Felicia Curry: Last News

Death on the Nile at Arena Stage, locally-based legend Ken Ludwig pinpoints the tempestuous heart of one of the writer’s most popular mysteries, originally published in 1937. Excising some characters from the book, and inventing or reinventing others, Ludwig nails the frenzied love triangle that propels the story, set aboard the steamship Karnak cruising the Nile.Hana Sharif — directing her first Arena production since boarding as company artistic director in 2023 — populates the Karnak’s passenger list with an effective cast, starting with Armando Durán as famed Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.Poirot doesn’t do much actual detecting in this iteration, as opposed to being just shrewdly observant, as usual, but Durán aptly conveys his authority as a solver of crimes.

POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.Politics ain’t for babies, especially at the highest level, so blowing off steam by cursing like a sailor just seems to be what gets an overtaxed, under-appreciated staffer through a tough day.And this day, as it careens ahead into one disaster after another, will be especially tough for staffers, the First Lady, and POTUS himself, who never actually appears onstage. But he gets the whole shitstorm started by referring to his wife as “cunty” — and not in a good way — during a meeting with foreign dignitaries.Managing potential fallout from the flub falls to the President’s harried Chief of Staff, Harriet (Naomi Jacobson); officious press secretary, Jean (Natalya Lynette Rathnam); and, begrudgingly, the First Lady, Margaret (Felicia Curry).A million other complications, from petty to Presidential, threaten to further derail the day: determined journalist and new mom, Chris (Yesenia Iglesias), hiding out in the West Wing; an unexpected visit from POTUS’ much-younger mistress, Dusty (Sarah-Anne Martinez); and a really unexpected visit from his ne’er-do-well lesbian sister, Bernadette (Kelly McAndrew).Meanwhile, the President’s secretary, Stephanie (Megan Hill), tries to control the increasing flow of traffic in and out of the Oval Office.

The beloved Broadway musical Into the Woods is now playing in Los Angeles and many members of the recent Broadway revival cast are leading the production!

The Italian embassy got dressed up Monday night, April 3, to celebrate Signature Theatre’s 2023 Sondheim Award honoree, theater legend, and homegrown D.C. icon, Chita Rivera.

Our Town (★★★★☆) at the Shakespeare Theatre expressively conjures an entire population and bygone way of American life.They were bygone days in 1938 when Thorton Wilder wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, set just after the turn of the century in bucolic Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. Wilder directed in the text that the action should unfold on a bare stage, where the span of a life might be measured over the twelve years spent with the citizenry of this small town.Bustling underneath the sturdy, arching beams of set designer Wilson Chin’s wood-frame theater-within-a-theater, Paul’s excellent cast do evoke not just the tapestry of family ties and neighborly disputes in Grover’s Corners, but also a vibrant sense of the landscape.In their eyes, we can see the sunflowers and butternut trees, smell the sweet scent of heliotrope on a moonlit night.