THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE (Walnut): A 60-Second Review
Some of life’s biggest journeys begin with that one small voice in our heads, telling us to take an unexpected leap of faith. As a painfully shy young girl channeling bold songstresses of the past through her deceased father’s record collection, Ellie Mooney delightfully shows audiences how to find the power within, as the star of THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE.
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MIDSUMMER (Inis Nua): A Dream of a Rom-Com
Closing its 2013-14 season of funny and poignant contemporary two-handers with one-word titles (the excellent BLINK and TROUSERS—see Phindie reviews here and here, respectively—were the…
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IN THE MOOD (Bucks County Playhouse): 60-Second Review
IN THE MOOD is more than a music revue—it’s a concert, a musical, a history lesson, a show of patriotism, and a celebration of one of the most important times in American history. The 1940’s was a time of significant change. In music, the whole nation was listening to the same big bands. Swing music, romantic ballads, and dancing shaped an entire cultural movement and most importantly became a prevailing icon of hope as we faced the reality of World War II. Proudly, the show takes a segment to recognize and honor the veterans in attendance. In its 20th year of touring, IN THE MOOD is an international success.
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#GPSBODIES (Marcel Williams Foster): Tweet the Rainbow
Marcel Williams Foster turns social media and performance upside down, and spontaneous performance, situational intimacy, and social media are the tools you have to curate your own audience/performer experience.
Using theses and other techniques to activate the audience, theatermaker/scientist Marcel Williams Foster takes us on a self-referential tweeting goose chase. How ‘meta.’
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DOWN PAST PASSYUNK (InterAct): Theater ‘wit’ a taste of South Philly
I once heard then-governor Ed Rendell give some cheesesteak advice: for the real deal don’t go to one of the big name line-around-the-block places, go to a food truck or your local deli and get one made-to-order. I was thinking about this truism and our prevailing infatuation with authenticity as I watched A. Zell Williams’s world premiere production of DOWN PAST PASSYUNK at InterAct Theatre.
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MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA (Quintessence): America’s Ghosts Return to Haunt
There are plenty of things to thrill over in Quintessence Theatre Group’s stirring, and impressively-performed, MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA. Director Alex Burns and his well-picked ensemble continue to impress.
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The National Water Dance
A typical concert dance performance does not usually conjure up thoughts of social justice and governmental reform. At first glance, dance and politics might not seem to go together. That is not to say that the art form is entirely apolitical – different genres of art can certainly serve as a persuasive medium for declaring political statements. From a historical perspective, analysis of the arts can be used to study social change and political reform, and dance is no exception to this.
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MARY STUART (PAC): The Prison of Power
Philadelphia Artist Collective’s tightly-corseted production of Frederich Schiller’s Mary Stuart, starring the earth-shattering Charlotte Northeast and the finely-tuned Krista Apple Hodge will leave you white-knuckle-gripping the edge of your seat. Sitting in a severe theater-in-the-round circle, the audience itself forms four oppressive walls seemingly trapping the actors on the Broad Street Ministry’s cherry wood floor. If Schiller were alive today, he would raise a thumb in approval of director Dan Hodge’s minimalist approach.
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If You’re In…. Long Island: BINGO! THE WINNING MUSICAL
The famous five-letter-word and its off-beat aficionados Bingo is a game that has its own fascinating culture with quirky characters for devotees (the stereotype being…
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DEAR ELIZABETH (People’s Light & Theatre Company): Kindred Spirits in Poetry and Depression
Is a play told solely through the extant letters of its real-life characters really a play? Sarah Ruhl’s DEAR ELIZABETH, which traces the friendship between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell through their thirty years of correspondence (1947-77), seems more of a pedantic academic exercise in hero worship by a playwright who began her writing career as a poet and an admirer of Bishop’s oeuvre.
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THREE SISTERS (Arden Theatre): Does the gimmick stick?
