Arts
For Ryan Brown’s ‘Swan Song’: An Opera Lafayette Highlight Reel
Moving Through Space with the Washington Ballet
May 24, 2017
•Last fall, the intriguing final entry in the program for the Washington Ballet’s 2016-17 season — the company’s first under renowned former American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Julie Kent — […]
Summer Performing Arts Preview
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In the summer, the venues change, the interests change and the sound changes. Below is a by-the-numbers guide to some of the performing arts pleasures of the coming summer season. THREE […]
Wide Winners’ Circle at Helen Hayes Awards
May 18, 2017
•When the Helen Hayes Awards expanded into two categories — Hayes for mostly Equity productions and Helen for mostly non-Equity productions — the first-time result was chaotic. Doubling the number […]
City Choir and Shafer Hit 10-Year Mark
May 3, 2017
•Seasons come and go and time flies and the cityscape changes — as do tastes in music and the arts and audiences — so that in Washington (as probably elsewhere) […]
‘In the Heights’ in Columbia Heights
April 19, 2017
•In the beginning, there was “In the Heights.” Before there was “Hamilton,” composer-lyricist-writer-performer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop- and pop-fueled musical take on the founding father — which vaulted him to the […]
Band Kids From the Heartland at Russia’s Embassy
April 13, 2017
•Washington’s Embassy Series brought about an electric and hopeful meeting of cultures April 5.
An Old Friend, ‘Chicago,’ Plops into Our Laps
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Touring versions of long-standing Broadway musical hits present peculiar dilemmas and rewards for audiences. Conversely, new audiences present both opportunities and pitfalls for artists on the tour. The main pitfall: […]
Tazewell Thompson Directs Arena’s ‘Raisin in the Sun’
April 6, 2017
•The former Arena Stage assistant director is directing Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” the classic play of a striving, struggling, vividly portrayed African American family living in Chicago in the 1950s
Shift Festival Showcases Innovative Orchestras
March 30, 2017
•Ensembles from Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia and New York (Brooklyn, that is) will perform and teach through April 1.
‘Ragtime’ at Ford’s, a Stellar Historical Musical
March 27, 2017
•The music and songs seem fresh, but the themes echo almost every day and loudly through our daily social, cultural, individual and — God knows — political lives.