All posts by Amanda N. Gunther

A full-time theatre reviewer in the Baltimore, Washington, and surrounding areas; Amanda holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Maryland Baltimore County as well as a minor in Creative Writing. Having spent two of her five years at college studying abroad at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, she has learned a great deal about improv, devised work theatre, and interpretive movement pieces. Striving to promote theatre of all types, she can often be found in a theatre of some type, even on her nights off.

Review: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Kensington Arts Theatre

Reviews February 13, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Sensational— adj. “extraordinarily good; conspicuously excellent; phenomenal.” The latest production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Kensington Arts Theatre is sensational. S-E-N-S-A-T-I-O-N-A-L. Truly a gift to the musical theatre performance genre, this highly engaging and entertaining musical, with Music and Lyrics by William Finn and Book by Rachel Sheinkin, will put a smile on the audience’s faces. A delightfully comic and touching fun show, this audience-interactive and fully immersive experience is one of the best to cross their stages and an excellent representation of the impressive talent and concepts that are conceived in community theatre.

Review: Boeing, Boeing at Montgomery Playhouse

Reviews February 11, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Attention all passengers: Arts Barn Airline would like to welcome you aboard flight Montgomery Playhouse 1969. Boarding now through the main stage boarding gate, this flight’s final destination is Paris. The in-flight entertainment will feature the uproarious farcical comedy Boeing, Boeing. Your flight’s Captain, Lisa Holland, ensures a roaring good time will be had by all throughout the duration of the flight. Please ensure to remain seated for the duration of the flight,

Review: The Metromaniacs at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Reviews February 11, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

A call has been issued throughout Washington DC to all the dames and dandies

Grab your tickets, get your seats; don’t forget your drinks and candies

A troupe of actors, performers in tights, as you’ll read here on this page

Perform for you an evening’s comedy; they shall traipse across the stage.

Shakespeare Theatre Company, running David Ives’s new comic jewel

The Metromaniacs,

Review: Ruined at Everyman Theatre

Reviews February 9, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

The door never closes at Mama’s Place. Everyman Theatre is holding that door wide open as the 2015 New Year starts. Entering the back end of their 2014/2015 with Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, Everyman brings to the stage the harrowing and haunting tale of life in a small town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where civil war is eminent, every man is danger, and the palm wine and the dancing are the only things that chase away the horrors of reality.

Review: I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change! at Epic Productions Inc.

Reviews February 6, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Love is a delicious and vicious act. And it is devouring up its audience over in Little Italy. Hilarity never landed so well as it does with the inaugural production of a brand new company called Epic Productions Inc. Their debut show, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, is an uproarious hoot; a musical comedy that showcases the dysfunctions of love and marriage through a series of hilarious anecdotes and hysterical songs.

Review: The Symposium at Sudden Satyrs

Reviews February 5, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Come, blessed deities, share our minds on the thoughts and praises of love. Experience Plato the way he was meant to be experienced; in a 70’s style conversation pit. The love nest is open, so to speak, as Agathon invites the whole of Athens into his home for a celebratory dinner and wine party wherein the finer points of love may be discussed among good learned men. Sudden Satyrs, an ephemeral production company that may be swept in and out of Baltimore with the change of seasons,

Review: Dunsinane at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Reviews February 4, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Be very, very careful about the way in which you hear and use words. It can be the key to understanding victory or misinterpreting failure in battle. And a battle of epic proportions is what the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC has set out to display with their national premier of the National Theatre of Scotland and The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Dunsinane. A thrillingly dramatic sequel to one of the Bard’s bloodiest tragedies,

Review: Disney’s Mulan Jr. at Pumpkin Theatre

Reviews February 3, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Let’s get down to business! We’ll defeat the Huns! But only if we band together and write our own destiny! Pumpkin Theatre is doing exactly that with their second annual “For-Kids-By-Kids” production. This time it’s Disney’s Mulan Jr. coming to the stage with all the wonderful things a Disney musical entails. Directed by Erin Confair, with Music and Lyrics by Matthew Wilder, David Zippel, Stephen Schwartz, Jeanine Tesori, and Alexa Junge, this children’s adaptation of the classic film brings honor to all at Pumpkin Theatre.

Feral 15: A Fabulous Season Preview with Venus Theatre

Interviews January 30, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Well behaved women rarely make history. And for fourteen seasons Venus Theatre has been living up to that infamous quote. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview with Founding and Producing Artistic Director Deborah Randall, we explore the brand new season of exceptional world and regional premier works that will be setting flight to the voices of women in the theatre. Entitled “Feral15” the season includes four new works to the Venus Stage, three of which are world premier productions.

