All articles by Kathryn Osenlund
Things are not yet as bad as the reality presented in the play. But it urges us to beware, to speak up for ourselves at the ballot box, and not allow the promise of 1776 to continue down the…
Outrageous and farcical, this play is not just over the top – it’s left the top so far behind that they’ve forgotten where it left it. The applause at the end was wild.
The post THE HY…
It's quite likely that you'll never see a finer performance of this Shakespearean warhorse.
The post ROMEO AND JULIET (Arden): Bounty as boundless as the sea appeared first on phindie.
We are treated to a rare spectacle in a show that would surely please Shakespeare.
The post RARE ACCIDENTS: HENRY IV parts I and II abridged (Quintessence): A quick visit to Eastcheap appear…
In opening scenes three Weird Sisters, witches, brew evil in a pot using scarce ingredients like eye of newt. They cherry pick the future for Macbeth with oracular accuracy, giving over t…
An existential and eccentric play , it's not light-hearted theater.
The post A Summer Day (Wilma): Existential and eccentric appeared first on phindie.
Giovanni's Room, is currently on stage in Philadelphia in world premiere. The James Baldwin Estate granted Quintessence Theatre permission to produce this theatrical adaptation, the…
The …
Jonathan Larson, who wrote the book, lyrics, and music in 1994, described Rent as a Rock Opera
The post RENT (Arden): Revisiting a 90s La boheme appeared first on phindie.
Adapted by Patrick Barlow from the novel by John Buchan and the movie by Alfred Hitchcock
The post THE 39 STEPS (Lantern): Hitchcock onstage appeared first on phindie.
Hard to imagine that the Bard who wrote this fun and foolish play also penned Hamlet, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet.
The post A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (Quintessence): The Bard's crazy side …
A script needs life breathed into it and that's what happens with an inspired director, designers, and talented versatile actors.
The post MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Lantern): Still a joy appea…
Playwright Michael Hollinger's Holy Grail of Memphis is in world premiere at the Arden Theatre Company. This is the 13th Hollinger play that the Arden has produced.
The post HOLY GRAIL OF ME…
RED, not to be confused with REDS, is a color, not a Commie. It refers to the impression given by one of ten huge canvases…
The post RED (Theatre Exile): Coloring an artist's story appear…
French playwright Edmond Rostand's story about a brilliant man endowed with a large nose is a work of fiction.
The post Cyrano De Bergerac (Quintessence): 60-second review appeared first on …
Warning: These seven marvelous actors in the all female cast, are not your nice Aunt Sara. Wild and untamed, they're women without borders. Stepping out…
The post POTUS (Arden): Brash and…
Father Comes Home From The Wars by Suzan-Lori Parks is remarkable in many ways. There's no denying the appeal that took the audience to its…
The post FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE WARS (Quni…
One of Shakespeare's greatest hits, his first comedy, The Comedy of Errors, is playing at the Lantern Theater Company until June 16. Twins, shipwreck, mistaken…
The post THE COMEDY OF ERR…
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Cool it with a baboon's blood, then the charm is firm and good. Macbeth, the…
The post MACBETH (Quintessence): Onstage magi…
A tale about cotton, Civil War, commodities, finance, and wealth told through the story of three brothers and the company they found.
The post THE LEHMAN TRILOGY (Arden): A play in three act…
 Inis Nua has done its best with a story more told than shown, an aftermath.
The post Once Upon a Bridge (Inis Nua): 60-second review appeared first on phindie.
The Lantern Theater's performance of Faith Healer, by Brian Friel is presented as four monologues that represent three points of view, those of Frank Hardy…
The post FAITH HEALER (Lantern…
Lorraine Hansberry wrote Raisin in the Sun in 1959, a bold play for its time. It takes a dark view of the progress of integration,…
The post A RAISIN IN THE SUN (Bristol Riverside): An ol…
Love happens, even in a setting dedicated to concentrated evil, as an American girl becomes a fierce Nazi uber-princess.Â
The post CAMP SIEGFRIED (Theatre Exile): An unlikely love story a…
Quintessence Theater's founding artistic director Alex Burns, has written a new translation from the original French
The post NO EXIT (Quintessence): A new translation of a hellishly absurd …
The wall of the F. Otto Haas Stage features pictures of targets and X's for murdered presidents. Starting with John Wilkes Booth's killing of Abraham…
The post ASSASSINS (Arden): A celebr…
Before he became a celebrated playwright, Jean-Baptiste Poquelan was a poor thing in a touring shoestring theater company. Although he had wanted to be a…
The post TARTUFFE (Lantern): Del…
10 Dates with Mad Mary is playing upstairs at a favored watering hole, Fergie's Pub. The show was so popular last year that it's back!
