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.

Warily We Roll Along: "Strategic Love Play," reviewed.

Danny Gavigan and Bligh Voth. (Christopher Mueller)

Strategic Love Play, an enigmatic one-act two-hander from Mancunian playwright Mriam Battye, has had a few of the Britishisms combed out of its since its debut in 2023 but is otherwise intact. My Washington Post review of Signature Theatre’s regional premiere is here.

Hit the road, Jack Falstaff: "Merry Wives," reviewed.

Jacob Ming-Trent and the cast of Merry Wives at Shakespeare Theatre Company. (Teresa Castracane)

My Washington City Paper review of the STC revival of Jocelyn Bioh’s 2021 Merry Wives of Windsor update Merry Wives is here.

Food of Love: "Play On!", reviewed.

Jalisa Williams and Awa Sal Secka play reimagined versions of Viola and Olivia, respectively, in a riff on Twelfth Night set in the Cotton Club in 1930s Harlem. (Christopher Mueller)

I generally don’t care for jukebox musicals, but Twelfth Night is my favorite Shakespeare, and adding 22 Duke Ellington compositions don’t hurt it any. My Washington Post review of Signature Theatre’s Play On! is here.