There is magic and wonder in the world, and not the cheap kind from childhood fairy tales, but the hard earned kind from adults who speak in their own true voices and dare to tell us how we’re all put together.
View More JUG-BABY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Transmissions Theatre): A jar of surprises
Frank Perri’s DOUBLE BATMAN is a powerful monologue of loss, withdrawal, and reemergence basically explaining why he is doing a powerful monologue of loss, withdrawal, and reemergence.
View More DOUBLE BATMAN (Frank Perri): 2014 Fringe Review 87
“Hammy, I said—a bit of a ham.” that’s how a character in POE-A-THON describes Edgar Allan Poe, speaking volumes about the approach taken by Night Hawks.
View More POE-A-THON (Night Hawks): Fringe Review 85
There is quite a lot of yelling in BROKEN PEOPLE, the new show by local actor and playwright David DelBianco.
View More BROKEN PEOPLE (David DelBianco): Fringe Review 82
MOUNT AIRY HOME COMPANION borrows more than the title from its public radio namesake, capturing the lovingly corny spirit of Garrison Keillor and company.
View More MOUNT AIRY HOME COMPANION (Saint Mad): Fringe Review 73
The show, which is all about loss and violence in a dark corner of the world, is too bright – it has no real darkness to it at all
View More SISTERS OF ELLERY HOLLOW BY STEPHEN SPOTSWOOD (RHolt Productions): Fringe Review 60
Playwrights are do not come fully formed. Directors have to start somewhere. And the Philly Fringe Festival is traditionally a great place for artists to take their first artistic steps.
View More ALTERNATIVE THEATRE FESTIVAL (iNtuitions Experimental Theatre): Fringe Review 57
UNDERGROUND EPISODES carries us from Olney to past City Hall and then back again in poems, half-spoken and half-recited, sometimes direct and sometimes inscrutable.
View More UNDERGROUND EPISODES (Run Boy Run Productions): Fringe Review 52
The actor, best known for work on “Living Single,” opens it all up with a solo show that is hilarious, hopeful, and surprisingly heartfelt.
View More KIM COLES: OH, BUT WAIT . . . THERE’S MORE! (Kim Coles / Dir. Scotch Ellis Loring): Fringe Review 46
This is no mere retelling of Romeo and Juliet. What we get is a conjuring, a blood-letting, a full-throated cry of rage.
View More MAD BLOOD AND OTHER BEAUTIES (A Plague On Both Your Houses): Fringe Review 44
Imagine if Frank Herbert’s “Dune” had been adapted not by David Lynch but instead by the Mummers. That’s not too far off from what we get with SEPHRO: EARTH’S REVENGE.
View More SEPHRO: EARTH’S REVENGE (Fantasy Weavers): Fringe Review 23
Van.Martin Productions lampoons the Sophocles classic with their silly OEDIPUS THE MUSICAL, which ties together Greek tragedy, #YOLO, and herpes into one madcap package.
View More OEDIPUS THE MUSICAL (Van.Martin Productions): Fringe Review 17
This short musical is aimed at really young ones, but its message (and its sense of humor) is universal. Two actors and one musician run through a simple story, and model a gamut of moods and behaviors for their young audience. Queen Annie (the captivating Amanda Curry) is on a journey to find a new place to build her castle. She visits a series of emotionally-themed towns and connects with a local resident in each.
View More RAINBOWTOWN (Two Ducks Theatre Company): Fringe Review 16
You know that moment when playfighting becomes real? Everything is nice and amusing until a pulled punch actually connects, and then laughter gives way to the sounds of a struggle. Things become very serious awfully quickly once people start getting hurt for real. That’s the main thrust of WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT A PRESENTATION ABOUT THE HERERO OF NAMIBIA, FORMERLY KNOWN AS SOUTHWEST AFRICA, FROM THE GERMAN SUDWESTAFRIKA, BETWEEN THE YEARS 1884-1915.
View More WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT (The University of the Arts): Fringe Review 15
Staging a Happening used to be straightforward. To jangle the audience out of the role of The Observer, you redefined art from what-I-the-Artist-do-up-here into what-is-happening-between-you-and-me.…
View More (SOME) LOVE AND (SOME) INFORMATION (Ira Brind School and Headlong Dance Theater): Fringe Review 9
While THE TOUGHEST BOY IN PHILADELPHIA has something important to say, the material is arranged so carelessly that I’ll be damned if I can tell you what it is.
View More THE TOUGHEST BOY IN PHILADELPHIA (Iron Age Theatre): Gender confusion
Overbearing relatives, forced merriness, the same damn songs playing over and over and then over again—Christmas can be a real pain in the toches. Depicting the next year of her life, Lakis plays (almost) all the characters in this 90 minute show, without a single break.
View More THE TWELVE DATES OF CHRISTMAS (Act II): My true love came to me?
Strange games are afoot upstairs at Plays and Players. Not light or fun games, either—we’re talking full-on Don’t-talk-about-our-son-Martha! games here. Murmuration Theater’s new play MAKESHIFT throws us right into the middle of two different stories, and figures we’re smart enough to figure out what’s going on. The show doesn’t dole out much information, and when it does, it’s timed for maximum effect. Once you get enough to realize the show’s central conceit (which is quite nice, and unfolds so organically that I’d hate to spoil it), the earlier scenes come into better focus and make more sense.
View More MAKESHIFT (Murmuration Theater): 60-second review
The conceit of Philly Improv Theater’s STUDY HALL is that we the audience are a bunch of prep school students, awaiting a lecture in an…
View More [78] STUDY HALL (Philly Improv Theater): Fringe review
Weekly World News is known for a lot of things, but heartfelt sentiment isn’t one of them. Surprising, then, that the tabloid birthed BAT BOY:…
View More [77] BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL (Life Theater Company): Fringe review