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Roger Catlin - Page 8

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. 






BWW Review: SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY at Round House Theatre
BWW Review: SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY at Round House Theatre
September 26, 2019

Playwright Jocelyn Bioh long wanted to name her 2017 work about the social interworkings of young women in Ghana simply 'School Girls.' But it wasn't until she added the subtitle, 'African Mean Girls Play,' that she fully nailed what she was doing.

BWW Review: LIFE IS A DREAM (LA VIDA ES SUEÑO) at GALA Hispanic Theatre
BWW Review: LIFE IS A DREAM (LA VIDA ES SUEÑO) at GALA Hispanic Theatre
September 17, 2019

'Life is a Dream' sounds as if it would be a carefree, happy-go-lucky kind of story.

BWW Review: THE SMUGGLER  at Solas Nua At The Eaton DC
BWW Review: THE SMUGGLER at Solas Nua At The Eaton DC
September 11, 2019

Pull up a bar stool. The Irish barkeep has a little story to tell you. The saga of 'The Smuggler,' a new prize-winning play by Ronán Noone, couldn't have a more authentic setting than the gently curved eight-seat wooden bar in the speakeasy-like Allegory Bar at the Eaton Hotel downtown. That's where the Irish arts collective Solas Nua has ingeniously set the one man play.

BWW Review: FABULATION, OR, THE RE-EDUCATION OF UNDINE at Mosaic Theater
BWW Review: FABULATION, OR, THE RE-EDUCATION OF UNDINE at Mosaic Theater
August 29, 2019

At the outset of Mosaic Theatre's fifth season opener, 'Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine,' the biggest problem facing its central character is the lack of a celebrity for a big Manhattan benefit she's throwing. A high powered PR agent, she throws out a bunch of names cavalierly, and belittles her assistant, who is responsible for getting it all done.

BWW Review: ANN at Arena Stage
BWW Review: ANN at Arena Stage
July 20, 2019

It was rare that a Democrat became governor of red-state Texas in the 1990s; rarer still that she was a woman.

BWW Review: BRIGHT COLORS AND BOLD PATTERNS at Studio Theatre
BWW Review: BRIGHT COLORS AND BOLD PATTERNS at Studio Theatre
July 16, 2019

Gerry is the kind of guy who arrives at a party like an explosion, talks a mile a minute, has an opinion about everything, exudes outrageous hilarity and hardly lets anyone else get a word in. With him around, why even cast other characters at the party?

BWW Review: Elvis Costello's THE JULIET LETTERS Revived by Urban Arias
BWW Review: Elvis Costello's THE JULIET LETTERS Revived by Urban Arias
July 13, 2019

Running a small opera company requires innovation enough, but Washington's Urban Arias goes further, by commissioning new works, or finding pieces that are little known or rarely performed and infusing them with reliable company talent that can electrify their purposely small audiences.

BWW Review: The Donny Hathaway Story TWISTED MELODIES at Mosaic Theater
BWW Review: The Donny Hathaway Story TWISTED MELODIES at Mosaic Theater
June 26, 2019

There's a transcendent moment in 'Twisted Melodies,' the one-man Donny Hathaway show by Kelvin Roston Jr. at Mosaic Theater Company, in which the audience and performer are one, singing and clapping to 'The Ghetto,' under his direction, and getting a groove on.

BWW Revew: Keegan Theatre's Witty RIPCORD
BWW Revew: Keegan Theatre's Witty RIPCORD
June 21, 2019

Elderly assisted living can be a shared room prison, so the set for David Lindsay-Abaire play 'Ripcord' at the Keegan Theatre has the tidy room explode a coupe of times into some unexpected scenes, from a haunted house to the blue skies that give the comic play its title.

BWW Review: In Series' Ambitious THE TALE OF SERSE at Atlas
BWW Review: In Series' Ambitious THE TALE OF SERSE at Atlas
June 4, 2019

Rare as it is to hear Handel's opera 'Serse' at all - it was scarcely performed at all for 200 years following its 1738 debut - it's even more unusual to hear it melded to the poetry of Rumi, the Sufi mystic who predated the composer by half a millennium.

