“Forget all the laws of optics, which the legend does not recognize” —Anton Chekhov, The Black Monk Attempting to summarize the best modernist short stories…
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Category: Reviews
Romeo and Juliet (Lantern Theater Company): Do we need another R&J?
You may ask, “Do we need yet another production of Romeo and Juliet?” The answer is yes we do. This is the Lantern. Next question? The…
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New City’s TERRORISM Presents a Sardonic Look at Modern Life
Passenger: It’s madness — what sort of an age do we live in? You don’t feel safe anywhere now, only at home… First Passenger: At…
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A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: Three Things We Can All Like
As a lover of theater, beer, and meat-filled pastries, I’ve been excited by the ads and positive buzz about this series from Tiny Dynamite for…
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Inis Nua Finds a Home with LITTLE GEM
Since 2004, Inis Nua Theatre Company has been entertaining Philadelphia audiences with provocative new Irish and British plays, staged at venues around the city. The…
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Fun for a Night, Hell for a Life: Luna’s Toxically Humorous BACHELORETTE
We’ve all met someone like her: the beautiful ex–prom queen with a cutting wit, overconfidence, and the forgivable tendency to say something hopelessly stupid and…
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Simpatico’s THE MEEP PROJECT Brings Innovation to All-Ages Theater
THE MEEP PROJECT is a charming collaboration between playwright Ed Swidey and Simpatico Theatre Project. The world premiere development piece (which looked as fully developed as any original production I’ve seen!) employs new methods of storytelling, using movement and sound in place of language.
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Feliz Navidad! UN VIAJE: A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY at Kensington’s Walking Fish Theatre
UN VIAJE—A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY is running at Walking Fish Theatre in Kensington (Philadelphia), PA through December 30. (Photo courtesy of B. Someday Productions at Walking…
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A Versatile Acting Showcase in The Renegade Company’s THE AMISH PROJECT
“What happens to a person when they live in a world where you can’t believe anything and the things you don’t want to believe are…
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InterAct’s THE HOW AND THE WHY is Well Written and Full of Ideas
“It’s yours, you created it, you gave birth to it. Don’t throw it away because you’re frightened of the implications.” Zelda (Janis Dardaris), an award-winning…
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Tracy Letts’s AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY…A Modern Great at the Arden
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY bookends with characters quoting T. S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men.” “Life is very long,” begins Beverly Weston (David Howey), the alcoholic patriarch…
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A Voyage of Wonder: WHaLE OPTICS at the Live Arts
“Meditation and water are wedded forever” —Herman Melville, Moby Dick For last year’s Live Arts Festival, playwright Thaddeus Phillips took us on a trip to…
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Madhouse Theater Company’s PLAYING LENI is Spellbinding
More than any other historical figure and his followers, Hitler and the Nazis are shorthand for evil. Few people emerge from the close contact with…
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Old People and Theater (VIGIL at Lantern)
I began to attend Philadelphia theater in earnest about a decade ago, in my early mid-twenties. Consistently, my companion and I would be the youngest…
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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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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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Two Jews Walk Into A War at InterAct
At the Adrienne last Thursday night, the show started before the curtain went up: first there was the woman who got a verbal spanking from…
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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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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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