Roger Catlin - Page 5

The racial reckoning coursing through American theaters and arts companies as a result of last summer's social justice uprisings isn't a new thing.

The pandemic has thrown traditional events like the National Symphony Orchestra's annual Labor Day concert for a loop for two years running. Held for years on the West Lawn of the Capitol, it had to be broadcast last year to an audience parked at RFK stadium, watching on screens and listening to their car radios.

Inspired in part by August Wilson's 10-play depiction of Pittsburgh life, Dominique Morisseau embarked on a similar ambition reflecting the Motor City in her 'Detroit Project.'

Dire statistical upticks remind us that we're not quite out of the Pandemic Era. Live theater is still largely virtual; tickets are being sold for the fall but with crossed fingers the performances will actually go on.

It's becoming common for theaters to pause before each production and include, alongside the usual cell phone reminders, a land acknowledgement, recognizing indigenous people that came before.

You can tell things are getting better in the world just by watching the Round House Theatre's latest production. It's the last of their filmed productions, for one thing. At its start, more people are seen coming into the theater to react to the performance - some 25 instead of the five or 10 in past productions. It's not strictly a solo performance on stage, as others have been - there's a backing band that even sometimes interacts.

The biggest surprise about the surprise program at the Kennedy Center by the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction fo Gianandrea Noseda may have been that it was happening at all.

The penultimate program in the Kennedy Center's Young Audiences streamed season features the music of Baltimore-born and D.C. raised singer Maimouna Youssef.

In the most trying of times, the Round House Theatre has managed to put together a pretty remarkable season, entirely online but leaning on one-person showcases that eliminated the need of distancing among cast members.

In Mario Vargas Llosa's novel about his early days as a writer, his main character tries and tries again to get his work right. To present a live production of that tale, 'La Tía Julia y el escribidor (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter)' at the GALA Hispanic Theatre required the same patience and determination.

MetroStage is starting to wind down its lockdown era with a second streamed work of Terrence McNally, the esteemed American playwright who himself died of COVID complications a year ago.

Ford's Theatre will forever be tied to the legacy of Abraham Lincoln who was assassinated there 156 years ago this week. So amid a lingering pandemic, the otherwise closed stage is offering a radio version of a work it commissioned nine years ago to coincide with the opening of the theater's Center for Education and Leadership.

The third of the Kennedy Center’s six online Performances for Young Audiences this spring is a musical one — and one that can be enjoyed by a much wider age range.

This is the 50th anniversary year for Philadelphia International Records, the outfit founded by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff that gave us, among many other things, 'TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia), the ebullient instrumental by MFSB, given life as the theme of 'Soul Train' and used to great effect once more in the Round House Theatre's online production of 'A Boy and His Soul.'

As we enter the second year of pandemic, theater companies have largely shifted from live performance spaces to film and video producers. When new work is offered, it streams online, often created by the artists themselves.

A strong cast and steady pace make this rare performance of Shaw's first hit work a worthwhile free tune-in.

Jordan Friend of 4615 Theatre Company talks about his 'Old Soul,'an interactive Zoom call concert and monologue with real time audience feedback

Reliving the effects of one deadly plague era during another one, which contributed to the death of its celebrated playwright Terrence McNally last year.

The original cast of a local favorite returns to animate a long Christmas Eve in a Dublin pub, in a production marred by its indifferent online presentation.

Craig Wallace returns for his fifth season as Ebenezer Scrooge in a production that's a tour de force in sound design.