Washington, DC Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 15

Review: 1776 at Kennedy Center
by David Friscic - July 02, 2023

1776 is now being given a triumphantly moving and vigorous radically deconstructed interpretation at the Kennedy Center. There are many fans already who are firm believers in the message of this uniquely conceived musical but this production will lead them even further into intellectual and sensory ...

Review: THE LION KING at The Kennedy Center
by Jake Bridges - June 26, 2023

What did our critic think of THE LION KING AT THE KENNEDY CENTER at Opera House At The Kennedy Center?...

Feature: THE DEVONSHIRE ARMS is Shepherdstown's, and the Contemporary American Theater Festival's Royal Gem
by Andrew White - June 23, 2023

For years, I have had the incredible privilege and pleasure of reviewing shows, every July, at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. But I have a small confession to make:  the plays are good, sure, but I’m really in it for the Afternoon Tea at Shepherdstown’s t...

Review: SEUSSICAL: THE MUSICAL At Keegan Theatre
by Pamela Roberts - June 22, 2023

Keegan Theatre’s SEUSSICAL: THE MUSICAL is bright and exuberant. It’s a production full of heart and hope. The Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty musical is ambitious for the company – and the tiny stage. The company delivers. The twelve cast members and the six-person band fill the space with music a...

Review: ALISON LEIBY: OH GOD, A SHOW ABOUT ABORTION at Kennedy Center
by Shelby Tyler - June 22, 2023

Walking into the Kennedy Center’s Theater Lab last night, I did not know I’d walk out thinking about my identity as a woman in ways I hadn’t before due to a 70-minute comedy show about abortion. But not even a 5-mile hike from where Roe v. Wade was overturned, Alison Leiby brings her new show Oh God...

Review: REVIEW: THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE GETS THE KIDS INVOLVED! at Adventure Theatre & ATMTC Academy
by Jennifer Muscato - June 20, 2023

THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE asks kids to get involved in the play! It's fun for the young audience with a couple adult-geared jokes sprinkled in....

Review: BROADWAY IN THE PARK at Wolf Trap
by Elliot Lanes - June 20, 2023

Wolf Trap and Signature Theatre’s yearly collaboration continued this past weekend with the third edition of Broadway in The Park. A concert that is meant to showcase some of our best and brightest talent while also featuring two headliners from Broadway. The event is always a good time and this yea...

Review: WHAT'S GOING ON NOW at Kennedy Center
by Roger Catlin - June 19, 2023

The National Symphony Orchestra’s intent this weekend was to pay tribute to the 50th anniversary of native son Marvin Gaye’s classic “What’s Going On” album, a high water mark for both social commentary and Motown soul. ...

Review: THE LAST MATCH at 1st Stage
by Naomi Ducat - June 18, 2023

The Last Match provides an intimate look into the tribulations of two tennis titans, Tim (Drew Kopas) and Sergei (Ethan Miller), who are fighting to achieve greatness both on-and-off the court. This non-chronological story inspires the audience to reflect upon existential struggles that are persiste...

Review: SONNETS FOR AN OLD CENTURY at Spooky Action
by Mary Lincer - June 18, 2023

What did our critic think of SONNETS FOR AN OLD CENTURY at Spooky Action?...

Review: ONE JEWISH BOY at Theater J
by Rachael F. Goldberg - June 16, 2023

In a stunning US premiere, Stephen Laughton’s beautifully moving 'One Jewish Boy' tells the heartbreaking story of a couple’s relationship, and examines the impact of trauma and the different ways we process it....

Review: RADIO GOLF at Round House Theatre
by David Friscic - June 15, 2023

Golf is a metaphor for “the haves and have nots” in playwright August Wilson’s masterful final play Radio Golf. This challenging play now being presented at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre is directed by Reginald L. Douglas with a finely tuned ear for the cadence of speech and the robust, all-encompa...

