Washington, DC Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 4

Review: PRIMARY TRUST at Signature Theatre
by Pamela Roberts - September 22, 2024

Primary Trust is a touching, intimate, and deeply affecting work. The 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winner is making its Washington-area premiere at Signature Theatre in an outstanding production directed by Obie Award winner Taylor Reynolds....

Review: ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD at Nu Sass Productions
by Dara Homer - September 22, 2024

What happens to the characters in a play when they’re not on stage? Do they continue to exist in a narrative limbo outside of time? Does the paradox of characters without stories parallel how we struggle to find meaning in life’s entrances and exits?...

Review: CLUE at The Kennedy Center
by Itai Yasur - September 21, 2024

CLUE: LIVE ON STAGE! at The Kennedy Center Opera House is a sharp and breezy murder-mystery farce right at home in DC says BWW's critic. ...

Review: DISTRICT CHOREOGRAPHER'S DANCE FESTIVAL 2024 at Dance Place
by Michela Dwyer - September 20, 2024

What did our critic think of DISTRICT CHOREOGRAPHER'S DANCE FESTIVAL 2024 at Dance Place?...

Review: SOJOURNERS at Round House Theatre
by David Friscic - September 19, 2024

Nigerian ancestry, and American ideals clash, merge, and play off each other in Sojourners by playwright Mfoniso Udofia -this deeply moving play is part of the epic nine-play Ufot Cycle which follows a Nigerian American family through many cycles of life and generations. This production, presented b...

Review: Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming at Wolf Trap
by Elliot Lanes - September 18, 2024

Every once in a while, you see the billing for a concert and think to yourself “That’s an interesting combination”. This was my exact thought at Wolf Trap with Broadway superstars Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming on the same bill. Don’t get me wrong, their talent is not to be questioned. It’s more...

Review: THE COMEUPPANCE at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
by David Friscic - September 18, 2024

Themes of identity, bonding, loss, self-realization and especially death permeate the numerous layers of Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’ thought-provoking play The Comeuppance. This penetrating work explores so many layers that it is best to let the experience take you where it will. The high school reunion...

Review: COMEDY OF ERRORS at Shakespeare Theatre Comany
by Pamela Roberts - September 16, 2024

The Shakespeare Theatre Company has opened its 2024-2025 season with a fun, frothy, beautifully rendered Comedy of Errors by the theatre’s “resident playwright” William Shakespeare and directed by the company’s artistic director, Simon Godwin. Godwin layers visual and aural punch to keep the pace li...

Review: ECHOES OF AMERICA at Kennedy Center
by Elliot Lanes - September 16, 2024

The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) began their classical season this past Saturday evening in a very satisfying manner. The program was entitled Echoes of America and was conducted by the Artistic Director of The Washington Chorus Eugene Rogers....

Review: THE WAVERLY GALLERY at 1st Stage
by Mary Lincer - September 15, 2024

What did our critic think of THE WAVERLY GALLERY at 1st Stage?...

Review: JAJA'S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING at Arena Stage
by Jake Bridges - September 15, 2024

What did our critic think of JAJA'S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING at Arena Stage?...

Review: OH MY HEART, OH MY HOME at Studio Theatre
by Mary Lincer - September 15, 2024

What did our critic think of OH MY HEART, OH MY HOME at Studio Theatre?...

Review: Cirque Du Soleil's OVO at Capital One Arena
by Elliot Lanes - September 12, 2024

Cirque Du Soleil is one of those attractions that is not easily explained because it has elements from many entertainment genres. Their shows have a very theatrical quality to them while melding circus elements in as well. At their core is fine storytelling, really good production values and dazzlin...

Review: HEATHER HEADLEY with the National Symphony Orchestra at Kennedy Center
by Elliot Lanes - September 10, 2024

When summer ends many people get depressed. Let’s face it, you can’t go to the beach or your private summer home for another year. However, you can look on the bright side of things knowing that the end of summer brings a new season of audible brilliance from the mighty National Symphony Orchestra (...

