathe new life into some of Schwartz's songs by featuring non-traditional arrangements. The problem is that few of the re-workings end up for the better; a......

Looks like Bethesda Theater's production of Smokey Joe's Cafe won't "Keep On Rollin'" into May. The theater announced today that the remainder of the run has been canceled due to water damage at the theater. A broken water pipe caused extensive damage to the theater on Friday, and the production is not able to be moved to a new venue on such short notice. The show had been scheduled to run through May 11. We......

"Judas was a dick, but he deserved better." It's one theory anyway, and is sort of the point of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, the intriguing new work being staged by the gutsy Forum Theater and Dance at H Street Playhouse. The play is set in purgatory, where a prosecutor on a mission (Julie Garner) has decided to try to get Judas Iscariot's (Jason McCool) crimes against God re-tried, so he can escape from......

Seriously, you have to be a fool not to fall in love with Aurelia Williams. Whether she's brashly convincing a round of paramours to "Dance With Me", stealing the scene merely by rolling her eyes as her suitor begs her to "Treat Me Nice", or ruefully explaining to us why fools fall in love, all eyes are on Williams when she's on the stage during Bethesda Theatre's new production of Smokey Joe's Cafe. The......

The annual summertime deluge of theater shows comes back again this year with the Capital Fringe Festival, which announced today it will run from July 10 to 27. The non-profit, which started the city-wide festival in 2006, took home two well-deserved awards last year for their programming, the Mayor's Arts Award for Innovation in the Arts and the Momentum Award from the Downtown DC BID. This year's festival promises us even more shows and participants:......

Rick Foucheux, Tim Getman, Nancy Robinette, and Jeremy S. Holm are all smiles in Arena's Death of a Salesman. Photos by Scott Suchman/courtesy Arena Stage. Willy Loman is a tired, pitiable, senile man, older than his 60 years. But in the canon of 20th century American drama, he’s the Alpha dog, the big man, the Steve McQueen. He’s become an iconic figure, like Icarus or Hamlet, and lots of people who have never seen......

April's the most glamorous month for the D.C. theater community, as it marks the celebration of the Helen Hayes Awards, our city's answer to the Tonys. Any favorites to win this year? In the meantime, check out some potential 2009 Tony winners playing this month throughout Washington. Kander & Ebb fever continues over at Signature, as it produces the little-seen production The Happy Time (April 1). Round House Theater in Bethesda will take on the......

Sure, we knew it'd have a shot at a Helen Hayes award, but the recent Signature Theater production of the new musical Glory Days could even have a Tony coming its way sometime in the future. The show, which ran at Signature through mid-February, is now officially Broadway-bound. Glory Days will have a run at the Circle In The Square Theater in New York City beginning April 22. We didn't get a chance to catch......

“Which religion will win?” a recent Atlantic cover story asked. Of course, the venerable 150-year old journal was being deliberately provocative by couching the question in those terms, but we’ll play along and say: Christianity for $500. Because of all the major religions of the world, the followers of Christ have the funniest sacred text . . . . . . or so the Reduced Shakespeare Company, the storied gang of, well, six (performing in......

Chris Lee’s imaginative design work makes the lighting for Signature Theater’s Kiss of the Spider Woman a dynamic character in its own right in this slick and sexy production. Beams serve as bars for the jail center that is the work’s centerpiece. Hues of red, silver and blue add dramatic punch to various scenes. Flashlights perched on the top add a certain spookiness to a parade of creepy male nurses in the "Morphine Tango".......

You don't have to know that stars Robert, Andrew and John Prosky are related to be profoundly affected by Theater J's wrenching production of Arthur Miller's The Price, but their connection in this play of familial estrangement adds an additional layer of emotional impact. The vibe is electric when the three share the stage, which first happens at the close of the second act. Victor Franz (Andrew) has hired a 90-year-old appraiser (Robert) in order......

Too often, D.C.’s public schools, and by extension, its students, are dismissed as failing, disorganized, and hopeless. But Patrick Torres doesn’t see them that way. Instead, he sees stories waiting to be told, students waiting to be empowered, and language as a tool for social change. Torres is program manager of The Young Playwrights' Theater, D.C.’s only professional theater company dedicated solely to arts education. YPT uses playwriting to advance student literacy, creative expression, and......

