Roger Catlin - Page 4

A ghost is already sitting on stage - in sheet and eyeholes - as the audience files in for 'La Valentía' at GALA Hispanic Theatre.

When elders pass, surviving family members often learn more than they knew about the departed by clearing out their home and going through papers left behind.

How do you fit an 800-page Russian classic into a night's ballet? Throw a lot of ballroom dances. There has been a couple of attempts to make Leo Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' into a ballet before - there also has been two operas and nearly two dozen filmed versions. Past ballets have usied a pastiche of works from Tchaikovsky for the music. But Yuri Possokhov's recent version, presented with verve this week at the Kennedy Center is a winning one.

It's a little surprising that the Red Sky Performance company of Canada is just now making its debut at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. The striking group of contemporary indigenous dance has been around for 22 years, performing in 21 countries and performing at two Cultural Olympiads. And the Kennedy Center, of course, has maintained a distinguished dance series over the years.

The star-crossed story of Romeo and Juliet has certainly kept is relevance in the 426 years since William Shakespeare premiered his enduring play. Endlessly reinterpreted on stage, screen and song ever since, its leading interpretation through dance came in the mid-20th century ballet from Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, whose other famed works included the ballet for 'Cinderella' and 'Peter and the Wolf.'

A play can't get much closer to its origins than Karen Zacarias' 'Jardín salvaje (Native Gardens)' that opened at the GALA Hispanic Theatre.

The clever title of Idris Goodwin's play 'Bars and Measures' at the Mosaic Theater refers both to components of musical notation as well as the harsh realities of the American justice system.

Because seemingly everything on stage in December has a mandatory holiday theme, so should a traveling circus. Hence, 'A Magical Cirque Christmas,' holding court at the National Theatre this weekend.

If you're going to do a history of Eva Perón based entirely on movement, you'd be sure to include that iconic pose of the Argentine First Lady hands aloft at the radio microphones before adoring thousands.

The New York-based Palestinian-Israeli actress Hend Ayoub knew she'd been at it a while when, after being in America for a few years, the roles she was asked to audition for moved from terrorist's daughter and terrorist's wife to terrorist's mother.

Before she became creator and show runner for the well-received three-season premium cable series 'Vida,' the playwright Tanya Saracho spent some time as a staffer in various TV writers' rooms, from HBO's 'Girls' and 'Looking' to ABC's 'How to Get Away with Murder.'

What did our critic think of THE NOTEBOOKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI at Shakespeare Theatre Company?

What did our critic think of MAPLE AND VINE at Spooky Action?

What did our critic think of NOLLYWOOD DREAMS at Round House? It's likely to be a crowd-pleaser, since it's from Jocelyn Bioh, who's earlier 'School Girls: Or, the African Mean Girls Play' was a hit at the Round House when it reopened following renovations in 2019.

One may never know what to expect on April Fool's Day, but a one-night-only performance by a Venezuelan-American artist at the GALA Hispanic theatre was certainly one of them.

Couples planning intricate surprise dance moves at their upcoming wedding receptions might as well give up now. Nothing will ever top the astounding artistry and athleticism that is highlighted in the back and forth between the wedded pair in American Ballet Theatre's performance of 'Don Quixote' that caps their annual Kennedy Center residency.