2017

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘I, Peaseblossom’ by Curio Theatre Company at The Woodlands Cemetery

I, Peaseblossom, written by Tim Crouch and directed by Dan Hodge, is a fun, magical way to become more familiar with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The dreams of the fairy Peaseblossom...

Magic Time!: Refinding the Soul of ‘Word Becomes Flesh’ at Theater Alliance: A Q&A With Director Psalmayene 24

Winner of five Helen Hayes Awards last season, Theater Alliance’s production of Word Becomes Flesh is now playing at Anacostia Playhouse in an encore presentation that is garnering even more acclaim....

Review: ‘Souvenir, A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins’ at Walnut Street Theatre Independence Studio on 3

How is theatre superior to film or TV? What special magic is found in live performance? This question is superbly answered in Souvenir, A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins, Stephen...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Death Is a Cabaret Ol’ Chum’ by REV Theatre Company at Laurel Hill Cemetery

As you enter through the gates and into the courtyard of historic Laurel Hill Cemetery, you are offered your choice of a complimentary cocktail with an appropriately lethal name, while listening to...

Review: ‘Elizabeth Cree’ at Opera Philadelphia

The British statesman Winston Churchill coined the expression, “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” He was speaking of the Soviet Union. The quotation, however, also could be...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘The Groom’s a Fag; The Bride’s a Cunt; The Best Man’s a Whore; and the Maiden of Honor (Just) Hung Herself in the Closet’ by On the Rocks at The Beard Cave at St. Mary’s Church

What do you get when you mix over-the-top parody with uncensored vulgarity with pure poetry? The Groom’s a Fag; The Bride’s a Cunt; The Best Man’s a Whore; and the Maiden of Honor (Just) Hung Herself...

Review: ‘I Hate Hamlet’ at Fells Point Corner Theatre

Threading a touch of Shakespeare with campy humor and artful absurdity, Fells Point Corner Theatre (FPCT) introduces its 30th anniversary season with a fun revival of Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet....

Review: ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ at the Walnut Street Theatre

Want to make one of the zaniest shows of all time even zanier? Just add Frank Ferrante. Ferrante has directed the Walnut’s new production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and he’s...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘These Terrible Things’ by the University of the Arts and The Berserker Residents at the Caplan Studio Theater

It’s a zany self-referencing case of art imitating life in These Terrible Things, as the University of the Arts and The Berserker Residents team up for an absolutely hilarious parody of training...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Airswimming’ by Half Key Theatre Company at Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5

Airswimming, Charlotte Jones’ play about two Englishwomen stuck in a mental institution for no good reason, walks – or should that be swims? – a fine line between sly humor and sensitivity. It’s...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Cotton&Gold’ by AMH Productions at Circle of Hope

Cotton&Gold is a new play by writer/director Alyse M. Hogan, a 2017 University of the Arts graduate, and her company AMH Productions, which describes itself as “a new theater company looking to invest...

Review: ‘Red Velvet’ at Lantern Theater Company

A scarlet curtain lines the stage of the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden, London with a controversy lurking on either side. Outside, angry Londoners flood the streets protesting the 1833 Slavery...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Alchemist’ at One Shot Coffee

Friendship finds its way to the Fringe by way of Mary Tuomanen and Chris Davis in the form of a felicitous commemorative play, and is heartily welcomed! Mary and Chris have been friends for around 16...

Theater Alliance Launches Word Becomes Action Festival

By Natalie Graves Tucker The theater that brought you the Helen Hayes Award–winning show Word Becomes Flesh last year is walking the talk and following up with the Word Becomes Action Festival. Before...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Home’ at the Prince Theater

Home is the newest theatrical confection of Fringe favorite Geoff Sobelle, and a can’t-miss part of the current festival. The first 70 minutes are a surrealistic delight. I recommend sitting on the...

