Tim Dunleavy

Review: ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ at Hedgerow Theatre in Rose Valley, PA

Among the many traditions at Hedgerow Theatre is a fondness for cozy English mysteries, especially Agatha Christie’s. The Mysterious Affair at Styles is their newest production, and it has everything...

Review: ‘Heathers: The Musical’ at The Eagle Theatre in Hammonton, NJ

How much will you identify with Heathers: The Musical? Well, that may depend on whether you recognize the type of high school students you meet in the opening number. They’re the kind of kids who, on...

Review: ‘Angels in America’ Part One: ‘Millennium Approaches’ at The Players Club of Swarthmore in Swarthmore, PA

Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is one of the most important American plays of recent decades. It’s also one of the most difficult to get right. Consisting of two three-hour parts, it’s a feat of...

Review: ‘Two Trains Running’ at Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia

It’s 1969, and we’re in a diner in Pittsburgh. The sweet sounds of soul are on the jukebox, and the harsh sounds of revolution are in the air. It’s a time of change in the city’s Hill District: the...

Review: ‘Nureyev’s Eyes’ at Delaware Theatre Company

David Rush’s play Nureyev’s Eyes takes us to the 1970s, when two of America’s greatest artists – Rudolf Nureyev, the Russian-born dancer, and Jamie Wyeth, the Wilmington-born painter – forged an...

Review: ‘Defending the Caveman’ at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, PA

Ever since Rob Becker started performing a one-man comedy show called Defending the Caveman back in the 1980s, its popularity has grown steadily. And in the time since the show played a two-year run...

Review: ‘Smoke’ at Theatre Exile in Philadelphia

For more than a decade, Theatre Exile has made pushing the envelope their specialty. They’ve made themselves the city’s go-to company for sexy – and occasionally sexually explicit – theatre. Last...

Review: Ramsey Lewis and John Pizzarelli: ‘Straighten Up and Fly Right-The Nat King Cole Tribute’ at the Merriam Theater

There are few artists who have honored the legacy of Nat King Cole into the modern era the way singer/guitarist John Pizzarelli has. Early in his career he recorded two Cole tribute albums, Dear Mr....

Review: ‘Spine’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company in Philadelphia

When we meet Amy in the opening moments of Clara Brennan’s Spine, she’s homeless, bewildered, and defensive. She’s a London teenager with a violent temper and a surly attitude. Over the course of a...

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at The Academy of Music in Philadelphia

The new touring production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, now playing at the Academy of Music, doesn’t offer many surprises. But for the show’s devoted fans – and judging from the throng of old and...

Review: ‘A Wonderful Noise’ at Villanova Theatre

When’s the last time you saw a musical about the competitive world of barbershop quartet singing? I’m not positive, but I think A Wonderful Noise may be the first show of its kind. (Truth to tell, the...

Review: ‘A Taste of Things to Come’ at Bucks County Playhouse

It’s not every day you see a musical with an all-female cast and a female-led creative team, but Bucks County Playhouse has given us one with their latest offering. A Taste of Things to Come depicts...

Review: ‘The It Girl’ at Simpatico Theatre Project in Philadelphia

Clara Bow was nobody’s fool. In 1962, three decades after her reign as the biggest female star in movies, Bow wrote in a letter about the recent death of one of her successors, Marilyn Monroe. “I...

Review: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ at The Media Theatre in Media, PA

For its latest production, the Media Theatre has turned to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic story known by millions of readers. The stage adaptation by Christopher Sergel tells the story...

Review: ‘#therevolution’ at InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia

In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron told us that the revolution will not be televised. Now, in 2016, Playwright Kristoffer Diaz tells us that the revolution will be webcast. And maybe live tweeted. But...

Review: ‘Oscar Wilde: From the Depths’ at Lantern Theater Company in Philadelphia

Oscar Wilde: From the Depths, Charles McMahon’s new play about the darkest period in Wilde’s life, is a play that’s brimming with intelligence and insight, and it’s beautifully performed and sometimes...

Review: ‘The Piano Lesson’ at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is, on its surface, just a story about a brother and sister who argue over whether to sell a family heirloom. What makes the play so special is that the piano in...

