V.C. Rogers

Moliere’s The School for Wives kicks off PlayMakers Repertory Company’s 25th anniversary season with a bang–and some clangs, a few thumps, the occasional yowl and the silent, slo-mo descent of a flowerpot onto a lovesick noggin. This rambunctious production adds weight to something I’ve long suspected, which is that the PRC’s house style (a blend […]

“Cows are very fond of being photographed,” Oscar Wilde wrote, “and unlike architecture, don’t move.” Instead of chasing the hazy outlines of the fall’s theatrical offerings, this preview focuses on something almost as clear as cows: theater buildings themselves. These jottings won’t aid your aesthetic choices, but they’ll make it easier to find a parking […]

And Baby Makes Seven is, of all things, a sitcom–or at least it tries to be. This is hardly the sort of offspring you’d expect from the commingled genes of playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive, The Baltimore Waltz), Manbites Dog’s queer theater festival and Bold Maids Productions, which was founded, says the […]

Shakespeare & Originals’ A Mouthfulla Sacco & Vanzetti is so good it almost lives up to its ambitions. That’s no small achievement, as the folks associated with S&O are a pretty ambitious bunch. Their current production is built around a core of well-known local talent that includes playwright Michael A. Smith, director Tom Marriott and […]

Tom Stoppard has a reputation for being a cold, clever, intellectual-in-the-bad-sense playwright–or at least he did before writing Shakespeare in Love–but I’ve always found his work to be bursting with passion. It’s just that those passions tend to be directed toward ideas and beliefs, rather than whether so-and-so can lure thingummy into the sack without […]

For script, for acting, for staging–for everything, really–PlayMakers Repertory Company’s Wit is the best show so far this season. If live theater has any hold over you at all, you’ve got to see it. I’ve placed that injunction at the top of this review because Margaret Edson’s play, although it won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize […]

Mike Wiley is a rubber-faced, intensely physical actor and writer who can turn on the charm like nobody’s business. During the course of his solo show One Noble Journey, now having its world premiere at Manbites Dog, he walks one unsuspecting viewer around the stage, asks another to dance, casts others as offstage characters, and […]

Private Eyes, now playing at Manbites Dog Theater, features an intelligent, witty script by Steven Dietz, excellent acting and directing and a style that mixes raw emotion with unashamed theatrical effects. In short, it would be a typical, top-flight MDT production, if it weren’t for one not-so-minor detail: The show is actually being presented in […]