A few years shy of a century ago, Nicholas II, last of the Russian czars, enjoyed the protection of what historian Robert K. Massie called “a gaudily fantastic quartet of bodyguards. Four gigantic Negroes dressed in scarlet trousers, gold-embroidered jackets, curved shoes and white turbans...Although all of these men were referred to at court as [...]
Playwright Richard Byrne announced on his blog this week that WSC Avant Bard, the Washington area’s most pun-tastic theater company, will stage a reading of his new play Nero/Pseudo at Artisphere on May 30. While this one-night-only event will be a reading rather than a full production, it will feature live music performed by [...]
The word with which Samuel Beckett once referred to the title character of his 1958 one-act Krapp’s Last Tape—wizened—does not begin to describe the spectacular parade of fissures and topographic formations that is the face of the actor John Hurt. He’s always looked like his name is a caption: John, hurt.
At 71, he’s come [...]
These days of dropping temperatures and lengthening shadows are the perfect time of year for Happenstance Theatre to reanimate Cabaret Macabre, the company's ghoulishly gratifying showcase of Edward Gorey-inspired grim reapings. Like all of the five-year-old company’s shows, it’s a wonderfully imagined, expertly choreographed meditation on a theme, in this case mortality, and the [...]
I met Jeff Simmermon in 1986. We went to different schools in the Northern Virginia suburbs but attended the same theater camp the summer between fourth and fifth grade, where we appeared together in a production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. My recollection is that Jeff was one of a few kids who [...]
The New York-based experimental theater company Mabou Mines’ puppet-assisted production of Peter & Wendy, which played at Arena Stage in 2007, was a perfect union of format and material, one that didn’t skimp on the darkness at the heart of J.M. Barrie’s tale of a boy who refuses to grow up. Maubou Mines DollHouse—the [...]
If Arcade Fire are still touring in 2035, their After the Singularity Tour show will probably look at lot like the rowdy acoustic hoedown long-lived Leeds, U.K.-by-way-of-Chicago art-punk archeologists The Mekons’ played at IOTA last night.
Since 1977, various iterations of this band, which began its career satirizing contemporaries The Clash, have registered nary a blip [...]
Elvis Costello rocks his hits is not as especially pulse-quickening headline. The perenially touring provocateur-turned-crooner-turned-Colbert Report bit player still releases new music at a harrowing clip, but as with most rockers of his demo—he’s 57—his concerts tend to emphasize material from the first decade of his career. At the Warner Theatre last night, his [...]
We've barely recovered from the sixth Capital Fringe Festival back in July, but earlier this week the festival announced the lineup for its smaller, more typographically exciting autumn cousin, fallFRINGE.
The mini-festival, which runs from Nov. 1-20, will reprise nine entires from this year' Fringe proper, including iKill, the haunting Japanese dance piece that won the [...]
Much Ado About Nothing is one of William Shakespeare’s few comedies to eschew the trope of having a woman spend most of the show disguised as a dude, and its plot hinges entirely on the willingness of two supposedly honorable men to discount the word of a woman they claim to love. So there’s something [...]
