On the clock: Whole Theater leads a 24-hour blitz to benefit Live Arts

“24/7 (2013) flips the paradigm,” Ray Nedzel said, noting that actors and writers typically audition and submit works to critical producers. “24/7 guarantees that new work will be produced, that actors will land their roles. The artists, in turn, commit completely, “and they do it with conviction, guts and expertise each time.”

ART Picks: The Country Wife

William Wycherley’s Restoration farce, The Country Wife, offers a plethora of lewd puns, lascivious innuendo, and outright ribaldry in a classically structured, three-fold plot as it plays out the stories of rakish Harry Horner and his ambitious plans to bed as many of London’s finest ladies as possible with a devious angle.

Film review: Zero Dark Thirty

The torture debate detracts from a different critical narrative; imagine how we’d howl if the movie whitewashed that part of America’s recent past. But forget the politics. This is a movie. As a piece of drama, Zero Dark Thirty is a marvel.

Cruise control: The Garage gets big love on Kickstarter

The loose community around The Garage suffered a shock in mid-September, when an elderly driver, departing from the funeral home, accidentally kept her car in reverse and backed through one of The Garage’s brick walls. Thankfully no one was injured, but The Garage now has a gaping, cartoon-like hole where its south face used to be.

Film review: The Golden Globes

In the awards show canon, the Golden Globes have secured themselves a lofty place just below Oscar. How is it that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which once called Pia Zadora “New Female Star of the Year” for her role in the soft-porny Butterfly, is now arbiter of taste and soothsayer of the Academy Awards? […]

Film Review: Les Misérables

I mention all this to give Les Misérables context in the annals of film history. Unlike Playing for Keeps, Les Misérables features a solid cast. Hugh Jackman, a man known for his acting and singing chops, is Jean Valjean, the hero we love.

Masters of their fates: Julius Caesar at American Shakespeare Center

When I moved to this area from New York City, the first thing I wanted to do was go see a show at the American Shakespeare Center. From the moment I learned of it, I was enamored of the dream it promised: a self-sustaining center of Shakespearean, Elizabethan, and early Modern drama in the heart of the Shenandoah, on a stage designed to the specs of the hallowed old Blackfriars Playhouse in London.