Articles by: Arnie Finkel

Arnie has been directing and conducting Musical Theater for over 50 years. He has a BS in Communications for Radio and Television Production from Temple University. As a Theater Minor, Arnie was privileged to work under Pop Randall. Arnie was Station Manager of WRTI, did news editing at WFIL for Gunnar Back and John Roberts, and did a stint as film editor there. His Musical training started when, at 8 years of age he studied percussion under Benjamin Podemsky, the head of the percussion section of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Since directing and conducting his first show at 17 (Finian’s Rainbow) Arnie has done close to 100 Music Theater productions. He and his lovely wife of 52 years, Lorri, teach Music Theater at Life Long Learn for Temple University.

Tom Stoppard puts two minor characters from Shakespeare’s HAMLET front and center in ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD.   It’s an interesting concept.  What happens to these people while HAMLET is playing out its tragedy? We find that these characters are so interchangeable that they themselves get confused as to who [...]

What a pleasant way to spend an afternoon — a good meal and a laugh filled new play called SURPRISE! This is the fifth dinner theater Methacton Community Theater has presented with a new script by a local author. Arthur Fischman has written a laugh a minute script with a [...]

I read Abigail Pogrebin’s book STARS OF DAVID a while ago, and couldn’t help wondering how Aaron Harnick, who conceived the idea, was going to make this series of short biographical chapters into a musical. He enlisted some pretty powerful talents to mold the show into a respectable evening’s entertainment. [...]

The upcoming presidential election is the ideal time for a production of Beau Willimon’s 2008 Pulitzer and Tony award winning political drama FARRAGUT NORTH.   Willimon based his play on Howard Dean’s 2004 run for the Democratic nomination for President, in which Willimon participated.   The title comes from the name of [...]

I always thought of ANNIE as one of the shows that community theater does to involve as many kids (of all ages) in order to sell as many tickets as possible.  So I, somewhat reluctantly, wended my way to Perkiomen Valley Middle School.  I needn’t have worried.  I smiled from [...]

HIGH SPIRITS is the musical version of Noel Coward’s 1942 community theater favorite BLITHE SPIRIT.   Book, music and lyrics are by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray. Forge Theatre’s production made an attempt at bringing the 1964 script up to date. The use of laptop computer, cell and wireless phones, local [...]

EgoPo is presenting the Philadelphia premiere of Tony Kushner’s A DYBBUK. THE DYBBUK is a classic Yiddish play written in 1914 by S Ansky (a pen name for Shloyme Rappaport). Kushner has taken Joachim Neugroshel’s translation of the Yiddish and given the play some gorgeous flowing language and properly Chassidic lyrics.  [...]

The laughter begins almost immediately in WONDER OF THE WORLD.  Cass Harris is leaving her husband of seven years, Kip, because she has found out his guilty secret.  I won’t reveal the secret (no spoilers here), but it involves the name Vivian.  Kip is, naturally, distressed, but even there, the [...]

Robert Andrew Kovach has designed a comfortable, if starkly modern set for Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE.  The red flames of the artwork upstage are a clue to the audience that there are some fireworks to come. The superb cast does not disappoint in any way.  Julie Czarnecki, an uptight [...]

We were invited to the Southern California living room of the Basil Estate (courtesy of Methacton Community Theater); home of dental floss millionaires Mr. and Mrs. Basil.  It seems that Mr. Basil has been murdered and Mrs. Gloria Basil (the always reliable Nancy Kadwill) has summoned harried and disheveled Columbo-like [...]

Ron Hutchinson’s script for MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS suffers from a case of split personality.  It’s a documentary about the writing of the script for GONE WITH THE WIND, a commentary on the state of movie making in the late 1930s, the approaching world war, anti semitism, and the cult of [...]

BILLY ELLIOT is one hell of a dance drama.  It’s a very satisfying piece of musical theater.  The show encompasses many styles of dance to tell its story—ballet, tap, hip-hop, street and modern; and all of them done extremely well by a cast of 45 talented singer-dancers. The plot line [...]

Neil Simon wrote THE ODD COUPLE in two versions-one with male leads, one with female. Oscar and Felix give way to Olive and Florence in the version being produced by Playcrafters of Skippack.  Simon lost nothing of the bite, the plot and the typical one-liners he is famous for in the [...]

Let me say right off that the Pig Iron Theatre Company’s performance of TWELFTH NIGHT was everything you could wish for. It was riotous, rollicking, raunchy, musical, well acted, well directed, and totally enjoyable. One of the bugaboos of doing Shakespeare is the diction of the performers. No problem here. [...]

Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote THE KING AND I for Gertrude Lawrence.  The search for a leading man was solved by a suggestion from Mary Martin of her costar in Lute Song.  Yul Brynner was the King in the original and in many revivals.  It led to a Tony and an [...]

I don’t know how many seats there are in the Academy Of Music, but the entire house was on their feet in a standing ovation saluting the superb six person cast of NEXT TO NORMAL.  It was richly deserved. Let me say first as a warning, this musical drama is [...]

Four couples come to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their friends and find the husband has shot himself through his ear lobe, and the wife and servants are missing.  That’s the basic plot of Neil Simon’s farce RUMORS.  It’s Simon-lite,–very much like a sit-com and missing the underlying pathos that [...]

[Since PETER PAN is a child-oriented play, most of this review is as told to me by my date for the evening, Julia Finkel, my 10 year old granddaughter. (My comments will be enclosed in parentheses)] This is not the Disney PETER PAN or the one I’m familiar with. (It [...]

I can’t think of a more pleasant way to spend a couple of hours than to watch five talented people sing an evening of musical works from the vast store of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.   The brilliant composer and lyricist together are responsible for eleven musical plays, one [...]

As I grow into the senior citizen role life has designated for me, I reflect on the subjects of SATURN RETURNS often.  This is a memory play, filled with the difficulty of saying goodbye to some of the important times of your life and living with the thoughts that remain.   [...]