Philadelphia

Review: ‘Mary Martello: Songs My Mother Taught Me’ at the Arden Theatre Cabaret Series

I’ve seen Mary Martello onstage more times than I can count. The 5-time Barrymore Award winner has played everyone from Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd to Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, from Abby Brewster in...

Repairing and Healing the World Through Theater: An Interview With the Actors of IRC, Philadelphia’s Surreal Theater Company

Near the end of each year, Philadelphia’s only surreal theater, The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (IRC) —with their deeply philosophical mission statement, “We Bring Good Nothingness to...

Review: ‘Leper + Chip’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company

The goal of Inis Nua Theatre Company is to “tell the story.” In its American premiere of Irish playwright Lee Coffey’s Leper + Chip we get not only the story, but the big picture. As with...

Interview: Catharine Slusar Returns to Theatre Exile in ‘Lost Girls’

Following her Barrymore Award for Best Actress as Martha in Theatre Exile’s 2014 production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which was preceded by two Barrymore Nominations for Best Actress with...

Review: ‘Brooklyn Doo Wop Explosion’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre

Who put the bomp in the bomp be bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong? It these lyrics fill you with happiness in the remembrance of days gone by, then run to the Bristol Riverside...

Review: ‘Waiting for Godot’ at Curio Theatre Company

Waiting for Godot is generally considered a comedy. Samuel Beckett himself called this, his most famous play, a “tragicomedy.” But its reputation as an important, monumental piece of art can have a...

Review: ‘White Guy on the Bus’ at Delaware Theatre Company

White Guy on the Bus, at Wilmington’s Delaware Theatre Company through Sunday, February 19, is easily the prolific Bruce Graham’s most important and most accomplished play, even more than Coyote on a...

Review: ‘Tancredi’ at Opera Philadelphia

A company premiere and part of its Opera at the Academy series presented in the historic Academy of Music, Opera Philadelphia’s production of Tancredi, from Opéra de Lausanne and Teatro Municipal de...

Review: ‘Lagan’ at Villanova Theatre

About halfway through Villanova Theatre’s ultimately engaging production of Lagan, by Northern Ireland playwright Stacey Gregg, is a scene between two young people, Emmet (Patrick McAndrew) and Fiona...

Review: ‘The Enchanted’ at Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium

A colorful clearing outside a provincial French village is visited by the spirit of a murderer who enthralls Isabel, an innocent young schoolteacher obsessed with the enigma of death. Aided by the...

Review: ‘The Seagull’ at EgoPo Classic Theater

Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is one of the most durable of all 19th century plays. But it’s a play that producers, directors, and playwrights love to tinker with. In the last few years, audiences in...

Review: ‘Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years’ at Philadelphia Theatre Company

Sadie and Bessie Delany were one of a kind. Well, two of a kind. When we meet these two sisters, it’s 1993; Sadie is 103 years old, and Bessie is 101. (They both lived a few more years, with Sadie...

Review.’Driving Miss Daisy’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre

Atlanta 1948: “Negro Policemen to Patrol City Streets—They are ordered not to arrest white people” This is an actual headline featured in the multimedia of Bristol Riverside’s Driving Miss Daisy. It...

Review: ‘Laughter on the 23rd Floor’ at Walnut Street Theatre

A special recipe for a belly full of laughter awaits at the Walnut Street Theatre. Take a bunch of madcap comedy show writers, mix with mayhem and a kooky secretary, add a tinge of McCarthyism, shake...

Review: ‘Informed Consent’ at Lantern Theater Company

Jillian, the main character of Deborah Zoe Laufer’s play Informed Consent, is a genetic anthropologist – a scientist who has studied DNA for years and is still amazed at what she learns from it. She...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2016 #16: Best Direction, Musical Direction, and Design in Musicals and Plays in Philadelphia, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey

The DCMetroTheaterArts Staff’s Best of 2016 Direction in Productions in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and DE are: BEST DIRECTION Carl Andress for Charles Busch’s The Divine Sister at Bucks County...

