Didi Romero as Katherine Howard (center) in the North American tour of Six.

Joan Marcus

The summer slowdown has started for D.C.’s theaters, but there’s still the chance this month to catch several musicals, a bit of Shakespeare, and of course … Capital Fringe! Here are the highlights in our monthly theater preview.

BEHEADINGS WITH A BEAT: Henry VIII’s long-suffering paramours get their own chance to shine (and sing) when this buzzy musical makes its way to The National Theatre. The Broadway cast’s performance was a high point of this year’s Tony Awards; Six is a tour worth making time for (July 5-Sept. 4).

META MUSICAL:  Rent composer and playwright Jonathan Larson’s earlier project, tick…tick…BOOM!, a musical about… a dude writing a musical, is experiencing a resurgence after the recent release of the movie starring Andrew Garfield. Monumental Theatre Co. will put its own stamp on it this month (July 9-31).

A DIFFERENT D.C.: It’s hard to sum up Rorschach’s experimental Chemical Exile: Synthesis succinctly, but here it goes: this live performance about a chemist who returns to her D.C. hometown to find it dramatically different from the city she remembers is the conclusion of a seven-part immersive theater project the company has been working on for months (closing in July).

AND THEY FLOATED IN ON A JASMINE WIND: Egyptian musicians shake up the routine in composer David Yazbek’s haunting The Band’s Visit, which is making a stop at the Kennedy Center (July 5-17).

IT’S BACK: And don’t forget that July’s the month that the Capital Fringe Festival takes D.C. by storm. More coverage to come about the various new works (currently 31) debuting across town (July 11-24).

A rendering of what the theater setup at the National Building Museum will look like for Folger Shakespeare Library’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” this summer. National Building Museum

Also opening this month

  • Shakespeare’s winning comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream is being staged by Folger in the atrium of the National Building Museum (July 12-Aug. 28). 
  • In other Shakespeare news, there’s a free production of Much Ado About Nothing over at Olney (July 21-23).
  • If you’ve never seen them in New York over the years, you can catch the Blue Man Group (insert Tobias Funke joke here) at the Kennedy Center (July 19-31).
  • Also over at Kennedy for one day only, We The People’s Before looks at Indigenized America (July 1).
  • The country singer gets her own jukebox musical in Always Patsy Cline, performed at Creative Cauldron (July 8-17).
  • Keegan has a family-friendly show to share in The Amazing Adventures of Dr.Wonderful (And Her Dog!) (July 5-24).

Still playing at D.C.-area theaters

The July 2 weekend is your last opportunity to catch Round House’s Nollywood Dreams (review here), Theater J’s Fires in the Mirror (review here), and Unexpected Stage’s Sophisticated New Ones… the July 9 weekend means the end for To Kill a Mockingbird at Kennedy Center and the Essential Theater’s From the Mississippi Delta… Get to Get to In His Hands at Mosaic, Red Velvet and Potted Potter at Shakespeare Theatre, Keegan’s Shakespeare in Love, Golden Iris’ Niagara, and Beckett Shorts from Scena, before the July 16 weekend… Olney’s The Music Man closes July 24…Toby’s Spongebob the Musical and Studio’s The Hot Wing King run through July 31… meanwhile, Mr. Popper’s Penguins at Imagination Stage and Fantastagirl and the Math Monster at Adventure run into August.

Filed Under: Arts and Culture, capital fringe, dcist theater preview, folger shakespeare library, the national theatre, theater,