Coverage of arts in Philadelphia
Dancer Nicole Sabella is returning to Philly this month with Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG), celebrating the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with Morris’ Pepperland. Sabella, who is a graduate of UArts, joined the company in 2015. She looks back at her time in Philly and credits it for some of her best memories.
View More Dancing in Pepperland: An interview with Nicole Sabella
A satire of suburban ennui melded with a girlhood drama has never morphed more seamlessly into a body-horror monster movie.
View More Hatching (Dir. Hanna Bergholm): Film review
As PHILADANCO! prepares for their upcoming performance at the Kimmel Center, Kim Bears-Bailey looks back on her illustrious career with the company. Bears-Bailey joined the company in 1981 and rose through the ranks to her current position as Artistic Director. She shares with Phindie the creation of PHILADANCO! RE and highlights of the past 41 years.
View More RE!flecting on a career with PHILADANCO!: Interview with Kim Bears-Bailey
“The Northman” might be Robert Eggers’ most accessible film and yet it never compromises itself as a Robert Eggers film, complete with old-world authenticity and forbidding weirdness. I
View More The Northman (dir. Robert Eggers): Film review
Not everyone will be on filmmaker Riley Stearns’ oddball wavelength, but it’s the viewer’s choice. In the case of droll, tightly-scripted sci-fi black comedy “Dual,” they’ll wish they could be. In what is very much from Stearns’ voice, the film is dryly comic, offbeat, andvanchored by dual performances from Karen Gillan that are subtly disparate but equally deadpan and finely tuned.
View More Dual (dir. Riley Stearns): Film review
Bucks County native Jenny Lee Stern is returning to the Walnut to reprise her role as Patsy Cline. The Broadway veteran says she’s found her niche playing the legendary singer. The musical, which follows the unlikely friendship between Cline and Louise Seger, includes 27 of Cline’s best- known classics. Stern talks about why she keeps coming back – both to the role and to the Walnut.
View More Actress Jenny Lee Stern is Always…Patsy Cline
We’re welcoming April with the fifth annual Philadelphia Theater Week, and a roundup of other shows happening this month!
View More April Roundup featuring Philly Theater Week
NETworks non-equity presentation of Waitress at the Kimmel Center delivers a production that is full of sweetness, laughs, and lovely music.
There is something so comforting about the American diner. The smell of bacon, the reliably hot coffee, the servers who’s brusk care is well-worn but personal. Likewise, Waitress, feels comforting, and certainly more filling than some other recent movie-to-musical broadway adaptations.
View More Waitress Goes Down Sweet As Pie
“You Won’t Be Alone,” Goran Stolevski’s writing-directing feature debut, is something special. More than just “arthouse horror,” Stolevski’s film is a haunting meditation on identity, humanity, and how everything is relative, but also a sensory experience with some bloody innards. It’s unsettling, yet challenging and magical, and if you just let it wash over you, the spell is rewarding.
View More You Won’t Be Alone (dir. Goran Stolevski): Film Review
As part of its Transformation Repertory, Quintessence Theatre Company presents one of Shakespeare’s most beguiling plays, The Winter’s Tale. Sometimes classified as a “late romance,” or a “tragi-comedy,” or simply “a problem play,” The Winter’s Tale spans two countries and 16 years.
View More Quintessence Breaking the Cycle with Tragi-Comedy The Winter’s Tale
Shawn W. Smith returns to WAITRESS in the lead role of Earl. Smith joined the national touring cast of WAITRESS in 2019 after playing an ensemble role in the show. The musical is based on the 2007 film of the same name and features music by Sara Bareilles. Smith talks to Phindie about being back in the pie shop.
View More Order Up! Interview with Shawn W. Smith of WAITRESS
Catholic Guilt might sound like a title for a heavy, depressing show, but Kelly McCaughan leads audiences on an adventure that is much more than that. The show is McCaughan’s “playful and poignant” take on her experiences with Catholicism, a mix of stand-up, improv and what they describe as “sinful audience participation”.
View More ‘Catholic Guilt’ Returns for the Fifth Annual Philadelphia Theatre Week
As the world reaches out a hand to help the Ukrainian people amidst the Russian invasion, the local Philadelphia theater community is finding its own ways to contribute. In solidarity with Ukraine, the Wilma Theater presents a special event next week featuring the work of Ukrainian playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit, raising money for those affected by the war.
View More The Wilma Announces A Fundraiser Supporting Ukraine
What a brave return to live theater this production is! Lantern Theater Company gives us old-time drama and powerful theater, full of big ideas and complex language, rather than a bit of fluff to amuse or console us. With a top-notch cast and clever direction by Peter DeLaurier, it’s a heady three hours.
View More Lantern Theater’s Brave Return to Stage: A Man For All Seasons
Author Graham Moore (who adapted his book The Imitation Game for the Benedict Cumberbatch-starrer of the same name) makes his writing-directing debut, and he decidedly shows a lot of skill in ratcheting up tension and claustrophobia in mostly one room for one long night. It’s a little like Hitchcock’s Rope in that way, but with more sharp objects.
View More The Outfit (dir. Graham Moore): Film review
Charles Askegard has spent his career perfecting the work of George Balanchine – first as a dancer with NYCB and now as the Philadelphia Ballet’s rehearsal director. The company will be presenting Bold Brilliant Balanchine as part of its commitment to honoring and celebrating its rich Balanchine roots. Askegard spoke about the upcoming program and his time with the Philadelphia Ballet.
View More Philadelphia Ballet’s Charles Askegard on the Brilliance of Balanchine
Walking into the Forrest Theatre, patrons are assaulted by the glaringly-bright light of the stage. This production of Oklahoma!, the lights seem to say, will hide nothing. In many ways, Daniel Fish’s revival lives up to this promise.
View More A Powerful Revival: Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma!
In a post-quarantine world, we often don’t know what to expect, and the same is true of Sarah Knittel and Bradley Kristian Wrenn’s upcoming experience/performance titled MAKE A F@CKIN’ SHOW YOU POS. Sarah Knittel, one half of the director/performer duo, received our smoke signals and exited her cave long enough to discuss her work and the show with Phindie.
View More Emerging from the Dark: Sarah Knittel on MAKE A F@CKIN’ SHOW YOU POS
Australia’s renowned Circa continues to defy the laws of gravity in their latest program, Humans 2.0. The contemporary circus troupe is returning to Philly with the follow-up to their 2018 performance Humans. The show promises to push the physical boundaries even further with their 10-member company. Performer Luke Thomas spoke with Phindie about the upcoming program at the Zellerbach Theatre.
View More The Return of Circa: Luke Thomas on Humans 2.0
For millennial theater kids, it is hard to overstate the cultural importance of Rent. First produced in 1996, the contemporary retelling of Pucini’s La bohème introduced me and my peers to rock ballads, profanity, drug use, sex, homelessness, and AIDS. Presented in Philly as part of its “25th Anniversary Farewell” tour, this Rent feels adolescent, that is: young, passionate, loud, and slightly dumb.
View More Seasons of RENT: A young cast helps an aging show