Friday, June 21, 2013
There's no skimping in the big-theater production of "Oklahoma!" that opens this season's Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and the payoff is clear -- a grand version of Rodgers and Hammers…
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 02:40PMPhiladelphia's most produced playwright this season is eloquent and groundbreaking and his themes are universal.
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 02:37PMIn Terrence McNally's "Mothers and Sons," a taut, terrific new play getting the world-premiere it deserves at Bucks County Playhouse, values and perspectives clash for the entire 80 minutes …
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 02:33PMAttention all Philadelphians down the Shore and all Shore people down there, too: If you've never enjoyed the silly pleasures of "Lend Me a Tenor," the popular American farce, you'll get you…
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 02:32PMWednesday, June 12, 2013
The script is badly executed, but the notion is cool – taking all four characters in “The Glass Menagerie” and re-imagining them so that the narrator, who remains the play’s son, can…
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 03:02PMThursday, June 6, 2013
InterAct Theatre Company commissioned the play four years ago, all the while shepherding playwright Eric Pfeffinger through his drafts. The payoff: A solid script with a clean narrative arc …
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 09:53AMTuesday, June 4, 2013
I have my qualms about "Barcelona," but not about the intensity with which Jackson Gay stages it.
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 12:52PMFriday, May 31, 2013
Is it hot in here, or is it just me? Hoo-boy! It's not just me. It's the entire Suzanne Roberts Theatre, where the Philadelphia Theatre Company has opened David Ives' "Venus in Fur."
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 10:50AMThe Tony-award winning musical, essentially about raging teenage hormones, is a rough-hewn, intense and racy exploration of newfound sexuality in 19th-century Germany, but that's just one si…
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 10:49AMWednesday, April 10, 2013
If mama ain't happy in Walter Dallas' tight, convincing production of "A Raisin in the Sun," then nobody is.
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 08:12PMTuesday, April 9, 2013
While it's far from the dressy production that "Timon" may need to help mask its pedestrian script, this "Timon" is at least a clearly told tale.
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 09:39AMThursday, April 4, 2013
At Lantern, it's all done with spitfire delivery that comes at you head-on – even comic scenes with the rascally brawler Pistol (Jake Blouch) are delivered with ferocity. And in the end, t…
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 01:03PMI'm going to go out on a limb and say that over the last nights, Bristol Riverside Theatre's large-scale production (two dozen cast members and a 12-piece orchestra) of "The Pirates of Penza…
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 01:00PMMonday, April 1, 2013
"Seminar" is a bulls-eye comedy about the power of words and the fragility of the writers who use them -- and as an added bonus, it's also an odd take on what it means to be a mentor.
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 05:48AMFriday, March 22, 2013
I would tell you that the best reason to go see the late Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful is the extraordinary performance of Carla Belver, but then, there is the play itself.
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 11:31AMIs life really a journey and not a destination? "Under the Whaleback" – a caustic play being given a terrific production by the Wilma Theater – is about a bunch of guys for whom life is …
SOURCE: NewsWorks at 11:28AMTuesday, October 23, 2012
The theater community comes together -- first to celebrate, then to plan. Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro reports.
SOURCE: Philly.com at 12:49AMThursday, October 18, 2012
The Delaware Theatre Company production of Bruce Graham's play about dementia and its effect on a family is first-rate. Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro reviews from Wilmington.
SOURCE: Philly.com at 02:16PMMonday, October 15, 2012
The new show at Society Hill Playhouse, an import from Rochester, gets more wildly funny as it goes on.
SOURCE: Philly.com at 03:06PMMonday, October 8, 2012
An exceptional one-man show about Bobby Kennedy, the president's little brother who loomed large in national life, is from New City Stage Company. Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro revi…
SOURCE: Philly.com at 04:13PMSaturday, October 6, 2012
1812 Productions' annual spoof concentrates this year on skewering the presidential campaign season -- and does so hilarious style. Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro reviews.
SOURCE: Philly.com at 06:59PMI say, Watson, is that basically good evening at Hedgerow Theatre a bit ragged 'round the edges? Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro reviews.
SOURCE: Philly.com at 06:56PMSaturday, September 29, 2012
A goofy break-out hit from the 2008 Philly Fringe festival returns to a bigger stage with more polish, less playfulness but the basic fun intact. Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro revie…
SOURCE: Philly.com at 12:24AMFriday, September 28, 2012
At Bristol Riverside Theatre, two actors bring alive a David Mamet play that's less about the story it tells than about issues behind the story. Inquirer theatr critic Howard Shapiro reviews.
SOURCE: Philly.com at 12:37PMTuesday, September 25, 2012
The Philadelphia Theatre Company and Wilma Theater are the big winners of this year's Barrymore Awards, in what may be the final curtain for the theater honors that recognize work on the reg…
SOURCE: Philly.com at 08:07AMThe Philadelphia Theatre Company and Wilma Theater are the big winners of this year's Barrymore Awards, in what may be the final curtain for the theater honors that recognize work on the reg…
SOURCE: Philly.com at 06:19AMThursday, September 20, 2012
The newly reopened Bucks County Playhouse is already planning a world premiere, and a high-level one, too: A production based on Stephen King’s novel "Misery," which the Playhouse will pro…
SOURCE: Philly.com at 02:55PMSunday, September 16, 2012
This musical at Montgomery Theater, and then at Act II Playhouse, is about making a musical focused on the life of the inventor of the printing press -- and it's irresistibly ridiculous. Inq…
SOURCE: Philly.com at 12:30AMSaturday, September 15, 2012
Public education, in a musical skewering. Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro reviews.
SOURCE: Philly.com at 06:07PMA house fights back to stay with its foreclosed family -- a classy blend of storytelling, set design, art and ideas, in a Fringe show in germantown. Inquirer theater critic Howard Shapiro re…
SOURCE: Philly.com at 01:55AM 
