Throughout, the play is ridden with fearful moments, guilty consciences, and serious reflections of what life may be like for creatures being surrounded by uneasiness and pain.
View More BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO (Temple Theaters): Fringe Review 61.2
Aaron Cromie’s good-natured portrayal reflects the real Lautrec, who retained his artist’s eye and famed geniality even as he joined his friends in their sad retreat into alcoholism and the dementia of syphilis.
View More THE BODY LAUTREC (Aaron Cromie and Mary Tuomanen): Fringe Review 53.2
Wild Plum Productions’ abridged staging of THE YELLOW WALLPAPER succeeds in capturing the chills and insight of the original work.
View More THE YELLOW WALLPAPER (Wild Plum Productions): Fringe Review 63
This is an opera about monsters—the Frankenstein of the title, a monster we know well from films if not from literature, and the ways in which people become monsters.
View More BY YOU THAT MADE ME, FRANKENSTEIN (Philadelphia Opera Collective): 2014 Fringe Review 51.2
This project consists of six short dance films—three by collaborators Ashley Searles and Wim Winklewagon, and three by Anne-Marie Mulgrew & Dancers Company with Carmella Vassor-Johnson.
View More PROJECT – THROUGH AN APERTURE (Exosphere): Fringe Review 62
Everything about BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO asserts the production as one of the best works in this year’s Fringe.
View More BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO (Temple Theaters): Fringe Review 61.1
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
Dramatic narrators voice acutely detailed stories of sexual exploits, dating disasters/successes, and intimate gatherings.
View More THE ORGASM CHRONICLES (OneTaste Philly): Fringe Review 59
“Your little ducks,” Leah says, as we look over our shoulders at the line of weaving their way south on 21st, “they’re all in a row.”
View More Fringe Bike Tour Was Awesome: Three shows, twelve bikes, dinner, and some rides
The timely BROKEN WING, offered to the FringeArts festival in an beautifully executed performance by Pantea Productions, tells the story of a brash American photographer (Bob Stineman) who, while traveling in Iran, sleeps with his host’s young wife Arezoo.
View More BROKEN WING (Pantea Productions): Fringe Review 29.2
Starting in bustling Rittenhouse Square, MIRRORING SKY guides participants along familiar city streets, ending at the Schuylkill River Park
View More MIRRORING SKY — A Soundscape (InVersion Theatre): Fringe Review 58
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
Ombelico’s latest al fresco offering, FLIM FLAM PHANTOM SHAM, is a delightful synthesis of traditional Commedia dell’Arte with current Philadelphia references, delivered in Italian and English—or Philly’s local version thereof!—which kept me in stitches throughout the entire all-ages show.
View More FLIM FLAM PHANTOM SHAM (Ombelico Mask Ensemble): Fringe Review 56
After years of milking their hit show The Real Housewives of South Philly until it jumped the shark, The Waitstaff return to the Fringe with another set of funnybone-tickling sketch comedy
View More THE WAITSTAFF SH*TS THE BED (The Waitstaff): 2014 Fringe Review 55
What is necessary? In NECESSARY EFFORTS, the mixed-bill production by The Naked Stark, the answer offered is the work of making.
View More NECESSARY EFFORTS (The Naked Stark): Fringe Review 54
THE BODY LAUTREC is not everyone’s cup of tea: a shockingly hard-core depiction of the depravities and debaucheries of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his art.
View More THE BODY LAUTREC (Aaron Cromie and Mary Tuomanen): Fringe Review 53
It would be fun to call ANNA K an irreverent romp through Tolstoy’s 1870s novel, Anna Karenina, but in fact playwright Chris Davis reverences the material in his own way. For all its comedy, and there’s plenty in his South Philly-style version, the play scans the storyline and retains underlying issues.
View More Anna K (Chris Davis): 2014 Fringe Review 40.2
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 compelling two-act opus captures the historic characters, events, and mood with passion and clarity.
View More BY YOU THAT MADE ME, FRANKENSTEIN (Philadelphia Opera Collective): Fringe Review 51
NELLIE/NELLIE combines whimsy and imagaination with the true story of American journalist Nellie Bly and her 10 days in a mental institution.
View More NELLIE/NELLIE (Antigravity Theatre Project): Fringe Review 50