Russell Smouse

After Midnight at Signature Theatre is a revue featuring the music of Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh, and DC’s own Duke Ellington, and is set around the poems of Langston Hughes. The show features some of DC’s finest talent including Nova Y. Payton (a Signature regular) and Hamilton star Christopher Jackson as well as a stacked and extremely enthralling ensemble. With direction by Jared Grimes and music direction by Mark G. Meadows, the show proved to be a roaring success with over-the-top performances, fabulous design, and swinging music.

Signature Theatre’s second production in their Signature Features 2021 season, Daniel J Watts THE JAM: ONLY CHILD is written and performed by 2020 Tony Award Nominee Daniel J Watts and is the fifth installment of Watts’ The Jam series. The series namesake comes from his great grandmother’s method of creating jam, whereupon what she could not use for herself, she would share with other people. It is available to stream in HD on Marquee TV from March 16 through May 7.

Imagination Stage is an institution of the DC/MD theatre community and has been bringing theatre to children and audiences alike for over 40 years. With their new production of ‘Spy Academy & The Lost Treasure of Atlantis’ Imagination stage brings interactive theatre directly into the household. Children ages 5+ are invited to participate in an online interactive adventure where they assist Spy Team 7 with a series of puzzles and decisions to help retrieve the heart of the dragon from the wicked Dr. Levinious. Before showtime, adults are instructed in secret, to put together a few household items as well as printing out an instruction packet as props to be used in the interactive performance.

Presented by the Kennedy Center Taylor Mac tests out a new take on the holidays. Mac (who uses the gender pronoun 'judy'), is an actor, playwright, performance artist and many other things too. Judy was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017 and is a Macarthur Fellow. Judy's play, 'Gary: a Sequel to Titus Andronicus' premiered earlier this year in April and received 7 Tony nominations. Judy puts on an over the top concert revue that ranges from songs we have known our whole lives as well as some new songs for audiences. It is a show that is somewhat targeted at how everyone in the country knows the traditions and rituals of the holiday season whether they celebrate the holidays or not. These are rituals that everyone has grown up in experiencing such as caroling, forced visits to relatives, Christmas trees, and sitting on Santa's lap. Mac deconstructs these rituals adding in humor and comments where he sees fit.

Stephen Mallatratt's stage adaptation of Susan Hill's 1983 horror novel 'The Woman in Black' has become somewhat of a legendary production. Originally directed by Robin Hereford (who has directed every recast of the show including this one), it has become a famous staple of the London theatre scene earning its premiere in 1989 and has been running ever since. 'The Woman in Black' is the second longest running stage play in West End history second only to Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap'. The play famously involves two actors who perform the entirety of the play. The structure of the show centers around a 'play within a play' concept following two actors as they go through their rehearsal process.

Tony and Emmy award winner Mandy Patinkin gave a stunning concert performance this past Friday the 29thof November at the National Theatre as part of his 'Diaries' tour. Patinkin has had a varied career of staring in films, television, in the recording studio, but his home is on the stage. The songs he sang in this concert were selected from his 'diary' album series which were songs (mostly covers) that were mostly hidden gems from great songwriters that he did stripped down versions of and released on a collection of 3 separate albums.

'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' at Bethesda's Round House Theatre, tells the story of Christopher, a 15-year-old boy with Aspergers syndrome, whose neighbor's dog is murdered with a pitchfork. Christopher goes on a mission to investigate who killed the dog and he ends up uncovering other people's secrets, as well as his own. He goes on an unintentional mission of self-discovery through London and Swindon

John Leguizamo, as I learned, is modern theatre's most prolific latinx playwright. While 'Latin History for Morons' is not his first play written on the subject of latinx people in America, It certainly seems to take on a presence of its own. The show does not seem as if it is the same ideas showcased in his previous works written into another script. Leguizamo gives his intimate insight into the life of being a latinx person in America who grew up in a rough part of New York and only wants his son to have a better childhood than he had. Throughout the show, Leguizamo uses his relationship with his son to convey how somebody deals with aggressions and microaggressions in their daily life. The show is a history lesson for the audience and serves to inform the audience of a subject matter they may not be privy to.

Young Artists of America put together an impressive concert performance of Mary Roger's and Marshall Barer's Once Upon a Mattress Conducted by Kristofer Sanz, Vocal Directed by Rolando Sanz and Narrated and directed for the stage by Leayne Dempsey.

Follow the doings of individuals who come in and out of a motel where the room itself and those who clean it are the only constants.