thespisbustard

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Cynthia Nixon Gives “Miss Jean Brodie” A New Prime - With Some Help from One of Philadelphia’s Own

The Windy City Breezes Through Philly

"Windy City,” Walnut Street Theatre Season Opener 

Makes ”The Front Page” A Headliner!

 

P's and Q's

Lee Ann Etzold P’s and Q’s - Ms. Manners Tells It Like It Is!

P’s and Q’s at The Ethical Society 1901 Rittenhouse  Sq.

www.livearts-fringe.org 215-413-1318

Azuka One-Acts

Azuka One-Acts- Taking the Fringe on the Road

‘A Must Experience Beginning at The Fringe Box Office at Multiple Times- 9/1- 9/16 

www.Live Arts –fringe.org or 215-413-1318 

Fringe 2006

Let’s Start the ’06 Fringe

With One of Last Spring’s Triumphs -

 Pig Iron’s “Love Unpunished”

Philadelphia Proudly Promotes it's own Fringe!

Spark's Ten by Ten

Spark’s Ten By Ten Theater Festival-

 Sure Cure For Philly July Blahs

The Mum Puppetttheater

Philadelphia Theater In July

New Works in The Olde City

Original Works and Companies Featured In Two Philly Summer Festivals

Holy Humana, Batman! Just when they finished rolling up the last Independence Day bunting and fireworks - what should explode? Two theater festivals in the City of Brotherly Love this July. As all the suburban locals pack up their beach chairs and make for the shore, the various denizens of the Philadelphia Theatre Community begin to gear up for three theatrical weekends that display what’s been really new or news worthy this last year.

Preview of The Fringe

The Philly  Fringe Is Coming Back !   !     !            !


Please read on for a preview and comments on the 

The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe: September 1- 6

"Some Men"

“Some Men” By McNally at

the PTC

Overheard in the lobby:

Q: “What Did You Think Of It?”

A: I Liked It! - Reminded Me of The Good Old Days.”

A Number of Churchill's

A Number on Philly’s Wilma Theatre’s

 On Caryl Churchill’s A Number!

at the Wima Theater

Humana Festival 2006

Actors Theater of Louisville Humana New Play Festival  Fest ’06 –A 30^th Anniversary Extravaganza

 

 For the second year in a row, I attended Humana Festival (The Actor’s Theater of Louisville Festival of New Plays). The 2005 Fest reminded me of never-ending earnest, honest and but tedious acting class scenes presented as final exams – interesting, but…. This year, I saw eight plays in two and 1/2 days and I am still smiling!

This year, the offerings exploded - seven new plays and three one acts that challenged, intrigued, frightened and inspired me over the course of 96 hours of thrilling theater. Some local Philadelphia producing faces spotted in the audience included Sara Garonzik of PTC, Terry Nolan of the Arden Theatre, Bill Felty from the Wilma, along with reps from the Walnut, Interact, and other Philadelphia area theaters.

         

The show selection was brilliant this year - suiting a variety of tastes ranging from abstract imagery for the intellectual crowd to angry hip-hop-oriented theater of protest, to new explorations of the WWII generation, to a tour de force for the environmentally activist - the magic of theater ruled.  

      

 

 The level of playwriting, design and acting in the 30^th Anniversary of the Humana Festival eclipses that if the 29^th festival. From what I saw in the first four plays (three more to review in next posting), the theater arts are alive and well in 2006. Hopefully all those familiar faces of regional and local producers in the audience took note.  

 To give you some idea of what might pop up on local and national stages, below is a short description of plays this viewer particularly liked:

 

 

Pig Iron Alert

Another Pig Iron Posting-

Just because I’m a Pig-Iron Company Addict-

A Post Script – “Hell Meets Henry Halfway “ , the Obie award winning Pig Iron scorched earth comedy based on Possessed  by Gombrowicz will play the Mandrell Theatre at Drexel University in Philadelphia- the week of April 11th-16^th-  Give your other a Passover or Easter present early-

If its Pig Iron- it’s got to be good-  

Janet Sojack: Triangle Theater

Janet Sojack and  The Triangle Theater, and the Random Acts of Theater Foundation:

Philadelphia's  Own Ellen Stewart and La Mama? ?

info@triangletheater.com

Opus at the Arden

Hollinger's Opus at the Arden:

An  Insightful, Thought-Provoking Work of Art.

