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Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Reviews
Talkin Broadway- Highly Recommended
"...Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Maryland has partnered with the Olney Theatre Center to present a resplendent production of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Director Lili-Anne Brown demonstrates complete command of the material and the casting is dead-on, led by Yao Dogbe as the proud but troubled trumpet player Levee and Nicole Michelle Haskins as the awe-inspiring blues singer Ma Rainey."
Washington City Paper- Highly Recommended
"...The anxiety ratchets throughout the show, stemming from the interpersonal drama, the pressures of the music biz, and the trauma of living through the Jim Crow era. With such a tinderbox, it's almost inevitable that it will go off. The few songs, like Ma, are worth the wait, and the magnificent performances reach toward something like salvation, without ever quite getting there."
Stage and Cinema- Highly Recommended
"...There is something almost intoxicating, and ultimately suffocating, about being inside the recording studio with the musicians in Round House Theatre’s production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Music, laughter and teasing fill the room, but beneath the camaraderie is an undercurrent of tension that grows stronger with every passing moment."
MD Theatre Guide- Highly Recommended
"...Describing Round House Theatre’s production of August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is somewhat difficult. I find myself overcome with adjectives like evocative, powerful, raw, searing, and utterly scintillating. I urge all fans of DMV theatre to attend this incredibly important and deeply memorable production. Wilson is an icon of American theatre for a reason—this play is a huge part of that reason."
Morris Theatre DC- Highly Recommended
"...That makes three: of all of August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, the series of 10 loosely-interconnected plays that chronicle the 20th century Black experience, I had only seen two. The first was Radio Golf, at Round House a few seasons ago. The second, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, I checked out in Chicago in 2024. My third combines the two: Round House, in collaboration with Olney Theatre Center, is kicking their season off with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the only one of Wilson's cycle not set in Pittsburgh -- but instead, in Chicago. And Chicago has seemingly come along for the ride, as both Ma's actress Nicole Michelle Haskins and director Lili-Anne Brown have major Windy City roots. But there's a ton of local talent attached here, make no mistake -- and the synergy between all of them has begotten an explosive, insightful, and ultimately chilling theatrical experience that sets the bar for this season's dramatic offerings impossibly high."
DC Theater Arts- Recommended
"...In August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the music is never just music. Beneath the blues lie generations of racial trauma, economic exploitation, and the struggle for control over who gets to tell - and profit from - the Black American story."