Watching ex lovers bicker and slap each other silly may not sound like the most relaxing way to spend the evening, but Washington Shakespeare Company’s production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives makes for a surprisingly breezy, relaxing evening at the theater. Setting helps. WSC has chosen Playbill Café’s tiny black box theater to stage the work, and between lovely set pieces and the atmospheric addition of a singing chanteuse behind a lazy veil (Barbara Papendorp),…

Though you might not realize it upon entering the poster-decked bar which probably would be right at home next to Don’t Tell Mama on Restaurant Row, the tiny back room of the Playbill Café has its very own puppet show going on. These puppets have a weightier task ahead of them than the jovial characters on Sesame Street, or even the dysfunctional lot over on Avenue Q. Puppets, and various other props, are what drive…

Sure, you can make pumpkin soup, buy some fall-spiced candles or purchase some candy for the imminent trick-or-treaters, but nothing really puts you in the Halloween spirit like a little Edgar Allan Poe. And a simple but clever little production over at the Playbill Café on 14th Street serves up just the right dose of humor, horror and just plain creepiness to put you in a sufficiently macabre mood for October. Poe 2000, staged by…