Catherine Castellanos and Sara Bruner in ROE, opening at Arena Stage on January 12. (Jenny Graham/Oregon Shakespeare Festival)

Catherine Castellanos and Sara Bruner in ROE, opening at Arena Stage on January 12. (Jenny Graham/Oregon Shakespeare Festival)


DON’T MISS

  • Arena Stage has no plans to shy away from the Big Issues this season, and Roe, based on the landmark abortion case, is no exception. (Jan. 12).

  • Ever think that the story of alleged axe murderer Lizzie Borden was ripe for musical theater? Then head to Pinky Swear’s Lizzie The Musical (Jan. 11).

  • Shakespeare’s classic mistaken identity play As You Like it gets the Folger treatment (Jan. 24).

  • Ford’s Theater has a new production of what may be the most epic battle of wits in American stage, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, led by local theater legend Holly Twyford (Jan. 21).

  • Keegan, which we profiled here, offers alternative takes on the Bard with Mack, Beth (Jan. 21) and the family-friendly Hamlette (Jan. 28).

  • After its successful revival of Angels in America, Round House continues its exploration of Tony Kushner with a highly-anticipated production of Caroline or Change (Jan. 25).

From HUNGRY, Part 1 of THE GABRIELS, opening January 7 at the Kennedy Center.


ALSO OPENING:

  • The Kennedy Center presents Tony-winning playwright Richard Nelson’s three-play cycle The Gabriels, which chronicles the real-time reunion of a family at three different points in 2016 (Jan. 7).

  • The Smithsonian’s Discovery Theater brings back the family-friendly Professor Wing Nut Wants to Fly, which follows the exploits of a wacky scientist (Jan. 11).

  • Two new plays are on the way from Mosaic Theater Company this month: Phillip Dawkins’ Charm (Jan. 5) introduces us to a 67-year old transgender woman, while Hooded: or Being Black for Dummies (Jan. 25) is the world premiere of Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm’s play set in the fictional suburb of Achievement Heights, Maryland

  • Glen Echo’s The Puppet Company puts Goldilocks! on trial in its rendition of the classic fairy tale recommended for audiences aged three and a half to nine. (Jan. 20).

  • Robert McNamara directs Scena’s Someone Is Going to Come (Jan. 6), Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse’s drama about a couple who moves to a run-down house and becomes anxious about potential visitors.
  • Studio puts on Tom Stoppard’s new play The Hard Problem (Jan. 11), which follows Hilary, a young researcher at the prestigious Krohl Institute for Brain Science.

  • Theater J travels to Copenhagen (Jan. 5) with Michael Frayn’s Tony-award winning dramatization of the 1941 meeting between physicists on opposite sides of the race to build the atom bomb.

  • Woolly starts the year loudly with Baby Screams Miracle, focused on the family in the center of a violent storm (Jan. 30).

From the Broadway production of WICKED


LAST CHANCE:

  • Two Kennedy Center musicals wrap up on January 8, Into the Woods and Wicked. We wrote that the latter, “is inspirational for anyone looking to conquer a personal mountain or battle haters in 2016.”

  • MetroStage’s one-man show Fully Committed pokes fun at foodies until January 8. We wrote that the production is “a savvy satire of the current restaurant climate.”

  • Alfred Jarry’s avant-garde classic King Ubu, in a new adaptation translated through Google, continues at Pointless Theater through January 7.

  • The musical Titanic continues at Signature through January 29.

  • Sleeping Beauty casts her spell at Synetic through January 8.

ON THE HORIZON:

February brings Peter and the Starcatcher to Constellation; Brother Mario, an “existential mashup of Anton Chekhov and The Super Mario Brothers,” to Flying V; a revival of the 1978 Pulitzer-winning drama The Gin Game to MetroStage; another musical serial killer in Sweeney Todd at Olney; and much more.

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