It's starting to become an annual holiday tradition. For the third straight year, packed houses in the Meyerhoff Auditorium at the BMA are being treated to Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodric…
Baltimore theatergoers will remember Jaclyn Backhaus' brilliant "Men on Boats" from its local premiere with Cohesion Theatre Arts in 2017 (Center Stage produced it a season or two later). Wh…
I am God " Without one friend, Alone in my purity. " Langston Hughes God is a concept by which we measure our pain. " John Lennon It still humbles me that this force that makes leaves …
Two up, eight to go. The Baltimore August Wilson Celebration has hit its stride. After Arena Players' triumphant production of "Gem of the Ocean" in April (read our review), Chesapeake Shake…
Sofie Treadwell's "Machinal" is an important play with a fascinating back story. It's regarded by many as a crucial member of the 20th century American theatrical canon, but has been very ra…
Hog Island, Maryland isn't really an island. At least, it doesn't look like one on a map. Scan the Eastern Shore southward to a point in Dorchester County that's due east of Lexington Park. …
When Chesapeake Shakespeare Company unveiled its soulful adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" this spring, fans came out in droves. They loved the way this classic was re-framed with the sights …
There's just something about Irish playwrights, especially the current generation. In 2017, Baltimore audiences saw the American premiere of "Voices in the Rubble" by Darren Donahue at Rapid…
Those who were fortunate enough to catch Caleen Sinnette Jennings' Queens Girl trilogy in recent years will find familiar terrain in Priyanka Shetty's "The Elephant in the Room." Making its …
Described by its publisher as an unromantic comedy and darker cousin of "Almost, Maine," John Cariani's "Love/Sick" premiered as a collection of nine short plays sharing themes that surround…
Many of us would like to think that when Ntozake Shange's first play premiered Off-Broadway, the world was a vastly different place than it is now. Surely, the intervening years have produce…
Agatha Christie's considerable contributions notwithstanding, it is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who is credited with inventing the modern detective procedural. Three years before Christie's birth…
When the Baltimore August Wilson Celebration was announced last week, the project was already off to a head-start. Arena Players had already planned "Gem of the Ocean" for their 70th season.…
In the familiar Grimms' Fairy Tale version of the Hansel and Gretel story, a young brother and sister are left to starve in a forest, their father forced by a wicked stepmother to sacrifice …
Many theater companies like to talk about "challenging" their audiences or delivering "art with a message," perhaps as an apology for forcing us to eat our proverbial vegetables. Some others…
Jane E. Nitsch and Sam David. Photo by Machpe Protography. In "Guys and Dolls," the character Nicely-Nicely experiences a rebirth of spirituality, scared straight by a dream which taught him…
For many years the short play form has been a well-respected point of entry into writing for the stage. In the late 20th century, The Humana Festival popularized a sub-genre: the ten-minute …
If you had the ability and the means to customize your afterlife experience, would you do it? Baltimore's Submersive Productions' latest project casts its audience in the role of marketing f…
The season of summer blockbusters is upon us. Movie theaters everywhere are filled with big stories, employing big casts, and consuming big budgets. It's enough to give one a sense of screen…
American linguist Einar Haugen coined the term "code-switching" in 1954, to describe "the mixing of languages or dialects across different ethnic or racial demographics." A later work by Wil…
Maryland's last historically recognized lynching happened on October 18, 1933. Playwright Jack L.B. Gohn used the date (but none of the other details) of George Armwood's brutal torture and …
In 1946, 13-year-old Eunice Waymon made her piano concert debut. Her parents were forced to vacate their front row seats in the segregated venue. Eight years later, she found herself gigging…
"Cool Hand Luke" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" are both high on any list of classic films of the modern period. They're the same kind of hero/martyr story, centered on one character'…
From established stage authors to wannabe first-timers, playwrights from all over the region are drawn each year to create a unique ten-minute play festival called The Variations Project. Fo…
Barbara Kahn's screwball comedy, "The Lady Was a Gentleman," is a hilarious mélange of six disparate women in 1858 St. Louis. Charlotte Cushman (Julia Williams), a famous actor, is on a the…