This review was written by contributor Chris Klimek The Director: The Third Act of Elia Kazan, now in its world premiere run at Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, takes a few more liberties with its subject than did Orson’s Shadow, another recent Round House production about titans of the stage and screen. The latter play imagined what Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier might have talked about during their real-life collaboration on Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros,…

MONDAY At Chapters, they’re mad for mystery writers on Mondays in March, and for alliteration at all other times. Today, they have a fine guest: Laura Lippman, who’ll be reading from her latest, What the Dead Know. 445 11th Street, NW, 1 p.m. TUESDAY Tom Bissell and his father, an ex-Marine who served in the Vietnam War, travel back to Vietnam on a journey that retraces both national and personal history. He’ll be in town…

Ah, the ambiguous ending. For some, it’s infuriating; for others, it can be part of the fun of going to the theatre. But what about the ending when you’re not exactly sure what happened, the kind that has you questioning what the play was even about in the first place? A Body of Water, now being staged at Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, delivers that kind of conclusion. And while it will give you…

DCist apologizes for this month’s theater preview being a bit behind schedule (its resident critic keeps ending up travelling out of state), but there’s no reason to fret, as there’s plenty of interesting options playing at area venues during November. Bunnies: Not just cute like everybody supposes? Or man’s real best friend? The lead character of Vpstart Crow’s production of Harvey would say they fall into the “friend” camp, but everybody just thinks he’s…

Boy meets courtesan. Families disapprove. Tuberculosis gets in the way. The tale may border on predictable. But Neil Bartlett’s Camille, making its American debut at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda, in the tradition of the many adaptions which came before it, proves that it’s not always about a complex plot, if you know how to tell a story right. The play is based on the allegedly-autobiographical novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, (son of that…