A razor-sharp, provocative comedy set in modern-day Paris, Yasmina Reza's 'ART' follows three long-time friends who engage in hilarious and uproarious debate over the subjective nature of art, loyalty, and taste. Produced in more than 45 countries and translated into over 30 languages, this Tony Award-winning modern classic has been delighting audiences worldwide for nearly three decades.
Shows in DC: Current DC Theatre Productions
MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient Samuel D. Hunter's intimate, powerful play is a thoughtful meditation on human resilience. Inside a small office in southern Idaho, two men struggle to understand the confounding terms of a mortgage loan while connecting over the joy and pain of fatherhood. The pair form an unlikely friendship through their "specific kind of sadness," using humor to find hope in the face of heartbreak. Hailed as a New York Times Critic's Pick, this moving new play from the award-winning screenwriter of The Whale is a testament to the power of finding one's own community in the face of loneliness.
From the creators of the hit comedy DRUNK SHAKESPEARE comes The Greatest (Drunk) Love Story Ever Told: DRUNK ROMEO & JULIET! The stage is set in a hidden library speakeasy. One professional actor has 5 shots of whiskey and then attempts to perform a major role in Shakespeare's greatest love story: Romeo & Juliet. Hilarity and mayhem ensue while the remaining sober actors try to keep the script on track. Every show is different depending on who is drinking...and what they're drinking!
Buddy, a young orphan who mistakenly crawls into Santa's bag of gifts, is transported back to the North Pole. Unaware that he is actually human, Buddy's size and poor toy-making abilities force him to face the truth. With Santa's permission, Buddy embarks on a journey to New York City to find his birth father, discover his true identity, and help New York remember the true meaning of Christmas. This modern day holiday classic is sure to make everyone embrace their inner ELF.
Drama Desk Award winner for Outstanding Adaptation and recent Broadway sensation, Amy Herzog's work unearths the relevance of Ibsen's tale for our time, weighing the cost of standing up to power when pressured into silence. Ibsen's tale highlights the reverberating power of citizens who go against the status quo to do what's right by their community. The story raises powerful questions around the importance of keeping society healthy over economic gain, integrity within influence, and the personal cost of speaking up.
Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman, his family and their tightknit community honor tradition but must contend with a changing world and a rise in anti-Semitism at their home in Czarist Russia. The glorious score with songs "Sunrise, Sunset" "If I Were a Rich Man" and "Matchmaker" unite with exquisite dance in this classic of the musical theater canon filled with humor, heart - and life.
Dating in your 30s comes with baggage. Reaching the fifth date is a turning point in any relationship. The rules! The expectations! It's all so overwhelming, especially when the voice in your head, the one saying all the things you'd never actually say or do, is getting louder. But, if those alter egos get too much control, will they help the relationship flourish or fizzle? Jil and Ted are about to find out as they (and their alter egos) go on their FIFTH DATE.
Firecracker Festival is a "mini-fringe" celebration of new work from emerging local and national playwrights, featuring staged readings, drag performance, and other adventurous theatrical events that spotlight queer and trans stories. Curated by Theatre Prometheus, the festival centers compassion, courage, and care while partnering with groups like the Welders Playwrights Collective and Confetti Collective to share bold, community-driven art and give audiences an early look at brand-new plays and artists.
In a barren world at humanity's end, a man dares to steal fire and bring life to the dead-only to create something he cannot control. Inspired by Mary Shelley's classic, this bold reimagining trades candlelit laboratories for storm-ravaged wastelands, where rhythm, ritual, and elemental force breathe life into a new Creature. A visually raw and immersive meditation on grief, hubris, and what it means to remake ourselves when the world has collapsed, Synetic's Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is a myth forged in real time. Both intimate and epic, it asks not only what it means to create life, but what kind of life is worth creating.
Written by Reggie D. White and directed by Lili-Anne Brown, Fremont Ave. is a raw, electric world premiere that moves across decades with the force of memory and the rhythm of Spades. From young love and big dreams to buried resentment and unmet expectations, three generations of Black men face off at the card table and come face-to-face with each other. At the center of it all is the family's formidable matriarch: beloved, feared, and never forgotten. What begins as a game becomes a reckoning with masculinity, identity, and the weight of silence passed down. Fremont Ave. lays every card on the table and dares you to do the same.
Renowned for presenting stellar artists in an intimate tablao setting, the festival celebrates flamenco as a universal art form that champions tradition, fun, and innovation. This year's festival brings to the nation's capital a mix of traditional and contemporary flamenco through a variety of shows that celebrate both individual and group artistry.
On a three-day furlough from prison, Sade returns to a changed world-and to Mina, the cousin who isn't sure how to let her back in. Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the DC Regional Premiere of Furlough's Paradise is a tender, lyrical portrait of Black kinship, memory, and the everyday pursuit of freedom.
Dolly Gallagher Levi is a woman on the make. And what's she making? Whatever you need. A husband? A wife? Dance lessons? Pierced ears? There's never been a more indefatigable figure in American musical theatre, and perhaps that's why the role has served as a vehicle for some of our greatest stars, from Carol Channing to Barbra Streisand to Bette Middler. Now, the DMV's reigning musical superstar, Nova Y. Payton, takes on the title role of a musical that churns out laughs, songs, and over-the-top antics as fast as humanly possible...and then goes a little faster. Audiences of all ages are guaranteed a great time at this classic musical about love, second chances, and the magic of an adventure to the big city!
This holiday season, Julia Masli returns to Woolly with a festive edition of her hit, award-winning show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, now titled ho ho ho ha ha ha ha. Fresh off a global tour-with stops in New York City (at The Public), and previously in Edinburgh, London, and Melbourne-Masli invites audiences to bring their holiday problems to the stage for a hilarious and surprising solution. A completely different show every night, ho ho ho ha ha ha ha is a production like no other.
