Everything feels as if it has just happened. Ellen McLaughlin’s
The Oresteia, freely adapted from the
trilogy by Aeschylus that is nearly 2,500 years old, feels as if it is
happening. And what must happen does. Boldly closing the 2018/2019 season at
Shakespeare Theatre Company in their prestigious Sidney Harman Hall under the
Direction of STC legend Michael Kahn, The
Oresteia is modernized yet timeless, prescient yet ancient;
The seafarin’ man with
one leg.
Such is the stuff of nightmares or high-seas hijinks for
young Master Hawkins when it comes to the beloved piratical and nautical
adventures of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure
Island. 15 men on a dead man’s chest, yo-ho-ho and a— Drinking in Tortuga
cocktail? Has all the earmarkings of a We Happy Few Production! There are
ukuleles, pirates, squeezeboxes— well,
And The World will
know! And The Sun will too! ‘Bout
these Newsies and the awesome job they
do! The things they do today will be tomorrow’s news! And you heard it here
first— right in black in white— front page ABOVE the fold! That’s right— read
all about it! Right here! Children’s Playhouse of Maryland does Newsies and makes Disney proud with all
of their energy,
Rosedale
has got itself are real who done it, as Artistic Synergy of Baltimore presents
Agatha Christie’s A Murder Is Announced.
If you have a knack for solving the case before your favorite TV detective,
then this is a show for you. But I’ll warn you now nothing is as it appears and
with Miss Marple on hand, you’ll need to be quick.
Amanda N. Gunther | TheatreBloom The cast of A Murder is Announced at Artistic Synergy of Baltimore.
It’s all about the time tables! You’ve got to get yourself a
time table! Check your time tables and you’ll see that they’re telling you it’s
time to board Flight-519 on Heritage Airlines and enjoy their in-flight
entertainment: Boeing Boeing by Marc
Camoletti. Directed by Ryan Geiger, this flight-based French farce will whisk
audiences away to Paris, France circa 1962 and give them an inside look at an
American bachelor in Paris who has landed himself a fiancée.
*ccchk* Houston? *ccchk* Hello? *ccchk* Is there anybody out there?
Space.
The final frontier.
It is man’s destiny to go forth and explore. It is Alex
& Olmsted’s destiny to go forth and create extraordinary theatre with puppetry
and puppets being their cynosure into the next leg of their extraterrestrial
and theatrical experience. Marooned! A
Space Comedy is the latest offering from the Jim Henson Foundation Grant
Winning company.
The broken parts of a dead body will never heal. Sticks and
stones may break my bones but names— will scar me so deep that I just may never
recover. Good grief. When the iconic, albeit off-kilter, happiness of one’s
childhood, hits puberty and spirals off course with tough life lessons and
harrowing high-school truths, you get Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God. Fitting into the wheelhouse of Wolf Pack Theatre
Company productions,
After two solid seasons, it’s
established that the Kennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage series is a major
component of the Baltimore/DC theatrical landscape. Acquiring first rate
Broadway and Hollywood talent in intensely-assembled one week runs of home-grown
musicals in “concert” form that frankly rival and even exceed many current
national touring productions has brought unique, exciting new possibilities for
musical theatre to our region. They have given us superior mountings of
classics like How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and The
Music Man.
Are people anything more than porous vessels susceptible to
influence from— other people? Spirits? And is family really anything more than
mismatched memories or stories that you tell yourself when you feel a certain
way?’ What happens when the spirits of families past haunt you and influence
you right into a catastrophe? You get Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Appropriate, now on stage at Silver
Spring Stage, Directed by Jeff Mikoni. When tensions run high through the
estranged Lafayette family and historical ghosts of all sorts rise up from a
well-buried past in this intensely motived drama by Jacobs-Jenkins,
“The waiting is part of the work. One never knows when the
words will come.” The words may be Michael Hollinger’s from his play Ghost-Writer, but they are in fact
relatable to anyone who has ever tried their hand or pen or keys (of any
vintage) at writing. A mysteriously intriguing ghost story springs to life on
the stage of The Writer’s Center in Bethesda as resident theatre Quotidian
Theatre Company opens their 2019 calendar season with its production.
