Articles by: Paul Recupero

Paul Recupero has directed and performed in numerous plays and musicals at various venues in the greater Philadelphia area since 2002. Favorite productions include Chess, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Copenhagen, Children of Eden and The Crucible. Paul also enjoys all types of writing and has placed as a semifinalist in two national playwriting contests for his original piece, The Working Man. He won first-place in The Pennsylvania Lawyer Magazine’s 2011 Short Story Contest for his entry “Stay”, and his story was published in a subsequent edition. Paul earned his J.D. from Villanova University School of Law and presently serves as a judicial staff attorney for Montgomery County. He resides in Wayne.

We all reflect upon those obvious moments that completely changed the course of our lives.  What if you never were introduced to your spouse?  What if you had swerved to avoid colliding with that minivan?  But consider something seemingly less significant.  What if you chose Fruit Loops instead of Cheerios [...]

Opening Day. A three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth led the Phillies to an incredible comeback victory. Needless to say, a different kind of “bat” was on my mind Friday night when I attended Villanova Theatre’s current offering, BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL. On the advice of a friend [...]

Although I was too young to appreciate him while he was on the air, I’ve since held a special admiration for Johnny Carson. For the 30 years he hosted “The Tonight Show“, he brought a unique brand of humor and class to late night programming. And when Carson stepped off the [...]

Lives are anything but private in this 1930’s British comedy by Noël Coward, now running at Stagecrafters in Chestnut Hill. Elyot (Jeff Ragan) and Amanda (Pierlisa Chiodo-Steo), once a couple, are five years divorced. They since have moved on and remarried: Elyot to the slightly high-strung Sibyl (Mare Mikalic) and [...]

Through February 5, Marple Newtown Players invites you to visit a beautiful stretch of the Italian coastline. ENCHANTED APRIL tells the tale of the bubbly but bored Lotty Wilson (Heather Ferrel), the young wife of a prominent British solicitor in 1922. Lotty dreams of escaping the doldrums of London’s depressing, [...]

Old Academy Players’ latest offering to cleanse the palate is local playwright Michael Hollinger’s AN EMPTY PLATE IN THE CAFE DU GRAND BOEUF.  Several years ago at Villanova, I was fortunate enough to have Mr. Hollinger as my senior thesis advisor.  His talents in writing witty characters, snappy dialogue and hilariously [...]

Get ready to rumble. The Centre Theater and Iron Age Theatre’s latest production is the world premiere of D.W. Gregory’s comedy slugfest, MOLUMBY’S MILLION. Co-directed by John Doyle and Randall Wise, the play follows a blip in real life boxing legend, Jack Dempsey’s, career, when he faced off against Tommy [...]

The world is coming to an end. You have one day left. What do you do? This is the question tackled by Bruce Graham’s apocalyptic dramacomedy, EARLY ONE EVENING AT THE RAINBOW BAR & GRILLE, currently playing at the Footlighters Theatre in Berwyn. Forget mass hysteria and anarchy in the [...]

 (He Said)… I had the pleasure of attending an hysterical opening night performance of THE PRODUCERS at the Players Club of Swarthmore. This is the first musical of their 100th season, and the playbill remarkably notes that it’s their 757th production overall. (I wonder who had the fun job of [...]

Barley Sheaf Players’ newest endeavor, the dramacomedy SCREWTAPE, is more inspired by than a strict adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. In a nutshell, senior demon Screwtape (Eric Merlino, clearly having fun in the role), who is bound to hell, sends his inexperienced nephew demon Wormwood (Steve Harding) [...]

Loosely based on one of Shakespeare’s more relatable tragedies, WEST SIDE STORY stands as one of the most popular musicals for high school and community theatre. For the three of you reading who are unfamiliar with the plot, it involves two altruistic lovers of different ethnicities searching for happiness amidst [...]

Creating any piece of theatre is no easy task, but to compose an original musical is an incredible feat. But who better to satirize the field of psychotherapy than two psychologists? Paula Skutnick-Henley and Marc Henley, the married couple who penned the script, clearly were up to the challenge. LET [...]