THE PILLOWMAN (Luna Theater): 60 Second Review
With all the claustrophobia of an Otto Dix painting, Luna Theater’s production of Martin McDonagh’s THE PILLOWMAN is a delicious 140-minute-anxiety attack. Robert DaPonte is remarkably arresting…
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You’re Probably Missing Out: A tour of Kensington’s performance spaces
The performance spaces which have made Kensington their home (Walking Fish Theatre, Hella Fresh, Mascher Space, and fidgetspace) are remote, both financially and physically, from the city, yet still close enough to converse artistically with downtown venues and even to attract funding.
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Care to Dance? The Philadelphia dance scene is alive and well in 2014, catering to classical palates and avant-garde tastes alike
The Philadelphia dance scene is alive and well in 2014, bringing forth a series of diverse performances catering to classical palates and avant-garde tastes alike
View More Care to Dance? The Philadelphia dance scene is alive and well in 2014, catering to classical palates and avant-garde tastes alike
GHOSTS (People’s Light): Just give in to the melodrama
At People’s Light and Theatre’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s GHOSTS, the program note written by dramaturg Gina Pisasale discusses Ibsen’s life and work. In his theater,…
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BEAUTIFUL THING (Mauckingbird): Boy meets boy and love conquers all
To mark the 20th anniversary of BEAUTIFUL THING, Mauckingbird Theatre Company, dedicated to gay-themed work, begins its 2014 season with a production of English playwright…
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Celebrating Shakespeare at 450: An Interview with The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre’s Carmen Khan
Carmen Khan has devoted much of her life and professional career to Shakespeare. She is well known to the Philadelphia theater community as the founding…
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UP FROM THE ASHES (Iron Age Theatre): A bit shy of genius
Saturday, March 25th, 1911, 4:40pm a fire broke out on the eighth floor of largest blouse making factory in New York City, the Triangle…
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EL AÑO EN QUE NACÍ (FringeArts): Living mosaic
EL AÑO EN QUE NACÍ (THE YEAR I WAS BORN) is the January installment in FringeArts’ year-round programming at their Race Street Pier theater, and…
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Wilma Theater’s CHEROKEE impresses, in a way
John, a baby boomer, patriarch, and oil exec who has spent his life gaining, has lost quite a lot in a short period of time:…
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Thresholds in the fourth dance wall or please stand by for the next movement
Published by The Dance Journal. Reprinted by kind permission The audience was migrated from the second floor community room in Neighborhood House up a back stairwell…
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Philadelphia Theater Calendar: January 2014
January 2014 Philadelphia Theater Calendar
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AMERICAN FAIRY TALES (Walking Fish): Riotous fairy tales at Walking Fish
AMERICAN FAIRY TALES is a kids’ show, adapted by co-artistic director Stan Heleva from L. Frank Baum’s short stories with a generous amount of modernization and localization. This is fast and messy theater making, thriving on audience involvement. The story doesn’t matter as much as the laughs, and the more we shouted along, and the more sassy little Benjamin in the front row jeered and challenged the actors, the more engaged they, and we, became.
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THE TWELVE DATES OF CHRISTMAS (Act II): My true love came to me?
Overbearing relatives, forced merriness, the same damn songs playing over and over and then over again—Christmas can be a real pain in the toches. Depicting the next year of her life, Lakis plays (almost) all the characters in this 90 minute show, without a single break.
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Breaking Bad, sketch comedy style
I never saw Breaking Bad, but lots of people love it. Then again, lots of people love crystal meth, and I thought it was awful. A much better bet for your cold December evening is BREAKING BAD SANTA by Philadelphia’s funniest sketch comedy troupe,
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NERDS (PTC): As Steve Jobs said, “All you really have in life is time”
In The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life With Steve Jobs, Chrisann Brennan—Steve Jobs’s first girlfriend—wrote “Steve often said that he had a…
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Dance ornaments sparkle in Pennsylvania Ballet’s NUTCRACKER (2013)
Pennsylvania Ballet is only one of just a few companies licensed to do Balanchine’s 1954 classic ballet.
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A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES (Lantern): 60-second review
Dylan Thomas’s poem A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES runs the risk of becoming sticky-sweet with nostalgia, and it is director Sebastienne Mundheim’s idiosyncratic vision, and the spot-on…
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GENDER COMEDY: A LESS STUPID TWELFTH NIGHT GAY FANTASIA (Curio): A loving parody brings infectious glee
Harry Slack has cut the gaping holes in Shakespeare’s logic into microscope slides, and the result is a hilarious and self-aware send-up of the rarely-discussed flaws in the work of our most beloved playwright.
View More GENDER COMEDY: A LESS STUPID TWELFTH NIGHT GAY FANTASIA (Curio): A loving parody brings infectious glee
THE BIG TIME: NEW VAUDEVILLE FOR THE HOLIDAYS (1812): Juggling seasonal laughs
Vaudeville has returned in all its glory with 1812’s THE BIG TIME: NEW VAUDEVILLE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. Pratfalls, double entendres, and caricatures of people past…
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A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES (Lantern): Idyllic visions of a holiday past
Lantern Theater Company’s world premiere adaptation of A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES by Charles McMahon and Sebastienne Mundheim, the inventive “interdisciplinary performance-maker” who designed the production and also directs, captures all the warmth, nostalgia, and childlike wonder of the original, employing live actors, puppets, miniature houses, plastic-bag clouds, and exhilarating snow flurries to transform Thomas’s descriptive language and idealized memories into an enchanting theatrical vision.
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