I have to be honest here for a minute: I was pretty pessimistic about The Walnut's production of Les Miserables, more or less from the second it was announced as the season closer. It wasn't lack of faith in The Walnut that led to my lack of optimism. Rather, it was a familiarity: nothing about Les Mis—not the music, not the costumes, not the set*—is easy, and bad productions are far too common. Not......

Mary Poppins, or at least Disney's Mary Poppins, makes the British Suffrage movement look like fun. You paint signs and you go out and sing songs about equality. Linda Griffiths' play, Age of Arousal, currently being produced at the Wilma Theater, takes a different approach, showing things in what is likely a far more realistic light. The first scene of the play, in which Mary Barfoot (played by the always excellent Mary Martello), reclining......

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. And yet somehow, a week after seeing The Arden Theatre's production of Assassins, I simply can't get the music out of my head. It may not be hummable, but goddamn if it isn't memorable. That's a sure......

It's been nearly a week since I went to see the Arden's production of A Prayer for Owen Meany. 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......

Tuesday night, Phillyist had the great pleasure of attending the Arden Theatre Company's production of Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. 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. But, it wasn't. The Arden's production was an immensely enjoyable one, from start to finish. The cast, led by......