Production photo of The Birds by Conor McPherson.

Here’s some great news for Curio Theatre Company: the West Philly arts organization has been nominated in four categories for the 2017 Barrymore Awards! The nominees include Paul Kuhn, the company’s artistic director, who received a nomination in the Outstanding Scenic Design category for the 2016 production of The Birds, and Chris Sannino – also for the production of The Birds in the Outstanding Sound Design category.

The company also received nominations for the Victory Foundation Award for Outstanding Theatre Education Program, and the June and Steve Wolfson Award for an Evolving Theatre Company.  Continue Reading

Some of the best – and probably the most intimate – theatre in the city gets underway in Malcolm X. Park (51st and Pine) next week when Theatre in the X opens the world premiere of Running Numbers.

Running Numbers is a drama about a high school senior “whose dreams and desperation of going to college and overcoming his environment lead him to fast cash and dangerous situations.” The work is inspired by  “Financial Aid”, an incredible spoken work piece by Carvens Lissaint.

Cheyenne Barboza wrote Running Numbers and Christina May directs. The cast includes Abdul Sesay, Jarrett McCreary, Khadijah Davis, Iman Aaliyah, Aurica Hurst, Angelica Jackson-Thomas, Carlo Campbell, Walter DeShields, Niya Colbert, Brandon A. Drummond and Dwayne Alistair Thomas.  Continue Reading

The Shakespeare in Clark Park production of Coriolanus opened last night to a big crowd in The Bowl near 43rd and Chester. The play follows the demise and vengeful crusade of Roman military leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. The amazon all-female cast carries the work, and a pack of riotous citizens of Rome made up with Philadelphia residents keeps the play lively (see more photos below).

Coriolanus continues through the weekend, concluding Sunday. Shows run from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The rain location is the Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut St.  Continue Reading

Photo by Kyle Cassidy

Shakespeare in Clark Park returns this week for its 12th season with five performances of Coriolanus, a timeless political tragedy of manipulation and revenge. This year, SCP will roll with an all-female cast led by Barrymore Award winner Charlotte Northeast as the title character. The professional cast of women warriors will appear alongside a Chorus of 50 Philadelphians who will become the riotous citizens of Rome. The production is directed by SCP Artistic Director Kittson O’Neill (Interact Theatre Company).

“It’s easy to see Coriolanus, a blunt war hero, as an indictment of “Macho” culture, but there is so much more to this story,” O’Neill, who is pulling double-duty as the director of the show, said in a statement. “By moving our production to a matriarchy I think audiences will more readily see themselves in our hero: we can all be inflexible, we all have deep prejudices and we don’t always get the glory we have rightly earned.”  Continue Reading

Cast members Brian McCann and Paul Kuhn (Photo by Rebecca Gudelunas).

The Curio Theatre Company’s production of the Samuel Beckett classic Waiting for Godot premieres Friday night.

The play features two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting along a country road for someone named Godot, who never arrives. The two engage in a number of comically absurd discussions and encounter others along the road. The British Royal National Theater named the play the most significant English play of the 20th century.

The Curio performance features Brian McCann, Paul Kuhn, Robert DaPonte and Harry Slack. The director is Dan Hodge, who guided the 2016 Curio staging of Death of a Salesman.

A second preview performance is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 9, and the play opens on Feb. 10 and runs through March. All performances begin at 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Tickets are available here.

It’s not often you get to see a play’s world premiere. Here’s your chance with the debut of Antagonyms, which opens at the Curio Theatre Company on Friday, Dec. 2.

Written by playwright, actor and Curio member Rachel Gluck, Antagonyms tells the story of four young Philadelphians.

“In Antagonyms, four twenty-somethings wrestle with their sense of self and their relationship to each other as they find themselves at each other’s throats and in each other’s beds. Contemporary millennial anxieties fuel a stylized high-stakes power game, creating a world in which old Hollywood glamour mingles with the sticky floor of a West Philly dive bar,” said Gluck.

Artwork by Elizabeth Gallagher.

An antagonym is a word with two opposite meanings, such as “bound.” One could be on the move, “bound” to Center City for example. Or “bound,” as in tied up, unable to move.

The performance is directed by Jack Tamburri, and the cast includes Alee Spadoni, Alexander Scott Rioh, Andrew Carroll and Colleen Hughes.

This production has mature content and not recommended for children and there are themes related to sexual violence.

You can catch a preview performance tonight and Thursday night. Antagonyms runs on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Dec. 17. All performances begin at 8 p.m.

For tickets visit the Curio Theatre Company website or call 215-525-1350.