People only know what you tell them. And this person is telling you that the best musical experience you’re going to have this summer is at the Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre. Directed by Mark Briner with Musical Direction by Julie Ann Hawk, the area premier of Broadway’s Catch Me If You Can is live in living color under the stars for a limited engagement and it is nothing short of a stupendous dance-musical sensation.
Well, Jeely kly! Baltimore’s got trouble! Trouble? Right here in Charm City! They got a theatre troupe— that starts with ‘T’ which rhymes with ‘P’ and that stands for pool! Meredith Wilson’s one hit wonder takes to the stage as the Charm City Players close out their second season at St. Timothy’s school. The Music Man is their sixth show to date and the company is proving that they know the territory of musical theatre.
Impossible is only in the mind. That is, of course, until it takes to the stage with Happenstance Theatre. Remounting their very successful Impossible! A Happenstance Circus, the movement-based ensemble company’s show is received to great acclaim at Round House Theatre Bethesda this summer. Truly investing the imagination of the audience into their work, the company— consisting of the two co-founders and four additional core performers— scales new heights with their mime work,
Everyone should be needed by someone and need someone; be loved by someone and love someone. We all need someone to touch our bones when we are dead. The elusively fantastical play, The Pillow Book, which has only been produced once before in New York, makes its regional premier as a co-production with Cohesion Theatre Company and Strand Theatre Company here in Baltimore. Written by Anna Moench and Directed by Jonas David Grey,
Brush up your Shakespeare! You might need it to thoroughly enjoy each and every hysterical joke featured in 2nd Star Productions current performance of Kiss Me, Kate, the musical whose focus revolves around the Bard’s Taming of the Shrew. Directed by Roy Hammond with Musical Direction Joe Biddle, the show is a smash-hit sensation with an extraordinarily talented cast that makes an afternoon at the theatre thoroughly enjoyable.
Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! Let’s get ready to— FAIRYTALE!!! In a dynamic new children’s production, Infinity Theatre Company brings an exciting new musical to the stage with the performance of Jack VS Rapunzel. With Book and Lyrics by the company’s Co-Artistic Director Alan Ostroff, and Music by Clayton Colwell, these classic fairytale characters are being presented in a brand new fashion that is both entertaining and educational.
Comedy, at last! Having lost their opening night to a power failure, the students of Montgomery College Summer Dinner Theatre came roaring back with energy, style, and verve. A Funny Thingis a very, very funny thing. Directed by Walter Ware III with Musical Direction by John Henderson, this modern reimagining of Roman farces features songs by Steven Sondheim. The opening number, “Comedy Tonight” gets off to a roaring and hilarious start,
There is nothing like the logic of an illogical mind. The witty resplendence that is the hallmark of Neil Simon is resonating through Parlor Room Theatre’s current production of Fools. Directed by Frank DiSalvo Jr., this double-whammy of a whip-smart comedy packs the punch-lines from start to finish, catering to a vast array stylistic humors. An amusing production that infuses love with wit and idiots with brains, this show is a great light-hearted evening of entertainment to enjoy this summer.
Espionage. Romance. Communists. Tourists. A magic priest living in the attic of the US embassy. Don’t Drink the Water has it all this summer as Cockpit in Court‘s first production of their 2015 season upstairs in their cabaret. A Woody Allen comedy, the play is Directed by Albert J. Boeren and is an honest hysterical hoot that keeps the audience laughing all through the chaos and calamity of an innocent summer vacation gone wrong in 1967.
What’s love got to do— got to do with it? Who needs a heart when you can have an entire cast full of fun at Cockpit in Court this summer season? Kicking off their musical series with The Wedding Singer, is a great way to put love in the air for the summer. Directed by Greg Dorsey, with Musical Direction by Nathan Christopher Scavilla, this 80’s based on the New Line Cinema film is sure to get you dancing to the well-loved riffs of the era all throughout the night.
