Post Tagged with: "Forge Theatre"

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 [...]

Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet, as told from the worm’s-eye view of two of the minor characters, the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. As this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role in [...]

Forge Theatre was packed opening night for STEEL MAGNOLIAS. Men and women alike laughed out loud at the well done wit, and many also quietly wept during this comedy-drama by Robert Harling which centers around an eclectic group of prominent Southern women who gather at the local hairdressing salon in small Louisiana town [...]

Forge Theatre will present the popular and time-honored STEEL MAGNOLIAS in March. Performnce dates are March 1, 2, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16 at 8:00 PM. Sunday, March 10 at 2:00 PM Written by Robert Harling, STEEL MAGNOLIAS depicts the story of the ladies in Truvy’s small-town beauty parlor who [...]

In the preface of his infamous work, OUR TOWN, Thornton Wilder defines his play as “an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life.” A question asked throughout the ages, what are those precious moments of life worth?  The true optimist Wilder [...]

Forge Theatre in Phoenixville opened LI’L ABNER on Friday November 9. To our younger readers, this is a complete unknown, to the more mature it’s a pleasant memory of days past reading the “funny papers” on a Sunday morning. With character names like Marryin’ Sam, Senator Jack S. Phogbound, Stupefyin’ [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Forge Theatre in Phoenixville continues its 50th season with the classic piece, THE HEIRESS by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from Washington Square by Henry James. This story centers around Catherine Sloper (Maria Jarrell), a plain, painfully shy woman whose father, Dr. Sloper (Paul Leis) finds to be a disappointment. [...]

Everyone in the full house for the Forge’s opening of ON GOLDEN POND had a wonderful time. Every humorous moment was met with acclaim. Readers familiar with the star heavy gravitas of the Katherine Hepburn or Julie Andrews films may be delighted to discover how hilarious the script really is. [...]

Whenever one goes on vacation to a foreign country, someone they know will probably tell them DON’T DRINK THE WATER. Woody Allen’s rollicking play, written well before the Annie Hall days and running for 598 performances on Broadway, is a zany comedy about three American tourists. Unfortunately for them, but [...]

Sizzling hot performances await those lucky enough to catch Forge Theatre’s production of CABARET, which opened on November 4th, and will run through December 3rd, with a break for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. If you only know of the 1972, Joel Grey/Liza Minnelli movie version of this musical, based on [...]

In 1975, a little film came out called ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher. Sweeping all major Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Actor and Actress for Nicholson and Fletcher respectively, the film is consistently on “Top 100” [...]

If I inform you up front that this heart-wrenching drama, RABBIT HOLE, by David Lindsay-Abaire, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007, would that get your attention? It was nominated for several Tony awards in 2006 and won for Best Actress (Cynthia Nixon). How ‘bout that? Mr. Lindsay-Abaire’s adaptation [...]

Forge Theatre in Phoenixville opened its latest offering, ADRIFT IN MACAO on Friday night. MACAO is a one-act musical “homage” to the film noir genre, with hard-boiled detectives, debonair nightclub owners, sexy singers in long gowns, and inscrutable henchmen. In fact, each of these stock characters appears in MACAO, and [...]

The latest production at Forge Theatre, DOUBT by John Patrick Shanley, is the story of the head of a Catholic school in the Bronx who believes that a priest at the connected church as an improper relationship with one of the boys. Her investigation and the interaction among the characters [...]

THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE (hereafter just SPELLING BEE) is a super example of an ensemble piece of theater. The dictionary (or as one of the characters sings it, “My Friend the Dictionary”) defines ensemble as “all the parts considered as a whole”. Saturday night I was privileged [...]