Theater
Plays by Pinter, Mamet get vibrant stagings
In Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker,” men who seem to have empty centers where their hearts should be engage in a strange dance involving intimidation and entitlement. Read more ...
Rep Stage sets 2013-2014 season
Rep Stage, the fine professional company in residence at Howard Community College (the emphasis is on Equity, not college), will explore vintage and contemporary works during its 21st season. Read more ...
National tour of 'American Idiot' hits Baltimore
“American Idiot,” the 2010 Broadway hit musical — the first punk rock opera, really — now at the Hippodrome, paints a searing portrait of restless, reckless youth, with all the sex, drugs and violence you’d expect from a disaffected generation. Read more ...
Everyman Theatre offers local premiere of gritty 'Topdog/Underdog'
Booth, the younger of two brothers in Suzan-Lori Parks' cauterizing play “Topdog/Underdog,” being given a trenchant Baltimore premiere by Everyman Theatre, is determined to perfect the old con game, three-card monte. Read more ...
Rep Stage revives '60s farce 'Boeing-Boeing'
The only thing missing from “Boeing-Boeing,” the 1960s farce about a man practicing polygamy-before-marriage with three flight attendants from three different countries, is a disembodied voice announcing “severe turbulence ahead.” Read more ...
Center Stage gives Baltimore premiere of 'Clybourne Park'
In Act 1 of “Clybourne Park,” the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play by Bruce Norris receiving a potent Baltimore premiere at Center Stage, civility breaks down as white and black characters in a modest Chicago house start talking about the one thing they’d all rather avoid — race. Read more ...
Vagabond Players revives 1930s farce 'Room Service'
According to an old song, there’s a broken heart for every light on Broadway. Read more ...
Michael Stebbins steps down as Rep Stage artistic director
Michael Stebbins, who has guided Rep Stage since 2005, has resigned as producing artistic director, effective May 5. Read more ...
'50 Shades! The Musical' to play Hippodrome in May
The racy, mega-selling novel "Fifty Shades of Grey," by E. L. James, has spawned a stage parody that is heading to Baltimore. Read more ...
Iron Crow Theatre Company gives Baltimore premiere of Daniel Talbott's 'Slipping'
With a confrontational streak of fire-red in his hair, Eli cannot help but be noticed when he shows up in an Iowa high school, an unwilling transplant from San Francisco, where his father recently died. Even as he draws attention to himself, Eli does not let people in easily, using a defense mechanism of glibness, mixed with snark, to keep them at bay -- starting with his mother. Read more ...
'Hello, Dolly!' gets lean and lively revival at Ford's Theatre
Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi, widowed too soon and left to her own devices in 1890s New York, turns meddling into a sly, lucrative art. She “arranges things, like furniture and daffodils and lives,” all the while looking out discreetly for No. 1. Read more ...
Arena Stage premieres Tazewell Thompson's 'Mary T. & Lizzy K.'
Tragedy seemed to stalk Mary Todd Lincoln as surely as it did her husband. Read more ...
Fells Point Corner Theatre Baltimore-izes 'Les Belles Soeurs'
In 1936, Clare Booth Luce surprised theatergoers with “The Women,” a snappy — and snapping — play about catty New York socialities and wannabes, performed by an all-female cast. Three decades later, Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay delivered a kind of flip side. Read more ...
Everyman Theatre stages Tony Award-winning 'God of Carnage'
We have all seen adults acting — to borrow a song lyric — more like children than children. But, if you’re lucky, you’ve never met anyone quite like the people who spout, spar and spew in “God of Carnage,” the Tony Award-winning Yasmina Reza play currently getting an effective workout at Everyman Theatre. Read more ...
Acme Corporation presents marathon performances of Beckett's 'Play'
The final stage direction in Samuel Beckett's “Play” is “repeat.” The Acme Corporation, one of Baltimore's experimental theater companies, is taking that instruction very seriously. Read more ...
Center Stage gives world premiere of 'Mud Blue Sky'
Center Stage seems to have a thing for public accommodations these days. The company’s last play was set in a nondescript motel room. The current one is set in a nondescript hotel room. Read more ...
Rep Stage presents Samm-Art Williams' 'Home'
For some people, home means wherever they happen to be; one place is as good as another, so long as basic needs are met. Read more ...
Stefanie Powers brings Tallulah Bankhead to life in 'Looped' at the Hippodrome
In the second and best installment of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” the follow-up to “I Love Lucy,” the guest star is Tallulah Bankhead, playing herself as a new neighbor of the Ricardos and Mertzes. Read more ...
Chesapeake Shakespeare Company gets boost from Abell Foundation
The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company's future move to downtown Baltimore got a sizable financial boost from the Abell Foundation, which gave the organization $250,000. Read more ...
Stefanie Powers plays Tallulah Bankhead at Hippodrome
Here's a cool example of what-goes-around-comes-around: Read more ...
Everyman Theatre announces replacement for injured actor Bruce Nelson
There has been a change in the lineup for the second production in Everyman Theatre's new home -- Yasmina Reza's bitingly funny "God of Carnage." Read more ...
Kennedy Center's 2013-14 season showcases hip-hop, international theater
The Kennedy Center plans to shake up the Foggy Bottom hood next season. As part of its 2013-2014 lineup, the center will showcase a global pop music phenomenon. Really? Shizzle, man. Read more ...
Arena Stage presents Mary Zimmerman's brilliant 'Metamorphoses'
About 2000 years ago, the Roman poet Ovid completed “Metamorphoses,” his chronicle of ancient gods and goddesses, the mortals who worshiped or dared them, and the transformations they experienced. In this epic work, Ovid delivered a simple, comforting message: “All things change, but nothing dies.” Read more ...
Single Carrot Theatre breaks in new digs with 'Tropic of X'
People anxious about seismic demographic shifts already under way in the Western Hemisphere may be a bit unnerved by Caridad Svich’s futuristic drama “The Tropic of X,” receiving its English-language premiere from Single Carrot Theatre — the company’s first venture in its temporary headquarters in the former home of Everyman Theatre. Read more ...
'Flashdance -- The Musical' has flash, dance, little substance
Somewhere, a halfway decent adaptation of the 1983 hit movie “Flashdance” is fighting to break away from the amiable, strongly performed mess of a show that has arrived at the Hippodrome. Instead, we get an everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink mishmash. Read more ...
Signature Theatre stages brilliant, bracing 'Shakespeare's R&J'
In its nearly two dozen years, Signature Theatre has presented a rich variety of works, but none by the Bard -- not that there's anything wrong with that. The Tony Award-winning company has now taken the plunge in a terrific way. Read more ...
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