The best source for independent coverage of Philadelphia theater.
Paul Kuhn is perhaps the finest designer in Philadelphia’s independent theater. He tells Phindie about his prop design for a site-specific production of Ibsen’s HEDDA GABLER.
View More Arming GABLER: Prop designer Paul Kuhn talks about his work on HEDDA GABLER
Roald Dahl is wildly popular, and this musical version of MATILDA benefits from the author’s lionization.
View More MATILDA: THE MUSICAL (RSC): Dahl on tour
The clock is ticking down to tinsel time at Armadillo Acres in Starke, Florida, where the residents intend to blind the heavens with bargain store…
View More THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK CHRISTMAS MUSICAL (Montgomery Theater): Treasure amid the chintz
As usual with 2007 musical version of the 2000 movie, the personal scenes are the strength of this production
View More BILLY ELLIOT (Media Theatre): Dance Billy, dance
The annual panto returns with a wacky take on Alexandre Dumas’ beloved adventure story of 17th-century France.
View More THE THREE MUSKETEERS (THE LATER YEARS): A MUSICAL PANTO (People’s Light): The triumphant return of a holiday favorite
Jane Ridley is consistently engaging in Mark St. Germain’s chatty play about the woman who became Dr. Ruth.
View More BECOMING DR. RUTH (Walnut): 60-second review
Ozzie Jones’s production of this updated Langston Hughes play dazzles in just about every way a theater piece can.
View More BLACK NATIVITY (Theatre Horizon): A celebration of human spirit
John Guare’s play about race relations in early 19th century New Orleans is sprawling and convoluted under the best of circumstances.
View More A FREE MAN OF COLOR (Temple): Outrageous but haphazard vaudeville
The Philadelphia debut of a popular musical is filled with humor, wonderment, and sentimental recollections of a child’s Christmas in 1940 Indiana.
View More A CHRISTMAS STORY, THE MUSICAL (Walnut): Recollections of an unforgettable holiday
More thoughts on the good, bad, and ugly presented in Scott Barrow and Robert Choiniere’s play about LGBT Catholics.
View More FULL OF GRACE, part 2: Oppressed Catholic voices on stage
A magical realism play based on a true story could easily be a disaster, but Transmissios Theatre makes the magic happen.
View More A PORCH AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (Transmissions): The magic happens in magical realism
This production offers gore, unconventionality, and laughs, and certainly strikes up debates about the meaning of the play’s profound poetry.
View More MACBETH (Villanova): Ambition, conscience, fates, and kazoos
In deep Siberia, Karp Lykov and his grown children encounter their first outsiders in fifty years.
View More A PORCH AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (Transmissions): Extremist religion and unrequited love
Interviews with fifteen of Philadelphia’s noted contemporary playwrights give insights into the city’s flourishing theater community.
View More [book review] THE PHILADELPHIA CONNECTION: CONVERSATIONS WITH PLAYWRIGHTS, by B.J. Burton
A play about LGBT Catholics was performed as the Pope prepared to visit Philadelphia.
View More FULL OF GRACE (Scott Barrow & Robert Choiniere): Part 1, a Catholic docudrama, hit like a succession of grenades going off at a Protestant church, days before the Pope arrived
Three cleverly interconnected survival stories about the complicated nature of life, love, and family.
View More LIGHTS RISE ON GRACE (Azuka): Cultural identities in the stage lights
An intensely disturbing and impactful new play imagines the horrendous neglect and abuse suffered by two severely ill patients at Byberry Mental Hospital on the day of its closing in 1987.
View More MERLIN AND WART (Kevin Stackhouse): Theater in the service of social reform
Director Allen Radway coordinates an intricate but unpretentious array of parts into a coherent and appealing whole.
View More WATERSHIP DOWN (Simpatico/ Drexel MPiRP): A hop along a classic of children’s literature
A dramatic, funny, and sympathetic portrayal of the infamous lovers and their crime spree during the Great Depression is set to music with a southern twang.
View More BONNIE & CLYDE (Eagle): The passions and hardships of folk-hero outlaws
If you don’t think every play is about sex, you shouldn’t be making theater.
View More Is It Always About Sex? Director Kittson O’Neill on the sexual politics of THE ROVER