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All stories by Blair A. Ruble on BroadwayStars

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Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Since Bob Brown Puppets arrived, DC has become a welcoming home for puppets by Blair A. Ruble

Puppet theater has long enjoyed popularity in Washington. The region has often generated a vibrant children’s theater scene offering a multiplicity of styles for a variety of audiences.�…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:03PM

Monday, October 12, 2020

1973: After Wounded Knee, Washington Theatre Club presents Chief Dan George in The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by Blair A. Ruble

Chief Dan George commanded attention when he stepped onto a Washington stage in May, 1973. He did so despite plentiful distractions. Just a few hours after his DC debut, Congress launche…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:03PM

Friday, October 9, 2020

1962: DC police shut down Tennessee Williams’ play at Washington Theatre Club by Blair A. Ruble

Wednesday, July 25, 1962 was rather pleasant for a Washington summer’s eve, with the temperature hovering around 70 (though humidity lingered near 80%). Excited theatergoers were piling …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:06PM

Thursday, September 17, 2020

How Indian Ink connected Tom Stoppard and Joy Zinoman to their lives in Asia by Blair A. Ruble

Perhaps a bit long and convoluted – with a plot that switches back and forth between the 1930s and 1980s – Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink collected generally favorable reviews in early stag…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:06PM

Thursday, July 16, 2020

1949: Howard University Players’ first in the nation Scandinavian tour earns standing ovations. by Blair A. Ruble

On August 31, 1949, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt made her way to the SS Stavergerfjord to see off twenty-one Howard University students and faculty leaving on a European sojourn. All …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:54AM

Friday, June 19, 2020

Samuel Beckett’s literary agent tried to close Joy Zinoman’s 1998 Waiting for Godot. How she prevailed. by Blair A. Ruble

1998 was promising to be a banner year for Joy Zinoman and her Studio Theatre. Already settled into a stunning new building which opened the previous year that shone with what Washington P…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:42AM

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Director Alan Schneider. Beckett and others trusted him with their world premieres. by Blair A. Ruble

One summer evening in 1941, a young graduate student home visiting his parents from Cornell University, attended a performance at Catholic University directed by Walter Kerr. Schneider was s…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:42PM

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Father Gilbert Hartke. The unlikely story of a Catholic University priest and James Cagney by Blair A. Ruble

Gilbert “Gib” Hartke was the son of an interdenominational love match that transcended the social norms of late-nineteenth-century Chicago. His father, Emil, the offspring of a prominent…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 04:32PM

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

1984. A “spiritual happening” when Morgan Freeman preached The Gospel at Colonus at Arena Stage by Blair A. Ruble

Editor’s note: The mix of cultures has always provided a rich stew for theater, showing us both the universality of human longing and the diverse ways in which it can be expressed. So, for…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:03AM

Friday, November 8, 2019

How 1970’s culture clashes played out on two Washington DC stages by Blair A. Ruble

By 1970, Washington, DC had long been a major college town; home to tens of thousands of young people who were trying to define their generation in opposition to the dominant values of their…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 04:06PM

Friday, September 27, 2019

Robert Hooks and the pioneering DC Black Repertory Company by Blair A. Ruble

— This season, audiences have the chance to see plays about the African-American experience, written both by a new generation of writers and distinguished playwrights from the 20th century…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:03PM

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Is a black actor capable of playing Hamlet? That was a raging question in DC in 1951. Here is by Blair A. Ruble

[Editor’s note] In 2018, when Royal Shakespeare Theatre’s Hamlet, set in West Africa and directed by Simon Godwin, arrived at the Kennedy Center, Paapa Essiedu played the title r…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:36AM

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