Deb Miller

‘No Ransom To Be Paid’ at Pangea: An Update on ‘GRINDR: The Opera’ and More with Erik Ransom

Featured this summer in producer Ed Miller’s No Ransom To Be Paid four-part series at Pangea, the presented works of writer/composer/musician/actor Erik Ransom include songs from More Than All the...

Review: ‘A Never-Ending Line’ at The Players Theatre

Conceived by Composer and Director Jaime Lozano as a loving tribute to the women in his life and his matriarchal upbringing, A Never-Ending Line, produced by Maribel Escobosa, Martha Orendain, and...

Review: ‘Lili Marlene’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

Taking its name from the romantic wartime ballad famously recorded by Marlene Dietrich in 1945, and which, in its earlier German and English versions, had become uniquely popular with both Nazi and...

Review: ‘Gruff!’ at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre

Part of the first Summer Family Theater Festival at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, Gruff!, a co-presentation by Vital Theatre Company and Doppelskope, is everything that great children’s theater should...

Review: ‘A Real Boy’ at 59E59 Theaters

In the world premiere of A Real Boy, presented by Ivy Theatre Company in association with Athena Theatre at 59E59, playwright Stephen Kaplan significantly reimagines Italian writer Carlo Collodi’s...

Review: ‘Georama’ at the New York Musical Festival

The rise and fall of the largely forgotten 19th-century American artist John Banvard is the subject of Georama, an irresistible bio-musical by West Hyler (book) and Matt Schazt (book, music, and...

Review: ‘Troilus and Cressida’ at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

Since 2011, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival has presented one play a year in its “Extreme Shakespeare” series. The concept is to try to recreate in part the process believed to have been used in...

Review: ‘Wicked’ at the Academy of Music

From its origins in L. Frank Baum’s1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to its adaptation in MGM’s blockbuster 1939 film The Wizard of Oz to its annual TV broadcast on CBS beginning in 1956 (which...

Review: ‘Moon over Buffalo’ at People’s Light

Now in production at People’s Light, Ken Ludwig’s Moon over Buffalo, directed by Pete Pryor, contains all the expected elements of a farce: there’s mistaken identity; insult humor; impassioned...

Deb Miller’s Top Picks for the ‘2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival’

From antiquity to the present, tragedy and drama to absurdism and comedy, masterpieces by classic playwrights to experimental ensemble-devised works by local artists, the 2017 Philadelphia Fringe...

Review: ‘New York – The Melting Pot’ at Soulpepper on 42nd Street

The first in Soulpepper Theatre Company’s three-part musical celebration of the history of diversity in New York – The Melting Pot pays tribute to Lower Manhattan, from Battery Park to Chelsea....

Review: ‘Night Tide’ at the New York Musical Festival

Ancient sea lore meets Sixties beach party in Night Tide, a new musical parody by Taylor Tash (book and lyrics) and Nathania Wibowo (music), based on Curtis Harrington’s 1961 B-movie thriller of the...

An Interview with Josh Hitchens and Ryan Walter: Going Dark in the New Jersey Fringe with ‘The Confession of Jeffrey Dahmer’

Between 1978 and 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer committed the shocking murders of seventeen men, involving necrophilia, dismemberment, cannibalism, and the preservation of the victims’ body parts. After years...

Review: ‘Alligator Pie’ at Soulpepper on 42nd Street

Adapted from the verses of beloved children’s book author and poet Dennis Lee – known to generations of fans as “Canada’s Father Goose” – Soulpepper Theatre Company’s ensemble-devised Alligator Pie,...

Review: ‘Cage’ at Soulpepper on 42nd Street

The avant-garde work and Zen convictions of 20th-century American composer John Cage are the inspiration for Soulpepper Theatre Company’s ensemble-devised piece Cage, performed in this month’s...

Review: ‘Matthew McConaughey Vs The Devil’ at the New York Musical Festival

Deserving recipient of an Academy Award for Best Actor, or modern-day Faust who sold his soul to capture Hollywood’s biggest honor? Emilie Landmann (book), Carrie Morgan (book and lyrics), and...