THREE SISTERS is the story not only of its title characters—the sisters Olga (Sarah Sanford), Masha (Katharine Powell) and Irina (Mary Tuomanen)—but also of the various characters who shuffle in and out of their country home over the course of a few years. It’s a soap opera on wheels as nearly everyone falls in love, gets caught up in adultery and waxes philosophical, all while sinking deeper and deeper into the exact sorts of lives they never wanted to lead.
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John Donges Photographs THREE DAYS OF RAIN (Quince): A Double Assignment
In shooting Richard Greenberg’s THREE DAYS OF RAIN, my first photographic challenge was to capture the unique structure of the play: the first act is set in 1995 and involves a brother/sister and their old friend – the son of their father’s architecture partner and oldest friend. In Act II, the three actors play the parents of their Act I characters. So it was a dual challenge to photograph basically two casts instead of one, and to try and paint a visual portrait of what is both similar and different between each character and his/her parent, and to portray the look of two very different decades.
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First Friday April • Top Picks from PaperClips
Here are PaperClips’ Top Picks for what not to miss this First Friday, April 4th! There is a lot happening on Friday and beyond, so make sure to check out their Events Calendar for a complete listing of events throughout the month. If you are out exploring the arts in Philadelphia, use #clips215 to share, tweet, and gram along with the PaperClips team!
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I’M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF (Prince): Intimacy, Song, and Rage in Weimar Germany
I’M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF, created and performed by Mark Nadler and directed by David Schweizer, is both a lament and a celebration of Weimar Germany and the bohemian lifestyle celebrated by the young during this time. Incredibly impoverished, pincered by a swiftly inflating currency, stabbed by the growth of hate and, underneath that hate, a creeping fascism; yet this impossible position also gave rise to an incredibly fertile undergrowth and the arts mecca which Berlin became.
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DEAR DIARY, BYE (Ellie Brown): Schoolyard scraps and crushes galore
And maybe that’s what makes Ellie Brown’s DEAR DIARY, BYE such a fascinating show. The play, directed by Seth Reichgott, presents her 1984 diary. Brown wasn’t so different from any other ten year old – she liked boys, she got sick of her parents, she was teased, and she liked more boys. There’s a pleasure in this kind of uncensored presentation, a la Nature Theater of Oklahoma.
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ALL THIS HAPPENED, MORE OF LESS (Subcircle): Scenes from a dance marriage
Multimedia theater designer Jorge Cousineau is moving abstract objects under the rustic dance studio in the Maas Building in Northern Liberties. Niki Cousineau is rehearsing…
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Philadelphia Theater Calendar: April 2014
January | February | March | April | May | June July | August | September | October | November | December Arsenic and Old Lace. By Joseph Kesselring. March 11–April 27, 2014. Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut Street. walnutstreettheatre.org.…
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Directing the Future: An Interview with DG Founder Jill Harrison
Since moving to Philadelphia in 2009 (from New York, where she began her career), and joining the Philadelphia theater community as a freelance director, producer,…
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AMERICAN WISDOM (SmokeyScout): Interview with Playwright Josh McIlvain
And now, AMERICAN WISDOM, a mainstage collection of three of Josh’s one-acts, is a handshake between Philly and New York, featuring actors and directors from both sides of the ancient and abiding divide—and performing for one weekend in each city. What’s more, it was launched through an IndieGoGo campaign, representing McIlvain’s collaboration with his audiences.
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DON JUAN COMES HOME FROM IRAQ (Wilma): A Disparate Jigsaw
Call it Don Juan or Don Giovanni, the Don Juan story, handed down through time, is pre-loaded with a mix of serious and comic elements and a supernatural dimension. DON JUAN COMES HOME FROM IRAQ, from theater luminaries Paula Vogel (playwright) and Banka Zizka (director), has the gravitas down and doesn’t lose sight of humor, but extra pieces lodge within this puzzle’s slippery treatment of time and reality.
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