By Teniola Ayoola

This article was originally published in Washington City Paper here.

On the Fourth of July, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter stood center stage at Northwest Stadium in Landover and redefined what American music, legacy, and spectacle looks like. Her Cowboy Carter Tour stop wasn’t just a concert—it was a living, breathing art installation, a cultural exegesis, a Black feminist thesis, a family archive, and a stage production worthy of Broadway.

In one of the night’s most visually arresting moments, Beyoncé appeared on screen as a larger-than-life figure, strutting through major cities across the U.S.—from Houston to New York to Las Vegas. But when she arrived in D.C., gliding past the White House, towering over the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, the stadium erupted.

There is no place more loaded with meaning on July 4 than D.C. For Beyoncé to perform this show—one rooted in Southern Black identity, defiance, and American reclamation—on this date felt like a deliberate choice. The show opened with a knowing wink: Beyoncé at the center of a screen flashing red, white, and blue, performing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Her version, however, was laced with the rebellious instrumental arrangement originally performed by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969.

Despite Cowboy Carter’s musical brilliance, some critics and country purists questioned whether Beyoncé belonged in the genre at all—a familiar refrain for Black artists in traditionally White spaces. The song “Texas Hold ’Em” was initially rejected by some country radio stations, reigniting long-standing tensions about gatekeeping in American music. After rejecting a listener’s request for “Texas Hold ’Em,” the manager at Oklahoma radio station KYKC, explained, “We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station.”

Beyoncé addressed the criticism head-on. The backlash didn’t undermine her message—it amplified it. From the moment fans trickled into the stadium—many clad in denim, fringe, rhinestones, boots, and custom cowboy hats—it was clear this wasn’t just a tour; it was a movement. And when the singer finally emerged, cloaked in a massive American flag robe, Beyoncé made it known: This wasn’t about performing for a nation. This was about reclaiming it.

Backed by pounding drums and glittering visuals, Beyoncé asked the 50,000 or so audience members, “Can you hear me? Do you feel me?” The audience responded loudly. What followed was a dynamic set list that unfolded over roughly two hours. There were songs from Cowboy Carter, but also from 2003’s Dangerously in Love, 2008’s I Am… Sasha Fierce, 2011’s 4, and more. As strangers in the crowd belted out, “To the left, to the left…” in unison, it felt like more than a duet—it felt like community.

Midway through the concert, Beyoncé mused, “Genre is such a weird concept.” In that moment—surrounded by country riffs, rock undertones, voguing interludes, ballet pirouettes, trap beats, tap dancing, the iconic bounce-on-that-shit Riverdance step, and a drop into the gritty “Nigga ask about me” from Crazy in Love (Homecoming Live)—her point landed. She moved from elegant to guttural, soft to sharp, as if to ask: Who said I had to choose?

And in D.C., where musical legacies run deep, Beyoncé’s refusal to be boxed in echoed one of the city’s most defining genres: go-go. Born in the District and pioneered by the legendary Chuck Brown, go-go has never been just one thing. It fuses funk, soul, gospel, and call-and-response rhythms, drawing energy from both pop and percussion-heavy West African traditions.

Back onstage in Landover, Beyoncé honored her lineage. A graphic featured Black icons like Tina Turner. And at the start of “Formation,” her dancers broke into a clean, syncopated hat routine—gyrations and hip thrusts delivered with precision—a quiet, but unmistakable homage to Michael Jackson.

Outside the spectacle, the show struck deeply personal chords for the audience. For many, it was a night of full-bodied joy—dancing in the stands, sipping drinks on the party bus, and bonding with strangers over shared lyrics. Singing “Irreplaceable” together wasn’t just serendipity. It was the communal spirit Beyoncé cultivates—on and off stage.

