A Chorus Within Her Producer on Celebrating Women

“The backbone became the things we were grappling with, who we were before the pandemic, what the pandemic illuminated or challenged in us. And then what happens next?”

Nothing says “return of the theater” like a live show reflecting on the hiatus […]

by Ambar Castillo

N Offers a Nuanced Look at Charles Sydney Gilpin, Eugene O’Neill

Directed by Nadia Guervara, Adrienne Earle Pender’s play studies the arc of both the actor and the playwright’s career.

As playwright Adrienne Earle Pender’s N opens, Florence Gilpin has just put her baby to bed when her smartly dressed husband Charles Sidney Gilpin bursts into their Harlem apartment, announcing that he’s been cast in Eugene O’Neill’s new play […]

by Ian Thal

Red Bike Breathes New Life Into Local Theater

Pan Underground rides Caridad Svich’s play through block parties in Anacostia and Walter Reed.

When Pete Danelski talks about staging Red Bike amid the reawakening of D.C.’s theater scene he states, “The worst thing would be to go back into a dark room with closed doors […]

by Ian Thal

Madness of Poe is a Visual Feast

Synetic Theater’s mash up production of The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher is nearly perfect stagecraft.

Synetic Theater—the region’s acclaimed physical production house—however, explores what happens when the lines are erased and there’s only movement left to tell the tale […]

by Sarah Marloff

Cause for Celebration: Hadestown at the Kennedy Center

Anaïs Mitchell’s famed musical is filled with suspiciously ripe metaphors for current times and the return of live theater.

Vermont folkie Anaïs Mitchell has been tinkering with Hadestown, her stirring Americana-ization of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, for nearly two decades […]

by Chris Klimek

Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski Is a History Lesson and a Moral Reckoning

The lesson is that governments either lacked the imagination to comprehend that the Germans were committing genocide, or lacked the interest to halt it.

The stage is bare, occupied only by a well-worn wooden table and two simple chairs. Where the eyes expect the stage to meet the back wall, there is only darkness. Draped over the back of one of these chairs is a suit jacket, necktie, and sweater vest. Next to this chair is a pair of…

by Ian Thal

The Thanksgiving Play Is a Scathing Satire

Larissa FastHorse’s script mocking well-intended White people is a genius response—fitting for a MacArthur “Genius” Grant winner.

City Paper never used to review shows at Olney Theatre Center. The venue was too far out of the District (11 miles north of the Beltway) and too far from public transit (almost 7 miles from the Glenmont Metro station). Philosophically, our reasoning went, we weren’t serving our core readership by deploying critics to the…

by Rebecca J. Ritzel

The Amen Corner Gets Its Due in Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Production

In the 67 years since Baldwin wrote The Amen Corner, the play has lost none of its sharpness or relevance.

If you’ve ever wanted a glimpse or reminder of what it feels like to be in church without actually attending church, Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner is a great place to start. The play begins with a gospel music-driven Sunday morning service at Sister Margaret Alexander’s church in Harlem, instantly…

by Tristan Jung

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