Quickies! And For Once, Success!
ALWAYS…PATSY CLINE, Media Theatre, State and Monroe, Media, Pa. through April 1 — Vocally, Jenny Lee Stern channels Patsy Cline. The clean, heartfelt sounds register. Physically, I kept seeing Judy … Continue reading
Auspicious Start to 2016-2017 Season — From “Bathing” to “Mrs. Warren”
So far, so good. And I mean really good. The 2016-2017 theater season has begun with almost unanimous quality in productions ranging from musicals to classic to the new-ish. Even … Continue reading
Harvey — Walnut Street Theatre
Harvey, the towering — 6’3″…and a half — invisible rabbit in Mary Chase’s durable 1944 play, is a survivor. He outlasts Veta Louise Simmons’s plot to have him exorcised from … Continue reading
The Three Maries — No Attytude at Prince Music Theater
Michael Ogborn is often a master of loopy fun, and he knows without question both the genre he’s emulating, haphazardly plotted romantic musicals of the 1920s, and the city he’s … Continue reading
Memphis — Walnut Street Theatre
“Memphis” lives for, and on, its production numbers. While the 2010 Tony-winning musical brims with story, its plot, by Joe DiPietro, alternates racially charged scenes involving prejudice, segregation, and even … Continue reading
Doubt: A Parable — Lantern Theater
Of the myriad productions I’ve seen of John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt,” Kathryn MacMillan’s staging for Philadelphia’s Lantern Theater is the first to give serious consideration to the play’s subtitle, “A … Continue reading
Mary Poppins — Walnut Street Theatre
Although Lindsey Bliven, playing the title role, rouses the Walnut Street Theatre audience in burgeoning numbers such as “Anything Can Happen” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” the highlights of Wayne Bryan’s staging of … Continue reading
Nine to Five — Walnut Street Theatre
Sharp characterizations by Dee Hoty, Amy Bodnar, and Amanda Rose join with a fireworks explosion of a performance by Mary Martello to keep the Walnut Street Theatre production of Dolly Parton’s … Continue reading
Incorruptible — Arden Theatre Company
Religion was heady business in 1250. Even more than it is today. Competition was particularly rife for relics, skeletons and even digits of saints that could draw pilgrims who would … Continue reading
Arsenic and Old Lace — Walnut Street Theatre
Plays are often funniest when characters have no idea that anything they say or do is the least bit comic. In Joseph Kesselring’s “Arsenic and Old Lace,” eccentricity in on … Continue reading
