Philadelphia

Review: ‘Appropriate’ at Princeton Summer Theater

In Appropriate, the 2014–2015 Obie Award winner for Best New American Play, playwright (and Princeton alumnus) Branden Jacobs-Jenkins boldly explores family relations, racism, religious bigotry, sex...

Review: ‘The Crucible’ at Princeton Summer Theater

When you enter the home of the Princeton Summer Theater to see The Crucible, you may wonder at first whether you’ve wandered into the right place. After all, Arthur Miller’s legendary play takes place...

Review: ‘Scarborough Fair: A Tribute to Simon & Garfunkel’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre

Whenever a musical group has the name “brothers” or “sisters” (as in “Smothers” or “Andrews”) you can expect a tight, controlled sound with seamlessly blended harmonies. Close harmony (even if it’s...

Review: ‘Spider’s Web’ at Princeton Summer Theater

Spider’s Web ends with the unmasking of a murderer, and it starts with… a taste test. In this play’s opening moments, two veddy proper, blindfold-wearing English gentlemen drink glasses of Port and...

Review: ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ at Hedgerow Theatre

Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real. Hedgerow Theatre Company has found a way to make you feel like a world traveler without ever leaving Delaware County. Hedgerow’s lively...

Review: ‘The New and Improved Stages of Grief’ at Act II Playhouse

Inevitably, we will each encounter some kind of experience with death as we grow, and although it may be one of our greatest shared experiences, grieving is still a personal process. A mixture of...

Romping Around the Globe: An Interview with Damon Bonetti, Director of Hedgerow Theatre’s ‘Around the World in 80 Days’

Damon Bonetti, a popular Philadelphia actor and director at various theaters and Co-Founding Artistic Director of The Philadelphia Artists’ Collective (The PAC), is directing a new production of...

Review: ‘The Nerd’ at Bucks County Playhouse

The summer stock experience has nearly passed away. Half a century ago it was a vacation custom to visit a picturesque village and, after a day of sightseeing complemented by great food, stop by a...

Review: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

Turning The Hound of the Baskervilles, one of Sherlock Holmes’ most famous cases, from a mystery into a small-cast comedy is an idea that sure gets around. Hedgerow Theatre staged a four-actor version...

Review: ‘Alex Keiper & The Next Generation’ at The Arden Cabaret Series at Arden Theatre Company

Alex Keiper is a well-known Philadelphia actor who was originally asked to do a solo cabaret show by the Arden Theatre Company. Unexpectedly, she decided she wanted to share this event with some of...

Review: ‘The Gospel According to…’ at Lantern Theater Company

The new play at Lantern Theater Company is smart, funny, fascinating and entertaining. At times, though, it’s also rude, frustrating, predictable, and morally troubling. But then again, all those...

The Dream Team that Made a Small Town Big: Interview with Erin Reilly and Matthew Decker of Theatre Horizon

Theatre Horizon (TH) is a professional nonprofit theatre company headquartered in Norristown, Pennsylvania, 20 miles west of Philadelphia. Since its inception, TH has presented critically-acclaimed...

Review: ‘Uncle Vanya’ at Quintessence Theatre Group

There’s something seriously wrong with this house. That’s what one character says early in Quintessence Theatre Group’s new production of Uncle Vanya, and boy, is she right. Uncle Vanya is set in a...

Review: ‘How to Use a Knife’ at InterAct Theatre Company

Set in the hectic kitchen of a restaurant in New York’s Financial District, Will Snider’s How to Use a Knife focuses on a friendship that develops between two men – one a chef, the other a dishwasher...

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Hedgerow Theatre

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” And in the case of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it hits every bump in the road! One of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, Midsummer follows the...

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: ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ at Act II Playhouse

Are there any award nominators out there? Is so, get down to Act II Playhouse. This superb production of Brighton Beach Memoirs deserves a bundle of them. Much of the production’s success is, of...

Review: ‘Intimate Apparel’ at McCarter Theatre Center

It was as though God kissed my hands when I first pulled the fabric through the sewing machine and held up a finished garment. That’s how the main character of Intimate Apparel describes her work....

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: ‘Buzzer’ at Theatre Exile

Buzzer is a story about real estate, and how moving to a new home can mean more than just leaving a forwarding address. Tracey Scott Wilson’s play addresses several compelling subjects: race,...

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: ‘Clue On Stage’ at Bucks County Playhouse

Wanna play a game? Clue On Stage is a show that doesn’t ask deep, profound questions of its audience. Instead, it simply asks, whodunit? Who killed Mr. Boddy? Was it Professor Plum in the conservatory...

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: ‘My Name is Asher Lev’ at South Camden Theatre Company

A sensitive young man struggles with his heritage as he tries to make his own mark on the world. A predictable story, you might say? Well, My Name is Asher Lev is anything but predictable, and...

Review: ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ at Opera Philadelphia by Corey Cohen

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) is such a perfect amalgam of comedy and pathos that audiences will cheer even a flawed performance of it. It’s hard to get everything right, with...

