Live theater can be a truly magical experience. It has been said that this area has more theater seats, and thus more theater available, than any other city in the nation except New York.

But where are those seats? Are they comfortable to sit in? And, what will you see when you get there?

Potomac Stages’ goal is to keep you advised of what is available and where you can find it. The weekly email Update alerts you to what is opening and warns you of what is closing. It lists the newly-reviewed shows and even gives you the headlines of the week. Potomac Stages Website provides descriptions of everything playing or coming soon and reviews of many of these offerings. The Update is hyperlinked to allow you to quickly access the page of the website where the description or review can be found.

What is more, each of those pages includes a quick guide, grading (on a report card scale) the seat comfort, the sight lines and sound quality, the parking, and when provided indicates accommodations for the handicapped (w for wheelchair accessible, v for vision assistance and h for hearing assistance), metro access info, a link to the theater’s website, if they have one, and even a link to MapQuest already programmed to provide a map showing the theater’s location. The grading scale for parking generally uses "A" to indicate free, onsite or adjacent off-street parking, "B" to indicate onsite or adjacent off street parking that must be paid for and "C" for locations where on-street parking is the only available option. When there is a recording of the score of a musical, a published script of a play, or a published version of a book on which a show is based which we feel would help theater lovers get the most out of a local production, we include a link to an order page in association with Amazon.com already filled out specifying the item. That link is shown in green above the photograph illustrating the review.

We love theater, and hope that by providing as much information as possible about what is available from the nearly 200 children's, community, dinner and professional theaters and theater groups in our area, it will be inevitable that you will become theater lovers too.

A word about our reviewing standards

We believe that our function is to provide you, the interested theatergoer, with the information you need to decide whether any particular show is one on which you want to spend your time and your money.  Therefore, our reviews are neither literary criticism nor analysis of how the show might be done differently. Nor, for that matter, do we think our readers care much about whether we liked the show. We try to place our emphasis on describing the play and the production so that you will know what is being offered for your attention. The standard we apply is not “is this the best possible approach to the subject?” and we certainly don’t adopt the posture that “if it’s not the best it can be, then it is bad.” Rather, we ask “is this a satisfying production?” In the process we try to assess how well the production accomplishes what it set out to do. If we err, it is on the side of being positive. This is in part because we are aware of how very hard the creators of the shows have worked, in part because we are in awe of their willingness to put their work out for public consideration and – well, because we love live theater.

All of our reviews follow the same format:

• The first paragraph presents an overall assessment of the production.
• The second paragraph, highlighted in boldface type and headed “Storyline” is always a synopsis of what the play or presentation is about.
• There are then three paragraphs in which we elaborate on the assessment, focusing in on the contributions of the author, the cast and the design team.
• The final paragraph lists the author, composer, lyricist, director, choreographer, music director, designers and cast members (as appropriate).