Oh workers, builders, and destroyers of the world! Heed the
call— it is your destiny— in seats at Theatre Project for your bodies to be— feel the sweetness of Eurydice— and rest
assured the show’s lyricist (Craig Jaster) is far better at this rhyming stuff
than me— and to prove it you must take yourself forth and see— Pantheon. The latest in the Happenstance
Theatre realm of fantastical fabrications, this iteration of theatricality
revolves around Greek Mythology.
Here it is— the moment you’ve been waiting for! Here it is—
you know exactly what’s in store! A story like you’ve never seen or heard
before! Now’s the time to head to Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Columbia to see the
DC-regional premiere of The Hunchback of
Notre Dame. Directed by Toby Orenstein & Mark Minnick, with Musical
Direction by Ross Scott Rawlings, this musical masterpiece inspired by the
Victor Hugo novel with musical selections from the Disney animated feature film
presents a hauntingly beautiful tale with striking,
It’s time to make a joyful noise and
“Raise Your Voice” for Scottfield Theatre Company and their latest production: Sister Act the Musical! Based on the
film of the same name starring Whoopi Goldberg, this disco fairytale follows
the misadventures of Deloris Van Cartier, a nightclub singer forced into the
Sisterhood after witnessing a crime! Directed by Allan Herlinger with Musical
Direction by Niki Tart and Choreography by Becky Titelman,
Hey, mamma, welcome to the 60’s! Whoa-oh-ooooh— go, mamma! Go,
go go! Wait— no. That’s a different musical. But such is par for the course
these last few months at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre where stumbling
blocks like pulled rights have failed to thwart the creative and artistic efforts
of staunch thespians in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood. Despite being
three weeks into rehearsal for Smokey Joe’s
Café (and having the rights pulled due to a potential national tour) the
cast and crew at Spotlighters was able to switch gears and turn out a pretty
impressive production of Beehive…the 60’s
Musical.
Big Dogs!
Little Dogs!
Big Dogs AND Little Dogs!
Black & White Dogs!
One Big Dog going in! Three Big Dogs going out!
Go, people, go! To the Maryland Ensemble Theatre FUN Company
and see their current production of Go,
Dog, Go! Based on the iconic book by P.D. Eastman, adapted to the stage by
Steven Kietz and Allison Gregory, with music by Michael Koerner,
As a
performance piece, A Bronx Tale has
had maybe an even more colorful history than the events that inspired it. Back
in the late 80’s, Calogero Lorenzo “Chazz” Palminteri, a young, struggling
actor with big dreams met with a series of closed doors. Intent on making his
own luck, he realized that as a child he had a unique experience, and developed
a one-man show based on those events. The result was the critically acclaimed
1989 off-Broadway hit A Bronx Tale,
The World
Goes ‘Round, currently being performed at Salem Players in
Catonsville, is a musical revue showcasing the more well-known and favorite
songs of composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb; composers of shows such as
Chicago, Cabaret, Funny Lady, Zorba,
and many others. It would be surprising for any person to be unfamiliar, or not
fond of, at least some the music to be heard in this show.
Into the air as breath into the wind…a Bard quote, yes, but
the truest sanguine nature of theatre; it is ephemeral. And if it is bad, then
we breathe its essence into the wind with breath and it is gone from us,
perchance as if it never existed. But what if it be good? What if it be
superbly refocused? Is it still not ephemeral? Perhaps then we breathe more
slowly, savoring the sounds,
The
Colonial Players of Annapolis have decided to mount a production of Shakespeare
for the first time in over 20 years and after seeing the production the one
question to ask is why have they waited so long? The Merry Wives of Windsor, running now through March 23rd
at the Colonial Players, is a fresh take on a classic Shakespearian Comedy and
a thrilling joy of a night of theatre!
The world has gone mad today and good’s bad today and black’s
white today and day’s night today— and the show today you should see today—
well, God knows…it’s Anything Goes!
Springing up on Silhouette Stage’s stages as the second show of their 2018/2019
season, Cole Porter’s classic ship-set musical is setting sail this spring!
