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C. Swanson: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox From left to right: Elizabeth Keith and Jeanne M. Adams. Photo credit: Hart Wood. Courtesy of Silver Spring Stage Hot Take “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.” —Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse Silver Spring Stage’s production of the 1971 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is filled wit

Leo Barrett: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox Tristin Evans as Julian. Photo credit: Shutterbug's Creations. Courtesy of Nu Sass Productions Hot Take Katherine Gwynn's Everything, Devoured does not ease you in. A Chicago apartment, a few friends, a Friday night, and then, fairly quickly, the evening takes a turn. Blood is spread on the floor and Ronald Reagan shows up as a demon. Nu Sass Productions is staging this world premiere at the Sitar Arts Center in a black box that holds

E. Hayes: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox Photo of the company by Chip Gertzog. Courtesy of Reston Community Players Hot Take Reston Community Players’ production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a colorful, high-energy romp that occasionally loses its way in its own bedlam. While the evening is buoyed by some truly stellar individual vocal performances and top-tier technical craft, it suffers from a lack of directorial discipline. What should be a tightly wo

Devon Smith: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox Photo by Mindy Cookman Ratcliff/The Little Photo Shop Hot take Calendar Girls is deceptively hard to pull off. Tim Firth's script lives in a very specific register, dry, wry, quintessentially British, and when a production finds that frequency, the result is warm, wickedly funny, and quietly devastating. Fauquier Community Theatre's production directed by Scott Olson, was a production of genuine heart and uneven execution. It had m

Natasha Parnian: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox Photo by Margot Schulman Hot take I walked into Round House Theatre on February 27th expecting a pleasant magic show dressed up in theatrical clothing. What I found instead was something far stranger, more personal, and more resonant: a meditation on deception, identity, and the blurry line between what is real and what we choose to believe. Nothing Up My Sleeve: Simple Deceptions for Curious Humans , directed by Aaron Posner an

Natasha Parnian: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox Photo courtesy of The Wakefield School Hot take I walked into Wakefield School's production of Shrek the Musical expecting a pleasant, if safe, staging of a beloved Broadway crowd-pleaser. What I got instead was a big-hearted, inventive, and frequently delightful evening of theatre that punched well above its weight class. This is a show that demands spectacle: a singing dragon, a farting Fairy Godmother, and a swamp full of fair

E. Hayes: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox Photo courtesy of Culpeper County High School Theatre Department Hot take: I’ve walked into many high schools expecting the typical version of this Howard Ashman classic, but Culpeper County High School decided to skip the safety and go straight for the jugular. While Little Shop of Horrors is often treated as a brightly colored cartoon, the production I saw on February 10th embraced the B-movie texture and the Faustian tragedy at its

Devon Smith: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox Photo courtesy of City of Fairfax Theatre Company Hot Take I’ve seen this musical more than once, and I’ve always had my reservations. I adore the score, but the story can often feel a bit “cringey” (lack of boundaries and the self-sacrificial tropes usually leave me cold). However, the City of Fairfax Theatre Company’s production on February 20th managed the impossible: it made me reconsider my entire position on the show. Through s

E. Hayes: Critic, The Beltway Blackbox In the theater, the most terrifying battles often occur not in the epic landscapes of war, but across a coffee table. Dark Horse Theatre Company, under the sharp direction of Natasha Parnian, stages Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage as a definitive 90-minute autopsy of civility, proving that the modern parental unit is merely a thin veneer laid over primordial rage. This is less a play and more a rapid-fire cultural indictment, leaving the