Through it all, Beyoncé didn’t just perform. She reminded the crowd that she—and Black people, especially Black women—are America. Not in the political sense, as in presidents or lawmakers, but in the mythic one: the soul, rhythm, and story of the nation itself. Her journey from Houston girl group prodigy to global powerhouse is a story of grit, grace, and genre defiance—but also a reflection of Black resilience, ingenuity, and creative power. On July 4 in D.C., Beyoncé didn’t just put on a show—she claimed space. It wasn’t about fitting in. It was about standing firm.

By Teniola Ayoola

This article was originally published in Washington City Paper here.

It is a packed house on opening night of Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production Frankenstein. Onstage angular, dark wood beams frame a tall, imposing fireplace and a singular chair sits with a robe hanging on its back. Atmospheric lighting by Neil Austin and an eerie soundscape by André Pluess create the sense of haunting loss that anchors the production. But no green-skinned monster ever grunts into the frame. Instead, the monster in British director and writer Emily Burns’ adaptation is grief, privilege, and masculine neglect.  

Burns, known for her incisive adaptations and storytelling precision at the National Theatre and with the Royal Shakespeare Company, is making her American directorial debut with Frankenstein. A project that began in 2020, when Burns, who has worked with STC’s artistic director Simon Godwin for nearly a decade and adapted last year’s star-studded Macbeth, submitted a seven-page treatment to STC, envisioning a version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein told through a feminist lens. The company commissioned her to develop it into a full production. Over the next several years, with input from STC’s dramaturg, Drew Lichtenberg, she worked on her adaptation.

Burns began by interrogating what she saw as a contradiction at the heart of Shelley’s story: Frankenstein is one of the most iconic horror and science fiction novels ever written, and it was authored by a woman—yet both the original text and many of its best-known adaptations revolve almost entirely around male characters. 

“I was thinking about how male-focused Nick Dear’s 2011 stage adaptation is and how male-focused the novel is, and yet how it’s a female writer,” she says, before asking, “Why is it focused on men?”

With the goal of recentering the women in Shelley’s story, Burns turned to the original 1818 Frankenstein, where Victor Frankenstein’s abandonment—both of his wife, Elizabeth, and the Creature—is clearly condemned. Later revisions blurred that line, she says. According to Burns, the original, released anonymously, was far more emotionally raw and politically pointed. “It’s filled with ambitious men who are trying to create a name for themselves in their world,while she [Shelley] is at home trying to conceive, birth, and raise these children,” she says.

Before Victor brought his creature to life, Frankenstein was already a story shaped by maternal loss and abandonment. Shelley wrote the original story while in the throes of pregnancy, nursing, and grieving the death of her first child. The suicide of her sister also likely influenced her writing as did her husband’s—the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley—alleged affairs. It’s no surprise, then, that the 1818 version lays clear blame at Victor’s feet for abandoning the creature he created.

Deemed “too radical for Victorian sensibilities,” the second edition, released in 1823—with a manuscript edited by her husband—and a later version in 1831 softened that critique. Victor’s behavior became more fatalistic, his ambition framed as inevitable rather than negligent. Burns’ adaptation returns to the urgency of Shelley’s original. “Victor’s culpability and acceptance of culpability is kind of the central focus,” she says. “It’s not an immaculate conception. It’s this idea of a man creating life and then not taking responsibility for it.”

The result, now on stage through June 29, is a retelling that shifts the center of gravity—away from Victor’s ambition and toward the emotional, moral, and maternal fallout left in his wake. It’s about men, stitched together by ego and the privilege to walk away—from their partners, their children, their responsibilities—and still be worshipped for what they “created.”

Burns draws a direct line from Shelley’s lived experience—her personal tragedies echo throughout the play—to Elizabeth’s fictional fate. Multi-hyphenate artist Rebecca S’manga Frank, who plays Elizabeth, says she felt those parallels deeply: “I know this woman. This is the woman that’s us. And she wrote that.” 

For Frank, Frankenstein isn’t just a Gothic story—it’s a map of female survival, of turning pain into expression. “Mary had miscarriage after miscarriage, she had children die … she had this incredible husband-lover situation, but then it turned into tragedy.”