Victorian Lyric Opera Company has found a gem in Ruddigore and they have set it in a jewel-piece of a production. It never received much love during its authors’ lifetimes, but in the adept hands of Director Helen Aberger and her tremendously talented cast, it is an absolute delight today. A lesser produced Gilbert & Sullivan work, whose alternate title is The Witch’s Curse, receives Musical Direction from Joseph Sorge and is well worth seeing this hot and humid summer.
At the end of the day it’s another show over. And that show it has surely been making its rounds. From Broadway to touring and finally released to the public— Les Miserables settles down for one show more at The Milburn Stone Theatre in North East Maryland. Broadway’s biggest musical is live in Cecil County for a three weekend limited engagement run and may be the last time that any area theatre is given the rights to perform the show for quite some time to come.
A man is a man, he is not an angel nor is he meant to be. Tartuffe is just such a man, and his tale in its tragically comedic entirety can be found at Shakespeare Theatre Company as they finish out their 2014/2015 at Sidney Harman Hall with a co-production of Molière’s iconic production shared by South Coast Repertory and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Under the Direction of Dominique Serrand, the classic dark comedy is heralded with new enlightenment;
As a walking contradiction, partly truth, partly fiction, the musicalization of the life of Johnny Cash suits the man in black. Well known for its revitalizing revivals of obscure, outdated, and lost musical gems, Infinity Theatre Company settles into the 2015 Annapolis summer with a surefire shot at success. Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash, created and conceived by Richard Maltby Jr., and William Meade adapted from the Broadway production by Maltby Jr.
Money talks. And in a city of few secrets and much chat it’s easy to see that Washington DC hasn’t changed in 70 years. The world can only be as good as the people in it, and the same goes for a play. Fortunately at the Vagabond Players, the talent thriving within the confines of Garson Kanin’s Born Yesterday is stellar, making the production a smashing success. Directed by Steve Goldklang,
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and the world laughs harder. A tough but true learning lesson of life that all too often gets brushed by the wayside in favor of a more optimistic approach to finding the bright side of existence. The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre is tackling its most evocative and poignantly moving drama to date with their current production of Burt V. Royal’s Dog Sees God.
Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona is, by turns, hilarious and horrifying, and it’s hard to know which of these is more daunting to a director approaching the play. Annapolis Shakespeare Company‘s Sally Boyett conquers both with flying colors. Her 1920’s-inspired Two Gents is sharp, incisive, fearless, and polished.
Proteus and Valentine (Patrick Truler and Joel Ottenheimer) are young friends on the verge of manhood. Proteus loves Julia (Amy Pastoor),
The cold grey tendrils of a dim English dawn are unfurling across the Annapolis harbor. The thrilling era of 1890’s London has slipped across the docks and settled into the Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre to launch the first show of their 50th season of theatre under the stars. Instead of a night of traditional ASGT musical revelry, The Music Hall Royale has brought to the stage their latest work— the greatest injustice of Charles Dickens’ life— his unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
When family is involved there’s never a dull moment. Add death into the mixture and the calamity of chaos becomes an uproarious and heartfelt comedy about putting the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional. Just Off Broadway Baltimore presents their seventh production of Daddy’s Dyin’ Who’s got the Will this spring and it’s a hoot. Directed by Jason Crawford Samios-Uy, the laughs come rolling out of Lowake, Texas like tumbleweed scooting across the dessert at high noon.
Let’s take a moment to have a beer you and I. There. Now we are fully prepared to enjoy one of the finest forms of comedy ever put to stage: Commedia D’elle Arte. Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s adaptation of Goldoni’s classic The Servant of Two Masters by Timothy Mooney is ready for us. Ensconced, a jewel in the firmament of Reynolds Tavern Courtyard, Director Sally Boyett choreographs a “Commedia D’ell Right Now” that doesn’t just tickle the funny bone it hits it hard and rubs it for you afterwards.