Review: ‘The Summer Club: 3rd Anniversary Special’ at Venice Island Performing Arts Center

Back at Manayunk’s Venice Island Performing Arts Center, The Summer Club celebrated its third anniversary on a very hot night with an even hotter performance. With yesterday’s total breakdown of the...

Review: ‘Of Human Bondage’ at Soulpepper on 42nd Street

The first-ever stage adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, written by Vern Thiessen and directed by Albert Schultz for Canada’s Soulpepper Theatre Company, is also the recipient of the...

Review: ‘The Crusade of Connor Stephens’ at the Jerry Orbach Theater

Gun violence, socio-religious intolerance, same-sex marriage, and gay adoption are some of the current hot-button issues that tear apart a family, polarize a community, and create a media frenzy in...

Review: ‘The Imbible: Day Drinking’ at New World Stages

Feeling overwhelmed by the demands of work, everyday chores, and the incessant pings of your digital devices? Then don’t just find the time, but make the time, for getting together, catching up, and...

Review: ‘Death Comes for the War Poets’ at The Sheen Center

This year marks the centenary of the beginning of America’s involvement in World War I in 1917, and The Sheen Center has recognized it with the stellar world premiere of Death Comes for the War Poets...

Review: ‘d4rkly your retrorockets fl4re’ at the Flamboyán Theater

The world-premiere full-stage production of d4rkly your retrorockets fl4re, written by Steven Mark Tenney and co-directed with his sister Susan Tenney, is presented by The Constellation Project as...

Review: ‘The Summer Club’ at Venice Island Performing Arts Center

In his banter with the audience during last night’s musical homage to Swing, Big Bands, and ‘The Rat Pack’ at Manayunk’s Venice Island Performing Arts Center, Jeff Coon, Executive Director and...

Review: ‘Evita’ at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

The life of Eva Perón is the stuff legends, and rock operas, are made of: a rags-to-riches story of a poor illegitimate child from provincial Argentina, whose ambitious determination, seductive...

Review: ‘An Enemy of the People’ at Wheelhouse Theater Company

Economic self-interest, an ‘inconvenient truth,’ a ruthless politician, a whistleblower, ‘fake news,’ closed-door meetings, a bureaucratic cover-up, the refusal to work together for the common good,...

Review: ‘Fun Home’ at the Forrest Theatre

Winner of five Tony Awards in 2015 – including the first-ever Best Musical honors given to a show written entirely by a team of women – Fun Home, with book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine...

Rockwell, Warhol, and Warhola: A Conversation with James Warhola about Three Generations of American Illustrators at the Norman Rockwell Museum

Though a generation apart in age, Norman Rockwell (1894 New York City-1978 Stockbridge) and Andy Warhol (1928 Pittsburgh-1987 New York City) captured the tenor of their respective eras of 20th-century...

From ‘Class Clown’ to Master of Clowning and Circus Arts: An Interview with Terry Brennan on Tribe of Fools’ ‘School Play’

Founder and Artistic Director of Tribe of Fools, Terry Brennan is back on stage this month in the Philadelphia SoLow Fest, with his company’s latest offering School Play. The original one-man show,...

Review: ‘Gypsy’ at Arden Theatre Company

Since its debut in 1959, Gypsy, which closes out Arden Theatre Company’s 2016-17 season, has retained its popularity as one of the greatest Broadway musicals of all time, filled with such classic hits...

Review: ‘Can You Forgive Her?’ at Vineyard Theatre

“I’ve made bad choices. And I’ve made them . . . knowingly,” says 27-year-old Tanya – a single mom and bar waitress in a South Jersey beach town – in the opening scene of Gina Gionfriddo’s latest dark...

Review: ‘The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey’ at Philadelphia Theatre Company

It seems counter-intuitive that a play about a missing fourteen-year-old boy could be in any way funny or uplifting, but The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, written and performed by James...

Akeem Davis, Alex Keiper, and Matteo Scammell: An Interview with the Stars of ‘Buzzer’ at Theatre Exile

Theatre Exile closes its 2016-17 season with Tracey Scott Wilson’s searing drama Buzzer, which examines issues of race, class, and gender through the lens of urban gentrification. Directed by Matt...

Review: ‘The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane’ at People’s Light

Imaginative storytelling and captivating performances at People’s Light make Dwayne Hartford’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, adapted for the stage from the novel by Kate DiCamillo, a...

