Washington detours

Theatre

last update: Saturday, 17 June 2006

last link check: Monday 31 March 2003

Far and away, my favorite professional theatre in the area is Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Woolly presents cutting-edge contemporary plays with a social bite and a gloves-off, high-energy, mercurial performance style. The company seems to be dedicated to the principle that if you show the audience a pair of fur-lined handcuffs in Act I, then the handcuffs have to be used by the end of Act III.

Nicky Silver's darkly comic works often receive their world premieres here.

Woolly Mammoth has just opened its new theatre in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of downtown DC, at 7th & D Streets, NW.

A word of caution: Woolly's material is often unsuitable for family audiences.

Remaining productions for the 2005-06 season:

• The Faculty Room, by Bridget Carpenter

The company holds staged readings of plays in development, and offers pay-what-you-can discount previews.

Reviews of Woolly Mammoth shows by me:

• The Velvet Sky, by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, February, 2006
• Starving, by S. M. Shephard-Massat, November-December, 2005
• After Ashley, by Gina Gionfriddo, September 2005
• The Clean House, by Sarah Ruhl, Summer, 2005
• Big Death & Little Death, by Mickey Birnbaum, May, 2005
• Our Lady of 121st Street, by Stephen Adly Gurgis, December, 2004
• Grace, by Craig Wright, October-December, 2004
• Lenny & Lou, by Ian Cohen, August-September, 2004
• The Radiant Abyss, by Angus MacLachlan, June-July, 2004
• Los Big Names, written and performed by Marga Gomez, April, 2004
• Homebody/Kabul, by Tony Kushner, March-April, 2004
• Cooking with Elvis, by Lee Hall, December 2003-January 2004
• The Mineola Twins, by Paula Vogel, September 2003
• I Worry, written and performed by Sandra Tsing Loh, April 2003
• Jump/Cut, by Neena Beber, March 2003
• Heaven, by George F. Walker, September 2000
• Wonder of the World, by David Lindsay-Abaire, June 2000
• Bug, by Tracy Letts, April 2000
• Stop Kiss, by Diana Son, February 2000
• The Dark Kalamazoo, by Oni Faida Lampley, November 1999
• The Dead Monkey, by Nick Darke, September 1999
• The Chinese Art of Placement, by Stanley Rutherford, June 1999
• The Art Room, by Billy Aronson, June 1999
• The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi, by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, April 1999

I also recommend Round House Theatre, which has improved greatly since it was spun off from Montgomery County's sponsorship several years ago. The RHT repertory is likewise contemporary, with the spice of the occasional classic (say, a Richard Wilbur adaptation of Molière or Ibsen), as befits this suburban company's subscriber base.

In May, 2002, the company moved to new space in Bethesda, much closer to Metrorail. The new auditorium is just as intimate as the old Bushey Drive space, but the stage is a three-sided thrust rather than the shallow half-round. Orchestra seats are ten rows deep, and there is a cozy three-rowed balcony upstairs.

Even more recently, the company opened second-stage performance space in Silver Spring, next to the refurbished Silver Theater.

Remaining Bethesda productions for the 2005-06 season:

• A Murder, a Mystery, & a Marriage: A Mark Twain Musical Melodrama, Book and Lyrics by Aaron Posner, Music by James Sugg

Reviews of Round House shows by me:

• A Murder, A Mystery & A Marriage: A Mark Twain Musical Melodrama, Book and Lyrics by Aaron Posner, Music by James Sugg, June, 2006
• Midwives, adapted by Dana Yeaton, February, 2006
• A Year with Frog and Toad, Reale and Reale, November-December, 2005
• Camille, adapted by Neil Bartlett after La dame aux camelias by Alexandre Dumas fils, September, 2005
• Once on This Island, by Ahrens and Flaherty, June, 2005
• Life x 3, by Yasmina Reza, March-May, 2005
• The Diary of Anne Frank, November-December, 2004
• Tabletop, by Rob Ackerman, October, 2004
• Living Out, by Lisa Loomer, September-October, 2004
• The World Goes 'Round, by John Kander and Fred Ebb, June-July, 2004
• Fences, by August Wilson, March-May, 2004
• Wintertime, by Charles L. Mee, February, 2004
• Off the Map, written and performed by Jon Spelman, January, 2004
• The Drawer Boy, by Michael Healey, September-October, 2003
• Pippin, by Hirson and Schwartz, June 2003
• Speaking in Tongues, by Andrew Bovell, April 2003
• The Pavilion, by Craig Wright, February 2003
• The Fantasticks, by Jones and Schmidt, June 2000
• The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, April 2000
• Three Days of Rain, by Richard Greenberg, February 2000
• Communicating Doors, by Alan Ayckbourn, November 1999
• The Chemistry of Change, by Marlayne Meyer, October 1999
• Mere Mortals, by David Ives, July 1999
• Nixon's Nixon, by Russell Lees, May 1999
• The Turn of the Screw, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the novel by Henry James, February 1999

TICKETplace is our local half-price day-of-show ticketing service.

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