Review: ‘The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary’ at Curio Theatre Company

How do you turn one of literature’s greatest tragedies into a raucous comedy? Very carefully. I read Madame Bovary in high school, and while it’s been (ahem) a few decades since I’ve thought of it in...

Review: ‘Swallow’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company

Swallow, by Scottish playwright Stef Smith, was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival in 2015. This American premiere is produced by Inis Nua Theatre Company (which specializes in works from England,...

Review: ‘Hetty Feather’ at Delaware Theatre Company

Nothing can keep Hetty Feather down. An orphan’s life is a hard one, especially in Victorian England – and Hetty has it harder than most orphans, spending years enduring cruel treatment in London’s...

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...

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...

A Conversation with Colleen Corcoran on Her Role in Devising and Performing EgoPo’s ‘Anna’

Currently performing the titular role in EgoPo Classic Theater’s Anna – an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Russian epic Anna Karenina, written and directed by Brenna Geffers – Colleen Corcoran has become...

Review: ‘Hand to God’ at Philadelphia Theatre Company

Sometimes it’s easier to let a puppet speak for you, when you know the truth about how you feel will not be well received by your small southern Christian community. That’s exactly what happens in...

Review: ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ at Hedgerow Theatre

There are few adventure stories as durable as The Prisoner of Zenda. Anthony Hope’s 1894 novel – the story of a well-meaning Englishman who looks exactly like a European king, and who poses as the...

Review: ‘The Broken Heart’ at Quintessence Theatre Group

It’s unlikely you will be familiar with John Ford’s The Broken Heart. Like most early 17th century playwrights not named Shakespeare, Ford’s works are rarely performed: he’s known almost exclusively...

Review: ‘Adapt!’ At The Wilma Theater

Adapt! is a new play that tells the story of Lenka, an immigrant from Communist-era Czechoslovakia who dreams of living in New York City. It’s a world premiere production, written and directed by...

Review: ‘Anna’ at EgoPo Classic Theater

EgoPo Classic Theater presents the world premiere of Anna as the final work in its Russian Masters Festival. Anna adapts the story of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina with lots of humor and physicality....

Review: ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at the Walnut Street Theatre

The Walnut Street Theatre is doing The Importance of Being Earnest in high style. The Victorian era was noted for its excesses in decoration and costume, and Robert Koharchik’s set design for this...

Review: “Jesus Christ Superstar” at Bristol Riverside Theatre

Scheduled to coincide on the calendar with the days historically associated with the last week in the life of Christ, Bristol Riverside Theatre’s spring production of the groundbreaking 1971 rock...

Review: ‘Love’s Labor’s Lost’ at Quintessence Theatre Group

Quintessence Theatre Group brings William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost, as directed by Alexander Burns, vibrantly to life with spectacular staging, scintillating costumes and a sparkling cast....

Review: ‘Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express’ at McCarter Theatre Center

One afternoon in 1979 or 1980, I saw Orson Welles on The Merv Griffin Show discussing his love of mystery stories. One of his favorites, he said, was Murder on the Orient Express. I was young, and I...

Review: ‘Ben Dibble: Are We There Yet? Just a Little Father(hood Cabaret)’ at the Arden Cabaret Series

Ben Dibble might be as fine a cabaret performer as anyone in that field. He demonstrated that with the presentation of Are We There Yet? Just a Little Father(hood Cabaret), produced by the Arden...

Review: ‘Coriolanus’ at Lantern Theater Company

Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s least-performed plays – probably because it doesn’t fit easily into any of the standard Shakespearean categories. It’s a tragedy, but one without the epic sweep of...

Review: ‘The Miss Firecracker Contest’ at South Camden Theatre Company

Beth Henley stocks her plays with characters that are distinctive and outlandish, right down to their names. The Miss Firecracker Contest, her wily and witty comedy now being revived at South Camden...

Review: ‘The Lyons’ at Isis Productions

Expletives, insults, and accusations fly, when an unhappy wife, alcoholic daughter, and gay son gather in the hospital room of their dying husband and father for a farewell verbal slug-fest. Isis...

Review: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Arden Theatre Company

In 1998, Arden Theatre Company opened their F. Otto Haas Stage with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Widely considered one of William Shakespeare’s lightest and most accessible plays,...

Review: ‘Tomfoolery’ at Act II Playhouse

“Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it. “ ~ Tom Lehrer Tom Lehrer’s Tomfoolery, as directed by Tony Braithwaite, is a wickedly wonderful celebration of musical wit...

Review: ‘Sh*theads’ at Azuka Theatre

The characters in Sh*theads don’t mind being called shitheads. True, that may not be a word you’d use in polite company… but these people aren’t polite company. They’re the employees of Bert’s Bikes,...

Review: ‘The Gift’ at Walnut Street Theatre

The fun, and perhaps coyness, of The Gift, Will Stutts’ gentle and constantly engaging play at the Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio through March 19th, is the way it uses the personae of...

Review: ‘Lost Girls’ at Theatre Exile

For Maggie, life has been, ever since childhood, one crisis after another. Now, as a winter storm is blanketing her New Hampshire hometown, several more crises have struck at once: her car has been...