Six theater companies came together this season to create the Philadelphia Irish Theatre Festival, which featured eight contemporary plays from the Emerald Isle. Brat Productions…
View More Talkin’ Irish with Madi Distefano of Brat Productions
Author: Christopher Munden
Your faithful correspondent and publisher Christopher Munden has written and edited for many publications, websites, and cultural institutions. He was an editor/publisher of the Philly Fiction book series, collections of short stories written by local writers and set in Philadelphia. He's also a soccer coach, a pretty good skier, and an erstwhile songwriter.
Brat Productions’ CRAIC Fringes the Irish Theatre Fest
There are some 400 million native English-language speakers in the world and about 6 million of them live on the island of Ireland, but the…
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Commedia, Terrorism, and Royalty: Inis Nua’s DUBLIN BY LAMPLIGHT
Cast members from Inis Nua Theatre’s DUBLIN BY LAMPLIGHT, playing in Philadelphia PA through May 14. The Royal Wedding and the death of international terrorist…
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Bastille to Broad Street: The French influence on Philadelphia architecture
Paris’s reputation as a a city of architectural beauty is long-held and its emblematic structures have influenced generations of Philadelphia architects and designers. This cultural…
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Amaryllis Theatre Company Brings an Excelente LYDIA to the Adrienne
As Octavio Solis’s sublimely crafted play Lydia opens, the Mexican American Flores family is struggling to cope with the aftermath of a terrible car accident.…
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Bleak Complexity: SPEAKING IN TONGUES at the Walnut’s Independence on 3
As SPEAKING IN TONGUES opens, two couples are about to cheat on their partners. Their dialog develops in unison; each pairing uttering the same lines.…
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In the Swing: A Brief History of Baseball in Philadelphia
Baseball in Philadelphia is riding on a wave of success by the hometown Phillies, winners of four straight National League East titles and two of…
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One Woman, Many Voices: LET ME DOWN EASY at PTC
There are many voices in this nation’s health care debate, and Anna Deveare Smith could probably act out them all. In LET ME DOWN EASY,…
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BCKSEET Productions’ Losing the Shore
You never expect lighthearted comedy when going to a show by BCKSEET Productions. Argentine prison dramas, biting Edward Albee plays, and a Christmas show depicting Santa…
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Updike’s guide to reviewing
Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his…
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It’s The End of the World As We Knew It: New City’s PTERODACTYLS at the Adrienne
PTERODACTYLS takes place in a sterile Main Line living room (set design Cory Palmer), a fitting setting for a work reminiscent of Victorian drawing room…
View More It’s The End of the World As We Knew It: New City’s PTERODACTYLS at the Adrienne
The New and Old of It: Interview with BCKSEET’s Gregory DeCandia
BCKSEET Productions has staged more than thirty plays in their eleven-year history, about half of those in Philadelphia, the city the company has called home…
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California Fresh: New theater company launches in Kensington arts space
The back streets of Kensington may not have much in common with Hollywood
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It’s “theater”
Philadelphia is in the United States, so I’ve decided that theater should be spelled theater, not the English/French theatre. Right.
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THE CRUCIBLE (Tri-County Performing Arts Center)
Like many people, I was introduced to THE CRUCIBLE in a high school English class. The teacher dutifully told us that it was a play…
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LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE by Theatre Exile at Plays and Players
Playwright Martin McDonagh delivers a powerful political message in the most palatable of pills
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Don’t worry folks, he’s not like that in real life (or so he claims): Interview with Blasted’s John Jezior
Actor John Jezior has become well known to Philadelphia area audiences through his work on Shakespeare productions; he has performed in nearly half of the…
View More Don’t worry folks, he’s not like that in real life (or so he claims): Interview with Blasted’s John Jezior
“Great Expectations” at Curio Theatre
Charles Dickens asked in his will that no memorials be erected to him and so the life-size sculpture of the author in Clarke Park in…
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Sarah Kane’s Controversial Play ‘Blasted’ Comes to Philadelphia’s Luna Theater Company
That playwright Sarah Kane looked on the world as a pretty bleak place was confirmed by her 1999 suicide (at the young age of 28). But her…
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Musical theater kicks off Mauckingbird Theatre Company’s fourth season
I’m not the target audience for Mauckingbird Theatre Company’s Philadelphia premier of “[title of show]”, now onstage UPstairs at the Adrienne Theatre. I’ve never been the…
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