REVIEW: My 2023 in DC Theatre

I wasn’t expecting to get here, that’s for sure.

If you’ve been to my website via “morristheatredc.com” a lot, you probably notice that this is primarily where I host my art. (Animation is something else that I’m passionate about, and my work towards a minor career in it is what caused me to start “drewmorris.co”). When 2023 started, I hadn’t written a real review since 2018 when I saw The Band’s Visit on Broadway. When I did write the reboot review for Jane Anger in late February, I just decided to stick it in a corner of this website for organizational purposes. What happened once I reviewed Ride the Cyclone at Arena Stage — the deluge of reactions, messages of attendance as a result of my review, and further questions — convinced me this could be a real Thing. Why not, you know? Broadway is expensive and kinda far, why not spend my time exploring my local scene?

A dangerous question. I started to get put on press lists, which led to advance updates on people and shows to see, and eventually some whole invitations to local openings (and even Broadway). Fifty-four local productions total, more than one a week for the entirety of 2023, across three states and sixteen venues. So as such a year as big as this, I wanted to put together a wrapped-style collection for my favorite technical shows, shows overall, performances, and ultimately my favorite local house.

For these, I could have just gone by scores and averages (which I have calculated, for those curious), but those scores reflect their time of writing; I’m human and hindsight is 20/20. For example, the 21 I gave Pacific Overtures at Signature was wayyy too low for my current tastes, much like I wouldn’t have given Here Lies Love my sole 40 (which I am convince cursed the show). This will chronicle the shows that stuck with me the most over this year, which supersedes any potentially lower score. Note that these only took DC shows into consideration, as as much as I love to broadcast all theatre I see, my mission is to highlight our scene.

The Breakdown

I saw 54 shows this calendar year!

54% were Musicals | 46% were Plays

39% of the shows I saw were at only three venues:

• Shakespeare Theatre Company

• National Theatre

• Arena Stage

Five venues I only saw one show at:

• Theatre J

• Ford’s Theatre

• GALA Hispanic Theatre

• McClean Community Theatre

• Reston Community Center

Stagecraft of the Year

• Evita (Shakespeare Theatre Company)

  • While this Andrew Lloyd Webber political epic was nowhere near my favorite production this year, one thing it had going was incredible staging, choreography, and lighting. Jason Sherwood’s neon-noir environs brooded and zapped through luscious fog, and the tangoesque choreography by ripped around the stage with pure dazzle.

• Swept Away (Arena Stage)

  • By the time of writing, Swept Away has about two weeks of its run left. I hope you took my review’s advice — or hell, anyone else’s in this town — and have seen it. (Spoilers incoming.)

  • I’ll be honest: this made the list with just its midshow spectacle, in which the ship capsizes, tipping the stage back, and bodies swirl around the deck to leave only four mates in despair and you, the viewer, in shock. Yes, in my recent review I did criticize its Act I staging, this redeems it.

• The Jungle (Shakespeare Theatre Company)

  • The Harman was unrecognizable. Your tickets don’t have a traditional location. In fact, you’re now a statistic. You’re Ethiopia 8, Syria 14, Chad 44. You’re a refugee in a makeshift wooden camp in Calais, France, you and 200 others. The Jungle was utterly transporting, between the food the cast would serve you and seats they would take alongside you, you were made a part of this family for 3 hours in a way rarely seen. All of this culminating in the climax, when the roof is literally bulldozed off your head by French-British authorities. It’s one of those theatrical experiences you don’t forget.

• Passing Strange (Signature Theatre)

  • Squeezing into the black box at Signature this summer was a privilege. In what was my highest rating ever to that point, Passing Strange got a 37 for its blisteringly inviting rock opera about a black California boy who runs away to Europe to find the meaning of life. Helping its case was its dark, scratchy, scribbly-scrawly walls and industrial production design that packed so much interaction into such a small space.

• Honorable Mentions

  • Olney’s Fela! was ablaze each performance from Breon Arzell’s masterful choreography, which I consider the best of the year. King of the Yees at Signature took their traditional Chinese influences to the next level with incredible costuming from Helen Q. Huang. And who can forget Maruti Evans’s ring of sand that was the set of Arena’s Angels in America?

Performances of the Year

• Joe Ngo, “Chum” & Frances Jue, “Duch” | Cambodian Rock Band at Arena Stage

  • I only wanted to include one performance per show, but these two were so great I had to break the rule before it even began. Jue is instantly cynical, yet charismatic enough to get your attention, but Ngo’s double-take as a goofy, lovable dad today to Khmer Rouge POW in the 70s was a whiplash that was mesmerizing.

• Kayshana Johnson, “Letitia” | Clyde’s at Studio Theatre

  • Clyde’s was definitely an ensemble piece, and I nearly broke the rule again to include Montrellous (Lamont Thompson), but I stuck with my guns. Johnson’s turn as the ex-con single mom working at a diner with a nazi, an ex-gangster, a sandwich maestro, and a highly abusive stilettoed manager was charming and down-to-earth, and I loved each of her scenes in particular.

