The Barrymore Awards are on hiatus this year, returning in all their splendor for the 2013/14 season, but on November 4, 2013, Theatre Philadelphia gave out several awards recognizing local theaters and artists.
View More And the winners are….Category: Theater
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RFK (New City Stage): An American tragedy
Director Ginger Dayle and sound and video designer Ren Manley intersperse audio and visuals from the 1960s in New City Stage Company’s RFK, complementing Widdall’s powerful performance with a great soundtrack and contextualizing video clips. Following pre-show newsreels from JFK’s assassination, the play begins in 1964—eight months after the fateful day in Dallas.
View More RFK (New City Stage): An American tragedySTICK FLY (Arden): An inventive, relentlessly funny look at race and class
The immaculate Martha’s Vineyard home of the African American LeVay family is the set for Lydia R. Diamond’s STICK FLY at Arden Theatre Company. Plush sofas and pristine white cabinetry are the trappings around which the evening’s drama unfolds. The audience has a window into the kitchen, living room and porch where at times multiples scenes take place at complementary intervals; sometimes echoing their counterparts in the next room. The characters in the play are a complex set, all with different but overlapping backgrounds—some more than they realize.
View More STICK FLY (Arden): An inventive, relentlessly funny look at race and classScrew the Barrymores, Get Some Clown Funk
The Barrymore Awards, Philadelphia’s bastard stepchild of the Oliviers or Tonys, took something of a hiatus for the 2012/13 season, as the downfall of the…
View More Screw the Barrymores, Get Some Clown FunkNICE AND FRESH November (SmokeyScout): Get punched in the face by art at SmokeyScout Productions’ NICE AND FRESH
SmokeyScout is named after artistic director Josh McIlvain’s cats: Smokey and Scout. The program of the November NICE AND FRESH thanks them, along with Moving Arts of…
View More NICE AND FRESH November (SmokeyScout): Get punched in the face by art at SmokeyScout Productions’ NICE AND FRESHRevisiting New City Stage Company’s RFK
Since my original review of New City Stage Company’s stellar production of RFK in October 2012 (reprinted below), the show was featured in Washington, DC’s…
View More Revisiting New City Stage Company’s RFKTHE JERSEY DEVIL (Berserker Residents): 60-second review
The three troupe members of the FringeArts-famous Berserker Residents will do pretty much anything to get a good laugh out of the audience. Their recently…
View More THE JERSEY DEVIL (Berserker Residents): 60-second reviewGet Berserk this Halloween: The Berserker Residents return with THE JERSEY DEVIL
The Berserker Residents—that ludicrous comic trio of Justin Jain, David Johnson, and Bradley K. Wrenn—are a moved-loved highlight of the Philly Fringe. 2013’s The Talkback was a joyous…
View More Get Berserk this Halloween: The Berserker Residents return with THE JERSEY DEVILSHE STOOPS TO CONQUER (Quintessence): A contemporary 18th-century comedy
SHE STOOPS is an 18th-century comedy of manners and mistaken identities by Oliver Goldsmith. It is considered by many to be the most enduring of…
View More SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER (Quintessence): A contemporary 18th-century comedyCOCK (Theatre Exile): Spatial choreography reveals isolation, influence, and alliances.
Here’s the setup: A young man has lived with his male lover for a few years. During a spat he falls for a woman. Things…
View More COCK (Theatre Exile): Spatial choreography reveals isolation, influence, and alliances.MARCUS; OR THE SECRET OF SWEET (Plays & Players): 60-second review
Is life sweet when you live in the Louisiana Bayou before an unprecedented storm hits? For Marcus (Eric L. Fleming), life at 16 years of age…
View More MARCUS; OR THE SECRET OF SWEET (Plays & Players): 60-second reviewCOCK (Theatre Exile): A Provocative Fight for Love and Identity
Finding love and self-knowledge beyond the fixed categories of sexual identity (gay, straight, or bi) is the central theme of Michael Bartlett’s COCK, now in…
View More COCK (Theatre Exile): A Provocative Fight for Love and IdentityWE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT (InterAct): Are You Black Enough?
Drury’s funny, traumatic, inventive and timely play will stab at you, personally, at least once. She asks whether it is important that a story be told, or if it is more important that it be told in a certain way. She uses the events in Namibia to illustrate the cracks in our own culture, the divides caused by racial issues even among a group of people who would probably all vote for the same candidate..
View More WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT (InterAct): Are You Black Enough?MACBETH (Hedgrow): An ambitious and effective take on the Scottish play
Director Dan Hodge does not mind imposing his vision upon a text. His bold decision to combine the Ariel and Miranda characters proved surprisingly effective.in…
View More MACBETH (Hedgrow): An ambitious and effective take on the Scottish playA CLOCKWORK ORANGE (Luna): Commedia dell’arte meets post-modern morality play
Luna Theater Company’s interpretation of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel is a unique marriage of the British author’s futuristic stylizations with disturbing a cappella songs with the historic conventions of masking and stock movement inspired by Italian commedia dell’arte. It’s a perfect match to tell the cutting-edge morality tale of teen ultra-violence and reform.
View More A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (Luna): Commedia dell’arte meets post-modern morality playCOURTLY LUST: A KING ARTHUR BURLESQUE (GDP/Walking Fish): 60-second review
A tongue-in-cheek recounting of some of the sexier moments of King Arthur’s rule, COURTLY LUST attempts to do it all—just like the knights of old.…
View More COURTLY LUST: A KING ARTHUR BURLESQUE (GDP/Walking Fish): 60-second reviewHANNAH (Hella Fresh): The glories of the sober mind
In response to a story I wrote about LSD, a college creative writing professor told me that it’s never a good idea to give characters…
View More HANNAH (Hella Fresh): The glories of the sober mindTarell Alvin McCraney’s Brother/Sister Trilogy: Philadelphia audiences get a great look at an acclaimed new playwright
Allen Radway, James Ijames, and Daniel Student discuss Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Brother/Sister trilogy. All three plays in the series hit Philadelphia stages this fall.
View More Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Brother/Sister Trilogy: Philadelphia audiences get a great look at an acclaimed new playwrightSLASHER (Figment): An improv horror
SLASHER is a one hour improv play in the vein of a B-movie horror. There’s an unnecessarily precautious “splash area” where the audience may be stained with stray stage blood. An audience member’s spin of a wheel dictates the setting and holiday (a school on Easter weekend, on opening night). If this sounds like a description of the kind of show you like to see, you’ll probably like SLASHER.
View More SLASHER (Figment): An improv horrorTHE CONVERT (Wilma/Woolly Mammoth): Shining a light on colonialism
Colonialism is Pygmalian writ large: one culture trying to civilize another. In Danai Gurira’s melodramatic THE CONVERT, a priggish preacher (Irungu Mutu) in 1895 Rhodesia (present-day…
View More THE CONVERT (Wilma/Woolly Mammoth): Shining a light on colonialism