Review: Gigi at The Kennedy Center

Reviews January 30, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

The night The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts welcomed Gigi, the stars came out to shine! Thank heaven Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, the clever masters of Book & Lyrics and Music respectively, have found their way to a stage adaptation through Heidi Thomas and the iconic film classic known as Gigi has made its pre-Broadway engagement in Washington DC! Directed by Eric Schaeffer with Musical Direction by James Moore,

Review: The Widow Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre

Reviews January 29, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Who is dead in the White House? A haunting question that repeats itself in the grief-stricken mind of a recently widowed first lady. Commemorating the 150th year since President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Ford’s Theatre has commissioned a work that captures the essence of the aftermath as told through the eyes of the eyes of Mary Todd Lincoln. Written by James Still and Directed by Stephen Rayne, this powerfully evocative drama enchants the audience into a surrealistic world of grief and mourning;

Review: August: Osage County at Milburn Stone Theatre

Reviews January 24, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Life is very long. Incidentally Tracey Letts’ work August: Osage County only takes up roughly three hours of said life as it is trafficked across the Milburn Stone Theatre stage this winter season. Directed by S. Lee Lewis, Letts’ compelling familial drama addresses afflictions and ailments to the dysfunctional degree of existence. It’s not a party until something gets spilled and family secrets are spilling out all over the place in this poignant timely production.

Review: Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery at Arena Stage

Reviews January 23, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

The game’s afoot! Well, the show is afoot at any rate! It all began, as these things do, with a brand new world premier production at Arena Stage. Ken Ludwig, the acclaimed comedic playwright, has taken his pen to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters and adapted a brilliant comedy suitable for theatrical enjoyment of all types. Bursting at the seams with curiosity, wonder, and the element of surprise, this hysterical new work entices the audience not only with its morbid beauty and thrilling mysterious intrigue,

Review: One Night in Miami

Reviews January 22, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Everyone that has a soul has the ability to have that soul touched and moved. Whether you’re black or white, into music or sports, are religious or not, Centerstage is bringing a soul-gripping performance that crackles with spirit and blazes a path straight to the heart as they present the regional premier of Kemp Powers’ One Night in Miami. Directed by Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah, this powerful and provocative play of the soul brings four legendary men together under one roof for one night to witness the struggles of their careers,

Review: Life Sucks (Or the Present Ridiculous) at Theater J

Reviews January 20, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Theater J presents the brilliant and highly poignant new Aaron Posner play Life Sucks (Or the Present Ridiculous.) Written and subsequently Directed by Posner himself, this irreverent modern variation on Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, is a gloriously thought-provoking work that captures the minds of the audiences through laughter, tears, and strange situations. This world premier work is quite possibly the most connective piece of work to address humans as they exist in the world;

Review: Jekyll & Hyde at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews January 19, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Murder. Madness. Mayhem. It’s all there awaiting you behind the façade. A darkened alleyway; a decent down stone stairs to the underbelly of Saint Paul Street and you shall find yourself amid the most diabolical musical mastery The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre has offered up on its stage in a great many years. Jekyll & Hyde sets to the stage with relentless power; a beast of a musical under the refined Direction of Fuzz Roark and superb resplendence of Musical Director Michael Tan,

WATCH Award Nominations

News January 18, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

It’s that time of year, folks! The Washington Area Theatre Community Honors have come around again to honor all of the truly exceptional theatre being performed in community venues across the Washington DC and surrounding metropolitan area. The 2014 award nominations were presented live this evening at The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA.

There were 111 different productions– 34 musicals and 77 plays– adjudicated over in the 2014 theatrical season. 31 community theatre companies participated in WATCH adjudication in 2014.

Review: Other Desert Cities at Fells Point Corner Theatre

Reviews January 17, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Telling the truth is an expensive hobby. The costs are steep, the prices are high, and in the end the results can be catastrophic. In this riveting and politically charged Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Jon Robin Baitz, Fells Point Corner Theatre showcases an extraordinarily talented cast under exceptional direction with their production of Other Desert Cities. Directed by Michael Byrne Zemarel, this intense familial story focuses on opposing political views across the parental and child generations with a shocking family secret that can destroy the foundation upon which such a life was built.

Pondering Playwrights: An Interview with Mark Scharf on Fortune’s Child

Interviews January 16, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Everyone dies; it is a fact of life. Fortune’s Child, a new work by Baltimore area playwright Mark Scharf has made its debut at the Baltimore Theatre Project this winter season of 2015. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview, I’ve sat down with the playwright to discuss the work and what it is meant to tell the audiences who see it about living life.

Thank you for taking the time to sit down with the readers of TheatreBloom for this interview,

Review: Rehearsal For Murder at Reston Community Players

Reviews January 16, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

It’s a playwright’s prerogative to be mysterious. But when mystery and intrigue turn into scandal and spookiness there’s thrills to be had around every corner. A titular and haunting production of D. D. Brooke’s Rehearsal For Murder, based upon the teleplay of the same name by Richard Levinson and William Link, is setting up shop at the Reston Community Players this January. Ready to purge the audience of any remnants of the saccharine holiday,

Jeffrey Shankle as Bert (center) tapping through "Step in Time"

Over the Rooftops: A Step-in-time Interview with Jeffrey Shankle

Interviews January 15, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Brush away the dirt and soot and get ready to go over the rooftops with Toby’s veteran performer Jeffrey Shankle as he gives the readers of TheatreBloom an exclusive interview on what it’s like playing one of the most magical roles of his performing career. Shankle, currently involved in Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Columbia regional premier of Mary Poppins the Disney musical, is playing Bert, the loveable jack-of-all-trades chimney sweep who reminds us anything can happen if we let it as he narrates the tale of the Banks family and their involvement with the infamous flying nanny title character.

