Even more shows to consider seeing this fall
Here are some promising stage possibilities in the first half of the new season. They include work from two companies that have themes for the season: Ego Po, concentrating on Jewish-themed theater, and South Camden Theatre Company, focusing on Tennessee Williams.
Here are some promising stage possibilities in the first half of the new season. They include work from two companies that have themes for the season: Ego Po, concentrating on Jewish-themed theater, and South Camden Theatre Company, focusing on Tennessee Williams.
Dead Man's Cell Phone In inventive playwright Sarah Ruhl's comedy, a woman answers a dead man's phone and is swept into his bizarre life. Simpatico Theatre Project presents the play at Walnut Street Theatre's Independence Studio, Sept. 28-Oct. 23. (215-423-0254 or www.simpaticotheatre.org)
The Venetian Twins In Carlo Goldoni's frantic farce, first staged in 1748, long-separated Venice-born twins unknowingly arrive in Verona simultaneously, looking to marry and finding a lot of nuttiness, much of it of their own doing. Quintessence Theatre Group stages at Mount Airy's Sedgwick Theatre, Oct. 5-Nov. 19. (215-240-6055 or www.quintessencetheatre.org)
Motherhood: The Musical From the producers of the hugely popular Menopause: The Musical comes a take on, as the play's ad slogan says, the good, the bad, and the laundry. It has an open-ended run at Society Hill Playhouse, starting Oct. 6. (215-923-0210 or www.societyhillplayhouse.org.)
Mistakes Were Made A Broadway producer finds a great play and the right celebrity to perform in it, and proceeds to do anything to get it on stage and to win back his estranged wife, in this comedy by Craig Wright. 1812 Productions stages it at Plays & Players, Oct. 6-30. (215-592-9560 or www.1812productions.org)
The Diary of Anne Frank This first offering in Ego Po's season of Jewish-themed theater is a Pulitzer-winning adaptation by Wendy Kesselman, taken from the moving, personal, and now culturally enshrined writings of the girl who came of age hiding from the Nazis. At the Prince Music Theater Cabaret, Oct. 20-Nov. 6. (215-552-8773 or www.egopo.org)
Suddenly Last Summer In his centenary year, South Camden Theatre Company launches a season of plays by and about Tennessee Williams with his stark 1958 one-act about deception, denial, and sexual predation. At Camden's Waterfront South Theatre, Oct. 21-Nov. 6. (1-866-811-4111 or www.southcamdentheatre.org)
The Mystery of Irma Vep Charles Ludlam's goofy send-up of romantic flicks and Victorian romances makes for perfect Halloween-season fun, and this production may have an added kick: Act II Playhouse is teaming up with Pig Iron Theatre Company to stage it at Act II's Ambler theater Oct. 25-Nov. 20. (215-654-0200 or www.act2playhouse.org)
Fat Cat Killers Adam Szymkowicz's play is a fantasy that some people have surely considered: Two guys, laid off by the corporation they worked for, decide to kidnap the CEO. Flashpoint Theatre Company produces at the Adrienne, Oct. 26-Nov. 19. (215-665-9720 or www.flashpointtheatre.org)
Act a Lady This Midwestern tale of gender blurring is set during Prohibition, when a small-town group of guys decides to stage a play dressed in women's costumes. The comedy is produced by Azuka Theatre in a new performance space, First Baptist Church at 17th and Sansom Streets, where several small professional theaters will play this season. Nov. 3-20. (215-733-0255 or www.azukatheatre.org)
Pardon My Invasion Joy Cutler's new comedy has an American soldier going AWOL in Iraq. But exactly where do you go when you go AWOL in Iraq? Plays & Players produces, Nov. 3-19. (215-735-0630 or www.playsandplayers.org)
The Anthracite Gridiron The true story of the Maroons, coal miners from Schuylkill County who formed a football team and won a 1925 national championship that you won't find in the NFL stats, unfolds in a stage version by Ray Saraceni. From Iron Age Theatre and Centre Theater in Norristown, Nov. 4-27. (610-279-1013 or www.ironagetheatre.org)
Endgame and Watt Two one-acts by Samuel Beckett, both from Ireland's Gate Theatre, which is returning to the Annenberg Center to present them. Endgame is absurdist theater; Watt - originally a Beckett novel - is more traditional storytelling. Nov. 8-13. (215-898-3900 or www.annenbergcenter.org)
Jacob and Jack The same commercial, professional and personal problems that haunted his grandfather - a Yiddish theater star of yore - now haunt Jack, a TV star. Oy! The comedy is at Montgomery Theater in Souderton, Nov. 17-Dec. 10. (215-723-9984 or www.montgomerytheater.org)
Noël and Gertie The playwright-actor-composer Noël Coward and the actress Gertrude Lawerence were best buds, and Walnut Street Theatre is celebrating that friendship in song and story at its third-floor Independence Studio, Nov. 22-Dec. 31. (215-574-3550 or www.walnutstreettheatre.org)
Why Torture Is Wrong and the People Who Love Them Christopher Durang's Off-Broadway success is a comedy about a woman who awakes to a hangover, a guy she doesn't recognize, and a lot of questions about the motives of people she thought she knew well. New City Stage Company produces at the Adrienne, Dec. 8-Jan. 8. (215-563-7500 or www.newcitystage.org)
Voices of Christmas Once again, Theatre Horizon is putting together a holiday show - this time, of Broadway music, plus jazz, folk, and rock - and assembling a cast of local theater artists to perform it, at Centre Theater in Norristown, Dec. 8-31. (610-283-2230 or www.theatrehorizon.org)