From left to right: Rachel Gluck as Lenny, Tessa Kuhn as Babe and Colleen Hughes as Meg (Photo by Rebecca Gudelunas)

Curio Theatre opened its 13th season in September with free outdoor performances of “I, Peaseblossom” at The Woodlands. Beginning Friday, Nov. 17, the award-winning theater invites the public to its principal location at 48th and Baltimore to witness Crimes of the Heart, a Pulitzer prize winning play by Beth Henley.

The Magrath sisters, Lenny, Meg, and Babe, are reunited at their family home in Hazlehurst Mississippi after Babe shoots her husband. Each one is facing down her own demons, past and present. Lenny cares for the grandfather who raised her, as he approaches the end of his life. Meg grapples with dreams that didn’t come true, and Babe squares off against her husband. It’s a portrait of a dysfunctional family, but Beth Henley play finds laughter within tragedy.  Continue Reading

September is here but outdoor theatre is still alive in West Philly. Beginning Wednesday, Sept. 13, Curio Theatre Company will present a series of FREE performances of I, Peaseblossom in the Woodlands Cemetery (40th and Woodland). The play is based on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and is presented as part of the 2017 Fringe Festival.

Imagine if the story of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” had been told by one of Lady Titania’s fairies who has only four lines with a total of five words in the play! I, Peaseblossom is a funny and interactive play which establishes a relationship between the audience and the performer.  Continue Reading

Production photo of The Birds by Conor McPherson.

Here’s some great news for Curio Theatre Company: the West Philly arts organization has been nominated in four categories for the 2017 Barrymore Awards! The nominees include Paul Kuhn, the company’s artistic director, who received a nomination in the Outstanding Scenic Design category for the 2016 production of The Birds, and Chris Sannino – also for the production of The Birds in the Outstanding Sound Design category.

The company also received nominations for the Victory Foundation Award for Outstanding Theatre Education Program, and the June and Steve Wolfson Award for an Evolving Theatre Company.  Continue Reading

Some of the best – and probably the most intimate – theatre in the city gets underway in Malcolm X. Park (51st and Pine) next week when Theatre in the X opens the world premiere of Running Numbers.

Running Numbers is a drama about a high school senior “whose dreams and desperation of going to college and overcoming his environment lead him to fast cash and dangerous situations.” The work is inspired by  “Financial Aid”, an incredible spoken work piece by Carvens Lissaint.

Cheyenne Barboza wrote Running Numbers and Christina May directs. The cast includes Abdul Sesay, Jarrett McCreary, Khadijah Davis, Iman Aaliyah, Aurica Hurst, Angelica Jackson-Thomas, Carlo Campbell, Walter DeShields, Niya Colbert, Brandon A. Drummond and Dwayne Alistair Thomas.  Continue Reading

The Shakespeare in Clark Park production of Coriolanus opened last night to a big crowd in The Bowl near 43rd and Chester. The play follows the demise and vengeful crusade of Roman military leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. The amazon all-female cast carries the work, and a pack of riotous citizens of Rome made up with Philadelphia residents keeps the play lively (see more photos below).

Coriolanus continues through the weekend, concluding Sunday. Shows run from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The rain location is the Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut St.  Continue Reading

Photo by Kyle Cassidy

Shakespeare in Clark Park returns this week for its 12th season with five performances of Coriolanus, a timeless political tragedy of manipulation and revenge. This year, SCP will roll with an all-female cast led by Barrymore Award winner Charlotte Northeast as the title character. The professional cast of women warriors will appear alongside a Chorus of 50 Philadelphians who will become the riotous citizens of Rome. The production is directed by SCP Artistic Director Kittson O’Neill (Interact Theatre Company).

“It’s easy to see Coriolanus, a blunt war hero, as an indictment of “Macho” culture, but there is so much more to this story,” O’Neill, who is pulling double-duty as the director of the show, said in a statement. “By moving our production to a matriarchy I think audiences will more readily see themselves in our hero: we can all be inflexible, we all have deep prejudices and we don’t always get the glory we have rightly earned.”  Continue Reading