Is the conflict between the archetypal, masculine hero and the worship of a more contemporary, sensitive man still one that resonates decades later? Happy Birthday, Wanda June, a play by Kurt Vonnegut (yes, apparently Vonnegut wrote plays -- at least this one, anyway). It was written in 1970, and the anti-Vietnam undertones are rather prevalent in this story; comparisons to the current conflict might have proven an inspiration for American Century to pick up this......

Everything old is new again this weekend, as CityDance Ensemble partners with actors from the Shakespeare Theatre Company to present Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Blending together dance, literature, theater, and music, the pairing of the two groups aims to explore age-old interpretations of Shakespeare’s sonnets as well as look at them with a modern eye. There's a whole lot of talent joining together to present Shakespeare’s Sonnets, between all of the dancers, actors and musicians involved in......

Last night kicked off the Kennedy Center's August Wilson's 20th Century, with the premiere of Gem of the Ocean. The Center is staging all ten of the plays of Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, in chronological order, until April 6. Wilson's a big deal playwright; after his death in 2005, he became the only African-American playwright to have a Broadway theater named after him. The Pittsburgh cycle ambitiously sets out to capture a portrait of the black......

Sure it’s got magic, but the Teller (of Penn & Teller fame) co-directed Macbeth has something even more unusual – it manages to inject a sense of wonder, terror and even fun into a work that is most often played as a rather dour tragedy. The blood-soaked Teller-Aaron Posner Macbeth, now at Folger, is a lot more interested in making the Weird Sisters gruesome (and boy, do they) than it is meditating on the title......

March: Miller Madness. Arthur Miller's getting quite the treatment in D.C. this month. We've got the major festival going on at Arena Stage, which is showing Death of a Salesman (March 14) and A View From A Bridge (March 21). And over at Theater J, The Price is being staged as well (March 8). Speaking of festivals, the Kennedy Center is staging all 10 plays of August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, beginning March 4. We've had......

The Helen Hayes awards nominating committee this year recognized what theatergoers have been aware of for some time now - that tiny companies like Keegan Theater, Solas Nua and Rorschach are doing stellar work in the city that should be recognized. Though the majority of this year's nominations, announced last night, are for the usual subjects like Studio, Arena, Signature and Woolly, a couple of smaller theaters did get nods for their impressive work last......

"How could I lie about who I really am to the person I love the most?" It seems almost a rhetorical question when coming from the mouth of one of the supporting characters in Studio Theater's All That I Will Ever Be. But it's the question that writer Alan Ball, of "Six Feet Under" and American Beauty fame, meditates on throughout the play. Ball has created Omar (Carlos Candelario), a man whose back story, nationality,......

Rorschach Theatre company is in exile. The scrappy theater troupe has been hunting for months for a temporary home to finish out its 2008 season, after being bumped from its former spot at the Sanctuary Theater in Columbia Heights, a converted church space. Today, it announced that it's found one - in Georgetown's three-year-old Davis Performing Arts Center. The new digs sound pretty swanky - according to a press release, the company will be able......

Really, it comes down to your willingness to pay $10 to see the shark. Look, we love Catalyst Theatre Company. We do. We recommended their bold, Brechtian shows on two subsequent October 17ths! We admire their ambition, adapting Orwell and Kafka and whatnot, and their proletarian business model: All hail the $10 ticket! So we're crying briny tears at the prospect of having to say that Catalyst's latest offering represents a grave disturbance in the......

Graphic without being tasteless. Moving without being manipulative. And powerful without being sensational. It's a tough balance to find, but Martin Moran's one-man autobiographical show The Tricky Part, now playing at Signature Theater manages to accomplish it. The frequently taboo subject matter of the tale -- Moran had a three-year sexual relationship with an older man from the ages of 12-15 -- can inspire a little wariness on the outset. But Moran eases us into......

Hello, young lovers! If a night in a theater sounds like it will melt your significant other's heart on Valentine's Day, Washington has to offer you...tales of sexual abuse, domestic boredom, eerily sunny singing teens, and Little Orphan Annie. If that doesn't spell romance, we don't know what does. If Zach Efron makes your heart flutter like a fourteen-year-old girl, you may be satiated with the knock-off version appearing in the tour version of Disney's......