Unconvention Centers: The Welders' Transmission and Solas Nua's Wild Sky, reviewed.

Dylan Morrison Myers and Megan Graves play young revolutionaries in Wild Sky (Solas Nua).

In today's Washington City Paper, I review two new plays being staged in unusual environments. The Welders' Transmission, by playwright/performer Gwydion Suilebhan, is a thoughtful meditation on the hazards of storytelling, while Deirdre Kinahan's Wild Sky is a human-scale look back at a pivotal moment in Ireland's struggle for self-governance. It's also the first show from Solas Nua in five years. I'm glad they're back.

Losin' It: All the Way and The Mystery of Love and Sex, reviewed.

Most of the cast of Arena Stage's All the Way, starring Jack Willis as LBJ. (Stan Barouh)

Prince is all I've thought about in the can-it-really-be-only-a-day since the world learned of his death, but here are the two theatre reviews I filed earlier in the week for the Washington City Paper. Arena Stage does Richard Schenkkan's 2014 Tony winner All the Way, and Signature Theatre stages Bathsheba Doran's The Mystery of Love and Sex.

Okay, back to deliberating whether I should post Prince's long out-of-print 2002 three-disc live album One Night Alone Live, which is not available for purchase anywhere unless you're prepared to drop north of $300 on a used copy. 

Totalitarian Recall: 1984 and The Pillowman, reviewed.

Jim Jorgensen, Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, and Bradley Foster Smith in The Pillowman (Forum).

My reviews of the British theatre collective Headlong's adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, and Forum Theatre's new staging of Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, are in today's Washington City Paper.

Here's the trailer the 1984 Michael Radford's version of 1984 that I mention I saw at an impressionable age. I can't imagine ever saying this in any other context, but the Eurythmics soundtrack was not a good idea.

Popcorn Psychology: Signature's The Flick, reviewed.

Thaddeus McCants, Laura C. Harris, and Evan Casey in The Flick (Signature Theatre).

I review Signature Theatre's production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning comic drama The Flick in this week's Washington City Paper. It's the fourth Annie Baker play I've reviewed — five if you count her translation of Uncle Vanya — and the second in which I've quoted a heckler. Maybe I wouldn't have done that had I remembered doing it in my review of Studio Theatre's The Aliens three-and-a-half years ago.

Further reading, if you really want to see me struggle not to repeat myself: Circle Mirror Transformation, from 2010, and Body Awareness, from 2012.

A Silver Spoonful of Sugar: The Lion, reviewed.

Benjamin Scheuer, composer & performer of the solo musical The Lion (Matthew Murphy).

I struggled with my Washington City Paper review of The Lion, a strong, brief one-man musical play by the singer-songwriter Benjamin Scheuer. This was a case where learning about the circumstances of the show's creation—as one is wont to do when writing about art—made me like it less in hindsight than I did the moment the performance ended. Is that fair? I'm still not sure. You can read my attempt to work through my consternation while still giving the artist his due here.

Less Is Moor: Othello, reviewed.

Screen veteran Faran Tahir in Othello at The Shakespeare Theatre. (Scott Suchman)

I reviewed the Shakespeare Theatre Company's new Ron Daniels-directed Othello, starring Jinn's Faran Tahir as the Moor of Venice, for the Washington City Paper. Jonno Roberts' Iago is the best reason to go.

The Meek Shall Inherit the Dearth: Guards at the Taj and You, or Whatever I Can Get, reviewed.

Kenneth De Abrew and Ethan Hova (Scott Suchman)

Suzanne Edgar, Farrell Parker, Vaughn Irving, and Doug Wilder (Ryan Maxwell Photography)

My reviews of Rajiv Joseph's marvelous 2015 Guards at the Taj, now at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and of Flying V's new musical comedy You, or Whatever I Can Get, are in this week's Washington City Paper. You are alerted.

2 Midsummer 2 Dreamz

Daven Ralston as Puck with Alex Vernon's shadow puppets of Titania and Oberon in WSC Avant Bard's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I spent a midwinter day and evening taking in two, two, two big productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, from WSC Avant Bard and the Folger Theatre. I reviewed the experience for this week's unusually me-heavy Washington City Paper.