In Philly, a premiere of ‘Where We Belong,’ a play about place and identity

It wouldn’t be a stretch to describe Madeline Sayet’s one-woman “Where We Belong” as an accidental play — one with its world touring premiere April 15 at the Philadelphia Theatre Co.

That’s because when Sayet wrote it, it wasn’t a play at all but more like an outpouring of feelings caused by confusion, displacement, and an uncomfortable sense of disloyalty to her identity as a Mohegan, Indigenous people from what is now Connecticut.

“I will write this, and it will be my secret confession,” Sayet recalled telling herself. She had just returned from a stint studying Shakespeare in England — a country that, she said, has refused to acknowledge its role as a colonizer. “Normally when I get home (to the United States) to my traditional lands — to the lands where my ancestors lived — my feet feel connected all the way down to the earth. And, when that didn’t happen it was really jarring for me.”

She had been flying around a lot in Europe, and “everywhere I landed, I wasn’t quite landing,” she said.

Trying to find some relief and struggling for identity, Sayet wrote. And then, on a whim, she held a “tiny, tiny reading,” basically for relatives. There was clearly a there there, so Sayet went on to develop her outpouring through more readings, until it became a play, a play in which she must relive the wrenching emotions again and again.

“It was so scary. I don’t write things about myself. Elements of me, yes, but not literally my very personal business,” she said. “It’s very raw.”

In Washington, D.C., Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co. adopted the work through development, and, in association with the Folger Shakespeare Library Co., produced it as a film last summer. It is now orchestrating the world tour for “Where We Belong” starting here. (The Mohegans are related to the Lenni Lenape, whose land included Philadelphia.)

In recognition of that, Sayet set conditions — a community accountability rider — that Philadelphia Theatre Co. had to meet in order to stage her show. The company had to promise it would never again use red face in a production and it had to line up another offering by a local Indigenous writer. It also had to organize a community event having to do with the preservation of language and provide free tickets to Indigenous people.

“I was concerned that people would produce the play for the wrong reasons, that they’d check a box,” Sayet said.

“With the community accountability rider, we are agreeing to acknowledge the erasure and lack of representation of Native stories not only our institution, but the industry at large, has perpetuated,” Paige Price, the company’s producing artistic director, said in a statement. “The presentation of the show is a step toward bringing those stories to the stage, but also we are making concurrent efforts to develop authentic and ongoing relationships with the Indigenous community of artists in our area, and to celebrate and host them in our space.”

In cooperation with We Are The Seeds, a Philadelphia-based group dedicated to amplifying Indigenous voices through the arts, Philadelphia Theatre Co. will host a reading of works by Indigenous writers following the April 26 performance, but open to anyone with a ticket for the entire run.

Through May 8, Philadelphia Theatre Co. at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 215 S. Broad St., Phila. 215-985-0420 or philadelphiatheatrecompany.org. Masks and vaccine proof required.

In this sports-crazed town, sportswriter Ray Didinger (Daily News, Evening Bulletin) is a guy whose been around the sports block more than a few times. Still making that trek, by the way, with Glen Macnow, an Inquirer alum, on Saturdays and Sundays on 94 WIP-FM.

Besides sports pundit and stats savant, Didinger has another side — playwright. This time, in “Tommy and Me,” instead of writing about action on the field, or court, or ice, Didinger wrote about his lifelong friendship with his boyhood idol, Philadelphia Eagles receiver Tommy McDonald. McDonald was the tough wide receiver who helped take the Eagles to the 1960 NFL Championship game. The two met in Hershey, where Didinger was covering the Eagles at their preseason training camps.

The play, which Theatre Exile debuted in the 2016 Philadelphia Fringe Arts Festival, has been staged by the Media Theatre in 2018 and by the Delaware Theatre Co. last year, along with two Fringe Arts runs. Now it’s finishing at the Bucks County Playhouse through April 17.

Reporters don’t typically make friends with the people they cover. But once in a while, as is inevitable among humans, friendships blossom, and later, in the hands of a writer, theater does as well. Didinger got a little help moving from first draft (of the play, not sports!) to finished play from well-known local playwright Bruce Graham.

With “Tommy and Me,” Bucks County has been staging postshow talkbacks with sports types, including Eagles great Harold Carmichael, Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski, and Macnow. Coming up among others are famed basketball coach Herb Magee and Lou Tilley, former CN8 Sports Director.

Through April 17, Bucks County Playhouse, 70 S. Main St., New Hope. 215-862-2121 or bcptheater.org. Masks and vaccination proof required.

It has been a fraught time for the Wilma Theater as it opens its long-awaited production of The Cherry Orchard by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov and directed by Dmitry Krymov, of Moscow, who signed an antiwar petition at the start of Russia’s Ukrainian invasion. He had planned to return to Moscow when the show closes May 1, but those plans are now unsettled as the Russian government becomes increasingly intolerant of dissent.

Krymov talked about his thoughts in an interview with Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Stephan Salisbury. Krymov said he isn’t striving to make political theater, but to amplify the ideas, if not the precise staging, of the classic about power and the loss of it. It is unlikely, for example, that Chekhov included a volleyball match in his 1903 script.

Through May 1 at the Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., Phila. 215-546-7824 or wilmatheater.org. Masks and vaccination proof required.

A dedicated fan saw singer Patsy Cline sitting alone and approached her. An unlikely friendship ensued, and the true story of that friendship forms the basis of “Always … Patsy Cline” at the Walnut Street Theatre.

It’s a friendship — and a play — that comes with a lot of music — 27 of Cline’s classics. Director Debi Marcucci, of South Philadelphia, also directed Walnut’s 2016 production of the same play, which sold out every show. Jenny Lee Stern returns as Patsy, and Rebecca Robbins, who last played the evil sea witch Ursula in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” takes on the role of the fan-turned friend.

Through May 15 at the Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut St., Phila. 215-574-3550 or walnutstreettheatre.org. Masks and vaccination proof not required but check before you go.

Quintessence Theatre Group has extended its repertory productions of William Shakespeare’s genre-defying romance “The Winter’s Tale” and Ben Jonson’s satirical farce “The Alchemist” through April 24 at 7137 Germantown Ave., Phila., 215-987-4450 or quintessencetheatre.org. Up Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill, The Stagecrafters Theater offers “Crimes of the Heart,” a Pulitzer-Prize winning play by Beth Henley, April 14 through April 24, 8130 Germantown Ave., Phila., 215-247-9913 or stagecrafters.org. Montgomery Theater, 124 N. Main St., Souderton, presents “The Marvelous Wondrettes,” an off-Broadway musical with over 30 classic hits from the 1950s and 1960s. Through April 24, 215-723-9984 or montgomerytheater.org. Check venues for COVID protocols.

Makasha Copeland has won the American Theatre Critics Association’s (ATCA) 2022 M. Elizabeth Osborn Award and a cash prize of $3,000 for the play “Extreme Home Makeover,” staged by Theatre Exile last year. Playwright Erlina Ortiz’s “Young Money,” produced by Azuka Theatre in November, earned a 2022 Steinberg/ATCA citation and a cash prize of $7,500.