Results tagged “theater”

. . .and we're back! Did you miss us? Were you itching to know just what shows were up and running in Philly? Well, here you go. Our title quote comes from the , which opens next Tuesday at the Media Theater.

Early in the Mourning is a new play by P. Seth Bauer, currently showing at the Plays and Players Theater. On a howling New Year's night in Massachusetts, an elderly Jewish couple try to come to terms with the loss of their son—a middle-aged, homosexual teacher of writing—whom they never quite accepted during his life. Their grieving process is first complicated by the fact that the dead son has appeared and is hanging around the house, unsure what he is supposed to be doing, and second because one of his former students, an aspiring and tortured writer, pays a late night visit, and has powerful, conflicted feelings for his old mentor.

If anybody but Nice People Theatre Company told me that they were doing a show that would be, at least in part, about rock climbing, I'd be a little skeptical. But because I've never had a bad experience with Nice People, I was willing to go with the flow, sit on the floor, and watch an activity that never especially interested me.

You have to really love Shakespeare to be familiar with Love's Labour's Lost. Although it's one of the Bard's earlier comedies, it's not performed often... probably because it doesn't really end. A man ahead of his time, Billy Shakes ended the play in true cliffhanger fashion, setting things up for a sequel. A sequel that was, legend tells us, allegedly written and performed, but whose script does not survive. (Probably for the best—sequels are never as good anyway. Right, Mannequin: On the Move?)

When I was thirteen, my friends and I went to a haunted maze at the mall. I was so annoyed by the end, with the predictable gimmicks and cheap thrills, that when Freddy Kreuger jumped out at me a few feet from the exit I may or may not have punched him in the face. (The statute of limitations on assault has passed by now, right?) That wasn't the only time time I'd found myself decidedly unimpressed, or even annoyed, by a haunted maze, so I'll admit that I was a bit skeptical about Brat Productions' Haunted Poe, a sort of theatrical house of horrors, all centered on the life and work of a little-known writer by the name of Edgar Allan Poe.

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."

In October, many local theatre companies try to put on a Halloween-related production. Brat Productions' Haunted Poe is the one we're most excited for this season.

Performances: small metal objects (Back to Back Theatre) (No Future Performances)

These week we venture up to Mount Airy to Allens Lane, which is part of the Fairmount Park system. Allens Lane has some sentimental value to me, as I've worked on some shows at the theater there. "What? There's a theater in the park?" you ask. Yes, there is, which is one thing I love about writing this column and exploring the parks in this city: I never knew Allens Lane "counted" as a park until I started poking around. Also, I love the fact that our parks are multi-faceted, not just places for running around outdoors and picnicking, but also for getting a nice dose of arts and culture.

Performance: (Martina Plag/Laureen Griffin/Leah Walton) (Future Performances—Post-Fringe)

Performance: Mortal Engine (Chunky Move) (Future Performances)

Phillyist's quick-picks for your evening agenda.

Wednesday's opening performance of Chicago: The Musical at the Academy of Music had it all: Signature Fosse moves, an infectious soundtrack, a little razzle, a little dazzle, and of course... Springer.

Phillyist's quick-picks for your evening agenda.

Performances: The Brothers Flanagan (The Flanagan Project) (Future Performances); barFlies (Vagabond Acting Troupe) (Future Performances); Welcome to Yuba City (Pig Iron Theatre Company) (Future Performances)

Performance: The Ibsen Project (MasterBuilder Productions) (No Future Performances)

Phillyist's quick-picks for your evening agenda.

Get ready to paint the town, Philly! Tonight is the opening night of Chicago: The Musical at the Academy of Music. As the show's beginning warns: "You are about to see a story of murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery. All the things we hold near and dear to our hearts."

Performances: The Last Cargo Cult (Mike Daisey) (no future performances); daDAda (Anthology Project) (Future Performances); MICROWORLD(s) Part #1 (Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental/Thaddeus Phillips) (Future Performances)

Phillyist's quick-picks for your evening agenda.

Performances: Missed Connections, A Craigslist Fantasia (Curio Theatre Company) (Future Performances); Store (Kate Watson-Wallace/Anonymous Bodies) (Future Performances); A Singer's Circus (Jen Fellman) (Future Performances); Kill Me Now (Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre) (No Future Performances); Inside Julia Child (Rebecca Wright and John Jarboe) (No Future Performances)

You didn't think we'd forgotten about the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe, did you?

Bummed because you didn't win last week's Never the Sinner giveaway? Never fear! We have two more pairs of tickets and two more signed posters to give away. Just fill out the form below by Wednesday, August 19, and we'll let you know if you won. Full details about the show are in last week's post.

Mauckingbird Theatre Company, Philadelphia's premiere gay-themed theatre company, is about to launch a new production called Never the Sinner, and Phillyist is giving you a chance to catch it yourself. Both this week and next, we'll be awarding two pairs of tickets and two posters signed by the cast to two lucky readers (that's four winning readers, four posters, and four pairs of tickets total).

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

The best of the internet, chopped into tiny bits and grilled for your enjoyment.

Love musical theatre? Want an hour and a half's worth of laughs? Has the Walnut got a treat for you!

Perhaps the thing with which I've struggled most, when it comes to Terry Johnson's Hysteria, onstage through this weekend at the Wilma Theater, is how to describe it. What starts off as a traditional door-slamming farce—albeit one tinged with Freudian overtones—that presents the unlikely pairing of Sigmund Freud and Salvador Dalí eventually vacillates between absurdism and the completely surreal, the farce all but forgotten by the show's close. Taken in parts, these elements work, but combined, it becomes difficult to determine whether the play is clever or disjointed, let alone to determine whether I actually enjoyed it.