Balcony Scene: "John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only!"

Ben Ahlers as John Wilkes Booth in Baltimore. (J. Fannon Photography)

My Washington Post review of Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner’s world-premiere play John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only! is here. Read it if you dare, you sockdologizing old man-trap!

Reactive Cultures: "Akira Kurosawa Explains," reviewed.

The assembled Kurosawas of Akira Kurosawa Explains. Creator Julia Izumi is on the right. (Cameron Whitman)

Did playwright/performer Julia Izumi really create a show about or at least named after Akira Kurosawa having seen only one of the legendary filmmaker's 30 movies?

I saw it, and I'm still not sure. For the Washington Post.

A Walk on the Wild Side: "Hedwig," reviewed.

Sawyer Smith is Singature’s new Hedwig. (Daniel Rader)

I reviewed Signature Theatre’s new revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It’s the whole nine yards! 324 angry inches! Check my math!

Prude Mechanicals, or Pore Newland Is Daid: Arena's "The Age of Innocence," reviewed.

An Archer misses the target. Shereen Ahmed and A.J. Shively in The Age of Innocence. (Daniel Rader)

Another Gilded Age, another pandemic. The time is right for another look at The Age of Innocence, more now than in 1993, when Martin Scorsese made his marvelous film of Edith Wharton’s 1920 novel. Turning in into a movie made sense. And putting it on stage? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it might’ve worked better as a musical.

My full Washington Post review is here.

Cop Show: Studio's "The Scenarios," reviewed.

Joel Ashur and Sarin Monae West in Matthew Capodicasa’s The Scenarios. (Margot Schulman)

My review of The Scenarios, a compact and brilliant new play by Matthew Capodicasa, is in the Washington Post.

"Guac," reviewed.

I struggled with Guac, anti-gun-violence activist Manuel Oliver’s tribute to his son Joaquin “Guac” Oliver, who was one of seventeen people murdered in Parkland school shooting on Feb. 14, 2018. My Washington City Paper review is here.

Ninety-Six Puppeteers: "Life of Pi," reviewed.

Understandably the Paper of Record did not use my suggesed hed, —Ninety-Six Puppeteers — but my review of the touring production of the stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning 2001 novel Life of Pi at the Kennedy Center through the holidays is in The Washington Post.

The Resilience of Laughter: "Dance Like There's Black People Watching," reviewed.

Jillian Ebanks, Breon Arzell, Max Thomas, Tamieka Chavis, and Arlietta Hall. (Teresa Castracane)

The Second City’s first show at Woolly Mammoth, Barack Stars, from those heady first months of the Obama Administration, was the subject of one of my first reviews for the Washington City Paper. My Washington Post review of their latest, offered in more dire times, is here.