Washington, DC Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 5

Review: SUMMERTIME: AWA SAL SECKA SINGS LADIES OF JAZZ at Signature Theatre
by Roger Catlin - July 29, 2024

The talented actress and sometime playwright has appeared in dozens of shows in D.C. — and several at Signature, including an award-winning performance in its Ragtime last year. Here, she shares her passion for jazz singers from the golden era that have never gone out of style in a personable revue ...

Review: BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL at Opera House/Kennedy Center
by Mary Lincer - July 26, 2024

The DeLorean in the photo looks cute, but the car star of Back to the Future: The Musical (BTTF), at the Kennedy Center through August 11, goes extremely way past cute when Marty McFly and Doc start driving. ...

Review: THE MOORS at Faction Of Fools
by Roger Catlin - July 24, 2024

The Faction of Fools Theatre Company specializes in the arcane form of the Italian Renaissance, commedia dell’arte, with elaborate masks, exaggerated movements and a kind of extreme reading of what often are classic texts. The troupe’s “Commedia Romeo and Juliet,” revived earlier this year, was a go...

Review: CAPITAL FRINGE FESTIVAL - Dance Highlights at Cafritz Hall And Delirium
by Emily Berger - July 23, 2024

While Fringe proudly does not screen for quality, from what this reviewer saw, this year's dance offerings including two strong works and another mediocre one....

Review: MY CAT NAMED LUCY at Capital Fringe Festival
by Jake Bridges - July 22, 2024

I don’t think anyone will object when I become hyperbolic to say that we, as humans, love our pets. For most people, their cat or dog (or reptile or goldfish or whatever) becomes part of the family once a human assumes the role of pet owner....

Review: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA at Woolly Mammoth Theatre
by David Friscic - July 22, 2024

Steeped in a European existential sensibility, with healthy doses of theatre of the absurd, and an eerie ambience, --performance artist Julia Masli alternately entrances and provokes the audience with her finely honed comedic skills in the deliciously interactive production entitled ha ha ha ha ha h...

Review: LA BOHÈME at Wolf Trap
by Emily Berger - July 20, 2024

Directed by John Caird and, for this revival, Katherine M. Carter, the production featured a talented cast of emerging opera stars, Studio Artists (many of whom were in featured roles), additional chorus members and the Children’s Chorus of Washington. This large cast filled the stage with excitemen...

Review: WHO DID IT? at Capital Fringe - Theater J
by Rachael F. Goldberg - July 20, 2024

'Who Did It?' is a fun, silly, and engaging experience, and its improvised nature ensures it continues to entertain, even for those who make it an annual tradition....

Review: PONDERING ABOUT MY MEMORIES at Capital Fringe Festival
by Pamela Roberts - July 20, 2024

Rodin Alcerro’s PONDERING ABOUT MY MEMORIES is lush, powerful and deeply moving. Premiering at the Capital Fringe Festival, the play explores past, present and future. Like flecks of glitter in a snow globe, in this production thoughts, memories, and fragments drift peacefully or swirl turbulently ...

Review: RE: WRITING at Capital Fringe Festival
by Pamela Roberts - July 19, 2024

RE: WRITING is a moving and assured new work at the Capital Fringe Festival. The play delves into trust and memory. It asks who gets to tell your story, it reflects on the ethics of writing, and it looks at how we surface and articulate the major moments of our lives....

Review: PARTINGS: DANCES OF LETTING GO at Cafritz Hall
by Michela Dwyer - July 18, 2024

What did our critic think of PARTINGS: DANCES OF LETTING GO at Cafritz Hall?...

Review: THE HABER CONUNDRUM at Capital Fringe
by David Friscic - July 18, 2024

The complications of culture, career and conscience cut through fierce nationalistic pride in the heart and mind of the complex and committed Nobel -Prize winner Fritz Haber in the variegated one-person performance of David Kaye in The Haber Conundrum....