Review: LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL at Mosaic Theater Company
by David Friscic - September 10, 2024

The celebrated and now-iconic jazz vocalist and legend Billie Holiday is portrayed as a tormented “just holding on” survivor in playwright Lanie Robertson’s play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill. The audience is transported back to the feel of this classic bar and grill to the year 1959 where a t...

Review: THE 22+ WEDDINGS OF HUGO at GALA Hispanic Theatre
by Tavish Young - September 09, 2024

A comforting and sweet time, The 22+ Weddings of Hugo offers a little taste of everything on the menu. It may leave you wanting something more substantial, but none the less was delicious along the way....

Review: MAMMA MIA at Kennedy Center
by Ken Kemp - August 21, 2024

Jukebox musicals generally fall into one of three categories: tribute shows which try to reproduce the music and staging of an iconic musical act as closely as possible (Rain, the Beatles Tribute, for example), biographical narratives (Beautiful, the Carole King Musical and Ain't Too Proud being two...

Review: Bandhouse Gigs 20th Anniversary Tribute to DC Legends at Strathmore
by Roger Catlin - August 20, 2024

Bandhouse Gigs, an outfit that assembles top local musicians to honor a variety of artists from Bob Dylan to the Stones, began its life outdoors at the Strathmore, honoring Nils Lofgren. For a big event Saturday with the full title “Strathmore Presents A BandHouse Gigs 20th Anniversary Tribute to DC...

Review: MJ: THE MUSICAL at National Theatre
by David Friscic - August 19, 2024

The myriad music, moods, and motifs of the “king of pop” (not to mention generic mastery of soul, rhythm and blues, funk, rock, disco, and dance-pop) Michael Jackson, are electrifyingly on display in the ingeniously cutting -edge musical MJ: The Musical now playing at the National Theatre. Not at al...

Review: THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS FAREWELL TOUR at Strathmore
by Roger Catlin - August 18, 2024

The latest Righteous Brothers farewell tour pulled into the Strathmore in Bethesda Thursday, entertaining an elderly crowd who enjoyed hearing their hits from the 1960s....

Review: SOFT POWER at Signature Theatre
by Pamela Roberts - August 15, 2024

Soft Power at Signature Theatre, is lush and polished, wacky and worrisome, absurdist and cautionary. It’s a tightrope of high political stakes and a zany montage of the US and China. As we head into high season of the 2024 election, the timing is perfect for staging the recently revised musical by ...

Review: New York Circus Project's HAMLET an Exhilarating Debut
by Andrew White - August 13, 2024

We usually associate circuses with acrobats and clowning; it never occurs to us to think of circuses as an art form, with tremendous expressive potential. The New York Circus Project (NYCP), takes the art of the circus one dramatic step further.  Currently on its first national tour with their produ...

Review: Edge Of the Universe Theater's A NUMBER
by Hannah R. Wing - August 12, 2024

Edge of the Universe Theater, in association with Avant Bard Theatre, turns up the family drama in an intimate, edgy production of A Number, directed by Stephen Jarrett, starring a real-life father and son.  ...

Review: NINE at Kennedy Center
by Elliot Lanes - August 07, 2024

It’s been 40 years since the national tour of the 1982 Arthur Kopit/Maury Yeston Tony Award winning Broadway musical Nine played at the Kennedy Center. It is currently the latest entry into the Broadway Center Stage series and boasts an all-star cast, a large orchestra and an “interesting” concept b...

Review: NOISES OFF at Keegan Theatre
by Mary Lincer - August 05, 2024

Noises Off remains the hardest to perform play ever written, as well as one of the easiest and most fun to watch. The Play That Goes Wrong tried to surpass it, but it can't be done. Playwright Michael Frayn's 1982 play could be called a love letter to theatre people if it weren't the play that threa...