Simpatico Theatre Company’s production of HIR by Taylor Mac challenges audiences to reconsider preconceptions of gender identity
Author’s note: Taylor Mac uses “judy” as a gender pronoun. This review reflects Mac’s preference. Taylor Mac’s work is unwieldy and absurdist, challenging and unsettling. These elements often work to…
Absolutely Fabulous Off-Broadway Rep: MY BIG GAY ITALIAN WEDDING and MY BIG GAY ITALIAN FUNERAL There are few events in life as rife with the heightened emotions of love and loss as weddings and funerals. Add to them the unbridled passions of being Italian and gay, then throw in a rollicking... 
JEFFREY DAHMER (BrainSpunk): A chilling conversation with a serial killer BrainSpunk Theater’s premiere full-stage production will keep you spellbound, stunned, and sickened 
TRUE STORY (Passage): A Multi-Layered World-Premiere Whodunit Though EM Lewis’s 80-minute thriller TRUE STORY pays homage to Raymond Chandler’s detective-story and film-noir tradition of the 1930s and ‘40s, the play offers a more current (cell-phone era) explora... 
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival): Fickle Love and an Irresistible Canine Contrasting the giddy inconstancy of youthful passion with the unconditional love for and the stolid fidelity of a pet dog, THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA—one of the Bard’s earliest works—is a delightful... 
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (Opera Philadelphia): Mozart at the Academy of Music Opera Philadelphia’s new co-production of Mozart’s MARRIAGE OF FIGARO is fast, lively and a wonderful way to be introduced to opera. 
Published by The Dance Journal, reprinted with kind permission. As noted in Lew Wittington’s interview with PA Ballet Artistic Director Roy Kaiser last month, George Balanchine’s iconic JEWELS is an immense undertaking. It’s usually performed by larger companies and PA Ballet’s version, which opened at the Academy of Music last month, required two repetiteurs from the Balanchine Trust and every single one of the company’s 39 dancers.
