Theatre Reviews

The Play-Goer: 2nd Star’s Musical Comedy Murders of 1940

The acting is tight, the pace is fast, the one-liners fly and people die

Jim Reiter

Take some Neil Simon-like one liners, add a dash of the door-slamming slapstick of Noises Off, mix with some World War II political intrigue, a bunch of mistaken identities and hidden passages in a dark mansion, and what do you get? The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940, running through February 24 at the Bowie Playhouse.

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– by Jim Reiter – 2/15/18

The Play-Goer: A Humorous Romp through the Wintertime of Life

The Colonial Players’ Quartet

Leigh Glenn

January has its own distinctive doldrums, and above a certain latitude (not everyone retires to the sunny south) and beyond a certain age, these doldrums can feel especially bleak. Talents diminish, good friends move away or pass over, and if those talents and friends were an integral part of your life purpose — especially if they were more of a goad — you can feel quite lost.

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– by Leigh Glenn – 1/18/18

The Shape of Water

A beautiful fairy tale for fish out of water

Diana Beechener

Orphan Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins: Maudie) knows hard times. Mute since a childhood throat slashing, she works as an unnoticed janitor at a secret government facility in Baltimore. Her life ticks by in lonely minutes until agent Strickland (Michael Shannon: Nocturnal Animals) introduces an amphibious humanoid called the Asset. Worshiped as a god in South America, the Asset was captured to add to America’s Cold War arsenal.

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Regulars

– by Diana Beechener – 12/21/17

The Play-Goer: Fiddler on the Roof

The grand classic turns intimate

Jim Reiter

Fiddler on the Roof, which hit Broadway in 1964, set longevity records, won nine Tony Awards and has been performed thousands of times by high school and community theaters across the country. It’s usually a big musical with big casts. This month, Compass Rose Theater gives Tevye and his family a more intimate treatment that, in the hands of director Lucinda Merry-Browne, gives us a nice new perspective.

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– by Jim Reiter – 12/13/17

The Play-Goer: It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play

The Colonial Players’ fresh take on this classic offers laughs, emotion and good doses of nostalgia

Jim Reiter

What’s Christmas season without nostalgia? What’s nostalgia except a look back at how things were? Or, for George Bailey of Bedford Falls, a look back at how things might have been?

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Performing Arts

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– by Jim Reiter – 12/6/17

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Grief makes monsters in this funny, savage film

Diana Beechener

In the seven months since Mildred Hayes’ (Frances McDormand: Hail, Caesar!) daughter was murdered, no progress has been made in the case. Furious, Mildred decides to shame the corrupt, small-town police department into action. She uses her meager savings to rent three dilapidated billboards on the lonely road to her home.

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Regulars

– by Diana Beechener – 11/30/17

The Play-Goer: USNA Masqueraders’ The Infinite Wrench

Theater like you’ve never seen it

Leigh Glenn

The U.S. Naval Academy’s Masqueraders chose a daring format for their fall play, The Infinite Wrench: USNA Style. The Infinite Wrench, according to its creators, the Chicago-based Neo-Futurists troupe, “is a mechanism that unleashes a barrage of two-minute plays for a live audience.” In each theatrical experience, 30 plays delve into the topics of the day as the performers have experienced them.

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– by Leigh Glenn – 11/18/17

The Play-Goer: Compass Rose’s Inherit the Wind

What’s old is new again

Jim Reiter

In 1925, the so-called Scopes Monkey trial adjudicated creationism versus evolution in a battle of legal titans. John Scopes, a substitute teacher in Tennessee, had been charged with breaking a local law that banned the teaching of evolution. Allowing himself to be used as a test case, he became the subject of one of the most closely followed trials in American history, broadcast across the country by radio.

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– by Jim Reiter – 11/2/17

The Play-Goer: 33 Variations

Solving the mystery of Beethoven’s greatest work

Jane Elkin

B — as in Bach, Beethoven and Brahms — is the most revered letter in music. One of the three great Bs, Beethoven, devoted five years to the works of another B composer, B as in so-so, like a B actor.

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– by Jane Elkin – 10/26/17

The Play-Goer: Twin Beach Players’ New Directors’ Showcase

See these shows — and reach for new levels of understanding

Pam Shilling

I admire the local community theater company Twin Beach Players in North Beach, Maryland.

article – Theatre Reviews

– by Pam Shilling – 10/19/17

The Play-Goer: 2nd Star’s Musical Comedy Murders of 1940

The Play-Goer: A Humorous Romp through the Wintertime of Life

The Shape of Water

The Play-Goer: Fiddler on the Roof

The Play-Goer: It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The Play-Goer: USNA Masqueraders’ The Infinite Wrench

The Play-Goer: Compass Rose’s Inherit the Wind

The Play-Goer: 33 Variations

The Play-Goer: Twin Beach Players’ New Directors’ Showcase

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