Andrew White - Page 2

Jo Williamson's one-woman show, 'Mary,' is by turns a desultory affair, a tale of a high school English teacher with a varied career pattern, and a variety of relationships with men. 

Inspired by Jordan Peele's blockbuster horror film 'Get Out,' Hutchinson has crafted a Dickensian morality play with 'Whitelisted,' set in a predictably bland, hoity-toity, newly-renovated white lady's apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

With Victor Lesniewski's cyber-drama 'The Fifth Domain,' CATF steps boldly into a genre that is in its relative infancy. Focused on the world of code, on computer hacking, and on the shadowy world of international cyber-espionage, Lesniewski contemplates the darkest potential behind the infernal machines that now rule our lives.

Sarah Ellen Stephens delivers a passionate, nuanced performance as Amina, a black Cleveland police officer whose relationship with a fellow, white officer is dealt a huge blow when a late-night confrontation with a suspect leads to a shooting, under murky circumstances. Playwright Kevin Artigue does an admirable job of laying out the complexities, leaving enough room for all of us to contemplate how easily even the best of intentions can implode.

Jessi D. Hill's production of 'Ushuaia Blue' offers us a performance piece that is part tone poem, part personal tragedy, part environmental meditation. Shifting with ease from one time and place, and from one frame of mind, to another, the cast offers us a glimpse of how our understanding of global climate change needs to expand-beyond the microscopes and bathyscaphes, beyond the labs, beyond those cute penguins, and out onto the ever-more-endangered ice of Antarctica.

Jacqueline Goldfinger's 'Babel' was written in, and for, a different time and a different nation. Although designed as a comedy, watching its action unfold in the Marinoff Theatre at this year's Contemporary American Theatre Festival, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, it's striking how the end of Roe vs. Wade, and the already-engaged battle over women's bodies nationwide, can force an entirely different reckoning from the audience.

Terence Anthony's offering at this year's Contemporary American Theater Festival, 'The House of the Negro Insane,' will sweep you up in a tornado of emotions and deliver a few gut-punches as well, with riveting characters whose challenges make our own problems look as trivial as that fly landing on your picnic blanket. A polished piece of playwriting, this piece-now finally launched, after the long COVID hiatus-should find its place on stages across the country.

'The Joy that Carries You' is a touching and touchingly thoughtful journey, one which many might recognize in their own. But Secka and Stoller also make this a celebration of the relationships which until (only) very recently were taboo. Thank goodness we're no longer at the stage where seeing two women choosing each other as life-partners is a shock; we can now see them as human beings. But we also know that relationships like this are still fraught with a unique form of anxiety, between the women themselves but especially with their families.

The Washington Stage Guild has finally had the opportunity to stage D. W. Gregory's searing study of innocence, hardened cynicism and totalitarian self-delusion, 'Memoirs of a Forgotten Man.' In spite of the long hiatus from its premiere four years ago (pre-COVID), the play continues to challenge us, throwing the mirror up to our flawed natures.

Recently, CATF supporters gathered to hear one of playwright Chisa Hutchinson's latest pieces, a radio drama that was co-produced with the Vermont's Dorset Theatre Festival. Over a fine, inventively crafted lunch at one of Shepherdstown's newest restaurants, Alma Bea (near the railroad tracks, just a couple blocks from the town's main drag), we were all given headphones and were instantly immersed in a tense, emotionally-wrenching drama 'Redeemed.'

Last night, the Sidney Harman Theatre was just sitting there, minding its own business. Who knew it would be invaded by a small squadron of lawyers, hell-bent on mayhem, in a full-frontal assault on the integrity of one of Shakespeare's most innocent (if naïve) characters?

If there were any doubt in your mind that theatre is back, as thrilling and death-defying as ever, make your plans now to see Synetic Theatre’s take on the old Italian classic “Servant of Two Masters.”  Fasten your seat belts, you’ll be on a roller-coaster of virtuosity, wordless and breathless, for a solid hour and a half. 

It's a new day in Shepherdstown, indeed; after a 2-year hiatus from live theatre, the Contemporary American Theater Festival is returning with a panoply of performances to choose from: six fascinating plays, workshops and coffees with the artists, and a cabaret or two to complement the mainstage events.

Any time you can spend with a master storyteller is time well spent; and when the storyteller is Psalmayene 24, you know you're in for a rewarding, though-provoking evening. This time, digging into his past, with all the joys and pain that growing up involves, audiences can look forward to a performance that is by turns dazzling, drop-dead hilarious, but with moments of darkness that remain all too familiar.

When we first enter the Mulitz-Gedelsky Theater Lab at Olney, we see a thrust stage decked out with a wide variety of Victorian-style bric-a-brac, strategically tossed about by Scenic Designer Jacob A. Climer. Forget the tree and the lights, forget the boxes with tacky wrapping, I’ll take the pile of stuff here any time--it's Christmas all over again! 

The scenes in Birds unfold over a decade in the life of father and daughter, marked by accumulating leaves and, of course, accumulating tensions, as each of them face moments of crushing disappointment, binoculars in hand, alternately consoling and infuriating each other.

'The Picnics: A Nitwit Dyptich,' makes a perfect dessert to an evening of binge-watching your favorite historical drama, a perfect hors-d'oeuvre before diving into that meaty documentary series. At 14 minutes, it's also just the right, bite-size for a mid-day snack. Which is, actually, kinda what it's about...

It’s time to get out, people.  I mean, let’s face it – you can only get by for so long on Disney+ or Netflix before you want a taste of living flesh—er, live theatre. With their production of 'And Then There were None,' Kensington Arts Theatre has got a great evening out – if you don’t mind the occasional gunshot, offstage shrieks, or bodies lying around.  Great fun, I’d say.

Bethesda's own Quotidian Theatre, which has been a true labor of love and art, after nearly 25 years on the D.C. theatre scene, is making an appropriately subtle, and grand, exit. Horton Foote's intensely psychological drama, The Day Emily Married, is a piece that Artistic Director Jack Sbarbori famously brought to life, staging its world premiere and making Quotidian's reputation at the same time. His relationship with Foote has been a hallmark of Quotidian's work, and it's easy to see why.

How He Lied to Her Husband is a charming, 40-minute diversion which will enliven any home, and should be at the top of your to-watch list for this weekend.  Available only until Sunday night (per hyper-strict Equity guidelines), it features three of DC’s great talents and offers us a tantalizing glimpse of what kind of fare the Washington Stage Guild will serve up, live and onstage, come the Fall.