Analysis: Charlottesville Theater Groups Respond to Last Month’s Deadly Rally

On August 11th and 12th, a group of neo-Nazis, fascists, and white supremacists thronged Charlottesville, Virginia. They were there to protest – peacefully, they’d said – the removal of a statue of...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Tilda Swinton Adopt Me Please’ by The Greenfield Collective at the Asian Arts Initiative

Both laugh-out-loud funny and intensely affecting, The Greenfield Collective makes its powerful mark on the Fringe with Tilda Swinton Adopt Me Please, an original work devised by Nicholas Scheppard...

Review: ‘The Arsonists’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Woolly Mammoth’s The Arsonists is not so much an entertainment, even though I laughed frequently, psychotically–and loud, as it is a paratheatrical event during which an absurd play is presented. The...

Review: ‘For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday’ at Playwrights Horizons

Sarah Ruhl is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a Tony Award nominee. Playwrights Horizons has played host to two of her many play — Stage Kiss and Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Her other works have won...

News: The Round World Presents ‘Tales from the Round World: The Log of the Salty Pearl’

The Round World is excited to present Tales from the Round World: The Log of the Salty Pearl, the second in their series of live radio plays with variety acts interspersed to raise money for great...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Iphigenia at Aulis’ by the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective at the USS Olympia

“What gods?” asks the devastated Clytemnestra after the sacrifice of her first-born daughter Iphigenia, in The Philadelphia Artists’ Collective’s Fringe adaptation of Iphigenia at Aulis. The ancient...

News: Two Years After Launching Mosaic, Ari Roth Reflects

This piece, “Two Years After Launching Mosaic, Ari Roth Reflects” by Marilyn Millstone was originally published on HowlRound, a knowledge commons by and for the theatre community, on September 12,...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Leaps of Faith and Other Mistakes’ by Almanac at the Painted Bride Art Center

Did you ever want to sail away from it all and begin anew with a circle of like-minded friends? That’s what the figures in Almanac’s Leaps of Faith and Other Mistakes do, in a decision that tests...

Review: ‘The Legend of Pufferfish Pat’ at InterAct Story Theatre

Pufferfish Pat is hardly your run of the mill Cowboy name. In fact, it’s so unusual that the cowboy it identifies gets “madder than a wet hen!” whenever it is mentioned. His face turns red, he swings...

Review: ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ at the Little Theatre of Alexandria

It’s rare that a play allows for a more distanced view than that of its cinematic counterpart, but in the case of the Little Theatre of Alexandria’s production of Driving Miss Daisy, Alfred Uhry’s...

News: ‘Olityelwe (The Forgotten)’ Returns to DC in Full Production for Two Performances Only at Theater Alliance

I reported on this extraordinary play when it was a staged reading at Theater J last June and said at the end: “Somebody needs to pick this one up and bring it back.” Well, that’s exactly what Theater...

Review: ‘Word Becomes Flesh’ at Theater Alliance at Anacostia Playhouse

The Word, in spiritual parlance, is the creative power of God made audible and visible through His Son. It is the energy of the divine dynamic made manifest through Self-revelation. True to principle,...

Review: ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, with a book by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and music by Gene de Paul, including new...

Spine: What’s Left of America’s Makers, ‘Skeleton Crew’ at Studio Theatre

Lord, in a bourgeois town It’s a bourgeois town I got the bourgeois blues Gonna spread the news all around Any Washington theatregoer who craves a working class show, where the characters are...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Strange Tenants’ by Sam Tower + Ensemble at Power Plant Productions

Evincing the seminal inspiration of Fringe mainstays Pig Iron Theatre Company and New Paradise Laboratories, Strange Tenants is the latest original work developed in Sam Tower + Ensemble’s...

Magic Time!: ‘Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train’ at 1st Stage

There are times in the theater when the particulars of a play—its people, place, and poetics—pull you in as only an arresting, well-told story can. But then something even more interesting begins to...

Review: ‘Aida’ at Washington National Opera

Eternal, romantic love conquers all — even a jealous rival — in Verdi’s ravishingly melodic Aida, now being presented by the Washington National Opera with splendid work from all involved. Verdi’s...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act’ by Blue Mercury Theatre at Independence Library

For the great South African playwright Athol Fugard, the personal is political. And nowhere is that more true than in Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act, a 1972 Fugard play, based on...

