Post Tagged with: "Act II Playhouse"

Show: SUMMER FLINGS Theater: Act II Playhouse Theater Website: http://www.act2.org Show runs: 07/18/2013 to 08/04/2013 Just Wingin’ It July 18-21 Come enjoy a show filled with laughs, music and the unexpected, as some of Philly’s funniest improvisers come together to make it all up for you. With no script these fearless [...]

Ambler’s Act II Playhouse is closing out their current season with Ken Ludwig’s screwball farce LEND ME A TENOR—already extended until June 7th!   Ludwig is America’s premier farceur, with several Broadway hits to his credit, but TENOR is by far the most well-known and the most frequently produced.   Former Act [...]

The next episode of the “Curtain Up!” podcast is now available. Find out what’s opening in and around the Delaware Valley the weekend of May 10, 2013.  Also, you have a chance to win a pair of tickets to see “25th Annual Putman County Spelling Bee” in our trivia [...]

I feel I should preface this review with the disclosure that I am not a sports fan, never have been.  So, it was with curiosity and trepidation that I signed on to review this InterAct/Act II joint premiere of David Robson’s new play.   Having finished its run at InterAct, ASSASSIN [...]

Every week there seems to be another news story about the dangers of NFL football. The average career length for an outfield offensive player (running back, wide receiver) is under three years. Concussions and other repetitive injuries reduce life expectancy for veterans who manage longer careers. Concurrently, there is a [...]

Actress/playwright Jen Childs is a diminutive woman—I don’t think she even reaches five feet tall. But every ounce of her body is packed with talent. All of which is on display in her one-woman piece WHY I’M SCARED OF DANCE at Ambler’s Act II Playhouse. Working with director Harriet Power, [...]

Act II Playhouse’s current offering, OH, WHAT FUN!, has arrived just in time for the holiday season.  Like last year’s similar LAUGHING ALL THE WAY, this variety show features the uproarious talents of Tony Braithwaite, strongly supported by the multifaceted comic trio of Howie Brown, Will Dennis and Sonny Leo. [...]

Fifty years may have passed since they recorded their first hit, but The Beatles currently are alive and well, rocking out their classics at Act II Playhouse in Ambler.  In its East Coast premier, 4 LADS FROM LIVERPOOL whisks the audience from the band’s early days to the Sgt. Pepper [...]

Act II Playhouse is host to a different kind of show this month. Robert Dubac brought his one-man show FREE RANGE THINKING to Ambler. Dubac, who previously performed his first show THE MALE INTELLECT: AN OXYMORON at Act II is a comedian, mimic, magician, and actor all in one. His [...]

Mounting a classic Broadway musical means lots of sets, a huge cast, an orchestra and costumes out the wazoo, right? Not necessarily. Ambler’s Act II Playhouse gets huge props for their bold move of presenting a minimalistic version of MY FAIR LADY, Lerner & Loewe’s 1956 adaptation of George Bernard [...]

The working process of the creative mind is often a mystery. There have been volumes dedicated to revealing the secrets of it. On February 20 in Ambler, a chosen group of us got to see inside the creative process of Larry McKenna, local actor, teacher and playwright. Mr. McKenna is [...]

Currently running at Act II Playhouse in Ambler, LET’S PRETEND WE’RE MARRIED, featuring Tony Braithwaite and Jennifer Childs, is a thoroughly amusing ride down the lighter road of married life.  The seventy minute cabaret is jam-packed with a varied selection of musical numbers (Broadway, popular music and some “original creations”), [...]

Start with “A Night Before Christmas”, stir in a heaping serving of “Kids Say the Darndest Things” and “Whose Line is It Anyway?”, and sprinkle on “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and you’ll have something that approaches Act II’s current comic endeavor, LAUGHING ALL THE WAY. This holiday-themed variety show romances [...]

Ambler’s Act II Playhouse has found the perfect confection to present at this time of year. Subtitled “A Penny Dreadful,” Charles Ludlam’s VEP is an homage to/satire of those cheap Victorian serial novels that were so popular in their day—with a healthy dose of digs at Hitchcock’s film “Rebecca”, as [...]

A prolific playwright who first made an impression in 1981 with The Dining Room, A.R. Gurney is the chronicler of all things WASP. The foibles and neuroses of the upper middle class have been lovingly—and humorously—explored in such works as Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour and Middle Ages. SYLVIA, now [...]

Whether you call it a one-man show or a six-man show with one man playing six parts, the first production of Act II Playhouse’s current season is a comic smash. THE MALE INTELLECT: AN OXYMORON?, written and performed by Robert Dubac, utilizes a simple but imaginative concept. Dubac portrays a [...]

Yasmina Reza’s 1994 comedy (translated by Christopher Hampton) is closing out the Ambler theatre’s successful 12th season.  Directed by Co-Artistic Director Bud Martin, the cast features Ian Merrill Peakes as Serge, Tony Braithwaite as Marc and Pete Pryor as Yvan. Between them, these three Philly favorites have garnered an amazing [...]

For centuries the Irish have been storytellers.  Joyce, Shaw, Synge, Wilde, the list is as long as the island is old.  And plays have been an integral part of that storytelling.   Over the past 20 or 30 years, a new breed of Irish playwright has emerged and Irish theatre has enjoyed a [...]

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 [...]

Ambler’s Act II Playhouse is currently offering an evening with Philly’s favorite musical comedy performer Mary Martello in a cabaret entitled THE RELUCTANT OPTIMIST.     Fresh off her stint in Annie at the Media Theatre, Ms. Martello has created a pastiche of patter (including a brief history of Ambler) and song [...]