Review: ‘Dream: A Phonograph Musical’ at Ritz Theatre Company

Celebrating the 90th anniversary of its historic building, Ritz Theatre Company presents Dream: A Phonograph Musical, an original prequel to the genre of the ‘jukebox musical’ inspired by the hits of...

Review: ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre

A grand presentation of Agatha Christie’s popular whodunit of 1953, Witness for the Prosecution, closes out Bristol Riverside Theatre’s 30th anniversary season with a bang. Directed by Susan D....

Review: ‘My Funny Bone’ at Brian Sanders’ JUNK

In My Funny Bone, the latest offering from Brian Sanders’ JUNK, the boundary-breaking choreographer/dancer traces the evolution of his, let’s say, “eccentric” sense of humor from childhood to the...

Review: ‘The Arsonists’ at Azuka Theatre

Haunting and primal, Azuka Theatre’s rolling world premiere of The Arsonists, the final installment in Philadelphia playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger’s “Southern Gothic Trilogy” (following the terrible...

Review: ‘The White Devil’ at the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective

In the fall of 2010, the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective – the city’s critically-acclaimed purveyor of rarely-performed classics – burst onto the scene at the historic Broad Street Ministry and...

Josh Hitchens, Diane Richardson, Molly Edelman, and Megan Edelman Discuss ‘Anne of Green Gables’ and Victorian Theatre at Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion

The latest offering in Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion’s popular Victorian Theatre presentations is a new interpretation of Anne of Green Gables, playing for four performances this weekend in the...

Review: ‘Marry Harry’ at The York Theatre Company

If you’re in the mood for some pure light-hearted entertainment, Marry Harry, now making its Off-Broadway debut in a limited engagement with The York Theatre Company, is a delightful new musical...

Review: ‘Baghdaddy’ at St. Luke’s Theater

“Alternative facts” and “fake news” are nothing new with the current presidency; they led to the Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq and its still-ongoing dire consequences....

Review: ‘Return to Spoon River’ at Theatre Row

Published in 1915, Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology – a collection of free-verse poems in which the deceased residents of a fictional rural town in Illinois recount episodes from their lives...

Review: ‘The Imbible: A Spirited History of Drinking’ at New World Stages

Did you ever wonder what happens when “a duck walks into a bar”? Anthony Caporale (performer, playwright, and Director of Beverage Studies at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education) will tell you,...

Review: ‘The Reckless Season’ at TheaterLab NYC

What’s so funny about suicide, cremation, drug addiction, PTSD, and familial dysfunction? Playwright Lauren Ferebee finds the dark comedy in all of that, along with the innate tragedy and irreality,...

Review: ‘The Assignment’ at A.R.T./New York Theatres

Socially relevant and thought-provoking, profoundly heartrending and often funny, playwright Camilo Almonacid’s The Assignment – inspired by a true story and developed by Houses on the Moon Theater...

Review: ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ at the Forrest Theatre

When John Cameron Mitchell (book) and Stephen Trask (music and lyrics) were developing their gender-bending rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch for its Off-Broadway premiere in 1998, the Berlin...

Talking Marriage and Farce with the Couples of 1812 Productions’ ‘Happy Birthday’

Celebrating its 20th anniversary season, 1812 Productions – Philadelphia’s all-comedy theater company – is now in rehearsals for its springtime offering, the local premiere of French playwright Marc...

Michael Biello and Dan Martin Are Grooming for the Opening of ‘Marry Harry’

Philadelphia-based artists Dan Martin (composer) and Michael Biello (lyricist) are about to make their Off-Broadway debut this month with Marry Harry at The York Theatre Company. The longtime creative...

Review: ‘The Light Princess’ at Arden Theatre Company

A world-premiere musical adaptation of George MacDonald’s 19th-century Scottish fairytale The Light Princess, with book and lyrics by Tony Lawton and music by Alex Bechtel, is the latest offering from...

Review: ‘Bradley’s Bucks’ at Franky Bradley’s

Acrobatic, athletic, comic, and erotic, Bradley’s Bucks have it all and delivered it all upstairs at Franky Bradley’s in their latest high-energy offering. Founded, led, and directed by Teddy Fatscher...