>> Black Cat plays host to Oakland's Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, who'll be pounding out their avant-rock on a few homemade instruments while performing puppet shows and giving pseudo-scientific scholarly presentations. What's not to like? Stinking Lizaveta, an intense experimental trio from Philly, will kick things off. $12, 8 p.m. >> Tonight is your last chance to stop by the Smithsonian American Art Museum to catch their lecture series on The Media Arts: A History.... more ›

I skipped the season finale of Lost the other night in favor of another supernatural tale of attractive people haunted by their pasts who just want to get off the damn island. The Folger’s latest staging of The Tempest is a light, spritely, fleet-footed thing of a play, apropos for a show about forgiveness and renewal and the casting off of old follies. Like the shipwreck that opens Act I, it’s forceful and bewildering and seemingly over so fast you walk out unsure whether or not you’ve just seen it at all; its weightlessness is the best and worst thing about it. more ›

Theaters in the area have traditionally offered free Bard fare during the year’s warmer months, and with the Shakespeare in Washington Festival drawing to a close at the end of June, Will aficionados have even more options. Here are the highlights: more ›

Take a little Neil Gaiman, add a healthy dose of Jasper Fforde, infuse with a serious shot of Shakespeare and pepper with clever literary references throughout (and a refreshing amount of silliness), and you have Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's , now being showcased by Rorschach Theater as part of the Shakespeare in Washington festival. more ›

, a story of lonely, middle-aged people coming together (Feb. 23)...and that's about it. We may be a cynical, single city, indeed. more ›

It's official: we're going to have no social life this January, as there are too many great productions premiering this month for us to do anything else but plays, plays, plays. We've got a ridiculous amount of Shakespeare, a beloved Sondheim musical, a new work by an old favorite, and we haven't even gotten to Kathleen Turner. It's a good month to be a theater lover. We adore Neil LaBute here at DCist, even though... more ›

In last week's Classical Music Agenda, I led with a concert on Sunday afternoon in the Corcoran Gallery of Art's acoustically splendid auditorium. It was the first concert of the season from the Contemporary Music Forum, but not even the Washington premiere of a major piece of new music, Paul Moravec's Tempest Fantasy, could draw more than a sparse audience. more ›

Sexual intrigue, Hellen Keller and urine; that's what area theaters have to offer us during the slow month of August, the dead time between the close of the '04/'05 season and the beginning of the new one. more ›

Editor's note: The following preview was written by Missy Frederick "Bard-37" ... What does this phrase bring to mind? A punk band? A brand of malt liquor? A series of all of Shakespeare's plays read in chronological order at a local Arlington playhouse? All snark aside, option C is correct. Washington Shakespeare Company has been performing each of the playwright's works as part of its Bard-37 Canon Cabaret. Tonight, they will read King Lear at... more ›

If you were hoping to catch the latest production of the Washington Shakespeare Company time is running out. Their engagement of "The Tempest" at the Clark Street Playhouse" ends Sept. 5. more ›