BWW Review: MIDDLETOWN Explores Life at NextStop Theatre
We spend a lot of time thinking about the end and the beginning, in kind of self-aggrandizing ways. We talk about the miracle of birth and the mystery of death. But, by definition, all of our lives take place in the middle of those two sort of unknowable events, in this great and often unexamined middle.
BWW Reviews: TWELVE ANGRY MEN a Spirited Send-off for American Century Theater
The American Century Theater's tenure as the DC area's advocate for neglected 20th century American drama comes to a close with a revival of one of their signature productions, the authorized stage version of Reginald Rose's classic Twelve Angry Men. Jack Marshall, TACT's Artistic Director directs a solid cast in this legal drama, which plays out in taut, edge-of-your seat real time.
BWW Reviews: A Gripping, Wrenching JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG at American Century Theater
Opening as it does to coincide with the 70th anniversary of D-Day, Joe Banno's moving production reminds us just how much we are still haunted by the ghosts of World War II, and the horrific moral dilemmas of those days.
With a large cast that is mostly up to the material Banno has given us a memorable evening of theater that challenges us. Forget plays that give you a cozy, morally superior perch, Mann the playwright and Banno the director force us to think about how we contributed to the monster that was Adolf Hitler.
BWW Reviews: WSC Avant Bard's KING JOHN a Rare Theatrical Event
If your appetite for Shakespeare's history plays was whetted by PBS's recent series "The Hollow Crown," be of good cheer; King John is now receiving a solid production by the WSC Avant Bard. A rare gem, King John is a must for Shakespeare enthusiasts, not least because the play's complex plot renders it extremely difficult to stage. You will have the rare treat of seeing this unjustly neglected piece in fine form.
American Century Revives NATIVE SON 4/14 At Gunston Center
Novelist Richard Wright's searing novel Native Son aroused violent controversy from the moment it was published. The saga of a young American black man who becomes an unrepentant killer, the book was hailed as an uncompromising indictment of the nation's racial divisions and social injustice, and condemned as feeding white bigotry while excusing crime. Naturally, Orson Welles, then the most dynamic force in American theater, thought it was just the kind of story his Mercury Theater needed to tackle.
