Students of classical studies take note: if you're heading to The Wilma Theater for some good old fashioned Greek mythology, prepare to be surprised. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised nonetheless. Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, now onstage at The Wilma, isn't just a revisionist retelling of the story of Orpheus's ill-fated wife. It's a complete re-imagining of the tale. One in which Eurydice, typically the silent, ill-fated object of Orpheus's love, takes centerstage. The concept smacks of......

We love, love, love, love BalletX. Sure, we have our favorites amongst their works (at least the ones that we've seen), but even at our least impressed, we still manage to be pretty much blown away by the company's work. It's modern, it's sexy, and above all, it's technically impeccable. This isn't your traditional, Nutcracker/Swan Lake/Giselle ballet: the dancers are on point, sure, but oftentimes, that's where the similarities end. Even if you're not typically......

I'm a bit of an Anglophile. I love British just-about-everything, except for the food. But I especially love British humor. And after attending and enjoying a staged reading of Roy Smiles' Ying Tong last spring, I figured I'd really love the fully-mounted production at The Wilma Theater. I never thought I'd say this about any production, ever, but I think I liked the staged reading better. There was something charming about the bare-bones production......

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......

The Age of Arousal Ticket Giveaway
12/5/07-12/10/07...

Fun around town, for $10 or less: FRIDAY Flea Market, Theater Style: Clothing Flea Market from theatrical stock at the Wilma Theater (265 S. Broad), 3-7PM. Free admission (most items $2-20). Also on Saturday, 12-4PM. Requires Audience Participation: Improv with The N Crowd at the Actor’s Center (257 N. 3rd), every Friday, 8-10PM. $10 SATURDAY Rare Bird: Part of the Philly Improv Festival, featuring Jackie, Cathcart & Olson, and iMusical at the Mum Puppettheatre (115......

Wednesday: Celebrate Halloween with ballet’s favorite vampire. Pennsylvania Ballet continues their run of Dracula. Creature of the night? Join the company for their Halloween party after the performance at the DoubleTree Hotel. The Academy of Music, 8PM, $22-124. (Halloween party $25) This performance runs through November 3. Don’t you love a little extra? Miro Dance Theatre offers a bonus Open Studio this week when they host Japan’s Ikyuo Kuroda and the US premiere of her......

Walking into the Wilma Theater's transformed auditorium, draped in white fabric with cardboard chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, all drawn aside and covered in artificial cobwebs, it's impossible not to feel completely immersed in the world of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, thanks equally to set designer Robert Pyzocha, costume designer Janus Stefanowicz, and lighting designer Jerold R. Forsyth. Soon enough, you'll discover that it's intentional: you feel a part of the play because you are.......

Madi Distefano, Director of A 24-Hour The Bald Soprano...

The final week of this year's DanceBOOM! at The Wilma Theater will feature a whole evening with an old favorite of Phillyist's: BalletX. We loved them last summer at DanceBOOM! and during last fall's PLAF, so we're really psyched to see their world premiere of "I Like You Different," choreographed by company founders Christine Cox and Matthew Neenan, along with fan favorites "Menscheit" and "Frequencies." If this weekend's production is anything at all like past......

Whoops! We made a calendar boo-boo and we didn't get up the preview for the second week of DanceBOOM! yesterday. So consider this two posts in one—the event information is below! Week two of DanceBOOM! at the Wilma kicked off on Broad Street in a big way with the N.E. Frankford Boys and Girls Club, American Legion Post 224 Drill Team and Nicetown Stars Dance Team. The Nicetown girls were adorable, and the drill......

Phillyist goes to a live entertainment. But we find that our dance consumption is sorely lacking of late, which is why we are pleased as punch that it's DanceBOOM! time once again at The Wilma. Three weeks of programming (with a different show each week!) kicks off tonight with "Men Dancing," a celebration of the strength and power that men bring to dance performance, with Chosen Dance Company, danceTactics, Tommie-Waheed Evans, Lionel Popkin, and a......

We don't ever include staged readings in the Wednesday theatre listings, but it's not because we don't like them. And that's why we've introduced "Staged Readings Are Fun!," a periodic feature that will enable us to tell you about said events when they come up. If you know about any staged readings you'd like us to mention, all you have to do is shoot us an email. What are you doing this afternoon? Working, you......

I haven't studied a lot of Brecht. But from what I have studied, I feel very safe in making the assertion that Brecht is either someone that people either adore and worship and elevate, or he's someone whose work people really can't stand. I lean heavily toward the former, which is why I was so excited to see The Wilma Theater's production of The Life of Galileo. Fortunately for fans of Brecht, this production......

There are certain things that I'm willing to accept from books that I struggle with on the stage. That's why for me, stage adaptations don't always work. (Okay, so I love Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera, but they're more guilty pleasures than anything else. And while the Arden's done some pretty good adaptations this season, believe me when I say that I've seen some pretty rough books-as-plays over the years.) I......

Megan and Mason Wendell...

The premise is simple and nothing new: a man, taken into custody for reasons he's not aware of. He is taken to a secret jail and interrogated, tortured even, by two police officers of a totalitarian state that seems like it could be Soviet but might not be. When he won't—can't?—speak, his only living brother, "special" in all the politically correct ways of speaking, is questioned too, used to bait the man who still......

Pillowman Ticket Giveaway
10/2/06-10/7/06...

The Wilma Theater's annual DanceBOOM! festival, celebrating the best in Philly dance, has its opening night tonight, and the program is pretty loaded. In fact, the performances begin before the show, with an "Afro-Puerto Rican street celebration" out on Broad Street called Fiesta de Loiza, presented by Raices Culturales Latinoamericanos. Reading the description on Wilma's website, we see there will be capes, horned masks, and bat-like outfits, which sounds pretty fun to us. The program......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: Bioethics Symposium: In conjunction with their production of A Number (part of the Caryl Churchill Festival), The Wilma Theater is presenting a free symposium on Bioethics. In attendance will be Dr. Arthur Caplan (Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and the Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Paul Root Wolpe (Senior Fellow of the Center for Bioethics and both Chief of......

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." Forrest was sort of the Will Ferrel of the mid-19th century;......

We’ve mentioned Heather Raffo’s Nine Parts of Desire (running through March 12th) in our weekly theatre listings, but here’s something we haven’t told you about yet: This Sunday, February 5, at 3:30PM, the Wilma Theater will host a symposium on Women and Islam in conjunction with the performance. According to the official press release (which we get, because, you know, bloggers are press too!): “The symposium will provide a rare opportunity to explore some of......

Frugal in Philly is a weekly celebration of all things Philly that are fun, frugal (costing $10 or less) or free! Stop here each week to see what Philly's got to offer for those of us who haven't quite mastered the art of becoming Independently Wealthy (although believe me, we're trying). Featured Pick of the Week: Really - What Good *IS* Sitting Alone in Your Room?: Phillyist has been surprised and delighted by the amount......

You snag a date with that hot bartender; she gets four numbers the same night. You hit a triple at the company softball game; he scores the winning runs. Sure, we're all about the brotherly love, but sometimes your best friend can be the last person you want around. Philly's hilarious 1812 Productions tackles this painfully funny topic in a FREE reading of Itamar Moses' comedy The Four of Us tonight. The Four of Us......