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Roger Catlin - Page 2

Roger Catlin

Roger Catlin, a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, is a Washington D.C.-based arts writer whose work appears regularly in SmithsonianMagazine.com. and AARP the Magazine. He has also written for The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide and Salon and was a staff writer for The Hartford Courant in Connecticut for 25 years. 






Review: SUPER FREAK: THE RICK JAMES STORY at National Theatre
Review: SUPER FREAK: THE RICK JAMES STORY at National Theatre
April 3, 2024

Somewhere between touring tribute acts and high-gloss Broadway jukebox musical bios are the more modest regional  musicals created to nominally perform the hits of a legacy pop act, in costume, adding biographical details as a story arc.

Review: SYMPHONY SWING! AN EVENING OF DUKE ELLINGTON at Kennedy Center
Review: SYMPHONY SWING! AN EVENING OF DUKE ELLINGTON at Kennedy Center
March 16, 2024

The American musical giant Duke Ellington wrote more than 1,000 compositions in his long career, and to mark the 125th anniversary of his birth in his native city, The Kennedy Center is determined to celebrate a lot of them. 

Review: SONGBIRD at Kennedy Center
Review: SONGBIRD at Kennedy Center
March 12, 2024

There’s an awful lot of death in opera, Timothy O’Leary, the general director of Washington National Opera, lamented on a recent opening night. And those plentiful tragedies are also often further burdened with overbearing scores, turgid storylines, super-large casts and strident if not shrill performances. 

Review: CORIOLANUS at Avant Bard
Review: CORIOLANUS at Avant Bard
March 6, 2024

The historical Coriolanus, if he existed at all, was Rome’s most fearsome fighter, trained as a child, excelling as a warrior-leader and able to conquer whole other cities sometimes single-handedly. Even so, James Finley, who portrays the title character in Shakespeare’s tragedy in an eye-opening co-production by the Avant Bard Theatre with Longacre Lea, may be working even harder.

Review: PEQUEÑAS INFIDELIDADES (LITTLE INFIDELITIES) at Teatro De La Luna
Review: PEQUEÑAS INFIDELIDADES (LITTLE INFIDELITIES) at Teatro De La Luna
March 5, 2024

“Pequeñas Infidelidades (Little Infidelidades),” the latest production at the tiny Teatro de La Luna on Georgia Avenue, is a nifty two-hander in which a couple seems to accidentally meet after years apart. Through their banter and barbs we eventually learn the truth behind their past union, their individual paths since and their current intent.

Review: THE WASHINGTON BALLET: JAZZ ICONS - A FINE ROMANCE at Kennedy Center
Review: THE WASHINGTON BALLET: JAZZ ICONS - A FINE ROMANCE at Kennedy Center
February 19, 2024

The dance school choices for students, I recall, were ballet and jazz tap. Ne’er the twain shall meet, as Kipling said of the east and west. 

Review: LAS HERMANAS PALACIOS (THE PALACIOS SISTERS) at GALA Hispanic Theatre
Review: LAS HERMANAS PALACIOS (THE PALACIOS SISTERS) at GALA Hispanic Theatre
February 6, 2024

The biggest drama at the GALA Hispanic Theatre this year didn’t happen on stage; it was the $250,000 that was stolen when its bank account was hacked and drained, threatening the long-serving Spanish-language performance space as its 50th anniversary approached.

Review: A COMMEDIA ROMEO AND JULIET at Faction Of Fools Theatre Company
Review: A COMMEDIA ROMEO AND JULIET at Faction Of Fools Theatre Company
January 24, 2024

Commedia dell’Arte was a theatrical style that developed in Italy more than 450 years ago. Intended for the lower classes, with exuberant physical movement, improvisation, lots of masks and stock characters like the Harlequin and Pulcinella, it was a celebratory perfect for the carnivale circuit.

Review: AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE: Three 20-Minute Operas at Kennedy Center
Review: AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE: Three 20-Minute Operas at Kennedy Center
January 23, 2024

What did our critic think of AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE: THREE 20-MINUTE OPERAS at Kennedy Center?

Review: LOVE LOVE LOVE at Studio Theatre
Review: LOVE LOVE LOVE at Studio Theatre
January 16, 2024

British playwright Mike Bartlett, born in 1980, takes up the legacy of London’s swinging 60s in his play Love Love Love currently running in a sharp, well-acted production at Studio Theatre.

Review: HOW TO BE A KOREAN WOMAN at Theater J
Review: HOW TO BE A KOREAN WOMAN at Theater J
January 9, 2024

Like many adoptees when they reach adulthood, Sun Mee Chomet had a desire to find her biological parent.

Review: FROZEN at Kennedy Center
Review: FROZEN at Kennedy Center
December 26, 2023

The nationally traveling version of the Broadway musical has made its Washington premiere at the Kennedy Center and is already attracting large crowds of adults and many children, some of which are attired in the costumes of its lead characters Elsa and Anna (though mostly Elsa).

Review: BALLET WEST: THE NUTCRACKER at Kennedy Center
Review: BALLET WEST: THE NUTCRACKER at Kennedy Center
November 25, 2023

The first Nutcracker appear at the Kennedy Center this year is from Ballet West, based in Salt Lake City. And as brisk and fresh as it feels, it comes as something of a surprise that its lineage goes back to the very first U.S. performance of what’s become the most popular ballet in the country by far. 

Review: A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS at Ford's Theatre
Review: A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS at Ford's Theatre
November 25, 2023

Michael Wilson’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas,” first staged in Houston but run for many years at Hartford Stage (where it has returned this season), has been a mainstay at the historic Fords since 2004.

Review: HOW SWEET IT IS: THE MEN OF SOUL at Signature Theatre
Review: HOW SWEET IT IS: THE MEN OF SOUL at Signature Theatre
November 11, 2023

Signature Theatre is helping expand the American Songbook to include rock and pop classics of a half century ago in cabaret shows this winter that will celebrate Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Burt Bacharach.

Review: AGRESTE (DRYLANDS) at Spooky Action
Review: AGRESTE (DRYLANDS) at Spooky Action
October 31, 2023

Out in an arid, underpopulated northeastern Brazil, an unusual but not entirely inconceivable love story plays out, presented as a kind of morality lesson or at least a cautionary tale. 

Review: ORLANDO at Constellation Theatre Company
Review: ORLANDO at Constellation Theatre Company
October 19, 2023

Virginia Woolf was onto something when she wrote her novel “Orlando: A Biography” 95 years ago — a tall tale of aristocracy and adventure for a poet who also happens to change gender. It rings true, too, in its adaptation by Sarah Ruhl, the clever and popular contemporary playwright whose version of the story was one of her earliest commissions in 1998.

Review: MACBETH IN STRIDE at Shakespeare Theatre Company
Review: MACBETH IN STRIDE at Shakespeare Theatre Company
October 17, 2023

They aren’t actually that in Whitney White’s concert cum critique “Macbeth in Stride” at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. But they do backup singing, some choreographed dance moves (by Raja Feather Kelly), reply and advise the lead and never quite leave the stage, itself dressed up like a spangly nightclub revue (set by Daniel Soule, lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew). In all, it seems perfect for that girl group from Detroit.

Review: LA SALPÊTRIÈRE at Taffety Punk
Review: LA SALPÊTRIÈRE at Taffety Punk
October 7, 2023

What did our critic think of LA SALPÊTRIÈRE at Taffety Punk?

Review: THE CARETAKER at Edge Of The Universe Theater
Review: THE CARETAKER at Edge Of The Universe Theater
October 3, 2023

The Writer’s Center is just the right place to stage a reverent version of one of Harold Pinter’s best known plays.



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