PHILADELPHIA THEATER REVIEWS

Fiddler on the Roof is one of those shows that almost everyone has experienced as some point in their lives - be it the film or a production locally, in NYC or on the high school level. It is for this reason that I feel no need to summarize its plot. It is a great challenge to make such a classic sh...

It's a simple story - the young ingénue can't pay the rent, the evil landlord comes a calling, a wiser woman offers advice and the leading man offers to pay the rent. The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) presents five variations on this plot in the style of some of Broadway's best known musical t...

Girls Night the Musical is the story of five friends in their forties celebrating a girls night. The story begins with narrator Sharon, who died at age 22, leaving behind a daughter, Candy Rose. She observes her four best friends as they get together to celebrate Candy Rose's engagement. These frien...

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie asks what will happen if you do just that. The short answer is that the mouse will continue asking for things, have a lot of fun, and in the process destroy your house. But along the way, this children's theater production currently playing on the Arden Theatre Company's...

Romeo and Juliet is a classic that still rings true due to its commentaries on passion, violence, true love, regret, revenge, hatred, societal expectations, and fate. These themes brought to life by Shakespeare's beautiful language continue to ring true for theatergoers today. While all enter the th...

It's a professional relationship that leads to rocky romance; as the show's tagline reads, 'She longs to see every room in the world... He longs to stay in his...' ROOMS a rock romance begins when Monica, an ambitious singer/songwriter and Ian, a reclusive rocker, meet in Glasgow in the late 1970s. ...

Henry IV, Part I plays at the Lantern Theater Company now through May 2nd. Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I, opens with political drama as the recently crowned King Henry finds himself in a world of governmental trouble. But he has other problems on his mind as his son, Prince Hal, takes to frequen...

Currently showing at the Walnut Street's Independence Studio on 3 is Graham Greene's hilarious Travels with My Aunt adapted for the stage by Giles Havergal. ...

Has America become too complacent in its acceptance of political figures and their decisions? Molly Ivins certainly thought so. The outspoken, sharp-tongued Texan journalist is immortalized in the play Red Hot Patriot, now enjoying its world premier at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre as part of Philadel...

Noel Coward's 1925 play, Fallen Angels, is still very much alive at the Walnut Street Theater. While they may be dressed in period fashion, main characters Jane and Julia would very easily fit into modern categories like 'frenemies' and desperate housewives. The three acts follow their antics spurre...

The Arden has staged a delightful, modern production of Romeo and Juliet, reminding us that though Shakespeare may seem a thing of the past its lessons about loyalty, family, violence, youth, and love still ring true....

The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber covers thirty-one numbers from twelve Andrew Lloyd Webber shows. These shows include both hits, flops, and favorites - Cats, Evita, Phantom, Sunset Boulevard, Aspects of Love, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph, Song and Dance, Whistle Down the Wind, Starlight Express, T...

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To begin, RAIN is a Beatles Tribute Band. Now you may already be wondering, why you are reading about a concert on a theater site, and the simple answer is this, RAIN is an experience....

The world premier of Terrence McNally's Golden Age at the Philadelphia Theatre Company is not to be missed. The playwright's personal love of the medium shines through brightly in his newest work. The play takes place on January 24, 1835 backstage at the Italien Opera House in Paris and centers on t...

What will you find wrapped up in The Eclectic Society? A touch of every emerging social aspect of the 1960s - rock music, marijuana, homosexuals, the independent woman, civil rights. Though this was, in the long run, too many topics to do them all justice, at curtain call The Eclectic Society still ...

Bill Van Horn and Armen Pandola have created a well-written political comedy currently playing at the Walnut Street Theatre's Studio 3. The Prince features two characters portrayed by the playwrights themselves. Nick Collas (Armen Pandola) is law ethics professor recounting to his students (the aud...

Two of Philadelphia's smaller theater companies, Theatre Horizon and 11th Hour Theatre Company, have banded together to put on a unique and intimate production of this beloved musical upstairs in the Independence Studio at the Prince Music Theater. ...

The Arden's children theater production of Peter Pan may be for kids, but adults will still be enthused. As a fan and scholar of Peter Pan I was incredibly interested to see this adaptation. Often, children's theater takes classic books and dummies them down for kids to the point where they are bare...

Two of Philadelphia's smaller theater companies, Theatre Horizon and 11th Hour Theatre Company, have banded together to put on a unique and intimate production of this beloved musical upstairs in the Independence Studio at the Prince Music Theater. ...

Walnut Street Theatre's production of Oliver! is, in a word, stunning. This might seem like an odd word choice for a show that mainly takes place in the workhouse and seedier sides of Victorian London but there is no other way to describe the technical beauty of the show....

This bold venture of fusing rock, pop, Broadway and opera is bound to have people buzzing in Philly and beyond for quite a while. ...

Mel Brooks' zany, bawdy, irreverent Broadway hit 'The Producers', closes out the Walnut Street Theater's 200th anniversary season with a lot of belly laughs....

Dubbed 'The World's Most Popular Musical', the current touring production of Mamma Mia still proves to be raking in the 'Money, Money, Money'....

Review of The Color Purple at the Kimmel Center. ...