Best urban legends

In only its third full season, Shadow Theatre Company managed to up its entertainment quotient while maintaining its commitment to produce works that are non-exclusive to other cultural groups. The predominantly African-American company held audiences rapt with its multiracial production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Carlyle Brown's The African Company Presents Richard III was particularly stirring when the characters bucked tradition and embraced invention; Laurence Fishburne's bare-fisted Riff Raff made contemporary discussions about social issues sound like wholesale plea-copping; and Ntozake Shange's choreopoem, From Okra to Greens, evoked the slight yet seismic forces -- and urban perils -- that shape male-female relationships.