Review: PILOBOLUS AT WOLF TRAP'S FILENE CENTER at Wolf Trap
by Emily Berger - July 16, 2024

The company's signature athletic partnering and haunting effects were on display across five works whose power was diminished by the same beauty and craft that made them worth noticing....

Review: A GOOD WOMAN By Nerissa Tunnessen and Samantha Xiao Cody at Cafritz Hall
by Michela Dwyer - July 15, 2024

In A Good Woman, a new work of dance theater premiering at this year’s Capital Fringe Festival, Nerissa Tunnessen and Samantha Xiao Cody construct a space of rich significance in which they reexamine a classic tale. ...

Review: LOOKING FOR JUSTICE (IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES) at Bliss - Capital Fringe Festival
by Rachael F. Goldberg - July 20, 2024

Oppenheimer gives a great performance and a wonderful perspective on some of the core issues that many of us struggle with today, but flails a little when she tries to project onto others. Which, in a way, makes sense – after all, it’s harder to see the other sides of the story beyond your own....

Review: DEMOCRACY at Cafritz Hall @ DCJCC
by Mary Lincer - July 14, 2024

What did our critic think of DEMOCRACY at Cafritz Hall @ DCJCC?...

Review: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ALL THAT BEAUTY? A Deeply Moving Offering at CATF
by Andrew White - July 22, 2024

Playwright Donja R. Love refers to 'Beauty' as an offering, in the spiritual sense of the word; and it truly is one of the most uplifting cycles, in times of trouble and misunderstanding, we are likely to see.  Director Malika Oyetimein has marshalled a stellar cast, and guided this show with great ...

Review: CATF's Production of THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH a Brilliant Tale of a Remarkable Life
by Andrew White - July 13, 2024

There is nothing in the world like a compelling, original story, well told.  And when the story is true, darkly and brilliantly real, it becomes absolutely indispensable. Playwright Mark St. Germain has plumbed the depths of the Holocaust to create a deeply moving one-man show, The Happiest Man on E...

Review: OVER HER DEAD BODY by Pinky Swear Productions at Theatre J
by Mary Lincer - July 12, 2024

Pinky Swear has revived its 2016 production of Over Her Dead Body for this year's Capital Fringe. The musical revue surveys murder ballads (yes, that is a thing) which originated in Scotland and England during the 16th century before emigrating to Appalachia and obtaining improved orchestration (Ame...

Review: THE COLORED MUSEUM at Studio Theatre
by Roger Catlin - July 11, 2024

It’s hard to imagine the impact George C. Wolfe’s razor-sharp satire “The Colored Museum” must have had when it opened in New York nearly 40 years ago. ...

Review: BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROL KING MUSICAL at Olney Theatre Center
by Ken Kemp - July 10, 2024

The fascinating story of one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century, flawless presented by a sublimely talented cast....

Review: Suspense & Horror at CATF with ENOUGH TO LET THE LIGHT IN
by Andrew White - July 09, 2024

With her play Enough to Let the Light In, Paloma Nozicka has crafted one of those great psychological thrillers; the build-up is slow but steady, the characters finely drawn, and the climax will make you jump.  But there’s no need for blood, it’s all in your head.  And if you are looking for an even...

Review: CATF Touches Down Brilliantly with innovative TORNADO TASTES LIKE ALUMINUM STING
by Andrew White - July 09, 2024

With Harmon dot aut’s semi-autobiographical play, Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting, audiences at CATF will have that rarest of encounters—a play that reveals the world as it is experienced, and processed, by a profoundly autistic, synaesthetic pre-teen who can only communicate with the outside wor...

Review: KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL at Adventure Theatre & ATMTC Academy
by Jennifer Muscato - July 06, 2024

What did our critic think of KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL at Adventure Theatre & ATMTC Academy?...

Review: PATHWAYS TO PERFORMANCE at Kennedy Center
by Emily Berger - July 05, 2024

This outstanding festival featured brilliant new or recent work by five choreographers....