Results tagged “theatre”

When it comes to Woolly Mammoth's season-opening production of , sometimes you just have to run with it. Literally.

October is here, so any companies still preparing to launch their fall seasons have pretty much done so. The result: lots of shows to choose from this month.

I can't help thinking that Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray would have little interest in the character of the same name embodied by Roderick Hill in Round House's season opener, the world premiere of a new production of . Sure, this Gray's a slashing murderer, a sexual deviant and a good-looking-enough-guy (in a CW teen series kind of way). But yet, he still manages to be kind of boring.

There's not a lot of extra stuff binding together the songs that make up , Signature Theatre's extensive tribute to the music of Broadway greats Kander & Ebb. There's no thin plot driving the piece along; no real theme beyond the composers tying the songs together. Turns out, it's not really necessary. With the help of six stellar performers (and a spectacular orchestra), these songs stand on their own.

In Washington Shakespeare Company's staging of the comedic drag classic , the story centers on Marguerite, a freewheeling but sickly prostitute with an assortment of silly friends, who falls in love with the penniless Armand. The cast is all male, save for one curious exception, and even actors who actually play men often join in with boa-wearing and lip-synching.

Woo! We made it through the dog days of August and finally have a substantial amount of theater opening this month. Here are some of the highlights.

Ghosts, demons, and various otherworldly entities populate the plays of Conor McPherson, but the only spirit at work in Dublin Carol, which Scena Theatre is currently presenting in its professional Washington premiere, comes in a bottle labeled "Jameson". Of course, drink is also a staple of McPherson's work: the playwright, a recovering alcoholic himself, has long been concerned with the place of the bottle in the Irish identity. John (Matt Dougherty), the undertaker at the center of Carol is just one of many well soused McPherson protagonists, men for whom there is nothing so terrible as a look at the bottom of an empty glass.

Title aside, turns out to be a lot more inspirational than it is salacious.

August is notoriously the slowest month on the D.C. theater scene, and this year isn't an exception. But there's still a little Shakespeare, a little Mae West -- even a little bit of zombies to get you through the month.

We know the Capital Fringe Festival can be overwhelming (and that our steady assault of reviews over the past few weeks can be, well, assaulting). So DCist's Fringe team decided to put together an easier to digest roundup of the shows we've reviewed so far as we enter into the final weekend of the festival.

Are you a sucker for Trivia Night at your local bar? You might find yourself drawn to , playing the Warehouse Next Door as part of the Fringe Festival.

is so earnest and so consciously stylized that at some key moments, there's a temptation to stop taking it seriously and instead succumb to laughter.

Written by DCist contributor Monica Shores

It's July in D.C., and you know what that means -- you'll have your fill of festivals and musicals to choose from (if not necessarily much else) in the theater world. Here's what's on the horizon.

Version 4.0 of the Capital Fringe Festival was supposed to get smaller, like the microchip, but instead it got bigger, like the American waistline. This year’s incarnation of the (largely) unjuried freakfest, which kicks off one week from today, will boast a super-sized lineup of more than 120 shows, sayeth Julianne Brienza, Fringe’s executive director. At a lengthy press conference/preview at RFD in Chinatown last night, Fringe organizers gave an overview of Fringe ‘09’s improvements over past iterations before ceding the stage to teaser performances from about two dozen of the acts on the bill.

Meet the Real Housewives ... of 16th century Britain? The scheming, backbiting, and in one case, suspiciously Paris Hilton-esque (chihuahua included) sisters Goneril and Regan manage to do the unlikely: turn the epic solemnity of King Lear into riveting, train-wreck theater. These women chain smoke and cackle, strut around in fur coats and sequins, and get graphically pleasured onstage by their boy toys. Director Robert Falls, whether he's livening up Lear's ceremonial division of his kingdom with a rapping D.J. or having his actors throwing ripped out eyeballs into a stock pot, is definitely putting together a Lear like you've never seen.

In a summer full of festivals, sometimes some can get lost in the shuffle. But in the midst of your Capital Fringes and your unions of hip hop and theater, there's one event that boasts 300 artists and 3 weeks of offerings -- the Source Festival.

There are two stars in Arena Stage’s new production, . Audiences might be drawn to the show for the familiar name above the marquee, TV actress Valerie Harper. But the play's real star is her character, film actress Tallulah Bankhead, a woman notorious for unapologetic appetites and ego. Both women are captivating, and it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiills are aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive in Synetic Theater’s nonverbal, nonstop production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream!

Annie Hall: The Musical. Does the concept cause chills of horror to run down your spine? An odd thrill of excitement? An eye roll and a laugh? Complete and total apathy?

Welcome to Monk's Place, where you can get your fill of spirits.

Sure, the student revolutionaries may not have triumphed in the uprising of 1803, but Signature's was definitely triumphant last night at the 25th Anniversary Helen Hayes Awards.

Woolly Mammoth's production of has a quality that can be all too rare in theater: the ability to surprise you.

When you've got multiple Helen Hayes Awards nominees listed in your cast — as understudies — you know a production isn't exactly going to be lacking in fantastic performers.

Written by DCist contributor Monica Shores

Can a prolonged state of blue balls save the world?

New musicals, old classics, stories about soda...April's theater selections run the gamut.

Forum Theater's is essentially about angels, but it is the demons haunting its characters whose presence are more heavily felt in this dark, arresting production.