Washington Post - Recommended
"...The director, fresh off the Folger Theatre’s richly textured but curiously unmoving refresh of Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses,” fares far better with “The Colored Museum,” a show similarly episodic in structure but much less dependent on tone. With less of the supernatural to integrate, and without the self-imposed addition of a unifying conceit, he and his cast — Matthew Elijah Webb, Kelli Blackwell, Ayanna Bria Bakari, Iris Beaumier and William Oliver Watkins are the tight ensemble, with drummer Jabari Exum drawing their efforts even more impressively together — can focus on squeezing each sketch for its individual vitality."
DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended
"...Studio Theatre makes no bones about the fact The Colored Museum has itself become a museum piece. George C. Wolfe wrote the satire of African American culture in 1986 when he was 31, and his incisive script is chockablock with back-then mentions. Now playing at Studio, nearly 40 years on, is director Psalmayene 24’s brilliant reconception of the show, ablaze with talent, without a word updated. No need. The deep truths still throb."
MetroWeekly - Recommended
"...The prime exhibits on view at the Colored Museum are eleven brilliantly-written sketches encompassing centuries of Black lives, since African ancestors arrived in America as cargo, up to the modern age of so-called liberation. On ages of perceptions and misconceptions, Wolfe’s stories speak truth with lacerating wit, and subvert stereotypes with deceptive ease."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...George C. Wolfe created The Colored Museum in 1986 as a pointed satire of the Black experience of that time–and its evisceration of stereotypes has substantially influenced other theatrical works ever since. Studio Theater in Washington, which previously presented the work in the late 1980s, has given it a new incarnation: an interactive experience complete with artistic "exhibits" inspired by the play, some of which were created by students at the city's Duke Ellington School for the Arts."
Washington City Paper - Recommended
"...With a live soundtrack by Kysia Bostic and with Jabari Exum as the production’s onstage drummer (pulling double duty as a nighttime museum security guard), the play has a mellifluous quality to it as well. This culminates into a final musical number only described by Wolfe as a “vocal and visual cacophony, which builds and builds” toward embracing contradictions and finding power in righteous madness. Produced with electric vitality, this damning satire enters a new century at Studio Theatre. But at the end of the day, The Colored Museum refuses to consider itself another artifact, looking instead toward a more constructive social future."
Washington Blade - Recommended
"...Before winning awards for direction (including Tonys for “Angels in America” and “Elaine Stritch at Liberty”) Wolfe, who is gay and Black, wrote “The Colored Museum.” The scathing, subversive work premiered in 1986, and though slightly dated around the edges, it remains funny, hard-hitting, and provocative today."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe, currently at The Studio Theatre, is a wild, satirical glance into African-American experiences, dating back to slaves in Africa to the present (which was 1986 when Wolfe penned it). The experiences are how Blacks are portrayed to a white public, as well as how Blacks perceive themselves in a mostly white world."
MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended
"...Ultimately, Studio Theatre’s production of “The Colored Museum” is a must-see for all people. It is both a celebration and a satirization of Black history that provokes intense reflection as well as intense laughter. Psalmayne 24 proves once again his staying power in the DMV as well as his ability to wrangle intimate and comedic elements of emotionally and dramaturgically complicated works."
BroadwayWorld - Highly Recommended
"...His challenging and pointed series of set-pieces remain powerful in a strong new production that just opened at Studio Theatre; it must have made heads explode in 1986."
