Articles about William Shakespeare and reviews of Shakespeare productions in the Philadelphia area.
“He was not of an age, but for all time!”—Ben Jonson, preface to the First Folio, 1616
Director Charles McMahon, founding artistic director of the Lantern Theater Company, asserts that all of Shakespeare’s plays, whenever or wherever they’re set, are in fact observations about contemporary England. By shifting the locales to places outside of his homeland.
View More On the Universality of Shakespeare: Roman History through a Shoji Screen in the Lantern’s THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR
Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better Philadelphia’s newest Shakespeare company, Revolution Shakespeare, will present the second offering of its inaugural season on…
View More The City of Brotherly Bard: Revolution Shakespeare returns with a show and a webseries
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…
View More Celebrating Shakespeare at 450: An Interview with The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre’s Carmen Khan
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
David Patrick Stearns writes yet another petulant review, this time of Pig Iron’s TWELFTH NIGHT. If he whines enough that he isn’t entertained at theater…
View More TWELFTH NIGHT (Pig Iron): Upends Expectations, Rights Shakespeare’s Play
While Shakespeare’s Restless World: A Portrait of an Era in Twenty Objects is not, and does not claim to be, a complete narrative history of the times or a full-blown dramaturgical analysis of the Bard’s oeuvre, it does offer a fascinating collection of twenty chapter-length essays, using the objects as a springboard to explore key issues of the day and in Shakespeare’s work.
View More Book Review: SHAKESPEARE’S RESTLESS WORLD: A PORTRAIT OF AN ERA IN TWENTY OBJECTS by Neil MacGregor
The world’s most famous love story is given a new twist. The familiar characters are now the teenaged daughters of the feuding Montague and Capulet families, whose tragic romance is used to explore the true universality of Shakespeare’s themes.
View More ROMEO AND JULIET (Curio): A same-sex take on Shakespeare’s classic
Shakespeare is timeless. Romeo and Juliet is a universal love story. You have probably heard those sentiments expressed before, but are they true? Well, it’s…
View More How universal is Romeo and Juliet? Challenging hetronormative assumptions.
The FIVE BEST Shakespeare plays according to Revolution Shakespeare artistic director Griffin Stanton-Ameisen.
View More Revolution Shakespeare! The FIVE BEST Shakespeare plays according to artistic director Griffin Stanton-Ameisen
Aaron Cromie, the director of Philadelphia Shakespeare Company’s academy performance of TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, is one of this city’s best directors. His puppet/live actor version…
View More TWO NOBLE KINSMEN (Philly Shakes): Shakespeare as entertainment
With their engaging interpretations of classic plays, Philadelphia Artists’ Collective has established a reputation as one of the best and boldest independent theater companies in…
View More Everybody’s talking about TIMON OF ATHENS (PAC)
I’m going to go out on a limb and say William Shakespeare is a pretty good playwright. Yet his stories, his speeches, his one-liners have so…
View More TIMON OF ATHENS (PAC) A rare glimpse at a Shakespeare work
When presenting Shakespeare comedies, companies often forget that they should be funny. This is not the case with Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre’s production of MUCH ADO…
View More MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Philly Shakes): A Shakespeare comedy that’s actually funny
For the second of Phindie’s Philadelphia Independent Theater podcasts, hosts Christopher Munden and John Rosenberg talk to talented and versatile local actor Brian McCann. We…
View More Phindie Podcast 02: Brian McCann
HENRY V, a wonderful Shakespeare play, is being presented by the Lantern Theater until the end of April . Charles McMahon usually does very exacting…
View More HENRY V (Lantern): Grumpy Professor Review
HENRY V completes Shakespeare’s four-part series on Plantagenet kings of England. No longer the indolent partier, Prince Hal has inherited the English throne, but is…
View More The Lantern’s noble HENRY V
In most of Shakespeare’s tragedies, the characters are overtaken by the swirl of events, following fate to their bloody end. A notable exception is OTHELLO,…
View More 60-second review: OTHELLO (Philly Shakes)
The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre opens its 15th Anniversary Season with Twelfth Night. Directed by Artistic Director Carmen Khan, the production promises to be a fun look at this…
View More Twelfth Night at the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre
You may ask, “Do we need yet another production of Romeo and Juliet?” The answer is yes we do. This is the Lantern. Next question? The…
View More Romeo and Juliet (Lantern Theater Company): Do we need another R&J?
The Live Arts and Philly Fringe has grown and moved mostly North and West from its Old City nexus, prices have gone up, and the roster of…
View More Theater Picks for the 2010 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe