Artzberger and White in Reasons To Be Pretty. In Reasons To Be Pretty, the Neil LaBute play currently being staged by Studio Theatre, the couple at the focus of the drama have a heartfelt conversation near the play’s conclusion. The pair are debating the reasoning behind their breakup, which happened in violent detail earlier in the play. Is the perceived meaning behind the cutting remark that Greg (Ryan Artzberger) made about Steph (Marget White)…
DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Repertory: Halloween Screams at the AFI Perhaps my favorite part of this time of year is the fact that on any given night, you can turn on the television, and somewhere on the dial you can find a movie about things that go bump in the night, creatures from the depths of Hell, or your garden…
To be a Neil LaBute fan, you have to be a little bit of a masochist. You know that no matter how much you’re going to enjoy the work, the overall effect is going to be more of a sucker punch than anything else. This Is How It Goes, the author’s latest work making its premiere at Studio Theater, starts off as quietly unsettling, but builds to be just as ultimately devastating as some of…
It’s official: we’re going to have no social life this January, as there are too many great productions premiering this month for us to do anything else but plays, plays, plays. We’ve got a ridiculous amount of Shakespeare, a beloved Sondheim musical, a new work by an old favorite, and we haven’t even gotten to Kathleen Turner. It’s a good month to be a theater lover. We adore Neil LaBute here at DCist, even though…
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…
FRIDAY: >> We’re definitely planning on checking out a new performance series called Take That Hill that’s looking to turn in to a semi-regular evening of short films and short story readings presented by local lit mag Barrelhouse. Sounds promising, and we’ll have the rundown on how it went down for you come Monday. At Warehouse Theater’s screening room, $5, 8 p.m. >> Dude, free Yeah Yeah Yeah’s listening party at Cue Bar, plus the…
FRIDAY: Dear organizers of tonight’s Cryfest — Cure vs. Smiths Dance Party on the Black Cat mainstage: Did we go to the same high school? Because, really, I thought I was the only one who spent several nights a week as an awkward teenager perfecting the disaffected side-to-side shuffle that is the only kind of actual “dancing” one can do to this music. Meet me there tonight, OK? I’ll be the one in the raccoon…
Damn you, Neil LaBute. Damn you for getting your audience caught up in your clever dialogue, your complex, well-drawn characters and compelling plotline, and then making us leave the theatre feeling defeated about the state of humanity. Then again, it’s what you do, and few do it better. When you see a show by the playwright who brought you In The Company Of Men and The Shape Of Things, among others, you know you’re in…
December may have been classic musical central, but January brings a new year and host of exciting options, heavy topics and renowned playwrights showcased by local theatres. Opening this week is Studio Theatre’s anticipated Neil LaBute Festival, highlighting the work of the often-caustic man responsible for, among other things, The Shape of Things and In The Company Of Men. The festival kicks off with Fat Pig, which explores whether a man can overcome his friends’…
