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Like the Music Itself, Jagged Little Pill Is a Powerful Domestic Drama

The jukebox musical based on Alanis Morissette’s preeminent album might be rooted in ’90s nostalgia, but works surprisingly well translating rock songs for the stage, recontextualizing them, and giving them new meaning.

Nineties nostalgia has many parts of pop culture in a chokehold, and that includes the theater. Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album, Jagged Little Pill, is an undeniable classic that racked up awards and spawned a remarkable number of singles, so it’s no surprise that it’s been turned into a jukebox musical. The surprise is how well…

Synetic Stages a Darkly Moving Beauty and the Beast

Perfectly ambiguous, beautifully choreographed, and no chattering candelabra and talking teacups in sight—this production is an adult’s fairy tale.

Perfectly ambiguous, beautifully choreographed, and no chattering candelabra in sight—this Beauty and the Beast is an adult’s fairy tale.

Selling Kabul Makes the Situation in Afghanistan Tangible to American Audiences

Signature Theatre’s production of Sylvia Khoury’s play is the rare slice of “kitchen sink realism” that truly clarifies what, to many, is so often abstract: our country’s ongoing role in Afghanistan.

“America’s word is good.” The line from Sylvia Khoury’s play Selling Kabul, now in a stirring production at Signature Theatre, is bound to earn a wry laugh from audiences who know what the characters are only just beginning to grasp: Some promises are bound to be broken. Selling Kabul takes place in 2013 and revolves…

More Than Fabulous Footwear, Kinky Boots Offers Still-Needed Gender Commentary

Running at Olney Theatre through March 26, this production has a few kinks, but plenty of charm, cheer, and drag.

The factory line that reassembles film comedies into Broadway musicals has produced its fair share of hits and misses. Thankfully for area theatergoers, Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein’s Tony-winning Kinky Boots, based on the 2005 film directed by Julian Jarrold and written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth, qualifies as the former. Under the guidance…

With Incendiary, Dave Harris Lights Up D.C. for the First Time

The L.A.-based playwright from West Philly explains why Woolly Mammoth is the ideal theater for the world premiere of his latest work.

Even for a writer as accomplished as Dave Harris, the prospect of premiering a new play at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is something to get excited about. “Woolly has been on my list of dream theaters for a long time,” he gushes. “So many writers I have been obsessed with have been on that stage.”…

Woolly Mammoth’s Kristen Jackson Builds Bridges Between the Theater and Community

Her dual role as associate artistic director and connectivity director links Woolly Mammoth’s artistic mission with its social and political missions.

“I’m a native Washingtonian, born and raised. I lived outside of the city, but was compelled to come back home to D.C. in a very specific way,” shares Woolly Mammoth Theatre’s Kristen Jackson. In November, Jackson began a newly created dual role of associate artistic director and connectivity director. She currently lives in Anacostia with…

Mosaic’s Bars and Measures Is Too Real to Be Believed

In Idris Goodwin’s play, making its regional premiere at Atlas Performing Arts, the facts are true, but the tempo is false.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes it’s hammier, too. Idris Goodwin’s musical drama Bars and Measures, now in its regional premiere with Mosaic Theater Company, is derived from a real-life scenario you’d reject if a playwright invented it: In 2005, the FBI arrested Bronx-born jazz bassist Tarik Shah—also an advanced martial artist—for plotting to…

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