Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie is described as a “memory play”: its plot an extended flashback, its theatrical pretense laid bare. GLASS: SHATTERED, Michael Durkin’s reimaging of this classic of…
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is known today primarily for the word derived from his name: masochism, and for his scandalous 1870 novel VENUS IN FUR, the title of a intelligent and…
“Rare moths, wives pretending to be sisters,” deadly moors, escaped killers, and a legendary hellhound: the plot points of Arthur Conan Doyle’s THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES are ripe for…
It’s a pretty safe bet that you didn’t have a high school teacher as cool as Aaron “Gobanna” Pleasant. By turns musician, radio DJ, and teacher at Philadelphia Mennonite High School, Pleasant wrote KARMA 101 to teach high schoolers about the realities of growing up, making decisions, and higher education.
“One generation’s Orwellian dystopia is the next generation’s comfort-inducing lifestyle.” J. Ferron Hiatt, FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI TOY AND NOVELTY. The six short plays in Luna Theater’s FUTURE FEST (part of the…
Abraham Lincoln’s status as “the Great Emancipator” is a foundational myth of the American nation: a racially loaded narrative explored and satirized by Suzan-Lori Parks in THE AMERICA PLAY, now…
A pleasingly unpretentious comedy, THE HAND OF GAUL is something of a departure for Inis Nua, which generally produces serious works by contemporary Irish and British playwrights. Part of the…
“I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue/ and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and/ casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton/of Picayunes, and…
HENRY V completes Shakespeare’s four-part series on Plantagenet kings of England. No longer the indolent partier, Prince Hal has inherited the English throne, but is haunted by the original sin…
Writers will find much familiar in Theresa Rebeck’s SEMINAR, which brilliantly satirizes writerly blowhards (a proportionally large subset) and the self-seriousness necessary to pursue this art. Burnt-out, self-aggrandizing Leonard (Rufus Collins)…
In most of Shakespeare’s tragedies, the characters are overtaken by the swirl of events, following fate to their bloody end. A notable exception is OTHELLO, now onstage at Philadelphia Shakespeare…
Samuel Beckett’s ENDGAME (now onstage at the Arden Theatre) is empty and confusing; the action confined, the pacing slow. For all this, it’s a great play: a humorous exploration of…
Peter Shaffer’s EQUUS premiered in 1973, and its age shows. A psycho-sexual exploration of insanity, spirituality, and conformity, it continues to appeal to generations of teenagers who identify with Alan…
After a solid run from upstart Renegade Company, THE AMISH PROJECT is getting a revamped co-production with star indie company, Simpatico Theatre Project. Janice Rowland repeats her virtuoso one-woman performance…
Cutting close to the bone, Lesley Headland’s ASSISTANCE is a protest, as provocative as Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal (1928), exposing the Darwinian-exploitative nature of the 2013 job market. Irony sucker punched…
An early version of this show lit up the Live Arts Festival in ’05, and I couldn’t wait to see the latest manifestation of the collaboration between Thaddeus Phillips’ Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental and Wilhelm Bros. music. The production has grown up over the intervening years. It’s bigger, wider, and deeper, and just as amazing and magical.
TOWN (Jolie Darrow & Jack O’Keeffe/PHIT Comedy): 2017 Fringe review TOWN feels like a writer’s first draft. Ultimately, nothing seems to be at stake. 
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (Walnut Street Theatre): 60-second review The promise of “something for everyone” is both too little and too much. 
THE PASSION OF KELLYANNE (LiveFeedNYC): 2017 Fringe review How did Kellyanne Conway go from Hammonton, New Jersey blueberry-packing champ to the first woman to manage a successful U.S. presidential campaign? That is the question the 45-minute fictionalized bi... 
STORM (Asya Zlatina and Dancers): 2017 Fringe review Asya Zlatina’s new work STORM is sophisticated and well-done. 
THE GROOM’S A FAG; THE BRIDE’S A CUNT; THE BEST MAN’S A WHORE; AND THE MAIDEN OF HONOR (JUST) HUNG HERSELF IN THE CLOSET (On the Rocks): 2017 Fringe review On the Rocks proves you can dismantle the master’s house with his tools. 
Sibling rivalry, conflicting personalities, and antithetical lifestyles regress to anti-social antics, primal rage, and role reversal in TRUE WEST, Sam Shepard’s dark comedy about two adult brothers, estranged for five years, who resume their dysfunctional relationship while house-sitting in Southern California for their vacationing mother. Theatre Exile exposes the competition, jealousy, lunacy, and savagery of family politics with a cast, direction, and design that alternately amuse and horrify. Brian Osborne as Lee, an unkempt, liquor-guzzling burglar, delivers the sarcasm, aggression, and anger of the dissolute brother who rejects a respectable suburban existence for the wilderness of the western desert and a lone life of petty crime.
