All stories by Robert Michael Oliver on BroadwayStars

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Review: Source Festival 2017: ‘Through the Wall’: Artistic Blind Date by Robert Michael Oliver

A Source Festival Artistic Blind Date brings together three area artists of different disciplines for an adventure in performance art. In five months they need to create and perform a perfor…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 11:51AM
Friday, June 23, 2017

Spine: ‘When We Were Young and Unafraid’ at The Keegan Theatre by Robert Michael Oliver

Stepping back 45 years, America is in the midst of a social revolution, and feminist consciousness-raising sessions are underway. Radical feminists, cultural feminists, and political feminis…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 11:29AM
Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Review: ‘The Return’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC, Part of the 2017 Voice From a Changing Middle East Festival by Robert Michael Oliver

Mosaic Theatre Company of DC concluded their 2017 season with a riveting, deeply provocative examination of a State’s National Security apparatus on dissident individuals living and lo…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:05PM
Sunday, June 11, 2017

Review: Source Festival 2017: ‘Exquisite Depths’: Artistic Blind Date by Robert Michael Oliver

One of the elements of the Source Festival 2017 is two Artistic Blind Dates. These collective creations bring together area artists from different disciplines to devise an original performan…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:10PM
Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Spine: ‘Ulysses on Bottles’ at Mosaic Theater Company of DC, Part of the 2017 Voice From a Changing Middle East Festival by Robert Michael Oliver

Last night, Gilad Evron’s Ulysses on Bottles opened the Mosaic Theater Company’s 2017 Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival. Described as an allegory, Evron’s Ulysses…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:41PM
Saturday, May 20, 2017

Review: ‘Mercy Killers’ at Taffety Punk Theatre Company by Robert Michael Oliver

Joe in Michael Milligan’s one-man show Mercy Killers is, indeed, your average Joe: he listens to Rush Limbaugh, he works on cars as a mechanic, he has no college degree, and (yes) he p…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 09:31AM
Monday, May 15, 2017

Review: ‘The Father’ at The Studio Theatre by Robert Michael Oliver

Some plays are more difficult to watch than others; some plays activate your imagination and pull you into their stories whole-body: those plays pull you into the psychological realities the…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 10:27AM
Sunday, May 14, 2017

Spine: ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at Synetic Theater by Robert Michael Oliver

The spectacle of movement has always been Synetic’s star attraction. When those primal, emotional moments fuse with a strong narrative throughline, Synetic’s brilliance shines br…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 05:14PM
Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Review: ‘The Arabian Nights’ at Constellation Theatre Company by Robert Michael Oliver

One Thousand and One Nights, the collection of classic Islamic tales upon which Mary Zimmerman built The Arabian Nights, now playing at Constellation Theatre Company, could not have a more v…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 11:21AM
Sunday, May 7, 2017

Review: ‘Laura Bush Killed a Guy’ at The Klunch by Robert Michael Oliver

I didn’t know that Laura Bush had killed a guy. It really had never crossed my mind. Well, after seeing Ian Allen’s Laura Bush Killed a Guy, now playing at the Klunch at Caos on…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 04:12PM
Friday, April 28, 2017

Spine: ‘Three Sisters’ by the Maly Drama Theatre at the Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

With the Maly Drama Theatre’s Three Sisters, playing through April 30 at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre, theatre lovers will feast on every slow motion wonderment, every…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:33PM
Friday, April 21, 2017

Review: ‘Smart People’ at Arena Stage by Robert Michael Oliver

As soon as the lights come up on Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People, now playing at Arena’s Kreeger Theater, the focus is clear. Or is it? Are four really “smart” people…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 12:39PM
Thursday, April 20, 2017

Spine: ‘Or,’ not as in Either, at Round House Theatre by Robert Michael Oliver

First of all, for theatre lovers, there is nothing as delightful as watching three top notch actors have fun on stage, and with Holly Twyford, Gregory Linington, and Erin Weaver you’ll…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 11:28AM
Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Review: Geoffrey Keezer Trio with special guest Gillian Margot at the KC Jazz Club by Robert Michael Oliver

As soon as the Trio finished  Thelonius Monk’s “Brilliant Corners”, the KC Jazz Club exploded in applause. Some music is not listened to: it is experienced, your body vibr…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 10:37AM
Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Spine: ‘A Human Being Died That Night’ at Mosaic Theater Company by Robert Michael Oliver

About midway through Mosaic Theater’s A Human Being Died That Night, Eugene de Kock, serving two life sentences for murder and assassination, turns to his interviewer, Pumla Gobodo-M…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 02:38AM
Friday, April 7, 2017

Review: ‘Back to Methuselah Part 3: As Far as Thought Can Reach’ at Washington Stage Guild by Robert Michael Oliver

