Phindile Mkhize as Rafiki in that little-show-that-could, The Lion King. Photo by Joan Marcus. Drama lovers, a word: Here in the lavishly appointed ahr-eee Theater cubicle of DCist’s state-of-the-art underground headquarters, we have what you call an ethos. For us, casting arbitrary, semi-informed judgment on the bustling stage traffic of Our Nation’s Capitol is about a lot more than just getting free tickets to the latest hot offering from reliable companies like Catalyst or…

When Peter Gelb took over as the new general director of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, he promised several initiatives to bring opera to broader audiences. The leading American opera company opened its season last September, and New Yorkers were able to watch the celebrity-studded performance of Madama Butterfly on large screens in the plaza of Lincoln Center and the chaos of Times Square. The Met even brought a brief scene from its production of…