May ya be half an hour in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead. May ya be half an hour into this Martin McDonagh dark drama before you know what you’ve gotten yourself into. Maryland Ensemble Theatre picks up its 2025/2026 season with the deliciously dark work of McDonagh, to whom they are no strangers, this time with The Beauty Queen of Leenane, directed by Elizabeth van den Berg. Perception is a tricky thing,
Our subject tonight?
The Squirrels. Better still— The Squirrels at Maryland Ensemble Theatre as the penultimate production of their 2023/2024 main stage season. Written by Robert Askins (Hand To God) and Directed by Julie Herber…well… buckle up, you discerning patrons of the arts, because this one’s a doozey. Hell— I’ll say it. It’s nuts!
Playwright Robert Askins is wringing audiences in Frederick through the high-octane spin-cycle of this satirical washing machine.
Make Shakespeare gay again! The perfectly timed hangtag for Theatre Prometheus’ latest production from the Bard’s canon, [gay] Cymbeline. The company as a whole, though only entering their fourth year, lives up to their motto— “we bring the fire.” For not only do they boldly and daringly swap around the genders in William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline to present a lesbian love story, but their judiciously rendered production actually makes the plot palatable and sensible!
Brave Spirits Theatre are brave spirits indeed. Henri IV is a vast, sprawling, powerful epic of a play. It ranges from intimate love scenes to political intrigue, battles of swords to battles of wits, comedy and tragedy and honor and cowardice. It takes an ambitious theater troupe to portray 67 characters with a dozen actors, and set a variety of different acting challenges. Brave Spirits has both ambition and the skill to achieve it.