Review: ‘John’ at Arden Theatre Company

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker is unsurpassed in her modern-day observations on the human condition and how we respond to it: the afflictions that impact us; the troubled relationships...

Review: ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Part 2’ at Hedgerow Theatre

By combining Isaac Asimov-style science fiction with Monty Python-style silliness, Douglas Adams created a whole new genre. It paid off very handsomely for Adams: His most famous work, The...

Review: ‘I Will Not Go Gently’ at Act II Playhouse

An aging rock star struggles to stay relevant, or perhaps struggles whether or not to care at all whether she is still relevant, in the Act II Playhouse remounting of 1812 Productions’ one-woman...

Review: ‘Last of the Red Hot Lovers’ at Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio on 3

There is one man and three different women. He’s in the midst of a midlife crisis, trying to connect with somebody not his wife, and find something “beautiful” in an affair. But it’s not that easy....

Review: ‘Wilde Tales’ at Quintessence Theatre Group

Brightened by a beautiful glittering garden backdrop, several of Oscar Wilde’s fabled fairy tales, smartly adapted and directed by Jeremy Bloom, convey the childlike spirit to an enchanting world...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Delaware Theatre Company

The Delaware Theatre Company (DTC) is offering a time-honored classic for the holiday season: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Only Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of the beloved tale is not your...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at McCarter Theatre Center

I cried while watching Adam Immerwahr’s revamped production of A Christmas Carol for McCarter Theatre Center. Immerwahr’s redo is less opulent, more spare, and aims for more intimacy and realism, but...

Review: The Arden Cabaret Series: ‘Tell Me A Story: ’Tis the Season’ at the Arden Theatre

Since its introduction last season, the Arden Theatre’s cabaret season has provided a dependable stream of the city’s best performers providing old songs, new songs, and comedy. But the latest entry...

Review: ‘This Wonderful Life’ at Act II Playhouse

“Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!” For so many, the holiday season just isn’t complete without the images of Jimmy Stewart running through the streets of Bedford Falls bidding an...

An Interview With Aaron Cromie and Matthew Mastronardi on Dylan Thomas’ ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ at Walnut Street Theatre

I have seen many Christmas shows, each one enjoyable in its own way, but I’ve never seen a production as moving, as unusual, and as artistically satisfying as this unique version of A Child’s...

Review: ‘A Year with Frog and Toad’ at Arden Theatre Company

A smash hit for Arden Theatre Company in 2004 and 2009, A Year with Frog and Toad is back for its third run and it’s guaranteed to be as popular as it was the first two times around! Philadelphia...

Review: ‘Antagonyms’ at Curio Theatre Company

An antagonym is a word with two opposite meanings, such as “left” which can mean “remaining” or “departed.” Rachel Gluck’s world premiere Antagonyms at Curio Theatre Company (“Curio”) centers around...

Review: ‘Seuls’ at The Wilma Theater

In the opening moments of Seuls, Wajdi Mouawad takes to the stage wearing only black briefs and eyeglasses. The purpose of the show we’re about to see, he informs the audience, is to examine “our...

‘Take A Bow’ Part 1 in Philadelphia: The Staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ Favorite Fall 2016 Performances/Directors/Designers

Here is the staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ first series of ‘Take A Bow!’ Fall 2016 honorees in Philadelphia: ____ Almanac Dance Circus Theatre and Chickabiddy, creators and performers of Exile 2588 at...

Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Hedgerow Theatre

A Christmas Carol, written as a novella by Charles Dickens in 1843, has been widely adapted in many forms for television, radio, the big screen, opera and theater. It remains a powerful parable that...

Review: ‘Son of a Dog’ at Walnut Street Theatre

“Tawakalt ala Allah” is Arabic, and in English it means, “I rely on God”. This is the phrase that Gameel Al-Batouti uttered repeatedly as Egypt Air flight 990 went down on October 31, 1999. Everyone...

‘Found’ at Philadelphia Theatre Company

They say people don’t write letters anymore, but I don’t think that’s true. So says the leading character in the opening moments of Found, an offbeat comic musical that puts as much emphasis on the...