Playwright: Michael Hollinger

Director: Terrence J. Nolan

Members of the Ensemble: Erika Cuenca, Patrick McNulty, Douglas Rees, Greg Wood, David Whalen

Pig Iron: A Dynamic Force

Pig Iron: It's Their Tenth Anniversary, and It's Worth a Lot of Celebrating. Tradition dictates a gift of tin or aluminium. This Bustard recommends a gift of green: dig into your pockets and spend some money on some tickets or a subscription. It's well worth it.

Gentlemen Volunteers: Go.

Gentlemen Volunteers

Presented by The Pig Iron Theater Company

Starring:
Cassandra Friend

Emmanuelle Delpech-Ramey

Gabirel Quinn Bauridedel

Dito von Reigersberg

Sound, and much more, James Sugg

PIG IRON ALERT - EAT BACON NOW!

Sorry to give you guys so little notice, but now is better than a week from now. So anyway- one of the hidden treasures of the Philadelphia Theatrical World is in Manhattan for a week – I’ll be writing about them in the New Year, but I didn’t want you to miss the opportunity to see- Pig Iron Theatre Company presents POET IN NEW YORK A one-man show based on the life of gay Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, for a one-week run, December 7-11, 2005, at 59e59th Street Theatres, in midtown Manhattan. Tickets are $25 and can be reserved by phone through Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 or online at www.ticketcentral.com. Pig Iron is a loosely organized company of actors, directors, designers and movement specialists that develop pieces for performance in and around Philadelphia. Founded 19 years ago- their opening mission statement- “We want our audiences to confront history and myth, not as documents of a distant past, but as what they are: the marrow of our existence, the source of our language and the focus of our lives. Today we still dig for that marrow and still aim for the source. We find that the fundamental concerns are not what we expected- its all so much more funny and much more sad than we anticipated”.

They are an extremely talented, politically relevant, humanistically based dynamic company whose work has won regional notice with multiple OBIEs and Barrymores (Philadelphia’ Theatrical Award. Athough this notification is a little late in coming – Break whatever you are doing and see these guys- They may change your life. They are worth it!

Measure for Measure

By WIlliam Shakespeare,

Directed By: Marc Rylance.

Produceed By: The Globe Theater, London

I Am My Own Wife

I Am My Own Wife

Written by Doug Wright.,

Produced at the Wilma Theater, Blanka Zizka, Artistic Director

Balm in Gilead, or in Philly's Fringes

Now I Know Where All the New York Actor/Artists Went!

Some weeks ago, the New York Times ran a piece declaring that Philadelphia was becoming the sixth borough of New York. I thought the concept absurd because of  my bias that New York is where young artists hone their craft.  Thespis was wrong.

Theatre Horizon: Philly Fringe

Theater Horizon
“Wait a minute I Thought the Fringe was in Philly?”

It’s August in Philadelphia and every cutting edge theater artist who has not fled to the mountains, the shore or a Summer Stock venue is searching for any available attic, basement or garage between the Schuykill and the Delaware to rehearse  their production for the  Philadelphia Live Arts /Philly Fringe Festival opening on September 2nd.    

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Our Town=The Laramie Project

On “Our Town” and “The Laramie Project” –Parallel Works For Their Times And Forever

     While flying from the West Coast to Philadelphia this weekend, synchronicity and a little research led me to an intriguing revelation – that “The Laramie Project” is “The Our Town” of our time. 

"Elegies: A Song Cycle"

"Elegies" was written by William Finn. The Philadelphia Theatre Company's production of March 18 - April 17 was directed by Joe Calarco.

"Elegies" by Bill Finn is a jewel - an empathetic, emotionally stirring, and truly enjoyable evening of musically dramatic moments of theater that brought the audience to its feet at Philadelphia Theater Company production this past spring.