Review: ‘A Moon for the Misbegotten’ at Walnut Street Theatre Independence Studio on 3 in Philadelphia

There’s no moon in the newest version of A Moon for the Misbegotten. The set, designed by Andrew Thompson, looks great, but because the ceiling of the Independence Studio on the Walnut Street...

Review: ‘Approaching Zanzibar’ at The Players Club of Swarthmore in Swarthmore, PA

Do you know the way to Zanzibar? I’m not sure that any of the characters in Approaching Zanzibar do – even the one character who claims she’s actually been there. But that hardly matters, in because...

‘The Three Maries – A Philadelphia Phable’ at the Prince Theater in Philadelphia

The Three Maries – A Philadelphia Phable is a Philadelphia musical that wears its civic pride on its sleeve. It’s a celebration of some of the things that make this city like no other, such as the...

Jeff Coon at The Arden Cabaret Series

Jeff Coon, a familiar and dependable face on Philadelphia stages for two decades, returned this weekend to the Arden Theatre, a company where he’s played everyone from John Wilkes Booth (in Assassins)...

‘Gentlemen Volunteers’ at Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia

For Pig Iron Theatre Company’s 20th Anniversary, the troupe is returning to a show it first presented in 1998 and which they have gone on to perform around the world. It’s Gentlemen Volunteers, a...

‘A Christmas Carol’ at McCarter Theatre Center

As McCarter Theatre’s A Christmas Carol opens, the streets of London are bustling. Snow is falling lightly, and good will is in the air. A group of carolers gathers around a brightly decorated...

‘Baskerville – A Sherlock Holmes Mystery’ at Philadelphia Theatre Company

If there’s one thing the recent spate of cinematic and televised incarnations of Sherlock Holmes has proven, it’s that after more than a century, the appeal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated...

‘The Three Musketeers (The Later Years): A Musical Panto’ at People’s Light & Theatre Company in Malvern, PA

It was when the man dressed as a woman sat on my knee that I knew this wasn’t going to be a typical night in the theater. “What’s your name?” asked Queen Agnes of Malvaria, played with a gruff voice,...

‘Becoming Dr. Ruth’ at Walnut Street Theatre Independence Studio on 3 in Philadelphia

Becoming Dr. Ruth is a cute little show about a cute little lady. A one-woman show about Ruth Westheimer, the world’s most famous “German-French-Israeli-American” TV sex therapist, Becoming Dr. Ruth...

‘A Christmas Story, The Musical’ at Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia

During intermission at A Christmas Story, The Musical, a woman sitting a few seats to my right marveled to me that her guest for the night had never seen the 1983 movie that inspired this musical....

‘Mountain: The Journey of Justice Douglas’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre in Bristol, PA

If you don’t know anything about William O. Douglas (1898-1980), the man who served on the United States Supreme Court longer than any other justice, Douglas Scott’s play Mountain: The Journey of...

‘Macbeth’ at Villanova Theatre at Villanova University

More than four hundred years after Shakespeare wrote it, Macbeth remains a potent play. Its tale of how the lust for power corrupts is timeless, made even more enduring by some of the most legendary...

‘Lights Rise on Grace’ at Azuka Theatre in Philadelphia

Lights Rise on Grace is a play that has a lot to say about race, sexuality and secrecy, but says it sparingly. Chad Beckim’s play depicts three characters who reveal a lot to the audience in speeches...

Oh What a Night at The 2015 Barrymores!

“It’s been a big year for me.” That was quite an understatement coming from Scott Greer. The veteran Philadelphia actor had just won his fifth Barrymore Award, named Outstanding Leading Actor in a...

‘Equivocation’ at the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia

Equivocation, Bill Cain’s alternative history about William Shakespeare getting caught up in deadly royal court intrigue, is exceedingly clever and almost dizzyingly erudite. And it has some quite...

‘Bullets Over Broadway’ at Broadway Philadelphia

Bullets Over Broadway is one of Woody Allen’s funniest, most accessible movies. But the stage musical adaptation, using a script by Allen himself, is an awkward mishmash of comedy and music that never...

