It's always an awkward situation when leadership of an organization transitions. The smartest model, of course, is for the outgoing leader to separate cleanly and to fade quietly into the pa…
"If the performance sucks, it is 100% your fault, divided by the number of people here." So the audience was informed toward the end of #txtshow (on the internet), which I experienced last n…
"You might be isolated, but you're not alone. You are an art maker. Let's make some together." -Mo Willems Willems is the author of some of the most popular books for young audiences o…
There are a few ways to handle the often reviled, increasingly prevalent form we know as the "jukebox musical." Sometimes (Mama Mia!, as an example), the music catalog of a popular artist or…
We few; we happy few. Six performances times sixteen seats comes to fewer than 100 people who will see The Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers, which is a very early one-act by Tennesse…
As A Christmas Carol is to the theatre, so is The Nutcracker to the dance. It's the perennially performed ballet that defines the holiday experience for many families " and provides a depend…
If you think you hear the gloriously ingenious cackling of delighted children, it may be emanating from the Family Theater at The Kennedy Center. If it is mixed with some lower-pitched guffa…
"I think that anybody coming in will go, 'Oh wow: look at those people; look at that time in life; look at that relevancy to now. That man is being so horrible to that other person; why?' In…
Mark Twain's 1881 novel, The Prince and the Pauper, receives an engaging update (with a "digital, Hip Hop-infused twist") at Kennedy Center's Family Theater with the world premiere of the Ke…
I expect that, if you've found your way to this review, you will love the national tour of the recent Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!, newly ensconced at Kennedy Center's Opera House. Look…
"What's wonderful about this play is: it really should appeal to any lover out there." Vivienne Benesch was speaking with me as her production of Love's Labor's Lost was nearing its first pe…
Michael Hollinger doesn't want you to be misled by a thumbnail description of Ghost-Writer, his three-character play about an Edwardian-era writer, his wife, and his secretary, the latter of…
You're never too young to be taken to the theatre. And you're never so young that you shouldn't expect a lot from the theatre that is aimed toward you. That seems to be the proposition behin…
I had a wonderful time at The Watsons Go to Birmingham " 1963, a Theater for Young Audience's world premiere Kennedy Center commission, on stage at the Center's Eisenhower Theater through Ma…
 I asked three actors, all playing female royalty in Richard the Third at Shakespeare Theatre Company, to talk about what might convince wavering potential audiences to see this producti…
"I hope it is funny and sexy " and moving, too." I had asked playwright Joe Calarco about Separate Rooms, his newest work; in particular, what about it would pique the interest o…
Double Dutch equals freedom. A character in She A Gem, on-stage at The Kennedy Center's Family Theater through Feb. 24th, says that, or something to that effect, early in the hour-long show.…
What I remember most vividly about Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!, some forty years after I saw her performance, are her eyes, and the surprising vulnerability, even neediness, that they ex…
I don't care if The Play That Goes Wrong has won prestigious theatre awards named Olivier and Tony. I don't care how much the ticket costs, and that there is an intermission, and that it pla…
"In mid-August, I did the audition and, the very next day, I got the call from my agent that I had booked it; and then, six days after that, I started rehearsal; and then, six days after tha…
The jukebox musical is the red-headed step-child of contemporary theatre. The worst reviews you could ever read in, say, The New York Times will be of jukebox musicals. (Okay; maybe King Kon…
The ever dependable Adventure Theatre MTC has unveiled its Christmas show for this year, Fancy Nancy’s Splendiferous Christmas. Based on a book (part of a series) by Jane O'Connor and …
I once saw Edward Albee speak on a panel with Robert Wilson. Albee described his disappointment when he re-watched the Werner Herzog film Aguirre, Wrath of God. There was a particular sequen…
When Rick Foucheux retired from acting, he did so as one of the most popular, award-winning, Â one might even say beloved performers in town. Many bemoaned the prospect of no more Foucheux…
Editor’s note:Â Carrie Coon was an unknown Chicago actor before landing the role of Honey, the “pliant and sweetly sozzled soul” in Steppenwolf’s Whose Afraid of V…