PHILADELPHIA THEATER REVIEWS

There is no other theatre that is more perfect for a production of VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE than Bucks County Playhouse. This show takes place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which is also where the playwright Christopher Durang lives. So not only does this show entertain audiences, but it...

Off-Broadway's Evan Cabnet directs a DEATHTRAP with Marsha Mason as the ever-amazing Helga ten Dorp. There are some other amazing things here as well, of all sorts....

Tom Stoppard's autobiographical parallel The Real Thing focuses on the successful playwright Henry and his close circle of family and friends. Starring his wife, Charlotte, Henry's newest work examines the intricacies of love, honesty and infidelity. Soon, as this play within a play continues, the...

The Arden Theatre closes the 2013/14 season with a Michael Hollinger play, INCORRUPTIBLE. This play is a dark comedy, which is set in the dark ages, about 1250 A.D. According to the Arden Theatre Hollinger asks the burning question in this play, "What happens when faith alone can't pay the bills?" I...

The Walnut Street Theater concludes its 205th season this summer with a classic blast from the past and a cast to pull it off!...

Marsha Mason lived it, starred in the film, and now directs Neil Simon's CHAPTER TWO at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope....

MAN OF LA MANCHA is one of the shows that has rarely been performed in recent years, and it is one that I have never seen before this performance. I feel fortunate that my first time seeing this musical, which is a well-known story, was at Act II Playhouse. MAN OF LA MANCHA at Act II Playhouse is a ...

Sunset Boulevard is not the best musical that Andrew Lloyd Webber ever composed. Its primary storyline; the decline and fall of an aging silent film diva is oddly compelling. The score gets repetitious with the exception of a few torch songs and the lyrics may not always be up to snuff with the musi...

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel joined together with the Wilma Theater and a team of actors and directors over the course of two years to develop the world premiere production of Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq. Based on the 1936 work Don Juan Returns from the War by Ödon von Horvath, t...

The Arden Theatre Company just opened the world premiere of a new translation of THREE SISTERS. Curt Columbus translates this play, originally written by Anton Chekhov. The Arden Theatre calls this new translation, "audacious, alive, and contemporary." I would have to agree with this, THREE SISTERS ...

Christopher Durang's 2012 Tony® and Drama Desk® award-winning comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike follows three middle-aged siblings during a whirlwind reunion weekend. Vanya and Sonia live a quiet, uneventful live in the Bucks County farmhouse where they grew up. Vanya (a gay man who may ...

Phantom Phans, "Make your choice!" The story and characters are the same; the staging, sets and choreography is significantly changed in this "newly refreshed" version of one of the arguably most popular musicals in history....

It's quite a feat to take a dusty old classic comedy and brush it off, polish it up and have an audience laughing out loud for two hours....

Someone let the Calamari Sisters back into Philly, and this time there's a wedding. Or is there? And did someone leave a cake out in the rain? 'Mangia Italiano!' is back, and things will never be the same....

Few shows take hold of the heart and wring it out as thoroughly as 'Next to Normal' does and the Eagle Theater 's production never lets you forget for a minuet the daily torment an entire family faces when one family member gets lost in her own mind....

The newest comedy to open at Act II Playhouse is Neil Simon's HOTEL SUITE. The show revolves around two unique story lines that provide a humorous glimpse into the lives of two separate couples that happened to stay in the same hotel suite. The show provides lots of laughs, but it also engages the a...

Jon Robin Baitz' Other Desert Cities tells the story of a dysfunctional family with a troubled past. A depressive formerly successful author, Brooke Wyeth returns home to celebrate Christmas with her family after being away for six years. Previously prominent Republicans, Brooke's parents Polly, a ...

Nina Raine's Tribes tells the loud story of Billy, a young deaf man living amongst his opinionated, abrasive family who talk a lot but never stop to listen. When Billy meets Sylvia, a young woman who is going deaf, he learns what it's truly like to have someone listen and understand, something his ...

This is the time of year when theatres produce shows that are emotionally moving and contain though provoking content that will have audiences talking and thinking about what they have just experienced on stage for days. WATER BY THE SPOONFUL is no exception to this. This show will remind audiences ...

For one weekend only, Bristol Riverside Theatre presents the Vital Theatre Company performing Fancy Nancy, The Musical based on the popular children's book. Performances are Saturday, March 1 and Sunday, March 2 at 11:00, 1:00 and 3:00 both days. Tickets ($15 for children and $25 for adults) are a...

Philly audiences are treated to the magic of this classic before it rides off on a National Tour....

Currently on the stage at Act II Playhouse is the hilarious LET'S PRETEND WE'RE FAMOUS. This show stars two phenomenally talented actors, Tony Braithwaite and Jennifer Childs. The show encompasses humor, song, dance, and even some historical tidbits. This show will have audiences laughing throughou...

It is the holiday season, and most theatres are putting on a production full of holiday cheer filling each of us with the holiday spirit. Act II Playhouse is no exception to this, except that THE TWELVE DATES OF CHRISTMAS is about searching for love and being single during the holidays. Act II Play...

Long before Windows, IPhones, Xboxes and IPods, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were simply nerds working to create technology that would take the world to the next level. NERDS follows these rivals on their personal and professional journeys from 1970s garage inventors to Silicon Valley mega-billionaires...

In keeping with the tradition of casting popular male actors in the spotlight role of Joseph, The Media Theater looks to 'The Bold and the Beautiful' soap star Kyle Lowder to portray the coat whirling Joseph for their Holiday season show....