Signature's "Merrily We Roll Along" is a delight from end to beginning

Jason Gotay, Melanie Field, and Jake Loewenthal as Frank, Mary, and Charley. (Christopher Mueller) 

When Stephen Sondheim died the day after Thanksgiving five years ago, he was 91 years old. That grand run wasn’t quite long enough for him to see Merrily We Roll Along, the 1981 musical that had stood for decades as the most destructive and demoralizing failure of his brilliant career, rehabilitated into a critically-adored, multi-Tony Award-winning, and profitable revival in 2023. It’s that version that has found its way today to Signature Theatre, the Sondheim specialists in Arlington, Virginia.

My CityCast DC review of Signature’s fine Merrily We Roll Along is here.

Tim Curry 1946-2026

Tim Curry and Ian McKellen in Amadeus in 1981. The show warmed for its Broadway turn with a stint at the National Theatre here in DC in November 1980.

I wrote up a little history of Tim Curry’s DC stage performances for City Cast DC.

District Fringe 2: District Fringer

Clockwise from left: Highly expressive District Fringe folk Tracey Erbacher, Marshall Bradshaw, Aubri O’Connor, Sophia Menconi, Hope Gundlah, Karen Lange, Marley Kabin. (Alan Kayanan/District Fringe)

I was on the Capital Fringe beat for so many years that I had to step away for a while. But when the summertime #DCtheatre institution announced in Jan. 2025 that it it would end, and a trio of Fringe veterans stepped into the breach to create the successor festival District Fringe, I was elated. As District Fringe enters its second year, I sweated it out for CityCast DC.

No Scrubs, No Skips: "CrazySexyCool," reviewed for CityCast DC

Holli’ Gabrielle Conway, Jade Milan and Stoney B. Woods as T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli in CrazySexyCool. (Julieta Cervantes)

My review of CrazySexyCool is my first for CityCast DC, where I’ll be contributing regularly, I’m glad to say. The TL:DR on the new TLC show is that music and dancing are great, while director / book writer Kwame Kwei-Armah deploys his artistic license to compress and dramatize the pioneering Atlanta girl-group’s saga in some confounding ways. Considering that all of this history has been told not just in documentaries like 2024’s TLC Forever, but in name-naming dramatizations like the 2013 TV movie CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story, I didn’t get why so many easily identified figures get pseudonyms here — including longtime TLC manager Bill Diggins, who produced the musical!

As the end of the opening-night performance June 26, Diggins joined TLC’s two surviving members, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, on-stage to congratulate the cast and crew. In show, Diggins is called “Danny.” He’s played by DC actor Aaron Bliden, whose castmates turned to salute him after the real Chilli quipped to Diggins during their post-show remarks, “I didn’t know you could sing.”

Weird! But those two-dozen TLC bangers still bang.

Ghost Tour: "Paranormal Activity," reviewed.

Travis A. Knight and Cher Álvarez sleep with, on average, one eye open. (Teresa Castracane)

The canon of horror plays is, um, frightfully small. I haven’t seen the Stranger Things Broadway show, but I had a good time at Keegan Theater’s slimmed-down version of the West End staple The Woman in Black a decade or so back. (Fact Check: It was in a fact a dozen years ago, plus a couple months. Jesus.) But that had nothing on Paranormal Activity, a touring production related in name only to the eponymous found-footage scary-move franchise, My Washington Post review is here.

Not All Trouble is Good Trouble, But "Young John Lewis" Is

Michael Bahsil as John Lewis at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial (Chris Banks)

My feature on Young John Lewis: Prodigy of Protest, a new musical opening in March at Mosaic Theater, is in your Washington City Paper.

It's Cryin' Time Again: "Hamnet," reviewed.

Jesse Buckley (center) would like to thank the Academy in advance. (Agata Grzybowska / Focus Features)

I hope I’m not being obstinate in my Washington City Paper review of Hamnet, Chloé Zhao’s lyrical adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel. I first read about the brief life of Hamnet Shakespeare in an issue of The Sandman by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, published in 1990, decades before Gaiman was unmasked as a predator.

House of Cards: Arena's "Freemont Ave," reviewed.

Bradley Gibson plays three generations of men in the Family Plique in Freemont Ave. (Marc J. Franklin)

My Washington City Paper review of Freemont Ave., a multi-generational world premiere from playwright Reggie D. White at Arena Stage, is here.