The Chocolate Soldier (Concert Operetta Theater, March 2015)
By the time I was of listening age (that is, in my early teens, around 1970), operetta performances, at least in the […]
Macbeth (Arden Theatre, March 2015)
Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it. Thus Shakespeare’s Lady pithily sums up her […]
Field Hockey Hot (11th Hour: Adrienne Theatre)
Remember that Robert Frost’s poem about the importance of taking the right road? Well, Monday night, I took the low road – and […]
Ariadne auf Naxos (Curtis Opera Theatre / Opera Philadelphia: Perelman Theater)
Every time I immerse myself in Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Ariadne auf Naxos (and I do, often – decades ago, I even wrote […]
DF Reviews The Whale (Theatre Exile, February 2015)
It hit me the minute the curtain went up on The Whale, Samuel D. Hunter’s marvelous, heartbreaking play, in an exceptionally fine […]
DF Reviews Mothers and Sons (Philadelphia Theatre Company, February 2015)
“Sometimes – there’s God – so quickly!,” Tennessee Williams famously wrote. Here, though, He doesn’t show up till 9:15. Roughly 70 minutes […]
DF Reviews Doubt (Lantern Theater, January 2015)
The great thing about Doubt, John Patrick Shanley’s slender but effective drama about child abuse in the church, is that our sympathies […]
DF’s Philadelphia Fall/Winter 2015 Theatre Preview
It’s been a strong Philadelphia theatre season so far, and the Winter/Spring has quite a few more promising events. I’ve compiled the […]
DF Reviews Outside Mullingar (Philadelphia Theatre Company, December 2014)
And God saw the light, that it was good… So the Bible tells us, but I’m not sure you’d know it to […]
DF Reviews The Matter of Frank Schaefer (Curio Theatre, November 2014)
The facts are fairly simple – “frocked, defrocked, refrocked!” might headline an article about Frank Schaefer, a Methodist minister in Eastern Pennsylvania. […]
reclining standards 