DON’T MISS
The biggest theater news of the month is that the
Capital Fringe Festival is almost upon us,
meaning two weeks of the wacky, the wonderful, and the just plain weird.
This year’s festival includes
more than 130 different performances in venues mostly located
between Penn Quarter and Mount Vernon Square. We’ll have a post
on what to look out for next week, but for now check out the
festival site and see what catches your fancy. July 12 to
29.
Lovers of new plays should check out the
American Contemporary Theater Festival, which runs July 6 through 29 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, about a 90-minute drive from downtown DC. This year’s festival
presents five new plays (including two world premieres) by
Neil LaBute,
Evan M. Wiener,
Bess Wohl,
Bob Clyman, and
Johnna Adams. To read more about the slate, check out our interview with festival founder
Ed Herendeen or visit the
CATF’s website.
Signature Theatre brings back its
Sizzlin’ Summer Cabaret series this month, with a pretty decent lineup of artists performing July 11 through 28.
Carrie Manolakos (Wicked, Mamma Mia) performs July 27, and recent Helen Hayes Award winner
Carolyn Cole performs July 19 and 26.
The musical adaptation of
Charles Addams’s cartoons—also the source of a 1960s TV sitcom—was a hit when it debuted on Broadway in 2010.
The Addams Family
stops at the Kennedy Center with
Douglas Sills as Gomez and
Sara Gettelfinger as Morticia and featuring puppetry by
Basil Twist. July 10 through 29.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,
Michael Friedman and
Alex Timbers’s irreverent musical about the
origins of the Democratic party—at Studio Theatre’s 2ndStage—imagines
the seventh President
as a tortured but charismatic rock star. The show won a 2010
Drama Desk Award. July 11 through August 5.
Forum Theatre stages
Church
by Obie Award winner
Young Jean Lee at Round House Theatre Silver Spring. Lee’s
Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven ran at Studio Theatre in 2010;
Church explores religion through the playwright’s aggressive, funny prism. July 12 through 29.
ALSO NOTEWORTHY
Two small theaters take on big plays this month. Fairfax’s Hub Theatre is staging
Charles Mee’s
Big
Love, an update of Aeschylus’s
The Suppliants, which features 50 brides fleeing from their 50 intended husbands. July 13 through August 5.
American Century Theater finishes up its season by offering up an ambitious and rarely staged work:
June Havoc’s
Marathon ’33. The experimental play by the real-life “Baby June” immortalized in
Stephen Sondheim’s
Gypsy explores Havoc’s experiences as a dancer during the Great Depression. July 27 through August 25.
Bethesda’s Quotidian Theatre Company presents
Brian Friel’s
Afterplay
and
Chekhov’s
A Little
Trick
July 20 through August 19. The first brings together two of Chekhov’s most compelling characters in an imagined encounter;
the second is adapted from Chekhov’s short story about a lost love.
Scena Theatre adds another unconventional play to its repertoire with
Mein Kampf,
George Tabori’s play imagining a young Adolf Hitler as a struggling artist in a dingy Viennese boardinghouse. The black comedy—at H Street
Playhouse—was adapted into a film last year by Swiss director
Urs Odermatt. July 7 through August 19.
How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular, based on the hit 2010 movie, brings 23
fire-breathing “dragons” with 46-foot wingspans to the Verizon Center.
Like the film,
the story features a lonely Viking misfit named Hiccup who
adopts an injured dragon. July 19 through 22.
LAST CHANCE TO SEE
The History of Invulnerability
closes July 8 at Theater J. Our review is
here.
Sleuth
at Olney Theatre Center also closes July 8. Read our
review
here.
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of
The Merry Wives of Windsor
closes July 15. Our review is
here.
The Normal Heart
closes at Arena Stage July 29. Read our review
here.
