The New Electric Ballroom at Studio Theatre

The New Electric Ballroom

Studio Theatre
1501 14th St. NW Washington

Three aging sisters in a small Irish village tell and retell the story of a dance hall of their youth, a certain handsome rock star, and the night that changed their lives. Their only visitor is a lonely fishmonger, who may ultimately offer the sisters an escape from the stories they’ve let imprison them.

Thru - May 8, 2011

Price: $44-$65

Show Type: Comedy/Drama

Running Time: 1 hr, 30 mins with no intermission

Buy Tickets

Nearby Restaurants

Find Discounted Parking near Studio Theatre for The New Electric Ballroom

The New Electric Ballroom Reviews

Average Rating based on 7 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Recommended

"...Nevertheless, “The New Electric Ballroom” provides another evening’s worth of evidence of why it was smart to make so much room for Walsh in Studio’s schedule. Even if breakthroughs aren’t in the cards for Ada and her sisters, bigger things lay ahead for the man who made them up."

Read Full Review

- Peter Marks

Washington Examiner - Highly Recommended

"... Director Matt Torney clearly understands Walsh and how his plays need to be paced and spoken. Debra Booth's set shows a room with a great door on the back wall. When open, it displays a blue sky and beneath it a bluer sea, but in the play only Patsy uses that door. Otherwise, it defines the limits of the sisters' enclosure in their self-made fortress."

Read Full Review

- Barbara Mackay

WeLoveDC - Highly Recommended

"...The beauty of watching an Enda Walsh play is actually in the listening. Words, and their power to both entrap and free the speaker and the listener, are at the heart of it. Even though the loss is painful, I wish I could listen again. I suppose that puts me firmly in the “better to have loved and lost” camp. Walsh may be showing us what happens when you reject that truth, internalizing the pain of not loving and losing. I’m not sure yet, but I love the exploration."

Read Full Review

- Jenn Larsen

Washington City Paper - Recommended

"... I think I get what Walsh is doing. But why does the sole man here—that’d be fishmonger Patsy, who’s no less lonely for his ability to see his insignificance in philosophical terms—have to be the only character who gets to do anything to try to better his lot? Liam Craig is excellent in the role, bringing a warmth and comic spark that’s otherwise in woefully short supply. His bewilderment-into-fear-into-delight when Breda at last invites him in for rather more than a cup of tea is something to remember. It’s giddy and it’s hopeful—and this being Ireland, it can’t possibly last."

Read Full Review

- Chris Klimek

Washingtonian - Somewhat Recommended

"...“Things can never change here, can they? I really have to leave,” says Ada, presumably not knowing that events will change, and yet not in the way she had hoped. The New Electric Ballroom is a cautionary tale about fear so deep it can condemn you forever, delivering a worse fate than might have otherwise been the case. Unfortunately for the audience, that sense of inertia and dreariness can also occasionally be contagious."

Read Full Review

- Sophie Gilbert

BrightestYoungThings - Highly Recommended

"...All credit to the Studio Theatre’s Artistic Director, David Muse, for staging an Enda Walsh Festival. Brilliant in conception and execution: the sequencing of the three plays, with the compelling absurdity of Penelope, the horrible pain of the Walworth Farce, and now the nervy, gripping drama of the New Electric Ballroom – is nothing short of brilliant. The Festival writ large could well be the finest theater event I have experienced in DC."

Read Full Review

- William Alburque

DCTheatreScene - Not Recommended

Multiply Miss Havisham by three, add Irish accents and a peculiarly compelling sense of the macabre and you have Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom, the female-driven companion piece to Mr. Walsh’s father and sons play, The Walworth Farce, also being staged at Studio Theatre as part of the New Ireland Festival.

Read Full Review

- Jayne Blanchard

The New Electric Ballroom at Studio Theatre