That transformation—of tragedy into art—is something Frank sees as a uniquely powerful human instinct, and often a feminine one. “The potential to take something dark or tragic and to turn it into something beautiful—that is a choice,” she says. “Because you could choose to stay in the darkness … or you could choose to follow the light.”

She likens it to alchemy: composting what’s been discarded or devalued and repurposing it into something luminous. “You bring it back up to the light and transform it.”

With Frank at the helm, Burns has created a play that doesn’t just reinterpret Shelley—it reclaims her. Her adaptation captures what was always there but rarely centered. It honors the trauma of motherhood, the clarity of womanhood, and the slow, devastating truths about the men we mythologize as geniuses—without asking who was sacrificed along the way.

By Leah Cohen

This article was originally published in DC Theater Arts here.

After nearly two decades of spotlighting local theater, the Capital Fringe Festival went dark, just when the arts needed it most. District Fringe is picking up where Capital Fringe left off.

“There’s a vibrant community of artists. They deserve a place where they can afford to do it. They deserve a chance to get on stage,” said Karen Lange (artistic director, Pinky Swear Productions), one of District Fringe’s leaders.

Not unlike Capital Fringe, District Fringe will work to unite the DC theater collective but with a stronger emphasis on community and collaboration. Led by three artistic directors and longtime Capital Fringe supporters, Tracey Erbacher (artistic director, Theater Prometheus), Aubri O’Connor (artistic director, Nu Sass Productions), and Lange, District Fringe is on a mission to “promote and propel the strong independent theater tradition in the DC area.”

When the news broke in December that Capital Fringe would not be returning, the now leaders went to work to begin production of District Fringe — recruiting applications, fundraising, and searching for spaces to hold the festival, which will take place in July.

District Fringe is coming at a time when the Trump administration is targeting performing arts and diversity initiatives, particularly in once-vibrant cultural spaces like The Kennedy Center.

“Part of what fuels me is they wouldn’t be bothering with the arts if the arts weren’t important,” Erbacher said. “This is an opportunity to expand outward and support those voices.”

Because of the original festival’s finances and space availability, Capital Fringe accepted applications from artists on a first-come, first-served basis. Being in its first year, District Fringe will limit the number of shows to about 10 to 20, depending on space, following an application process. After receiving over 40 applications, the festival’s leaders and team of readers ultimately made decisions based on what excites them most and reflects DC’s diverse artistic collective.

While the team is still working to secure a venue or venues to host the festival, no matter where they choose, there will be a community space for festival goers and artists to gather. Lange recalled having a similar space during the early years of Capital Fringe.

“Most of us met each other there. We actually got to hang out and have a drink and party late into the night, dancing together. That was really special and one of the things we really want to bring back,” Lange said.

District Fringe will be an opportunity to celebrate not only the artists but also the volunteers and donors who have helped with the festival’s production.

“I’ve been running a company for 11 years and I’ve never had this level of community support where people are coming out of the woodwork to be like, ‘Hi, I care about this, this is important, how can we help?’ Which is really moving,” Lange said.

The District Fringe team is looking for volunteers with experiences doing artistic producing, media and press outreach, technical support, and on-the-ground support when the festival begins. And, donations big and small.

“Donations have such a direct impact. A little bit of money goes so far given how low our fundraising goal is compared to other big theater efforts, and that’s going straight to making art possible for more artists,” said Erbacher.

With one of the main goals of the festival being to make local art as accessible as possible, the team has set admission at $15 per show (including fees), with additional options like discounted ticket bundles, buy-one-get-one offers, and an all-access festival pass.

“Everybody’s art makes everyone else’s stronger because you might not hear about one individual company making one small show, but you hear about Fringe and everyone’s working together,” Erbacher said. “It’s about the power of the community there banding together and making a festival.”

For those looking to get involved and volunteer with District Fringe, reach out to info@districtfringe.com for more information.