Review: A Shot in the Dark at Prince George’s Little Theatre

Reviews January 12, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

The pure science of criminology will bring about the truth of the matter in this delicate situation: Prince George’s Little Theatre has filled their stage with disastrously hilarious mayhem by mounting A Shot in the Dark. Directed by Keith Brown, this dated whodunit mystery is receiving a refreshing makeover upon the PGLT stage this winter season. An honest hoot, this murderous marvel is packed full of laughter, surprise, and a rousing good time for all.

Review: Interlock at Vagabond Players

Reviews January 11, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Cinderella’s prince will wake up with soot on his face. Betrayal. Misery. Suspense. The unexpected and yet just desserts served with delicious vindication. An evening at the theatre never brought about such intrigue until The Vagabond Players dusted off a lesser-known Ira Levin work; Interlock. Not the edge-of-your-seat mystery thrillers the playwright often gets recognized for, this classic work simmers with sophistication under the skilled Direction of Roy Hammond. The third installment of the Vags 99th season,

Review: The T Party at Forum Theatre

Reviews January 11, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Labels are for soup cans! Join the party— The T Party— at Forum Theatre this January for their exciting remount of the world premier of their gender-driven conversation starter The T Party. Having absolutely nothing to do with the political party— as the show was being conceptualized and work-shopped before the party was formed— this provocative, evocative conversational piece of theatrical work is a compelling and connective cabaret of gender-binary defying stories,

Review: Fortune’s Child at Baltimore Theatre Project

Reviews January 10, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

They say life is for the living so live it or you’re better off dead. A quote that may sound harsh especially in the face of the dying, but it’s the honest reality of living. Life interrupts life, even the life of the dying, and that’s a fact. Baltimore-based playwright Mark Scharf captures the essence of humanity at its most simple— living life— with his new play Fortune’s Child, making its premier through the Actors Equity Association Members Project Code at The Baltimore Theatre Project.

Review: The Illusionists at The Kennedy Center

Reviews January 9, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Are you ready to witness the impossible? Theatrical magic at its utmost spectacular, The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible have arrived in a puff of glorious smoke and are ready to impress theatergoers across Washington DC as they take their illusions to the stage of The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Directed and Choreographed by Neil Dorward, this high-octane, riveting magical show defies description with its flashy and edgy new approach to magic— bringing big tricks an uncanny intimacy from the even bigger stage.

Review: References to Salvador Dalì Make Me Hot at Single Carrot Theatre

Reviews January 9, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

The universe is an optical illusion. Domesticity verses wildlife; the age-long endless battle of which is natural and which is right. Single Carrot Theatre investigates this controversial topic with their production of Josè Rivera’s References to Salvador Dalì Make Me Hot. Directed by Steven J. Satta, this surrealist work based in reality with hints of magical realism and dream-escapism lives up to the standard of the typical Carrot productions: making you think whilst spinning you about in blissful confusion.

Review: Julius Caesar at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews January 8, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Friends! Romans! Washingtonians! The time has come to take a stand against the inconstant shifting nature of theatre in Washington DC! Hail The Rude Mechanicals and their rebellious production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Directed by company founder Jaki Demarest, this scandalous production takes the great Roman Empire to 1920’s soviet occupied Russia. Stalin, proletariat, rebellion; all encompassed in Demarest’s revolutionary vision of one of the Bard’s milder tragedies.

With honor in one eye and death in the other,

(l to r) Mark (Steven Carpenter) Joey (Christopher Herring) and Sebastian (Conrad Feininger)

Review: In Praise of Love at Washington Stage Guild

Reviews January 5, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Every story tells a picture. The Washington Stage Guild has created quite the masterpiece with the story they are telling by bringing a Terence Rattigan work to the stage for the first time in Washington DC since the mid 70’s. In Praise of Love, Directed by Laura Giannarelli, is delightfully touching; a heart-warming slice-of-life drama that represents the epitome of a modern classic. With moment to moment realness that takes the audience into the reality of the characters,

Review- A Christmas Carol 1933: A Live Radio Play at Parlor Room Theater

Reviews December 20, 2014 Amanda N. Gunther

The true power of theatre is to touch people’s lives and make them think, even just for a little while, a little less about their troubles. This time of year when people so keenly feel the troubles that surround them, Parlor Room Theater is working their power and their magic through a well-known Christmas story allowing audiences everywhere to feel the spirit of Christmas and forget about their troubles and their strife while indulging in a new adaptation of Dickens’ holiday classic.