BWW Review: Taffety Punk's Bracing ANTIGONICK and THE FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO
BWW Review: Taffety Punk's Bracing ANTIGONICK and THE FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO
June 3, 2019

Taffety Punk, the insurrectionist yet classically trained company now in its 15th year does what it does best in a pair of striking Greek adaptations by Anne Carson, presented in one invigorating sitting.

BWW Review: World Premiere JUBILEE at Arena Stage
BWW Review: World Premiere JUBILEE at Arena Stage
May 20, 2019

There's a glorious sound coming from Arena Stage. From out of the mists of time, in monochromatic colors as if from a tintype, comes the sublime harmonizing of 13 voices, giving an idea of the transporting power of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

BWW Review: Washington National Opera's Splendid TOSCA
BWW Review: Washington National Opera's Splendid TOSCA
May 14, 2019

It's easy to see why 'Tosca' is one of the most popular works in opera.Its very musical style, broken free from the strict opera house rules before it, allows it to breathe. Singers are not urgently singing every moment. The supertitles person can take a break as it goes dark from time to time. Still, there is drama to burn in the story of an opera singer in the midst of a divided Italy in 1800.

BWW Review: PRIDE & JOY: THE MARVIN GAYE MUSICAL at The National
BWW Review: PRIDE & JOY: THE MARVIN GAYE MUSICAL at The National
May 11, 2019

At a time when Motown Records just marked its 60th anniversary with a lavish TV special, and with 'Ain't Too Proud: The Temptations Musicals' getting a raft of Tony Nominations, following the Broadway success of 'Motown the Musical' and 'Dreamgirls,' based on the Supremes, any fan of the sound would certainly anticipate a new creation called 'Pride & Joy: The Marvin Gaye Musical.'

BWW Review: Keegan Theatre's Feisty GOD OF CARNAGE
BWW Review: Keegan Theatre's Feisty GOD OF CARNAGE
May 10, 2019

A child injures another in a playground confrontation. The parents of each meet to discuss. It's a parenting moment so universal that the familiar premise in Yasmina Reza's 'God of Carnage' was originally written in French and first presented in London. It was a Tony-winner on Broadway a decade ago in a production with James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden.

BWW Review: Constellation Theatre's Magical THE WHITE SNAKE
BWW Review: Constellation Theatre's Magical THE WHITE SNAKE
May 1, 2019

Constellation Theatre is closing its season of love stories with a big one from the East. Thankfully 'The White Snake' is not about the 80s English metal band. Instead, it's an ancient, oft-told Chinese folk tale, which was breezily interpreted by Mary Zimmerman originally for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2014. It's brought to lyrical life in a production directed by Allison Arkell Stockman that combines puppetry, movement and a beguiling, underlying musical performance.

BWW Review: BLACK PEARL SINGS! Returns to D.C.
BWW Review: BLACK PEARL SINGS! Returns to D.C.
April 22, 2019

Funny how a few years can change a play, not because of the play itself, but because of social shifts around it.

BWW Review: Literary Giants Spar in Mosaic World Premiere LES DEUX NOIRS
BWW Review: Literary Giants Spar in Mosaic World Premiere LES DEUX NOIRS
April 17, 2019

It would have been interesting to hear the 1953 conversation between author Richard Wright and the upstart man of letters James Baldwin at the ex-pat literary nexus of Les Deux Magots in Paris.

BWW Review: Phantom Limb Company's FALLING OUT at Kennedy Center
BWW Review: Phantom Limb Company's FALLING OUT at Kennedy Center
April 6, 2019

Puppetry is one of the realms of the New York's Phantom Limb Company, so their latest environmental opus 'Falling Out' begins with some rough human-figures that look more like mannequins being slowly swept or carried across the stage like detritus from the ocean's edge.

BWW Review: NEW YORK CITY BALLET Relies on Strengths at Kennedy Center
BWW Review: NEW YORK CITY BALLET Relies on Strengths at Kennedy Center
April 3, 2019

The new artistic director and co-director of the New York City Ballet looked a little nervous Tuesday as they awkwardly welcomed the Kennedy Center audience to their annual week-long residency.



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