George Bernard Shaw loves words. Even his stage directions are wordy. He also loved ideas, philosophy, aesthetics, politics… In Back to Methuselah Part 3: As Far as Thought Can Reach, …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 12:57PM
Thursday, March 30, 2017

Review: ‘Battlefield’ at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

In The Empty Space Peter Brook declared that the stage has “two rules: (1) Anything can happen and (2) Something must happen.” In Battlefield, his collaboration with Marie-Hélène Estie…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:43PM
Friday, March 24, 2017

Review: ‘Where Can I Find Someone Like You, Ali?’ in Collaboration with Sundance Institute Theatre Program at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

Sometimes a story is so unique it needs no explanation. Sometimes a story dares you to disbelieve. Sometimes a story… Where Can I Find Someone Like You, Ali? is such a story. And as wr…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 03:03PM
Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Review: ‘Antigonón, un contingente épico’ at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

As the audience gathers in the Eisenhower, antique footage rolls on the screen: people gathering, moving, marching. José Martí, Cuban national hero, poet, and revolutionary flashes on the …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:19PM
Monday, March 20, 2017

Review: ‘What Every Girl Should Know’ and ‘Dry Land’ in Rep at Forum Theatre by Robert Michael Oliver

One hundred years separate the young women in What Every Girl Should Know and Dry Land, now playing in rep at Forum Theatre. In Monica Byrne’s What Every Girl Should Know, the fou…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 04:40PM
Friday, March 17, 2017

Review: ‘Needles and Opium’ at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

Sometimes the viewer of a theatrical experience can only sit in wonder at the spectacle, not because elephants dance on soccer balls or trapeze artists spiral on silken threads, but becaus…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:20PM
Thursday, March 2, 2017

Review: ‘The Select (The Sun Also Rises)’ at Shakespeare Theatre Company by Robert Michael Oliver

The Elevator Repair Service’s production of The Select (The Sun also Rises) opened at the Lansburgh Theatre Monday, and I’m certain that Earnest Hemingway’s 1926 debut nove…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 10:20AM
Saturday, February 18, 2017

Review: Regina Carter: ‘Simply Ella’ at The Kennedy Center by Robert Michael Oliver

Regina Carter and her violin: a human voice has never sounded so true. If you get a chance to experience Regina Carter: Simply Ella, the jazz quintet composed of Regina Carter (violin), Marv…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:11PM
Friday, February 17, 2017

Review: ‘All My Sons’ at The George Washington University’s Department of Theatre and Dance by Robert Michael Oliver

Some plays survive the test of time. Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is such a play. And the production mounted by The George Washington University’s Department of Theatre and Dance …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 02:39PM
Thursday, February 16, 2017

Spine: ‘King Charles III’ at The Shakespeare Theatre Company by Robert Michael Oliver

They sure don’t make kings like they used to. And maybe that’s a good thing. Mike Bartlett’s historical fantasy, King Charles III, based loosely (very loosely) on the curr…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 02:15PM
Monday, February 13, 2017

Review: Jazzmeia Horn at the Kennedy Center Jazz Club by Robert Michael Oliver

To understand the voice of Jazzmeia Horn — whether it’s embodying her own ballad, the cleverly romantic, soft “Legs and Arms,” or taking on the role of an instrumenta…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 07:23PM
Friday, February 10, 2017

Review: ‘Watch on the Rhine’ at Arena Stage by Robert Michael Oliver

Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine came to DC for a command performance on January 25, 1942. The occasion: Franklin Roosevelt’s 60th birthday. America had just entered World Wa…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:27PM
Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Spine: Love and Wit in ‘As You Like It’ at the Folger Theatre by Robert Michael Oliver

Now playing at the Folger Theater, a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch and produced in association with Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festiva…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 01:33PM
Friday, January 27, 2017

Spine: ‘Mack, Beth’ a ‘Macbeth’ for the Cyber Age at Keegan Theatre by Robert Michael Oliver

Mack, Beth by Chris Stezin, now playing at The Keegan Theatre, is a Macbeth for the Cyber Age. Set in a world where death by dagger is replaced by death by fake news, Mack, Beth makes a pers…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 12:41AM
Saturday, January 21, 2017

Spine: Consciousness, Conscience, and ‘The Hard Problem’ at The Studio Theatre by Robert Michael Oliver

Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem isn’t so much about consciousness and the existence of subjectivity, “the hard problem” elucidated by contemporary Australian philosop…

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 06:08PM
Monday, January 16, 2017

Spine: ‘Silent Sky’ at Silver Spring Stage by Robert Michael Oliver

On occasion, a play comes along with a bit of history, a bit of uncovered history, and that history changes the nature of the universe. Silent Sky is that sort of play. Lauren Gunderson’s …

SOURCE: DC Metro Theater Arts at 11:50AM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards