Two West Philly long-standing arts institutions are offering new after-school programs. University City Arts League (4226 Spruce St.) is offering new classes for every age group, with a whole new set of classes just for middle-schoolers (grades 5-8). New classes include Animation, African Dance, Tai Chi, Mixed-Media 2D Art, and Poetry, and registration is still open. The following classes have already filled up: For K-2: Puppet Making, Tumblehop, Escultura; for grades 3-6: Beginner Digital Art. For more information and to register, visit this page.

Curio Theatre, which is housed in the historic Calvary Center for Culture and Community at 4740 Baltimore Avenue, is offering a new after-school opportunity for neighborhood schoolkids. Beginning in October, Curio Theatre Company is launching an after-school program for students in grades 1-8 for $100 per week. This service will end at 6 p.m. each day. This new program employs professional theatre educators who will offer the following services: prompt pick-up at the end of the school day, individual tutoring for assignments, and theatre lessons following every school day. Healthy snack options will also be offered. Currently, walking service is being offered to students from Penn Alexander School, the City School – Spruce Hill, and St. Francis de Sales schools. Please call 215-525-1350 or email: steven@curiotheatre.org for more information and registration. Also check out Curio Theatre School on Saturdays from 10 a.m.-12 p.m.

Here are a few chances to visit Curio Theatre before it closes its doors until the next season. The local theater company will present a series of free performances this weekend and on Monday, June 22.

CuriosiTeens! (Photo courtesy of Curio Theatre Company)

Curio’s young company, CuriosiTeens! will present three performances of Bang Bang You’re Dead, a powerful drama written by William Mastrosimone in the wake of the school shootings of the late 1990s. The goal of this production is to search out and answer a very complex question: “Why?”. The first performance is tonight at 7 p.m., and there will be two shows tomorrow (Saturday, June 20) – at 2 and 7 p.m. All shows are on Curio’s Main Stage (48th and Baltimore). Please call 215-525-1350 or email steven@curiotheatre.org to reserve your tickets.

On Monday, Curio’s 2015 New Play reading series concludes with Antagonyms written by Rachel Gluck. “When a man returns to his home city after fifteen years of running, four people must struggle to maintain control over their lives, and keep the past in the past.” The play is directed by Jack Tamburri. The cast features Isa St. Clair, Trevor Fayle, Colleen Hughes and Andrew J. Carroll. The performance starts at 7:30 p.m. on Curio’s Corner Stage, 48th and Baltimore Ave.

Curio Theatre Company continues its reading series supporting emerging Philadelphia playwrights and invites everyone to tonight’s reading of Candy Candy by Chris Davis. The series is co-produced by Philadelphia Dramatists Center.

The peformance is directed by Liam Castellan and features Curio actors: Andrew Carroll, Joel Guerrero, Diana Rodriguez, Kelly Cova, Rachel Gluck, Brendan Norton, and Steve Carpenter. It will be held in the Curio Theatre Company Second Stage at 4740 Baltimore Avenue, starting at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be provided. And here’s some information about the play from Curio’s website:

“This high octane bilingual comedy follows the televisual fantasies of a young girl named Candy who dreams of escaping her quotidian life in Mexico.”

Visit curiotheatre.org for more information.

(Foodinjars.com)

There will be a couple of great and FREE events today in the area.

• Food in Jars founder and canning expert Marisa McClellan presents a pickling workshop at Walnut Street West Library (40th and Walnut) beginning at 5:30 p.m. Other free events scheduled at Walnut St West Library this month include: May 13, 20 & 27 – Yoga For Kids!; May 16 – Plant Workshop; May 22 & 29 – Vinyasa Yoga for Adults. For more events (through July 14, 2015) and to RSVP, click here.

• Curio Theatre Company and Philadelphia Dramatists Center (PDC) have partnered for the second year in a row to produce the PDC@Curio Plays In Progress. PDC and Curio will bring two plays to life in professional staged readings, featuring actors from Curio’s professional company and directors from Philadlephia’s vibrant theatre scene. The first reading, Robin Rodriguez’s Flotsam, will be presented tonight, at 7:30 p.m., at Curio (4740 Baltimore Avenue). Flotsam is an eerie drama about a brother, a sister, and a storage unit. It will be directed by Jessica Schwartz (MAD BLOOD & other beauties, Fringe 2014; Modern Playground, Fringe 2013). Admission is free, and light refreshments will be provided. For more details about both readings, visit Curio Theatre’s website.

Well-known Philadelphia actor Steve Wright is playing the title character in Curio’s Othello. (Photo by Kyle Cassidy)

Yes, the Curio Theatre Company is staging William Shakespeare’s Othello. But this is billed as an “intimate and in-your-face” version of the tale of one of the most famous Moors of them all.

“This version of Othello will be raw,” according to correspondences from Curio leading up to Friday, Feb. 20’s opening night. Dan Hodge, the co-founding director of The Philadelphia Artists’ Collective, will direct. Well-known Philadelphia actor Steve Wright will play the title character.

“Doing Othello in a smaller space is a gift, because it allows us to strip away the sense of grandeur that can distance us from the play and we can engage with the characters as people,” Hodge said. “This is Shakespeare’s most domestic tragedy, and it is a true pleasure to invest in the subtle human elements that make it resonate with us today.”

And those humans are pretty delicious, including the enchanting Desdemona (Isa St. Clair) and the dastardly Iago (Brian McCann). Othello is about power and love and suspicion – the grist of any good drama. The cast also includes Steve Carpenter, Rachel Gluck, Colleen Hughes, Paul Kuhn, Eric Scotolati and Bob Weick.

The show runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from Feb. 20 through March 14 on Curio’s Corner Stage. There are previews on Feb. 12, 13, 14 and 19. Ticket information is available here.

– Mike Lyons

Curio Theatre Company opens its 10th season this week with the world premiere of a performance that is, as they say, ripped straight from the headlines.

The Matter of Frank Schaefer tells the true story of the Methodist minister from Lebanon, Penna. who is defrocked for officiating his son’s gay wedding, refrocked on appeal and is currently threatened with another defrocking.

“What grabbed us right away with the story of Frank Schaefer is that it felt like a civil rights movement was starting right in front of us,” said Curio’s artistic director Paul Kuhn. “When we started this project gay marriage had not been legalized in Pennsylvania and Frank Schaefer had not yet been defrocked.”  Continue Reading