Results tagged “ardentheatre”

Bad theatre enrages me. I don't get angry for myself; I imagine the rest of the audience, or at least a portion of it, people who don't usually go to the theatre, people who came on a whim, or a first date, who are now thinking, "Plays. What's the point?" I imagine these people heading home to their televisions, Playstations and email, never again returning to the theatre, and I want to scream at the play's director and producers: "Well done. Well done: you've just hastened the apocalypse."

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $8. You can get 'em here.

I remember wondering, when I read Thornton Wilder's Our Town in high school, how the play could possibly be interesting when staged. The script calls for no set, no props, and minimal scenery. It's something that only sometimes works in modern (as opposed to "Modern") theatre, so the idea of a play written in the thirties that takes place between 1901–1913 and uses the type of set typically reserved for performance art was, I'll admit, never especially interesting to me.

Two literary characters and a historical figure walk into a bar...

is not a perfect play. But the Arden's production of it is damned near perfect.

One of the most common, and legitimate, criticisms of the music of Stephen Sondheim by performers and critics alike is that he's not tuneful enough. "Hummable," I think is the word most often used by these critics.

Performance: Hearts of Man (The Riot Group) (Future Showtimes)

, and that's still pretty much all I can say. It was one of those shows I really wish I'd had someone with me at: I just really wanted to talk to somebody after the show, but my plus-one had to cancel on me, quite literally at the last minute, so there I was, blown away by a performance and with nobody to talk to about it. So I needed some time to process the show. And let me repeat: wow.

I was reared on PBS children's programming. is based, so naturally, I was excited for the play.

I have a serious literary crush on Tony Kushner. Blame come hell or high water.

We haven't gotten around to telling you about the Philadelphia New Play Festival yet (that post is forthcoming), but on Friday, I had the opportunity to see one of the featured plays (most of them open before the festival officially begins), The Arden's .

Roald Dahl is, hands-down, one of my favorite writers. And not just because he wrote . Thirteen years later, I found I didn't remember much of it, so sitting through the Arden's staged adaptation was like a delightful refresher course.

It's been nearly a week since I went to see the Arden's production of . And yet I haven't reviewed it until just now. This is for a couple of reasons: (1) I've been insanely busy; (2) I left the program at a friend's, and still don't have it back, so I can't cite actors by name, and would have liked to, so I was hoping that I'd get that program back before I wrote this (but I just found the cast list on the Arden's website, so we're all good); (3) I may have forgotten a little; (4) something happened during the second intermission that made me so angry that I wanted to calm down to prevent this from becoming a sequel to last week's Monday Manners. So let me just say, very quickly, that if you want to leave a play at intermission because you're not enjoying it, that's fine. But if you're going to stand in the aisle, loudly trying to persuade your friends that the play sucks and that they should skip the end and go drinking with you, it's not.

Rha Goddess' "Low"
12:30PM 8/31 - 5PM 9/1

Jean Markovitz

Terrence J. Nolen, Director

. It's a show that we know quite well and we felt that we were in a good position to be tough critics if that's what was required of us.

Philadelphia does love its centennial celebrations. Here we are, still in the throes of the Franklin tricentennial madness, and we've decided to commemorate a bicentennial birthday, too! The 200th birthday in question in this case belongs to Edwin Forrest, famous Philadelphia actor and namesake of the Forrest Theatre. To mark this milestone anniversary of his birth, Mayor Street has declared today "Edwin Forrest Day."

This week’s quote comes from the play , by John Guare. The character Ouisa is relating that it’s hard to intentionally avoid thinking of a topic – just like when someone tells you not to think of elephants, and all you can think of is "elephants, elephants, elephants!" Now, on with the listings!

We're sorry we're late this week, folks. There was just so much good theatre this week that we found ourselves a little overwhelmed, and we needed a moment to handle the excitement.

- The tale of two friends who reunite and find that living their dreams isn’t as perfect as they’d thought it would be. Philadelphia premiere. September 28-October 15, Adrienne Theatre. For tickets and information, see The Flashpoint Theatre Company’s ticketing site.

We’re totally jazzed about the Live Arts and Fringe Festivals, but if we started listing PLAF shows, we’d never get the rest of these listings to ya’ll. Check out the festival page (below) for more info – but don’t forget about all of the other theatrical happenings in the Greater Philadelphia area!