Is the breakdown of a marriage an ending or beginning? The Last Five Years follows two New Yorkers, rising author Jamie and aspiring actress Cathy, as they fall in and out of love over the course of half a decade. This gut-wrenching, iconic musical, with an acclaimed score by Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown, explores how a couple, once united by their dreams, could stray so far from each other as their paths diverge. Told from two opposite timelines, Jamie and Cathy's perspectives intertwine in a story of love, ambition, and heartbreak.
After a home invasion, Faye hasn't slept in twenty days. She's fine, though! She really is! Living off Rice Krispies and adrenaline, she enlists her brother Naoise in an increasingly absurd attempt at exposure therapy. But Naoise has a hidden secret that's about to surface. Lie Low is a dark comedy about trauma, the lies we tell ourselves, and the outrageous ways our brains work. Or don't.
Get ready to rock... and bleed! On October 31, Keegan unleashes LIZZIE, the ferocious punk-rock musical that rips the lid off the legend of Lizzie Borden. Fueled by rage, retribution, and a blistering all-female rock score, LIZZIE reimagines the infamous 1892 axe murder in a show that's equal parts gothic horror, riot grrrl rebellion, and rock concert. LIZZIE is a visceral, unapologetic thrill ride. Blood will spill. Guitars will wail. Justice will scream.
Follow us down the rabbit hole of Poe's mind as we wind our way through his stories, his madness, and his haunts. We invite you to join Poe (all three of him!) for a first-hand look into the mind of the tortured genius. Using only Poe?s words, We have whipped up a tale complete with music, poetry, and terrifying tales of death and destruction.
The latest semiautobiographical work from Pulitzer Prize-winner and DMV native Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) traces 40 years and five evictions in a very funny play about a very unhappy family. Siblings Martha and Carl are barely teens for their first eviction in 1962, growing up gay in the out-sized orbit of their glamorous, exacting, alcoholic mother. The family's odyssey through the DC suburbs takes them from one roach-infested apartment to another, and from the Sexual Revolution to the Disco Era to '90s New Age. A Broadway hit last season, Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions is wry, savage, and surprisingly tender, an exorcism as well as a ritual of forgiveness.
A heart-rending opus by acclaimed Jerusalem-based composer Danny Paller and NYTimes Jerusalem bureau staffer/researcher Myra Noveck, NOVEMBER 4 marks the 30th anniversary of an assassination that radically altered the course of history. A timely, tense, musical collision-course between the 73 year old Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, and his 25-year-old assassin, law student, Yigal Amir, this finely melodic forensic drama, directed by Alexandra Aron, is told with an up-to-the-minute frame of reference, as a cast of five portray a variety of figures in the lives of Rabin and Amir, including the wife, granddaughter, and trusted advisor to the Prime Minister, alongside family members, the love interest, and fellow law students of the assassin, with painful present-day reflecting from two women who were close at hand when the hopes of Oslo fell apart.
A Learning Theater Production. Second star to the right and straight on till morning! With that simple phrase we return to the imaginative world of J.M. Barrie's Neverland with a fresh new musical adaptation. When Wendy meets Peter, the little boy who refuses to grow up, the adventure for the Darling children begins. With a few magical thoughts they learn to fly and Peter leads them on an adventure of a lifetime! Soon they meet mermaid divas, a brave band of Neverland warriors, and, of course, those rascally pirates led by the dastardly Captain Hook. Featuring a full musical score by Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory Smith, and Spanish language infusion, this is a show that will capture the imagination of young and old alike!
Surrounded by sisters and a matchmaking mother, Elizabeth Bennet navigates love, pride, and prejudice in Jane Austen's beloved classic. In this fresh adaptation by Emma Whipday, her wit and wisdom shine in a timeless tale of self-discovery and romance.
Orgon?s family is up in arms because Orgon and his mother Madame Pernelle have fallen under the influence of Tartuffe, a fraud and vagrant. Tartuffe manipulates Orgon by aping devotion and pretending to speak with divine authority. Enjoy laughs with this Moli?re classic!
Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in this biting satire, as a troupe of performatively "woke" thespians scrambles to create a pageant that somehow manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month without any cultural stumbles.
A talented and experienced Black actress has been cast in Chaos in Belleville, an anti-lynching play set to open on Broadway. She's paid her dues throughout the years, playing stereotypical supporting roles in second-rate shows, and is ready for her star turn. Chaos in Belleville, written by a white playwright, might not be quite as enlightened a piece as she's been hoping for - but that doesn't mean it won't sell out. A cast of multigenerational Black actors rehearse under the purview of a white director and stage manager, and as the rehearsal process unfolds, theatre conventions and racial politics collide, resulting in a surprisingly funny yet deeply piercing look at the entertainment industry.
Everyone's favorite Christmas musical is coming to Riverside Center! Veterans Bob Wallace and Phil Davis have a successful song-and-dance act after World War II. With romance in mind, the two follow a duo of beautiful singing sisters en route to their Christmas show at a Vermont lodge, which just happens to be owned by Bob and Phil's former army commander. Will the show go on? With a dazzling score featuring well-known standards including "Blue Skies," "I Love a Piano," "How Deep Is the Ocean" and the perennial title song, White Christmas is an uplifting, wholesome musical that will delight audiences of all ages.
The eccentric son of a wealthy businessman wreaks havoc when he embarks on a crusade to unveil the false foundations of his friend's life. Ignorant of the adults' machinations, a young girl tries to shield a fragile creature from the hurts of the world. Artistic Director Simon Godwin (Macbeth) directs Henrik Ibsen's unflinching tale about truth's tragic toll in a timeless story "that explains why Ibsen is the greatest dramatist after Shakespeare" (The Guardian).