Ken Ludwig brings four of the outstanding characters from Lend Me A Tenor from Cleveland to Paris for more rollicking escapades.
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Author: Neal Zoren for NealsPaper
Neal of the Nealspaper is a fan of all forms of live entertainment, movies, and television. He is also a constant reader and a frequent traveler. He writes for NealsPaper.com, a place for people to come to read one authoritative voice in the dialogue, and find out what might be worthwhile — or not — as you plan your entertainment outings.
SHIPWRECKED! (Walnut): A delight of theater
SHIPWRECKED! goes to the heart of storytelling. It doesn’t matter whether a tale is true or false as long as it engages and even thrills.
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BUS STOP (BRT): A place of isolation
All of the individual stories the wayfarers tell in William Inge’s BUS STOP come through clearly in Susan D. Atkinson’s production of the ’50s classic at Bristol Riverside Theatre.
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TAPPIN’ THRU LIFE (DTC): A Las Vegas lounge life
A revue, and review, of performer Maurice Hines’s life.
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CLOSER (Eagle): Words are not enough
Patrick Marber is a master of words. But in this production words, well composed as they are, are not enough.
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GYPSY (Media Theatre): Everything’s coming up roses
GYPSY is an often produced classic for good reason and is terrific as Mama Rose in the Media Theatre’s production.
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BULLSHOT CRUMMOND (Hedgerow): On-target farce
Mark Tallman’s brisk, amiable production moves easily between farcical comedy and intuitive and intelligent theater.
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GOD OF CARNAGE (Montgomery Theater): A rich unraveling
Civilization is not easy to maintain. One knock and the lapse of a moment can set it off kilter.
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HIGH SOCIETY (Walnut): A curious Philadelphia Story
A curiously performed version of Arthur Kopit’s unnecessary rearranging and cheapening of The Philadelphia Story.
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BABY DOLL (McCarter): Not a girl, not yet a woman
In Tennessee Williams’s script for 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and the 1956 screenplay that derives from it, Baby Doll, everybody puts Baby in a corner.
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EURYDICE (Villanova Theatre): Death is a continuation of life
Death, as experienced in director James Ijames’s comic yet movingly evocative production of Sarah Ruhl’s play, is a continuation of life.
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ALL MY SONS (People’s Light): A treat from the golden age of American theater
Seeing a naturalistic play by one of the masters of the form, Arthur Miller, with a cast and set that are as realistic and as authentically moving as the text, is a rarity and a treat.
View More ALL MY SONS (People’s Light): A treat from the golden age of American theater
HENRY V (PA Shakespeare): The king is but a man
While HENRY V contains two of Shakespeare’s most stirring speeches, smaller, less rhetorical moments are the more engrossing in Matt Pfeiffer’s staging for Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
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BITTER HOMES AND GARDENS (Bearded Ladies at PHS Pop-Up)
The Bearded Ladies latest show is planted full of good ideas, some of which germinate, some of which reach farther than they can comically travel, and some of which die on the vine.
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Picks for Best in Theater, 2014/15, by Philly Reviewer Neal Zoren
Each year, Philadelphia-based reviewer Neal Zoren announces his choices for the Helen and Morris Zoren Awards for World Theater. A fair number of the picks on Neal’s list are performers and productions from the Philadelphia area.
View More Picks for Best in Theater, 2014/15, by Philly Reviewer Neal Zoren
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (PA Shakespeare): A comic circumnavigation of Verne’s classic
Director Russell Treyz grants quarter to cogent, cohesive storytelling in his production Mark Brown’s adaptation of AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS for Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.
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I HATE HAMLET (Montgomery): Paul Rudnick knows a hawk from a handsaw
I have seen a dozen productions of I HATE HAMLET, including the legendary Broadway staging that induced Evan Handler to complain to Actors Equity against co-star Nicol Williamson. This is one of the best.
View More I HATE HAMLET (Montgomery): Paul Rudnick knows a hawk from a handsaw
MY MOTHER HAS 4 NOSES (People’s Light): It all smells funny in hindsight
The title of Jonatha Brooke’s presentation with music, MY MOTHER HAS 4 NOSES is literal.
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HOW TO WRITE A NEW BOOK FOR THE BIBLE (People’s Light): Old pros take on a new book
HOW TO WRITE A NEW BOOK FOR THE BIBLE is a story about a life, a biography centered on the changing regard we have for our parents as we see them age.
View More HOW TO WRITE A NEW BOOK FOR THE BIBLE (People’s Light): Old pros take on a new book
PASSION (Arden): Pretty anticlimactic
Excerpted from NealsPaper.com by kind permission. Stephen Sondheim’s musical PASSION comes to a pivotal point at which a young soldier, Giorgio (Ben Michael), suddenly becomes deeply…
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