“What makes me a Christian to you, makes you a Jew to me.” So says the title character in Nathan the Wise, directed by Adam Immerwahr. Originally written in the 18th century as a morality play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Michael Bloom has written this adaptation making its world premiere. A morality play can have a tough line to walk, especially to a modern audience – to be empathetic and entertaining without being moralizing and pat –
There is something delightfully universal about a book club
that almost anyone can relate to. So believe the characters of Karen Zacarías’s
The Book Club Play when their perfectly ordinary book club has been
selected to be featured in a documentary about the phenomenon. As the cameras
roll, and the club members find their lives under scrutiny, their perfect
social circle begins to unravel. Silver Spring Stage’s production, as directed
by Karen Fleming,
Shakespeare Theatre Company brings its
Summer Free For All program to life for a 29th season, this year reviving its
2018 production of Hamlet, originally directed by Michael Kahn and
remounted by Artistic Associate Craig Baldwin, and starring Michael Urie as the
title role. The show is a power-packed run at over 3 hours, but a scattered
performance from the cast and an incohesive design leaves the audience feeling
every minute of it.
Lynn Nottage’s play, Intimate
Apparel, tells the story of one woman desperately reaching out for real,
unguarded, intimate human connection, and it is fitting that Silver Spring
Stage, with its intimate and engaging black box and overall style, should
select this piece to conclude its 2018-2019 season. Directed by SSS Board Chair
Seth Ghitelman, this emotion-driven production provided an entertaining and
thoughtful experience.
Amanda N. Gunther | TheatreBloom
The play,
For fans of Shakespeare’s comedies, Love’s
Labour’s Lost should not be overlooked. Often brushed off as a draft for
Shakespeare’s later hits, there is joy and humor in this play that would be
criminal to dismiss. The performers in the Folger Theatre’s current production,
directed by Vivienne Benesch, rise to the challenge at every turn and carry the
audience along for a raucous and heartfelt ride.
Who, precisely, is the title character in Brave Spirits Theatre’s production of The Changeling, by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, is left open to interpretation. The text of the play speculates on the question but does not provide a definitive answer. Director Charlene V. Smith takes that tone of ambiguity and plays with it brilliantly in her approach to the script. She takes a late-Renaissance play that features violence, misogyny, and sexual assault as major plot elements,
The real King John of England has a murky reputation. We know him for the Magna Carta. We know him as a villain from the tales of Robin Hood. And, at a stretch, we know him as Shakespeare’s earliest monarch, chronologically. Folger Theatre capitalizes on a chance to tell the rarely-told tale of this questionable king in its current production of Shakespeare’s King John, directed by Aaron Posner.
As the Folger describes,
Silver Spring Stage’s production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, directed by Craig Allen Mummey, tells the story of a fictionalized Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 as a stark fear of witchcraft spreads through the town. Miller’s story, famously an allegory for 1950’s McCarthyism, steps audiences through the dark pervasiveness of paranoia.
Standout performances include Melanie A. Lawrence as Tituba, Sophia Stringer as Mary Warren, Lennie Magida as Rebecca Nurse, Omar LaTiri as Reverend Hale,
Macbeth at the Folger Theatre is unlike any production you will have seen before. That’s a guarantee the Folger can make as they stage for the first time since its origination Macbeth by William Davenant, a Restoration-era adaptation of Shakespeare’s text. Director Robert Richmond, in a collaboration with scholars and the Folger Consort musicians, presents a production that is the result of years of research and work to present something unseen by a modern audience.
“When someone in your social circle becomes so melancholic that they stop moving, it is your duty as a human being to go find them.” So proclaims Tilly, the lead character in Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce, currently being produced by Constellation Theatre Company. Directed by Nick Martin, the play takes the audience on an abstract dive through sadness, happiness, and the social contract. Constellation’s production perfectly captures the spirit of melancholy,
Shakespeare Theatre Company is in its 28th year of presenting the annual Free for All program, offering free productions every summer. This year features Romeo & Juliet, the STC’s most often-produced play, as directed by STC Associate Artistic Director Alan Paul. STC’s Free for All emphasizes accessible, relatable Shakespeare, and in that goal, this production excels. For those who have never seen Romeo & Juliet,
Quotidian Theatre Company’s An Irish Twist on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Leah Mazade and Stephanie Mumford, and set in 1817 Galway, Ireland, embraced the fun in the original text while putting a uniquely, playfully Irish spin on the setting. This creative re-imagining is a delight to watch, and the talented cast, crew, and musicians create an engaging, uplifting revival of Shakespeare’s classic fairytale.
Midsummer follows the plight of two young women,
For first-time audience members, it is hard to predict just what you’re getting into with Off the Quill’s new staging of Violent Delights: A Shakespearean Brawl-esque Sideshow. An original production created first for the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival by company members Patrick Mullen, Leanne Dinverno, J. Peter Langsdorf, Katie Wanschura, as well as William Shakespeare, and directed by Mullen, the show bills itself as a blend of stage combat, dance, clowning,
