New and Noteworthy: Theater
New This Week Hands Up: 6 Plays, 6 Testaments (Flashpoint Theatre Company) Six playwrights offer their perspectives on the reality of being a black man in America. Previews Wednesday-Friday, opens Saturday.
New This Week
Hands Up: 6 Plays, 6 Testaments (Flashpoint Theatre Company) Six playwrights offer their perspectives on the reality of being a black man in America. Previews Wednesday-Friday, opens Saturday.
Hello! Sadness! (SEI Innovation Studio at the Kimmel) Mary Tuomanen's one-woman comedy started with not writing a play about Joan of Arc. Thursday-Saturday.
Murder for Two (Philadelphia Theatre Company) Two actors play 13 characters - and the piano - in the midst of murder. In previews, opens Wednesday.
Post Haste (Hedgerow Theatre) In 1915, before she was the nation's arbiter of manners, adventuresome Emily Post motored across the United States. Previews Thursday and Friday, opens Saturday.
Continuing
Reviewed by Wendy Rosenfield (W.R.), Jim Rutter (J.R.), David Patrick Stearns (D.P.S.),and Toby Zinman (T.Z.).
Company (Bucks County Playhouse) Time has passed for some of the themes of marriage and gay life in this show, but the production succeeds in many ways, with a strong cast - particularly Justin Guarini, Candy Buckley, and Kate Weatherhead - that can rattle the rafters and charm each row. Through June 21. - W.R.
Don Quixote (Hedgerow Theatre) The misadventures of Cervantes' beloved knight errant and his faithful Sancho, adapted for the stage by Keith Dewhurst. Ends Sunday.
Forbidden Broadway's Greatest Hits (Act II Playhouse) This smart sendup of the Great White Way's musical highlights is nonstop-funny. Through June 28. - J.R.
The Graduate (Eagle Theatre) Benjamin Braddock has his degree. Now what? Plastics? Mrs. Robinson? Through June 27.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Lantern Theater) The Sherlock Holmes classic gets a comic spin. Through June 28.
How to Write a New Book for the Bible (People's Light and Theatre Company) As an 82-year-old woman lives out her final months, her son confronts the reality of his impending loss. Through June 28.
I Love a Piano (Walnut Street Theatre's Independence Studio) This delightful revue casts back to an America facing external and economic unrest, united by the music of Irving Berlin. Through June 28. - J.R.
The Lion King (Academy of Music) Soulful, stirring music and astonishing visual effects leave no doubt about why this gorgeous show has earned $6 billion. Through next Sunday. - W.R.
Memphis (Walnut Street Theatre) This musically sensational Tony-winning show based on the life of Dewey Phillips, one of the first white DJs to play black music in the 1950s, makes a mess of the facts. Through July 12. - J.R.
Passion (Arden Theatre) It takes a while for the seduction of Stephen Sondheim's Passion to take hold, but once it does, there's no turning away. Jennie Eisenhower - a mother with a young child - and Liz Filios - an unsympathetic woman pursuing her soldier husband - shine as opposing forces. Through June 28. - W.R. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Wilma Theater) Keith Conallen (Rosencrantz) and Jared McLenigan (Guildenstern) are both terrific - droll and desperate and amazingly flexible - in this vaudevillian yoga production of Tom Stoppard's play about two minor characters from Hamlet. Through next Sunday. - T.Z. The Three Christs of Manhattan (InterAct) An atheist psychiatrist is visited by three men, each of whom claims to be Jesus. Through June 21.