When the walls fell down and everything ended; the bones rose out of the dirt. An epic poem, not your traditional format for what comes to the stage as theatre, but in keeping true to the mission statement of Venus Theatre, company founder Deborah Randall opens Dry Bones Rising, script #52 and the second of the 15th season, on the stage and it calls to mind more than just poetry in motion.
When I was a lad there was an anime called Paranoia Agent that questioned all perception of reality and illusion. The music was hypnotic and jarring, harmonies clashing with sharp metallic screeches and traditional Noh theater horns and strings. The theme song is called “Dream Island: Obsessional Park.” Baltimore Theatre Project’s exquisite moving work of art, Dream Island, Directed by Naoko Maeshiba, and created by the entire team (listed below) is an obsessional park where dreams are shredded and collaged together in a papier-mãchè sculpture of light,
I’ll give you a picture, you give me a script in two weeks. Better yet, I’ll give you a play, well, I won’t give you a play, see, that’s the job of The Yellow Sign Theatre Company. And they could be giving you a love story, they could be giving you animal mutants. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then their production of Mike Jancz’ new work The Business End is surely worth one evening of your attention?
Come sing about love! And build a better city, not a city of angels but a city of man. The message is clear and in this particular moment in time it couldn’t be more relevant than what’s rolling out to the audience from Silhouette Stage’s production of Godspell. Directed by Stephen M. Deininger, with Musical Direction by Robin Trenner, this reimagined take on Stephen Schwartz’ music and John-Michael Tebelak’s original conception is exactly what the world needs in this time of destruction and man-wrought chaos.
2 Across, by Jerry Mayer of such writing fame as M*A*S*H and All in the Family, is an enjoyable evening of theatre at the Theater Project Beltsville, considering the subject you are watching is two commuters doing a crossword puzzle. Nestled in the corner of a strip mall among five storefront churches, Abiding Presence Lutheran Church offers no pretensions of being a theater.
Life is only important if you can help plenty of people. And Centerstage is helping plenty of people by jammin’ and jammin’ and jammin’ and jammin’ to the groovy heartfelt love that can only be Bob Marley. With Music and Lyrics by the Reggae legend himself and a Book written by Centerstage’s Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah, this intricate examination of Marley’s life and his work to help the masses is a moving experience that shakes the soul with the chords of justice,
Red! The blood of angry men! Black! The Dark of ages past! Red! A world about to dawn! Black! The night that ends at last! Night has ended and the world is dawning at the Children’s Playhouse of Maryland. Painted in the bold barricade colors of red and black, and just a season behind the sensational trend of producing the internationally acclaimed musical, CMP brings the iconic production of Les Miserables to the stage for Baltimore to enjoy.
“Nobody puts baby in a corner.” Johnny Castle’s immortal line repeated like a wave of mantras through the pre-show audience, ranging in age from people who have older siblings who have the film memorized to people who were teenagers during the play’s setting of the summer of 1963. Now appearing in musical form, Dirty Dancing, with Book by Eleanor Bergstein and Music and Lyrics by John Morris, takes to the stage at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center as a part of the Broadway Across America— CareFirst Hippodrome Broadway series.
We go on pretending that stories like ours have happy endings. But in the game of chess, who can say where the story will end? One king conquered, one queen fallen; a gripping story of love, war, and a deceptively simple board game set to stirring music comes to live in the Kensington Arts Theatre production of Chess the musical. With their most ambitious production to date, KAT succeeds in winning over the audience with the Music of Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson,
A marvelous illusion. A terrible surprise! Who knew that The Salem Players were passing themselves off as a little community theatre when in actuality they were harboring operatic talent in their repitoire? Presenting a rarely seen Gilbert and Sullivan, The Sorcerer takes to the stage at TSP and is really quite the accomplishment. The talent and voices alone that waft off that stage surpass any expectations that come to mind when one thinks of little community theatres,