Fringe reviews
The sun has set at Laurel Hill Cemetery. A half-moon barely illuminates the gravestones, with faint shadows moving about off in the distance. There is a (very generously portioned) cocktail…
The delightful and hilarious ladies of Chlamydia dell’Arte—Gigi Naglak and Meghann Williams—would like to educate you. They would like to sing you a song about the etiquette of butt sex….
At Plays & Players, a serene air of sophistication, and a soothing nostalgia of productions past blanket the crowd of the fully seated theater. The lights are dimmed just slightly,…
Courtesy of Philly “Art” Blog. Performing at POLYGON COMEDY PRESENTS: THE FRINGE! were Rosen and Milkshake and Alex Pearlman, local acts with previous stand-up credentials and unpretentious indie appeal. Rosen and Milkshake were up…
An original chamber opera by the exciting young Philadelphia Opera Collective, OPERA MACABRE—which fittingly opened on Friday the 13th!—captures all the hair-raising suspense and psychological disturbance of Edgar Allan Poe’s…
Eugene O’Neill’s early maritime heart-wrenchers, Bound East for Cardiff and In the Zone, are brought to life in the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective’s devastatingly effective site-specific production of THE SEA PLAYS….
Like vague early childhood memories of “home”, the eight players of WHERE (WE) LIVE assemble without an introduction, scattering to spaces cluttered with objects, lights, and instruments. Beer brewers begin…
Improv is the jam band genre of theater: it often seems more fun to do than fun to watch. Sure, it provides tools to young actors and throws up occasional…
ENLIGHTENMENT ON E FLOOR NORTH explores the absurdities of employment in the most unlikely of places – the galleries of an art museum where four security guards toil away by mindlessly…
With a series of celebrated readings and full productions (including 2012 Fringe hit The Creditors) Philadelphia Artists’ Collective has established a reputation as one of the best independent companies in…
One of the best bonuses of Philadelphia’s Fringe Festival is the nightly after-party at the Festival Bar (this year at Underground Arts), where everyone can relax, mingle, grab a bite,…
You know those commercials at the movies that play for fifteen minutes before the trailers? You don’t want them, you don’t care about them, but you accept them as part…
Given that you have to sit suffering through the disgraceful This is Not a Theater, it’s almost irrelevant to review THE LIVING NEWSPAPER, but NEWSPAPER is at least a “show” (read…
Three potatoes, peeled with difficulty (“you drive me as crazy as my date will”) by long fingernails and diced Two apples, crudely peeled (“how come no one told me how…
Navin Rawanchaikul has created an epic portrait of the history of Philly’s historic Plays and Players Theater. Hundreds of faces have been painted with photographic realism in dynamic, often silly…
Two young guys who moved here from Tennessee in 2012 started their own theater company, which they named Blue Suede Productions as a tribute to Elvis. John-Thomas Appling and Chris…
From the supremely innovative New York company that brought the hilarious Romeo and Juliet to the 2011 Philly Fringe, LIFE AND TIMES: EPISODE 1 begins a twelve-hour five-part marathon on…
Choreographer par excellence Brian Sanders creates a psycho-sexual dreamscape of children’s fairy tales and nursery rhymes morphing into adult erotic fantasies in HUSH NOW SWEET HIGH HEELS AND OAK. Multiple…
“You’re not here.” “Yes I am.” “But you’re not supposed to be here.” —ENLIGHTENMENT ON E FLOOR NORTH Someone once said that war is months of utter boredom interspersed with…
Almost one hundred years ago, Edgar Lee Masters began publishing poems from the point of view of the deceased residents of Spoon River, a lightly-fictionalized version of the small towns…