Inis Nua has done its best with a story more told than shown, an aftermath.
View More Once Upon a Bridge (Inis Nua): 60-second reviewAuthor: Kathryn Osenlund
FAITH HEALER (Lantern): Powerful storytelling
The Lantern Theater’s performance of Faith Healer, by Brian Friel is presented as four monologues that represent three points of view, those of Frank Hardy…
View More FAITH HEALER (Lantern): Powerful storytellingA RAISIN IN THE SUN (Bristol Riverside): An old fashioned play, carefully executed
Lorraine Hansberry wrote Raisin in the Sun in 1959, a bold play for its time. It takes a dark view of the progress of integration,…
View More A RAISIN IN THE SUN (Bristol Riverside): An old fashioned play, carefully executedCAMP SIEGFRIED (Theatre Exile): An unlikely love story
Love happens, even in a setting dedicated to concentrated evil, as an American girl becomes a fierce Nazi uber-princess.
View More CAMP SIEGFRIED (Theatre Exile): An unlikely love storyNO EXIT (Quintessence): A new translation of a hellishly absurd classic
Quintessence Theater’s founding artistic director Alex Burns, has written a new translation from the original French
View More NO EXIT (Quintessence): A new translation of a hellishly absurd classicASSASSINS (Arden): A celebration of psychopaths
The wall of the F. Otto Haas Stage features pictures of targets and X’s for murdered presidents. Starting with John Wilkes Booth’s killing of Abraham…
View More ASSASSINS (Arden): A celebration of psychopathsTARTUFFE (Lantern): Delightfully over-the-top
Before he became a celebrated playwright, Jean-Baptiste Poquelan was a poor thing in a touring shoestring theater company. Although he had wanted to be a…
View More TARTUFFE (Lantern): Delightfully over-the-top10 Dates with Mad Mary (Inis Nua): A real piece of work returns
10 Dates with Mad Mary is playing upstairs at a favored watering hole, Fergie’s Pub. The show was so popular last year that it’s back!
View More 10 Dates with Mad Mary (Inis Nua): A real piece of work returnsTWELFTH NIGHT (Wilma): Beach blanket Bard
There’s a lot of Twelfth Night going around in the Philadelphia area, all different. The Wilma conjures a fresh seaside setting. A dock moves forward.…
View More TWELFTH NIGHT (Wilma): Beach blanket BardTWELFTH NIGHT (Lantern): Some are born great
Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night (1599-1600), one of his few fantasy plays, immediately before he penned his incomparable Hamlet (1600-1601). As Artistic Director Charles McMahon describes…
View More TWELFTH NIGHT (Lantern): Some are born greatRADIO GOLF (Arden): Hearts on one side, heads on the other
A crippling honesty and family ties mark August Wilson’s Radio Golf, a play that flows with humor along with sharply incisive dialogue and a clever story line.
View More RADIO GOLF (Arden): Hearts on one side, heads on the otherTHE TEMPEST (Quintessence): Full of magic
There’s magic and mystery as wonderfully costumed characters come alive to dance, sing, cavort, wrestle, draw swords, threaten violence, and show mercy
View More THE TEMPEST (Quintessence): Full of magicCAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (Walnut Street Theatre): A thinking play
Introducing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as “a thinking play,” Tennessee Williams wrote to his audiences: “I want to go on talking to you…
View More CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (Walnut Street Theatre): A thinking playWaiting For Lefty (Quintessence): On the side of angels but not art
This show has history. Odets, a voice for his disinherited generation was born in Philadelphia.
View More Waiting For Lefty (Quintessence): On the side of angels but not artEvery Brilliant Thing (Arden Theatre Company): 60-second review
Scott Greer has the audience suffering with him, then happy for him. It seems this story could have been his personal history. He owns it that much.
View More Every Brilliant Thing (Arden Theatre Company): 60-second reviewThe Tattooed Lady (Philadelphia Theatre Company): Tattoo as metaphor, tattoo as tattoo
Boisterous, joyful, defiant, and a little bawdy, the show may have a sketchy contraption of a plot, but you don’t go to a musical expecting Hamlet.
View More The Tattooed Lady (Philadelphia Theatre Company): Tattoo as metaphor, tattoo as tattooDEATH OF A DRIVER (InterAct): 60-second review
Faced with bureaucratic nonsense or official missteps, who hasn’t said ‘fuck the government’ or a more genteel equivalent? The multi-ethnic East African Kenya Colony gained independence in…
View More DEATH OF A DRIVER (InterAct): 60-second reviewTHE GLASS MENAGERIE (Arden): Revisiting the famed memory play
Tennessee Williams had been writing since he was a teenager, and by the time he was 30 years old he was getting nowhere. His early…
View More THE GLASS MENAGERIE (Arden): Revisiting the famed memory playTHE CHAIRS (Quintessence): 60-second review
Due to the pandemic, it had been many months since I’d visited the Sedgwick Theater in Germantown. October 1 was opening night for The Chairs…
View More THE CHAIRS (Quintessence): 60-second reviewROMEO AND JULIET (OJ Productions): 2022 Fringe review
It’s a tragedy that more audiences will not have a chance to enjoy the production.
View More ROMEO AND JULIET (OJ Productions): 2022 Fringe review