Directed by Conni Ross with Musical Direction by William Georg and Choreography
by Tina Marie DeSimone,
Attend the tale of Sweeney
Todd. The opening line should be enough to entice anyone to visit this dark
and bloody Sondheim event at The Heritage Players. The second in their annual “musical
theatre concert” series, this year’s devious stage offering is none other than
the bloody demon barber of fleet street. Sweeney
Todd, Directed by John Gary Pullen with Musical Direction by David Zajic,
and Vocal Direction by Sharen Camille,
Life! Pain! Love! Grief! Hope! Faith! You! THAT is why they
tell the story! What story, you ask? Once
On This Island Jr.! Who’s telling it, you ask? Children’s Playhouse of
Maryland! Their incredibly talented cast of young performers presents a
whimsical tale of two worlds that were never meant to meet, joined together by
the island they share. Directed by Liz Boyer Hunnicutt, with musical Direction
by Charlotte Evans,
Bowie
Community Theatre is concluding its year of the woman with Deborah Brevoort’s The Women of Lockerbie Directed by
Estelle Miller, a fitting end to a season celebrating women. The play itself is
a nod to ancient Greek drama and a requiem for all the innocent lives lost on
PanAm Flight 103 and on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. The production currently on stage at the
Bowie Playhouse is a tour-de-force performance of five spectacular female
thespians.
It was a
cold and rainy night. Ironic, since I was on my way to see a play about a drought.
I was driving to Harford County. A place that has been in the news recently
because one of its politicians apologized for making a racial remark that she
didn’t recall making. Fitting since this show also features nasty politicians.
Finally, I arrived at Harford Community College and Urinetown. Wow! What an unexpected surprise!
Miraculous— (adjective.)
“performed by or involving a supernatural power or agency. Of the nature of a
miracle; marvelous. Having or seeming to have the power to work miracles.” This
current production of The 25th
Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a miraculous show put forth by
Artistic Synergy. M-I-R-A-C-U-L-O-U-S. Produced
by Melissa Broy Fortson, with Direction by Atticus Cooper Boidy, and Musical
Direction by Rachel Sandler, the astonishing talent, the heartfelt
performances,
I first became involved with
theatre in 1982. So, you can imagine that in 37 years I have seen and
experienced quit a few things in the theatrical world; and then came Sojourners. Sojourners is a play written by first generation Nigerian-American
playwright Mfoniso Udofia. It is currently showing at The Strand Theatre and is
directed by Cheryl J. Williams. It is well written, has a powerfully amazing
cast,
Freak,
slut, burn out, bug eyes, poser, lard ass, loser, short bus, bull dyke, stuck
up, hunchback, white trash! Names. Labels. Words used to describe people who
are different or don’t fit our image of what we consider the “norm.” Words that
one might associate with high school, but all to often are used far more common
in our everyday speech. In fact, if I am being honest, although I didn’t speak
the words,
The Gondoliers,
currently being presented by The Victorian Lyric Opera Company at the F. Scott
Fitzgerald Theatre in Rockville, Maryland, is a valiant interpretation of
Gilbert and Sullivan’s last great success. Directed by Catherine Huntress-Reeve
and music directed by Joseph Sorge the cast and musicians keep up with the
beautiful score both in appropriate action and full-bodied sound that you would
expect from a Gilbert & Sullivan opera.
In
ancient Greek mythology, the shy artist Pygmalion expressed no interest in
women, but when he created a statue of Galatea so fair he fell in love with it,
he made sacrifices to the goddess Aphrodite to give him a woman as beautiful as
his sculpture. She does him one better by bringing the marble Galatea to life
as his reward. In 1912, master Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw used that metaphor
of taking the basest elements of the earth and sculpting them into a real lady
in a very literal sense in his masterpiece Pygmalion.
Amanda N. Gunther | TheatreBloom
Jeff Sullivan and Conor McGiffin in Finding Neverland
Photo: Jeremy Daniel
Literally finding Neverland
entails locating the second star to the right and continuing straight till
morning. Fortunately, a significantly easier path to Finding Neverland entails only a brief 75-minute jaunt to the
National Theatre in Washington, DC where the current NETworks national tour is
camped out for a swashbuckling week of family friendly entertainment.