Review: ‘In Cabaret We Trust’ by TBD Immersive at Blind Whino

Tradition Be Damned Immersive has taken over a desanctified church at 700 Delaware Street, SW, Washington, DC. Known as the Blind Whino, or better by the fanciful colors that electrify the church’s...

Review: ‘Skeleton Crew’ at Studio Theatre

Even before the houselights go dim, sparks fly. That vision — of fire blazing from a riveter’s gun in a factory in Detroit — is emblematic of what is to come in Skeleton Crew, Dominique Morrisseau’s...

Review: ‘Disgraced’ at NextStop Theatre Company

What a combustible evening at NextStop’s production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar. Under Thembi Duncan’s adroit direction and with fascinating casting, this in-your-face drama...

Review: ‘Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train’ at 1st Stage

Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, now in production at 1st Stage, opens while the audience is still finding their seats. On a raised platform, in the round, Angel Cruz (Luis Alberto...

Review: ‘Aesop’s Fables’ at Quintessence Theatre Group

All of the characters in Lee Cortopassi’s colorful cartoon-like adaptation of Aesop’s Fables sparkle, and speak, just like the original ones drawn up way back circa 600 B.C. But they also snap,...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Labor of Love’ by The WaitStaff at L’Étage Cabaret

Philadelphia sketch-comedy icon, and longest-running annual act in the history of the Fringe, The WaitStaff marks its seventeenth year of participation with an all-new Labor of Love. Directed by the...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘GATZ’ at The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre

The program for GATZ claims that it is “A parody based on ‘The Great Gatsby’ Written by F. Scot. Fitzgerald.” (Note that Fitzgerald’s middle name is misspelled.) But a parody is, by definition, a...

Review: ‘Cabaret’ at Workhouse Arts Center

Everybody loves a winner. The song “Maybe This Time” reminds one of the spark of hope in a new beginning, what it feels like to cross a path and find someone and find a home. How very simple and very...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘. . . strand . . .’ by JUNK at Grays Ferry Crescent Trail Park

A transportive adventure awaits Fringe-goers in JUNK’s . . . strand . . ., as Brian Sanders and his stunning troupe contemplate the enigma of the time-space continuum in a dreamlike meditation on the...

Review: ‘Aglaonike’s Tiger’ at Venus Theatre

Aglaonike’s Tiger, written by Claudia Barnett and directed by Deborah Randall, is playing now at the Venus Theatre in Laurel, MD. The drama is based on the first recorded woman astronomer of Ancient...

Review: ‘The Heidi Chronicles’ at Rep Stage

Even successful plays get retired from the workforce after a few seasons. A select few, however, may go on to a new phase of wizened seniority. That is the case with The Heidi Chronicles, now getting...

Review: ‘In the Heights’ at Olney Theatre Center (in a co-production with Round House Theatre)

In a week that began with the repeal of DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – what better way to end it than with a musical about dreamers. For those children – many now young adults, among...

Review: ‘A House with No Walls’ at Old Academy Players in Philadelphia

Confederate statues are toppled because they ignite memories of slavery. Colleges are compelled to rename buildings because their namesakes turned out to be slaveholders. Theater companies must choose...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘Hello Blackout!’ by New Paradise Laboratories at The Drake

The cast of Hello Blackout! spends a lot of time in the dark. In the opening moments of the show, lights slowly fade up and we faintly see five people staggered across the stage. They’re wearing black...

2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival Review: ‘United’ by The Revivalists at the Betsy Ross House

Performed in the candlelit courtyard of the historic Betsy Ross House and opening in the 2017 Fringe on September 9 – the same date, in 1776, that the Second Continental Congress declared our Colonies...

Review: ‘Two Trains Running’ at Spotlighters Theatre

Okay, I’ll say it: the production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running is so packed with dynamic performances under the direction of the multi-faceted Fuzz Roark, it threatens to explode out of the...

Review: ‘An Inspector Calls’ at the Laurel Mill Playhouse

An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestly, is currently playing at Laurel Mill Playhouse, produced by Maureen Rogers and directed by Ilene Chalmers. Priestly was from the working class, albeit white...