The DCist theater team is excited to announce our newest monthly feature, a round-up of shows playing in the D.C. area each month. September starts us off with a bang; this month’s theater agenda is characterized by sword play, knife fights, beheadings, breakups, and bugs — with a few shows of comedic relief to break up the tension.
CURRENTLY RUNNING:
Signature Theatre opens its 2014-15 Season with class:SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE is a Sondheim musical via Broadway about Post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat. In case that isn’t a sufficient draw for gay theater-goers, Signature has a Pride Night performance on September 12. Runs through September 21. Tickets $40-104
Belleville stars Jacob H Knoll and Gillian Williams. Photo: Teddy Wolff.
Studio Theatre describes Amy Herzog’s idyllically-named
BELLEVILLE as a play about two married ex-pats whose Parisian lives “seem perfect.” Smart money is on their lives not staying that way for long, especially considering the pointed (sorry) knife imagery at the heart of Studio’s advertising for the show. Look for a full review of the show to run on DCist later this week. Runs through October 12. Tickets $44-88
If watching a couple bicker in Paris is too bougie for your tastes, you could always watch a couple do the same thing in a rundown motel in the Mojave Desert instead. Round House Theater is running Sam Shepherd’s FOOL FOR LOVE, where a woman trying to hide from her former life encounters an old flame who threatens to haul her back into it. Runs through September 27, tickets $35-50, with a $10 discount for seniors or the under-30 crowd.
The heroine of Rorschach Theatre‘s latest offering lives an awfully dull life, until she picks up her sister’s old same of Dungeons & Dragons. As we covered in last month’s preview of the show, within this new fantasy world that unfolds on Rorschach’s Settlers-esque board game stage, she befriends Ogres, battles bulettes and, yes, SHE KILLS MONSTERS. Runs through September 14. Tickets are $30
More comedic relief from this month’s bloodbath can be found in Arena Stage‘s comedy about the five-fingered discount. THE SHOPLIFTERS pits inept security guards against a bored duo of shoplifters. Runs through October 19 . Tickets $55-70.
LATER THIS MONTH
It’s hardly unusual at this point to see some piece of popular horror adapted into a musical. The latest contender from Alliance for New Music-Theatre find’s Kafka’s METAMORPHOSIS as fodder for a musical dark comedy. Ten performances are going up at Woolly in partnership with the Embassy of the Czech Republic. Runs September 10th-21st. Tickets $30
It’s hard to say exactly what Dog & Pony‘s latest “participatory-performance” TOAST will be about; the company’s signature frenetic, audience-shaped shows makes it impossible to know how much one performance will resemble the next. Toast will play across seven different D.C. and Maryland venues during its premiere run, further adding to the mystery. Runs September 11 through October 18. Tickets start at $17
Taffety Punk is bringing back their 2007 debut show, THE DEVIL IN HIS OWN WORDS, a one-man (or one-devil) show tracking Satan through the ages. Runs September 12-October 14. Tickets $15
MARIE ANTOINETTE may be most well known for the (mis-attributed) proclamation “Let them eat cake.” While she may never have spoken those words, they’ve become emblematic of the sort of decadent and carefree life she lived that Woolly Mammoth will no doubt opulently bring to the stage. Of course, she’s also well known for the (spoiler alert) beheading that brought that reign to a bloody close. Runs September 15-October 12. Tickets start at $35
Loren Bray and Josh Adams in R+J: Star-cross’d Death Match. Photo by Susanna Murley.
After snapping up the Audience Award for Best Drama and selling out their entire run of performances at Capital Fringe Festival, LiveArtDC is remounting R+J: STAR CROSS’D DEATHMATCH a boozy take on the Bard’s Romeo and Juliet. In this version, the play’s famous fight scenes spill booze rather than blood, as each showdown takes the form of a flip-cup battle. If you didn’t get a chance to see the show — one of our favorites from Fringe — now’s your chance. Runs September 20 through October 5. Tickets $15
Despite “kill” being right there in the title, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD does not, in fact, contain any avian murders. National Players are running their adaptation of the essential novel meditation on race in America at Olney Theatre. Runs September 17-28. Tickets $15.
Did we forget to mention a can’t miss show running this month? Don’t forget to let us know in the comments.
