It’s officially December, so we find our thoughts turning to holiday shopping. Will you be giving the gift of local theater (or hoping to receive it) this season? Here are a couple of things on our wish list for the D.C. theatre community: 1. For tiny companies like Meat & Potato and Natural Theatricals to have their seats filled more frequently, and for small but innovative companies like Rorschach to get Helen Hayes nods this…

July would be a dead time for theatergoers, if not for festivals. Thanks to them, we’ll have more than enough to keep us in our cushioned seats (or fold-up chairs, depending on the venue) this month. Most noteworthy is the Capital Fringe Festival. The lineup, which we told you about earlier, features everything from out-of-town productions to local theatre groups. There are cabarets. There are fire-eaters. There’s a One Man Star Wars Trilogy. In other…

Hedda Gabler is among those plays where it doesn’t matter what fancy sets you slap onstage or who else is milling around in the background: the fate of a production of this play rests on the woman playing the title character. Luckily, Julie-Ann Elliott is up for shouldering such a burden. Elliott’s performance is the main reason why Olney Theatre’s elegant production of the Ibsen classic works rather well. In Hedda Gabler, the playwright sets…

It’s June and while many houses are wrapping up their seasons rather than embarking on new productions, others are up to the task of bringing something for us to watch this month, though the summer theater season looks a bit heavier than the X-Men-like offerings the summer movie season brings each year. Dysfunctional student/teacher relationships are at the center of Woolly Mammoth Theater’s satirical The Faculty Room (June 5). Four men renounce women in favor…