Archive for the ‘We Love Arts’ Category
We Love Arts: Mad Forest
Photo by Melissa Blackall Entering Caryl Churchill’s "Mad Forest" is a step back into late 80′s Europe during the final years of the Cold War. Forum Theatre sets the mood just right. Pillars with busts of Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Communist leader of Romania, loom over the action like big brother. Drab fashions and chain smoking Romanians is reminiscent of [...]
More »We Love Arts: Trouble in Mind
If there’s a theme emerging from this year’s theater offerings it’s definitely the play-within-a-play. From Venus in Fur to The Habit of Art, many recent productions have highlighted the rehearsal process itself to uncover uncomfortable truths about power and control. These are all relatively new plays riffing on an old theme, but Trouble in Mind, the [...]
More »Smithsonian Snapshot: Skyhooking
In the 1930s, U.S. postal officials tried different ways of moving the mail. One technique was called “skyhooking,” which brought the mail to rural towns that had no adequate railway or highway mail routes. Unfortunately, the towns which needed this type of service usually did not have adequate landing fields for planes. Although a low-flying [...]
More »We Love Arts: Macbeth
What would you do for absolute power? Could you kill your friend? Murder children? Call it justice? Watch out. On the path to conquering the world, you might lose your soul. “Fair is foul and foul is fair…” There’s a gasp-inducing moment in Synetic Theater‘s production of Macbeth that focuses it as a straight-up morality [...]
More »DC Graff: The Case for Open Walls (Part I)
Murals DC Piece at Fuller and 15th NW The debate is fresh but the line seems to already have been drawn. On one side, facing an uptick in tagging that has cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in removal fees this year alone, DC officials agree that illegal graffiti is criminal before artistic: [...]
More »We Love Arts: Fela!
The music from Fela! can only be described as infectious. The Broadway musical that won the 2010 Tony for best Choreography certainly deserves its praises in regards to dance- but the show’s music is worthy of recognition as well. Presented by the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the Broadway World Tour of Fela! opened at STC’s Harmon [...]
More »We Love Arts: The Heir Apparent
Floyd King as Geronte and Carson Elrod as Crispin in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of The Heir Apparent, directed by Michael Kahn. Photo by Scott Suchman. The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of The Heir Apparent is quiet and subdued for about as many seconds as you can count on your two hands. Then Crispin [...]
More »We Love Arts: The Habit of Art
Artistic process. Can it make for a sexy night at the theater? The grueling path to perfection through grinding repetition, as the artist develops techniques and habits that can release creativity or stifle it, sometimes makes for a great play. Sometimes not. Recently Studio Theatre explored the artistic process in Venus in Fur, where the [...]
More »We Love Arts: Stop Kiss
No Rules Theater Company’s Stop Kiss tells the story of reluctant Callie and bold Sara as they meet and change each other’s lives in late-90s New York. Callie has a level of comfortable living that lazy accidents and compromises have delivered to her, and with it the ability to take in the cat of a [...]
More »2011 All Roads Film Festival at NatGeo
‘National Archives Film Canisters’ courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’ Starting tomorrow, the National Geographic Museum hosts the 2011 All Roads Film Festival. The five-day festival showcases nearly 40 films in 24 countries, created to provide an international platform for indigenous and under-represented minority-culture artists to share cultures, stories and perspectives through the power of [...]
More »We Love Arts: Imagining Madoff
Photo: C. Stanley Photography If you want to learn about one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, this show isn’t for you. If you want to learn more about the man that ran off with the savings of individuals, charitable organizations, and others- this show may not be for you. Try one of the [...]
More »Theater last-chances and possible cancellations
Just a quick pre-weekend roundup on what’s going away and what may or may not be threatened by the weather. We’re not aware of anyone officially cancelling anything as of yet; several places have made affirmative statements they’re going on with the show. Shakespeare Theater Company’s Free-for-All is still on. They’ve promised to update via [...]
More »Greetings from DC!
For fifteen years, the West-facing wall of Mama Ayesha’s restaurant on Calvert Street stood bricked and barren, save for a narrow painted banner of Middle Eastern desert. In 2007 it was time for a tune up, decided manager Mohammed Abu-El-Hawa, whose family has owned and operated the Adams Morgan icon since 1960. Originally founded as Calvert [...]
More »We Love Arts: Reggie Watts at Woolly Mammoth
Reggie Watts, photo by Wendy Lynch Redfern Andy Kaufman would have loved Reggie Watts. Be careful how you take that bit of praise. If you’re of my generation and largely remember Kaufman solely as loveable goofball Latka on TAXI you’re not getting the right picture. Watts’ stage performance is reminiscent of Kaufman – a wandering [...]
More »The Winning Ticket: Cherry Red’s THE ARISTOCRATS
We’re changing it up a little this week from the usual concert ticket giveaway. This week we’re happy to be sending you and a victim friend to see the very last Cherry Red show ever on the 27th: The Aristocrats. Yes, those are wangs. This should tell you something about what to expect here. 2 [...]
More »We Love Arts: The Ramayana (2011)
If you were one of the many potential audience members turned away at the doors of Source last summer for The Ramayana‘s sold-out run, you’re in luck. Constellation Theatre Company has remounted its production for a limited three week engagement now through August 21, and in many ways it’s a superior show than before. Subtle [...]
More »We Love Arts: Clybourne Park
Photo Stan Barouh Before this weekend, I rarely used the word gentrify except when describing neighborhoods like Columbia Heights or H-Street NE. “Yes I know it looks a little rough- but hey it’s gentrifying! Now let’s go hit up Wonderland Ballroom!” This weekend brought two events that have given new meaning and significance to the word, [...]
More »We Love Arts: Oklahoma! at Arena Stage
Arena Stage’s 2010 production of Oklahoma! has been revived for another run. Don reviewed the original production in November of last year. Here’s Rachel’s take on the current remount. Modern America is riddled with stress. This stress is self-inflicted. 40-hour work weeks, a 24-hour news cycle, social media overload – these are all characteristics that [...]
More »Fringe 2011: hookups
I’m reviewing seven plays over the course of the 2011 Capital Fringe Festival, in collaboration with DC Theatre Scene. Get your Fringe button and join me! hookups is about as naked as it can get at Fringe. A quintet of engaging actors make use of an air mattress and the barest essentials to create a [...]
More »A True Adams Morgan Original
All photos by the author. From a lofty brick throne, a voluptuous redhead rules over Adams Morgan, watching and goading all manner of revelry like a contemporary Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. Her territory spans the 18th Street strip; her image an iconic symbol of throbbing crowds, vodka cranberries, and Jumbo Slice pizza. But just two blocks [...]
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