Review: KUMANANA! AN AFRO-PERUVIAN MUSICAL REVUE at GALA Hispanic Theatre
by Roger Catlin - June 14, 2023

The latest musical production from the GALA Hispanic Theatre highlights a specific but not widely known genre — that of Afro-Peruvian dance, music and poetry. Specifically, it’s about  the work of the influential brother and sister team of Victoria and Nicomedes Santa Cruz, who took separate paths t...

Review: THE ENIGMATIST at The Kennedy Center
by Pamela Roberts - June 11, 2023

Puzzles and patterns, stories and magic are artfully woven together by David Kwong in The Enigmatist at the Kennedy Center. The immersive experience is a little bit theatre, a little bit magic show, with some codebreaking, word games and storytelling thrown in for fun. Who knew that constructing a c...

Review: NEW YORK BALLET: VISIONARY VOICES at the Kennedy Center
by Roger Catlin - June 09, 2023

Read BroadwayWorld's review for NEW YORK BALLET: VISIONARY VOICES at the Kennedy Center....

Review: NEW YORK CITY BALLET PROGRAM A at Kennedy Center
by David Friscic - June 09, 2023

Growing up with the New York City Ballet (NYCB)nearby during my high school and college years (as they had their summer residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs), I was thrilled to turn around many years later to see the Kennedy Center present an evening of some of the Ne...

Review: Mosaic Theater Company's ONE IN TWO at The Atlas Performing Arts Center
by Hannah R. Wing - June 08, 2023

Michael Kevin Darnall, Ryan Jammaal Swain, and Justin Weaks honor Love’s beautifully written play with their performances....

Review: HADESTOWN at National Theatre
by Roger Catlin - June 08, 2023

When the cast of “Hadestown” emerge on stage at the National Theatre waving to the waiting audience, they’re received with cheers like old friends. ...

Review: INCENDIARY at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
by Peter Rouleau - June 06, 2023

Let me tell you a bit about myself. Even before the death of George Floyd and the political earthquake that followed, I have long been of the opinion that drastic and systemic changes are needed in the American judicial system. ...

Review: THE HUMOURS OF BANDON at The Atlas Performing Arts Center
by Mary Lincer - June 03, 2023

What did our critic think of THE HUMOURS OF BANDON at The Atlas Performing Arts Center?...

Review: AUDREY, THE NEW MUSICAL at Creative Cauldron
by Ken Kemp - June 03, 2023

A visually stunning and glamorous look back at the Golden Age of Hollywood....

Review: Essential Theatre's DISSONANCE An Essential Conversation About What Divides Us
by Andrew White - June 02, 2023

The genius of “Dissonances” is the way that it reveals, and then gently dismantles, those walls we erect around ourselves, those unconscious fears that prevent us from really communicating and empathizing with people different from ourselves.  Both Duncan and Sandel create human beings we recognize ...

Review: GOOD GRIEF: SONGS OF THE MOON AND THE UNBROKEN CIRCLE at Kennedy Center
by Pamela Roberts - May 29, 2023

In Good Grief: Songs of the Moon and The Unbroken Circle creator Tariq Darrell O’Meally explores how we become more than what we’ve lost. His answer: we must grieve a person as much as we have loved them and balance loss with praise and celebration. The world premiere is the culmination of the 2022–...

Review: THE CRUCIBLE at Eisenhower Theater
by Mary Lincer - May 25, 2023

What did our critic think of THE CRUCIBLE at Eisenhower Theater? Choreographer Helen Pickett does in her ballet The Crucible just exactly what Arthur Miller attempted in his 1953 play, her source. Both try to make a new language to express the Salem witch trials of 1692 because those events were too...

Review: SWEENEY TODD at Signature Theatre
by Shelby Tyler - May 25, 2023

What did our critic think of SWEENEY TODD at Signature Theatre? Set in the dark streets of London in 1785, we follow barber Sweeney Todd (Nathaniel Stampley) as he returns from wrongful imprisonment by the horrifying Judge Turpin (John Leslie Wolf)....