The summer of 1998, I permanently moved out of my mother’s house. (My mother moved down to Nashville abruptly and without me.) So I traveled…
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Category: Reviews
Asian Arts Initiative’s THE WAY HOME continues with You for Me for You
The National Asian American Theater Festival and Conference is coming to Philadelphia this October, and Philadelphia’s Asian Arts Initiative and InterAct Theatre laying the groundwork with a reading series of new plays this Spring. Directed by visiting artist Rick Shiomi, founder of Minneapolis-based Mu Performing Arts, “The Way Home” features contemporary works exploring what “home” means to Asian Americans.
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SKIN AND BONE (Azuka Theatre): SoGoth Reinvented
In a culture that places heavier value on test scores than on the individual capacity for critical thought, you’re taught to associate. It doesn’t much…
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PRIDE & PREJUDICE (People’s Light & Theatre Company): Structure and Snobbery in Regency England
PRIDE & PREJUDICE, Jane Austen’s classic tale of class, courtship, and decorum in 19th-century England, celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2013. People’s Light & Theatre…
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HYBERNATE (Gunnar Montana): 60 Second Review
Gunnar Montana presents a jaw-dropping winter wonderland that is part art installation, part theatrical dance performances in HYBERNATE. After his sold-out BASEMENT (see Phindie’s review…
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HINCKLEY (New City Stage): Life, Death, Celebrity
“Anything’s possible in a world where media rules all.” In 1981, John W. Hinckley Jr. fired into president Ronald Reagan’s entourage, hitting four men, including…
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CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION (Theatre Horizon): All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women…
Life doesn’t imitate art as much as combine with it as Baker’s play, and Matthew Decker’s production of it for Theatre Horizon, sneaks up on you and moves you.
View More CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION (Theatre Horizon): All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women…
THE SUIT (Prince): Balancing cruelty and kindness in pre-apartheid South Africa
If Philadelphia is a tightly wound city wearing a permanent scowl, Sophiatown is tightly wound with a broad smile. Sophiatown was a cultural hub for…
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ACCOMPLICE (Isis): A Comic Twist on the British Whodunit
The nature of Rupert Holmes’s ACCOMPLICE—a tongue-in-cheek thriller/sex farce/self- referencing spoof of the theater—is to surprise the audience with completely unexpected twists and turns in…
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HOTEL SUITE (Act II Playhouse): A 60-Second Review
HOTEL SUITE highlights the best of Neil Simon’s successful play-turned-movie series including PLAZA, CALIFORNIA, and LONDON SUITES. HOTEL SUITE is a fun, in-your-face, comical view…
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THE LADY FROM THE SEA (Egopo): Bare production showcases Ibsen’s mental gymnastics
Henrik Ibsen’s name is so thoroughly canonized in theater history that it’s easy to forget just how progressive the man was as a playwright. Works…
View More THE LADY FROM THE SEA (Egopo): Bare production showcases Ibsen’s mental gymnastics
JULIUS CAESAR (Lantern): Political persuasion in feudal Japan
If William Shakespeare was alive today he’d be a …. well, he’d probably be a poet and playwright, but he’d also make a damn good political speechwriter. The crux of his JULIUS CAESAR, now in an accessible production by Lantern Theater Company, comes in a speech following the title character’s assassination.
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TROUSERS (Inis Nua): The Proof Is in the Pants
In keeping with their native tradition of storytelling, Irish playwrights Paul Meade and David Parnell weave an engaging tale of two estranged men who reconnect…
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ONDINE (Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium): At sea with emotional hyperbole
Talented and celebrated director Aaron Cromie teams up with the idiosyncratic Idopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium to tackle French impressionist Jean Giraudoux at the Walnut Street Theatre…
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ONDINE (Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium): Nature versus Human Nature
When Hans, a handsome but not-so-smart knight-errant of Wittenstein, meets the unbridled naiad Ondine at a fisherman’s cottage in the woods, they fall recklessly in…
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TRUE WEST (Theatre Exile): Sibling rivalry and the American dream
Sibling rivalry, conflicting personalities, and antithetical lifestyles regress to anti-social antics, primal rage, and role reversal in TRUE WEST, Sam Shepard’s dark comedy about two…
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ID:3 (Hybridge Arts): Tapas of challenging dance and theater
Last night at Christ Church Neighborhood House, Hybridge Arts Collective brought it to me live with ID:3, an evening of three performance works by the…
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GRIMMS’ JUNIPER TREE (Renegade): 60 Second Review
GRIMMS’ JUNIPER TREE weaves in plot points from various famously morose Grimm brothers’ fairy tales around one lesser known story—that of the Juniper Tree. This…
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TRUE WEST (Theatre Exile): a rare, in-your-face take on a modern classic
Theatre Exile mounts new, dicey plays and modern classics—badass classics, that is, from outstanding contemporary playwrights like Tracy Letts, Martin McDonough, and in this case,…
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GRIMMS’ JUNIPER TREE (Renegade): Important Lessons to Be Learned
Based on the dark and disturbing folktales of the Brothers Grimm, James Stover’s original world-premiere adaptation for the Renegade Company, GRIMMS’ JUNIPER TREE, examines the…
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