Lolita Marie News

The Welders, a collective of DC-area playwrights presents the second and final production of their 2021 season. After a phenomenal virtual premiere of Jared Shambergers' documentary theatre piece, The B Word, Teshonne Nicole Powell's Girls' Night (with Spirits) is an audioplay that hopes to capture the hearts of listeners through a quirky ghost story with a twist.

Given all the slapstick in this staging (jousting with pool noodles, silly sound effects, outrageous costumes, sending a coffin to a sea burial down a playground slide, tossing a babe-in-arms around like a fumbled football), the endless choruses of What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor in which the audience is encouraged to participate, the deliberately absurd doubling, it might almost seem at times that children are the target demographic here. But grownups will not be bored.

Playwright Marco Ramirez's The Royale at 1st Stage is a rare and thought-provoking theatre experience.

Tonight, at a celebration honoring theatre excellence on stages across the Washington area, theatre artists, administrators, patrons, and special guests gathered in the National Theatre's Helen Hayes Gallery for theatreWashington's announcement of nominees for the 36th Annual Helen Hayes Awards, which will be presented on Monday, May 18 at an event at the Anthem.

Jay a?oeThe Sporta?? Jackson dreams of being the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, but in the racially segregated world of boxing in 1905, the odds are stacked against him. When a crooked boxing promoter hatches a plan for a?oethe fight of the century,a?? a?oeThe Sporta?? might land a place in the ring with the reigning white heavyweight champion. Inspired by the real-life experiences of Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight world champion, The Royale is an a?oearresting productiona??.a stylized blow by blow of a fight that still rages today.a?? (The Washington Post).

Director Paige Hernandez does a masterful job in a play about boxing and racism.

Olney Theatre Center and 1st Stage's co-production of The Royale by Marco Ramirez and directed by Paige Hernandez begins its delayed run on Wednesday, October 2 at 1:45pm. The original first week of performances were cancelled when the actor had to withdraw for medical reasons just prior to the first scheduled performance.

Olney Theatre Center and 1st Stage combine forces to co-produce the first show of the 2019 - 20 Season in the Olney Theatre's Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab: The Royale by Marco Ramirez, directed and choreographed by Paige Hernandez. Inspired by the story of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion boxer, the New York Times praised Ramirez's play that a?oeboldly takes on and reorients a familiar genre and a familiar tale.a?? The area premiere runs at Olney Theatre Center September 25 - October 27, 2019 with Invited Press Night on Saturday, September 28 at 7:45pm. The production, with the same actors and set, moves to 1st Stage for a run January 30 - February 23, 2020

Mosaic Theater Company of DC launches its 5th season this month with the DC premiere of Lynn Nottage's Fabulation, Or The Re-Education of Undine, previewing August 21 (see our August 1 Fabulation press release for opening night information, and our March 29 a?oe#Wokeseason5a?? release for full season line-up), exactly one month after the close of the most successful show in Mosaic's history, the co-production of Kelvin Roston Jr.'s Twisted Melodies, which sold out its last week of performances, playing to record crowds and box office, providing the capstone to a season of transformative artistic and fundraising achievements. 

A child injures another in a playground confrontation. The parents of each meet to discuss. It's a parenting moment so universal that the familiar premise in Yasmina Reza's 'God of Carnage' was originally written in French and first presented in London. It was a Tony-winner on Broadway a decade ago in a production with James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden.

A friendship between prominent historical figures is a fascinating subject, and reimagining their discussions about their shared experiences as well as their own areas of expertise can be grounds for great theatre. Unfortunately, while the concept is wonderful, the Hub Theatre's execution comes up short.

The first five minutes of Theater Alliance's new production of Flood City are some of the most gripping that have graced a D.C. stage in the past year. As two women wrestle the torrential disaster which laid waste to Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1889, the ensemble creates an immensely satisfying flood across the stage at the Anacostia Playhouse. Just when the dramatic storm is reaching a natural conclusion, the action is cut short by an announcement for the audience to turn off their phones. It's admittedly a humorous turn to the scene but it sets up a dangerous precedent for the remainder of the production: almost every scene is cut short just as it starts to settle into a groove. The result is two hours of wading through a black comedy that can't settle on a pace, tonality, or even a central theme.

THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH at Constellation Theatre is a thought-provoking, skillfully-rendered reminder that chaos and uncertainty are not unique to our time or to any single time. In the sure directorial hands of Mary Hall Surface, Thornton Wilder's masterpiece is a wild time-traveling, allegorical tragicomedy, without the Pepperidge Farm and Hallmark overtones we've now come to associate with the OUR TOWN playwright.

"This play is not about my mother and me," begins the character, Lisa. But, of course, it is about her mother, and her mother's extraordinary ability to heal a changing neighborhood, despite her inability to heal herself. The 1st Stage production of Well by Lisa Kron features Laura Artesi, Audrey Bertaux, Edward Christian, Marquis D. Gibson, Lolita Marie, and Elizabeth Pierotti. Michael Bloom directs the production at 1st Stage. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Why are some people well and others unwell? Playwright Lisa Kron's Well, asks the hard questions. In this s-called 'multi-character theatrical exploration,' Kron (Adurey Bertaux) is the star in her play-within-a-play chronicling her real-life experiences growing up in Lansing, Michigan in the 1960s.

"This play is not about my mother and me," begins the character, Lisa. But, of course, it is about her mother, and her mother's extraordinary ability to heal a changing neighborhood, despite her inability to heal herself. Lisa Kron's "theatrical exploration of a universal experience" spans from her childhood in an integrating neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan to her stay at an allergy unit in Chicago when she was 19; exploring the interaction between those two stories of healing. This compelling exploration spins out of control into riotously funny and unexpected territory as Lisa takes the audience on a journey to discover why some people are sick and some people are well and the lengths to which we will go to understand each other. 

'He was not.' A grieving grandmother repeatedly belts that powerful phrase across the audience from the opening scene of 'Brownsville Song (b-side for tray)'-an emphatic repudiation of the 10 second newsflash that has gutted the soul out of her dead grandson, Tray (Sideeq Heard). Another young, black life cut short on the jagged streets of Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood--same old story that flashes across TV screens and dots the local section of newspapers every day. But he, she insists, was not. Was not what? The phrase is never fully finished, but as 'Brownsville Song' plays on, you find yourself wondering less about what Tray wasn't, and reveling more in what he was.

Constellation Theatre's adult puppet musical Avenue Q swept the 32nd annual Helen Hayes Awards honoring professional theater in Washington, D.C., on Monday with seven awards including outstanding musical.

Tonight, before a gathering of theatre artists and patrons, theatreWashington announced the winners of the 2016 Helen Hayes Awards, drawn from 202 eligible productions presented in the 2015 calendar year. Scroll down for the full list of nominees and winners!

The absurdity of political scandals, gender identity and self-expectations are fully explored in Keegan Theatre's superbly acted An American Daughter.