SHIPWRECKED! goes to the heart of storytelling. It doesn’t matter whether a tale is true or false as long as it engages and even thrills.
View More SHIPWRECKED! (Walnut): A delight of theaterTag: Philadelphia Theater
BUS STOP (BRT): A place of isolation
All of the individual stories the wayfarers tell in William Inge’s BUS STOP come through clearly in Susan D. Atkinson’s production of the ’50s classic at Bristol Riverside Theatre.
View More BUS STOP (BRT): A place of isolationHIGH SOCIETY (Walnut): A curious Philadelphia Story
A curiously performed version of Arthur Kopit’s unnecessary rearranging and cheapening of The Philadelphia Story.
View More HIGH SOCIETY (Walnut): A curious Philadelphia StoryBABY DOLL (McCarter): Not a girl, not yet a woman
In Tennessee Williams’s script for 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and the 1956 screenplay that derives from it, Baby Doll, everybody puts Baby in a corner.
View More BABY DOLL (McCarter): Not a girl, not yet a womanEURYDICE (Villanova Theatre): Death is a continuation of life
Death, as experienced in director James Ijames’s comic yet movingly evocative production of Sarah Ruhl’s play, is a continuation of life.
View More EURYDICE (Villanova Theatre): Death is a continuation of lifeALL MY SONS (People’s Light): A treat from the golden age of American theater
Seeing a naturalistic play by one of the masters of the form, Arthur Miller, with a cast and set that are as realistic and as authentically moving as the text, is a rarity and a treat.
View More ALL MY SONS (People’s Light): A treat from the golden age of American theaterBITTER HOMES AND GARDENS (Bearded Ladies at PHS Pop-Up)
The Bearded Ladies latest show is planted full of good ideas, some of which germinate, some of which reach farther than they can comically travel, and some of which die on the vine.
View More BITTER HOMES AND GARDENS (Bearded Ladies at PHS Pop-Up)Mr. Darby Goes to New York: Double Time, All The Time
Langston Darby is continuously working. “Double time. All the time.” This September, one of the strongest actors in Philadelphia is departing for the Atlantic Acting School in New York
View More Mr. Darby Goes to New York: Double Time, All The TimeGROUCHO: A LIFE IN REVUE (ActorsNET): There’s no such thing as a sanity clause
Off stage, David Newhouse looks nothing like Groucho Marx. In makeup, Newhouse’s transformation is astounding.
View More GROUCHO: A LIFE IN REVUE (ActorsNET): There’s no such thing as a sanity clauseTHE THREEPENNY OPERA (Villanova): Brecht played louder than the music
Republished by kind permission from Neals Paper. Kurt Weill’s insistent tingel-tangel score for THE THREEPENNY OPERA pervades the Vasey Hall stage, with horns and drum pumping…
View More THE THREEPENNY OPERA (Villanova): Brecht played louder than the musicUNDERNEATH THE LINTEL (Hedgerow): Following a shaggy dog to the library
One of the funniest and most entertaining of all shaggy dog stories.
View More UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL (Hedgerow): Following a shaggy dog to the libraryMERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (Temple Theater): Parties and excess
The young talent the school is grooming stands out in the Temple Theater production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.
View More MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (Temple Theater): Parties and excessGHOST (Media Theatre): Animating a corpse
Director Jesse Cline doesn’t let GHOST’s musical or lyrical deficiencies stand in his way of making involving theater.
View More GHOST (Media Theatre): Animating a corpseNeal Zoren announces his picks for the best in Philadelphia theater, 2014
Each January, local critic Neil Zoren announces his favorite production, direction, and male and female actor and male and female supporting actor for the previous calendar year.
View More Neal Zoren announces his picks for the best in Philadelphia theater, 2014Phindie in 2014: The most-read articles of the past year
The first complete calendar year of Phindie’s existence is almost at a close. This year Phindie published almost 500 pieces on local theater, dance, and other arts. We look back at the articles which you liked the most in 2014. Here are the top ten in various categories.
View More Phindie in 2014: The most-read articles of the past yearMARY POPPINS (Walnut): Flying between lightness and gravitas
In doing MARY POPPINS, a director has to decide between approaches: light and fantastical like the movie or darker like the book.
View More MARY POPPINS (Walnut): Flying between lightness and gravitasYOU KNOW MY NAME: A DANIEL TALBOTT TRIO (Quince): Devils and saints in small-town America
Daniel Talbott’s YOU KNOW MY NAME: A DANIEL TALBOTT TRIO presents some unique challenges. Three short plays which could easily take place in the same town dwell with nearly pornographic clarity on the cruelty of the town’s inhabitants and of fate.
View More YOU KNOW MY NAME: A DANIEL TALBOTT TRIO (Quince): Devils and saints in small-town AmericaPhotographing Quince Productions’ YOU KNOW MY NAME: A DANIEL TALBOTT TRIO
In shooting YOU KNOW MY NAME: A DANIEL TALBOTT TRIO, I wanted to capture not only the unique world in which Talbott’s plays occur, but the very different worlds of these three short plays. A kitchen (Break My Face on Your Hand), a public bench (You Know My Name), and a bedroom (What Happened When) become joyous, sinister, hopeful, despairing, or reassuring places as the plays move along and flow into one another.
View More Photographing Quince Productions’ YOU KNOW MY NAME: A DANIEL TALBOTT TRIOJohn 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.
View More John Donges Photographs THREE DAYS OF RAIN (Quince): A Double Assignment“I always hated the 70s when I was a kid because I was dumb,” and other words of wisdom from John Rosenberg, writer-director of Queen Of All Weapons
California born and bred, now entrenched in Philadelphia, the playwright-director John Rosenberg debuts his latest work Queen Of All Weapons this Saturday at 2pm at the Papermill…
View More “I always hated the 70s when I was a kid because I was dumb,” and other words of wisdom from John Rosenberg, writer-director of Queen Of All Weapons