Review: ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ at Walnut Street Theatre

From the moment I entered the Independence Studio on 3 (3rd floor of the Walnut Street Theatre), the holiday spirit was evident. Hot cider was available for the audience to savor, and once inside the...

Review: ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at Walnut Street Theatre

A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others. ~ The Wizard of Oz to The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz There’s no place like Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre...

Review: ‘An Iliad’ at Lantern Theater Company

A man sticks his head in through the door in the back wall. Broken down, dirty, dressed in old but modern clothes, he is delighted to see us, and sing his song. “It’s a good story,” and he’s been...

Review: ‘Dublin by Lamplight’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company

The founding of The Abbey Theatre in 1904 was one of the pivotal events in Irish history. The Abbey championed the perspective of Irish playwrights and actors, and its founding was the moment that the...

‘Marisol’ at Villanova Theatre

José Rivera’s Marisol is a dystopian look at a post-apocalyptic time when a war among machine gun-toting angels, part of a heavenly rebellion against a God pronounced senile, has caused devastation as...

Review: ‘Buyer & Cellar’ at Bucks County Playhouse

Say what you will about Barbra Streisand – whether you love her massive talent or ego, or not, you have to admit there’s no one else like her. And few people can say that with as much authority as...

Review: ‘Working: a Musical’ at Bristol Riverside Theatre

Working isn’t a typical musical. There’s no plot, no resolution, no love story. Yet the tale it tells is an absorbing one. By using words and music to examine the relationship of people to their jobs,...

An Interview with the Producers and the Creative Team of ‘IN MY BODY’ at The Prince Theater

The popular creative team of composer and musician Dan Martin and lyricist and artist Michael Biello, well-known for their many artistic ventures in both New York and the City of Brotherly Love, are...

A Preview of Inis Nua Theatre Company’s ‘Dublin by Lamplight’ with Director Tom Reing

Hot off a Barrymore win for Best Ensemble in a Play for Inis Nua Theatre Company’s The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning and having received widespread acclaim for its current Barrymore-recommended...

Review: ‘Guards at the Taj’ at Theatre Exile

Guards at the Taj is the story of two young friends, Humayun (“Huma”) and Babur. The two are a sort of Indian vaudeville duo: Huma (Anthony Mustafa Adair) is the uptight straight man, Babur (Jenson...

Review: ‘Mauritius’ at Act II Playhouse in Ambler, PA

It’s much ado about two small slips of paper in Act II Playhouse’s astute production of Mauritius, Theresa Rebeck’s thriller based on the intense world of stamp collecting. Despite the inherent...

Review: ‘Delirium’ at EgoPo Classic Theater

EgoPo Classic Theater is starting off their Russian Masters season with a mind bending production of Delirium, an adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov by Theatre O and Enda Walsh. The show follows a...

Life as ‘The Other Place’: An Interview with Jane Ridley

Life as THE OTHER PLACE: An interview with Jane Ridley, actor and theater professor. Background: UK and US Childhood Henrik: You were born in the UK and were briefly transplanted to the US as a child....

Here are the 2016 Barrymore Award Winners

Here are the 2016 Barrymore Award Winners (IN RED): F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist Alex Bechtel Emma Goidel Justin Jain Bi Jean Ngo Mary Tuomanen * The winner will...

Review: ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ at Bucks County Playhouse

When you take your seat at Bucks County Playhouse and find a paper bag on your seat filled with props – including a baggie full of rice to throw at the stage during a wedding scene – you may realize...

Review: ‘Radiant Vermin’ at Inis Nua Theatre Company in Philadelphia

To what lengths would you be willing to go to get what you want? That’s the moralizing question posed by English playwright Philip Ridley, in Inis Nua Theatre Company’s Philadelphia premiere of his...

Review: ‘The Legend of Georgia McBride’ at Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia

It’s drag to the rescue in playwright Matthew Lopez’s camp comedy The Legend of Georgia McBride, now in production at Arden Theatre Company. Filled with caustic humor, glitz, and music, and witty...