I am prone to hyperbole. While my enthusiasm for local theatre runs hot, believe me when I tell you Primary Trust is the best production I have ever seen in Richmond. I mean that. It’s perfect. On every level. In every performance. Pacing, set design, lighting, sound...
Part of the beauty of William Shakespeare’s work is how timeless it is. The seemingly unrealistic, dramatic, even chimerical stories with his colorful characters have been told for centuries, and yet offer lessons and hypothetical situations that could easily occur within our world. One of Shakespeare’s most beloved, and arguably overdone...
Quill Theatre kicks off its 20th Annual Richmond Shakespeare Festival at Agecroft Hall with a true classic, Romeo and Juliet. Before you disregard the possibility of seeing one of the most popular romances of the Bard, consider the opportunity to re-learn or discover new plot points, romantic monologues, and alternative perspectives within this...
Topdog/Underdog, the final production in TheatreLAB’s series Picking Sides, does an extraordinary job emphasizing the division created by brotherhood. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Suzan-Lori Parks is a dark comedy rife with themes of family, history, and resentment. Starring two incredibly talented actors, Jeremy V. Morris and Jamar Jones,...
Firehouse Theatre's latest production of “Preludes” is a trippy musical fantasia that takes viewers on a journey through 19th Century Russian history to dive deep into the music and mind of suffering Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, and the three-year writer's block, hypnotherapy, and psychological collapse that befalls him after his...
Two black brothers, one named Lincoln, the other named Booth.No, you did not read that incorrectly. Yes, the irony is purposeful. TheatreLAB, home of “unexpected and evocative performance,” is at it again with another unforgettable piece. Finishing off their 2017/2018 season entitled “Picking Sides,” the award-winning Topdog/Underdog by...
Richmond Ballet’s annual performance season ended with the “Studio Three” concert, as a professional ballet company now entering its 35th year, and the 2018 Studio Three production on opening night resounded what I believe the Ballet represents: refined professionalism and paramount artistic expression. Richmond Ballet has operated as a...
As The Richmond Dance Festival enters its fifth year, organizer and dance artist Jess Burgess took a quick break from her preparations to sit down with RVA Mag and highlight some of the best national and local artists performing in this year’s edition of the annual event. The project of Manchester-based Dogtown Dance Theatre is a celebration of...
The darker side of children’s fairy tales come to life in a VCU Theater department production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods, showing now until the end of April, at VCU’s Raymond Hodges Theatre. Director Kikau Alvaro described the source material, by Sondheim and James Lapine, as a mash-up musical featuring characters from “the Grimm’s...
The aviation daredevils of the 1920s and 1930s forms the backdrop for Wings, the latest musical production from Firehouse Theatre. Emily Stilson, a former wing walker who defied death on the wings of a biplane, faces both her mortality and an accompanying language disorder after suffering a stroke. Kerrigan Sullivan directs the work, adapted from...