• Justin Weaks, “Belize / Mr. Lies” | Angels in America, Part I: Millennium Approaches at Arena Stage

  • In a show stuffed with great canvasses for actors to play with, Belize is probably one of the least-utilized, which is why it’s so important to make the most of his stage time. Weaks did this sensationally, carrying amazing swagger across both of his roles.

• Isaac “Deacon Izzy” Bell, “Narrator” | Passing Strange at Signature Theatre

  • Stew’s poetically rambunctious score is channeled through his own character in Passing Strange. Izzy stepped up to conduit like its nobody’s business, spitting ray after ray of lyricism as if the words themselves were the character and not him.

• Adrian Blake Enscoe, “Little Brother” | Swept Away at Arena Stage

  • This was an impossible choice. It was one thing for John Gallagher, Jr. to deliver such a gritty performance as the marooned sailor Mate with a hidden past, but another for co-star Adrian Blake Enscoe to deliver such walloping range from the bushy-tailed sailor wannabe to a boy facing death itself over an agonizing several weeks at sea. Be on the lookout for him at a stage near you.

• Melody A. Betts, “Funmilayo” | Fela! at Olney Theatre Center

  • The Richter scale was invented to gauge how powerful the audience reaction to Funmilayo’s 11-o-clock-number in Fela! is. Scientists realized it could be useful “for less powerful things like earthquakes, too, I guess”.

Productions of the Year

Out of 54, this was tough; some grew on me, some fell out of favor. Here’s what left me thinking about them this year, in no particular order.

• Clyde’s, Studio Theatre

  • Lynn Nottage’s play about four former prisoners working at a roadside diner explored the exploitation faced by incarcerated people both in and out of the clink. It also explored the craft of sandwich creation using beautifully flourey wordcraft and was anchored with a deft swirl of heart and hurt, and I loved basically every second. (Studio had the actors make each sandwich live with every performance, which was a great touch, too.)

• The Jungle, Shakespeare Theatre Company

  • As I mentioned, the transformation of the Harman Hall was enough to top some year-end lists, but this was also an achievement in storytelling. Each member of the cast who played a refugee was also one at one time themselves, some even in the titular “Jungle” in Calais, France. When you witness how theatre helps a whole family of refugees cope with a trauma as great as this, it runs deep.

• Passing Strange, Signature Theatre

• I could go on-and-on about Stew’s marvelous score, the gospel-rock-ambient-funk hodgepodge that features something between spoken word and sung lyricism. But the soft intimacy of a spoken word, coming-of-age play combining with the harder intimacy of a punk rock concert was a match made in heaven for Signature.

• Spring Awakening, Monumental Theatre Company

  • There were two shows that did total 180s in my appreciation of them this year: the Into the Woods concert revival that hit the Kennedy Center, and Monumental’s Spring Awakening. The former was always my least favorite Sondheim piece for reasons I could never really explain; I just didn’t get the hype. Seeing it broken down to its bare essentials with an all-star cast finally made it click. But yet, it being a touring Broadway production of a Sondheim with pre-eminent buzz, I sort of had some expectation it would be at least be somewhat better than previous editions I had seen. With Monumental, I had not even heard of them, and Spring Awakening was a show I actively hated. The premise was weird and I never liked the score. But this cast of youthful, local theatre grads took the piece, shoehorned it into the black box of a local high school, and morphed it into an incredible sight with immaculate chemistry and vibe wizardry. The show also ran just as a close friend of mine passed, whose favorite color was purple, so that finale was certainly hitting where it needed to.

• Swept Away, Arena Stage

  • Talk about a buzzer-beater! This was probably the most hyped production of the year, and Arena definitely saved the best for last. The Broadway-aimed shanty is stacked with Tony-winning talent both backstage and on, and uses catchy, harmonious folk rock from The Avett Brothers to pass the time. The premise is simple, and executed flawlessly, and the spectacle is driven home halfway through with the sensational stage transformation.

Theatre of the Year

Arena Stage

This was a hard decision; but Arena was knocking it out all year, across two seasons and a major leadership change. It’s hard to pick out a time in 2023 where DC theatre wasn’t abuzz with what they were putting on. Between Ride the Cyclone, Angels in America, Cambodian Rock Band, and Swept Away, Arena Stage demanded some of the hottest tickets in DC this year. I’ve got good hopes for the leadership of new artistic director Hana S. Sharif and can’t wait to see what else she brings to Southwest.

Reflection

It has been a wild year.

I started this blog/account to write about the shows I saw for my family and friends when they had questions about what to see. Never would I have imagined that I see more than 50 shows of tremendous quality in my own backyard, be featured on press announcements, email promos, and even ads, or even be invited as press to shows on BROADWAY of all places.

Of course, the thing I’ve valued the most is all the amazing talent and passion I’ve come across within DC theatre. Between who’s on stage, who’s backstage, who’s in the offices, who’s writing, who’s in the rafters, who else is writing their thoughts, and who’s buying tickets and supporting our stages, there’s so much to appreciate in our city’s theatres.

I can’t thank y’all enough for the support you’ve given me in 2023!

See y’all at the theatre in 2024.

-Drew