The post 10 Dates with Mad Mary (Inis Nua): A real piec…
There's a lot of Twelfth Night going around in the Philadelphia area, all different. The Wilma conjures a fresh seaside setting. A dock moves forward.…
The post TWELTH NIGHT (Wilma): Beac…
Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night (1599-1600), one of his few fantasy plays, immediately before he penned his incomparable Hamlet (1600-1601). As Artistic Director Charles McMahon describe…
A crippling honesty and family ties mark August Wilson's Radio Golf, a play that flows with humor along with sharply incisive dialogue and a clever story line.
The post RADIO GOLF (Arden)…
There's magic and mystery as wonderfully costumed characters come alive to dance, sing, cavort, wrestle, draw swords, threaten violence, and show mercy
The post THE TEMPEST (Quintessence): F…
Introducing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as "a thinking play," Tennessee Williams wrote to his audiences: "I want to go on talking to you…
The post CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (Walnut Street Theatre):…
This show has history. Odets, a voice for his disinherited generation was born in Philadelphia.
The post Waiting For Lefty (Quintessence): On the side of angels but not art appeared first on…
Scott Greer has the audience suffering with him, then happy for him. It seems this story could have been his personal history. He owns it that much.
The post Every Brilliant Thing (Arden The…
Boisterous, joyful, defiant, and a little bawdy, the show may have a sketchy contraption of a plot, but you don't go to a musical expecting Hamlet.
The post The Tattooed Lady (Philadelphia T…
Faced with bureaucratic nonsense or official missteps, who hasn't said 'fuck the government' or a more genteel equivalent? The multi-ethnic East African Kenya Colony gained independenc…
Tennessee Williams had been writing since he was a teenager, and by the time he was 30 years old he was getting nowhere. His early…
The post THE GLASS MENAGERIE (Arden): Revisiting the fa…
Due to the pandemic, it had been many months since I'd visited the Sedgwick Theater in Germantown. October 1 was opening night for The Chairs…
The post THE CHAIRS (Quintessence): 60-secon…
It's a tragedy that more audiences will not have a chance to enjoy the production.
The post ROMEO AND JULIET (OJ Productions): 2022 Fringe review appeared first on phindie.
Okay: A drag queen show for children.
The post LATE NIGHT SNACKS FAMILY SHOW (Bearded Ladies): 2022 Fringe review appeared first on phindie.
This play-within-a-play about a play takes place on the Bluver Theatre's tiny stage, brightly lit, although called dim by the characters. The audience, up close…
The post Watching THE…
A little bit naughty at times, semi-Shakespearean lingo is mixed with a good deal of TomFoolery.
The post Romeo & Juliet in a Bar (Shakespeare on Tap): 2022 Fringe review appeared first …
Unless you know Geoff Sobelle's other works, you've never seen anything like this.
The post FOOD (Geoff Sobelle): 2022 Fringe review appeared first on phindie.
There are many, many moments that become stories.
The post NOT RIGHT NOW (James Christy): 2022 Fringe review appeared first on phindie.
ames Joyce is Dead And So Is Paris was presented at Christ Church Annex in Old City in 2003. It was something else!
In today's edition of my look back on theater from years past, I remember two Thaddeus Phillips works from 2015 and 2017: Alias Ellis Mackenzie and A Billion Nights on Earth.
Kathryn Osenlund remembers two productions of I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright.Â
Kathryn Osenlund remembers two productions from Fringe Festivals past
In a new series, Phindie takes a walk down memory lane to briefly revisit memorable theater performances in Philadelphia and environs.
In recent days of home-captivity my mind has wandered to Romeo & Juliet performances, new and old. But I'm more interested in Mercutio and Tybalt than the star-crossed lovers.