‘A Comedy of Tenors’ at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ

Is A Comedy of Tenors, Ken Ludwig’s newest comedy, a worthy successor to Lend Me a Tenor, his knockabout farce that opened on Broadway in 1989 and has been produced in hundreds of theatres around the...

‘Rizzo’ at Theatre Exile in Philadelphia

Technically speaking, Rizzo isn’t a great play. Bruce Graham’s new play about the life of the late Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo doesn’t dig deeply enough into what made its main character tick. The...

‘The Taming of the Shrew’ at The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre

Nobody can seethe like Jenna Kuerzi. As Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew, Kuerzi reacts to every slight from her unwelcome suitor Petruchio with rage. Her nostrils flare. Her eyes bulge. Her...

‘Disgraced’ at Philadelphia Theatre Company

Disgraced is a play that pushes people’s buttons. Almost every character says something that is guaranteed to outrage somebody. But when you push too many buttons, a show can feel mechanical – and...

‘Hooked!’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company in Philadelphia

If there’s one thing the Irish are good at, it’s keeping – and creating, and gossiping about – secrets. (My Irish grandmother practically turned it into an art form.) In Hooked!, playwright Gillian...

‘Shipwrecked!’ at Walnut Street Theatre Independence Studio on 3 in Philadelphia

At the beginning of Shipwrecked!, Greg Wood bounds onto the stage of the Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio and greets the audience: “Hello,” he says, “and welcome to this temple of...

‘Metamorphoses’ at Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia

Watching Metamorphoses is a sensory experience. Mary Zimmerman’s play retells ancient myths with intelligence and invention, and that alone makes it memorable. But what you’ll remember most about the...

‘Bus Stop’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre in Bristol, PA

Oh, the weather outside is frightful. It’s the middle of the night on an isolated Kansas highway, somewhere between Kansas City and Topeka, and a massive winter snowstorm has stranded a group of bus...

‘Eurydice’ at Villanova Theatre in Villanova, PA.

Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl’s fresh take on a classic Greek myth, is irreverent and deadly serious at the same time. It’s profound… and at times it’s also profoundly silly. And its willingness to jump...

‘Baby Doll’ at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ

You can cut the air – and the tension – with a knife in Princeton these days. The McCarter Theatre’s new production of Baby Doll, adapted from Tennessee Williams’ 1956 screenplay (and his short play...

‘High Society’ at The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia

Philip Barry’s 1939 play The Philadelphia Story has long been rightly celebrated as a model of wit and sophistication. It inspired a classic movie version the following year and then, in 1956, High...

Philadelphia Fringe Festival: ‘Andy: ‘A Popera’ at Opera Philadelphia and the Bearded Ladies

What’s art? The characters in Andy: A Popera, a new piece based on the life of the pop art pioneer Andy Warhol, get asked that question many times, and they have many answers. “An opportunity,” says...

2015 Philadelphia Fringe Festival: ‘Alias Ellis Mackenzie’ at Lucidity Suitcase International

Alias Ellis Mackenzie tells the story of Barry Seal, who smuggled drugs into the United States for the Medellin Cartel during the 1980s while simultaneously working as an informant for the U.S. Drug...

2015 Philadelphia Fringe Festival: ‘The Captive’ at Philadelphia Artists’ Collective

Once upon a time, The Captive was hot stuff. Édouard Bourdet’s play caused a sensation in Paris in 1926, and again later that year on Broadway. But the Broadway run was cut short when authorities...

2015 Philadelphia Fringe Festival: ‘Underground Railroad Game’

Underground Railroad Game is a show that doesn’t care who it shocks. It’s filled with racial and sexual stereotypes, raunchy language, and offensive images, not to mention full frontal nudity. There’s...

2015 Philadelphia Fringe Festival: ‘The Shoplifters’ at 1812 Productions

Mary Martello is a master thief. Anyone who’s seen her play supporting roles in shows as diverse as Memphis, 9 to 5, and Candide knows that this five-time Barrymore winner is an expert at stealing a...

‘Murder for Two’ at Philadelphia Theatre Company

Whodunit? Who killed the famous author? Was it his wife, his mistress, or his psychiatrist? Maybe it was the author’s friends Murray and Barb, the ones who introduce themselves as “the feisty old...