For 2 for 1 tickets to see The Miser presented by the Lansdale Theatre Works at the Lansdale Performing Arts Center on March 26 & 27. Enter code “Friend” when you purchase tickets online.

Lansdale Theatre Works Presents The Miser at the Lansdale Center for the Performing Arts

Lansdale Theatre Works presents their spring production of The Miser at the Lansdale Center For Performing Arts. This marks the first public performance for the Lansdale based, not-for-profit, professional theater group. This new company aims to present socially relevant theater in the form of both classical and contemporary plays to a diverse and open-minded group of theatergoers.

Daniel Student of Plays and Players Theatre in Philadelphia will direct this modern translation by James Magruder, which was first presented at Center Stage in Baltimore to critical and audience acclaim in 2004. The Sun (Baltimore) described the production as a “highly accessible new translation….takes bold chances without ever losing sight of Moliere’s original intent.”

The Miser, which was written by Moliere in 1668, is a comedy focusing on one man’s obsession with accumulating more wealth. He has figured out a way to marry off his son and daughter as an investment strategy and has set his own sights on a beautiful, but frugal young woman who does not return his affections. Steve Wright, who recently starred in 1812’s production of This Is The Week That Is, will be playing the title character in The Miser.

Lansdale Theatre Works is one of the resident theatre companies of the brand new Lansdale Center For Performing Arts. Lansdale Theatre Works is helping to serve the revitalization efforts of downtown Lansdale by redefining Main Street as an arts and entertainment destination.

Lansdale Theatre Works was founded in 2009 by Artistic and Executive Director, Dawn Harvey, who is also appearing in the production. Harvey produced several plays in New York City, NY before relocating to the Lansdale Area. She is also a professional stage and screen actress whose credits include Saturday Night Live, Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City, and Andrews Lane Studio Theatre in Dublin, Ireland.

Performances will be held at the Lansdale Center for Performing Arts and will take place on March 26th & 27th as well as April 9th & 11th at 7:30 PM. Tickets are available online at www.lansdalecpa.org or by calling the Lansdale Center for Performing Arts at 215-361-1296. Adults: $20.

Belles of Dublin returns for 4^th engagement

at

The Red Room at Society Hill Playhouse,

home of BCKSEET Productions

A Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day tradition!

What: Belles of Dublin

Who:   Polly MacIntyre, Kim Robson, and Evangeline Williams

Where: 507 S. 8^th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147

(between Lombard & South streets)

When:

Wednesday March 17, 2010 - 8 pm

Thursday March 18, 2010 – 8 pm

Friday March 19, 2010 – 8 pm

Saturday March 20, 2010 – 8pm

Sunday March 21, 2010 – 3pm

Tickets: Tickets are $20.00 and include 1 free drink.  215-923-0210 or www.societyhillplayhouse.org

About: Belles of Dublin interlaces stories of coming of age and illicit love affairs gone wrong with traditional Irish music featuring vocals, flute, and Celtic harp.

According to Tim Treanor of DC Theatre Scene, “The stories are carved and scoured with language like a cascade of diamonds. It is not simply MacIntyre’s brogue which identifies the pieces as Irish. They radiate the sort of liquid cynicism which has marked the Irish literary voice from Swift through Frank McCourt. The protagonist tells her story from the point of view of love, and the opportunity for love, long past. This could be depressing, but MacIntyre makes it sound rueful, wistful, and, with surprising frequency, funny. That’s in large part because she excerpts her content from the writing of the fine, if underappreciated, Irish writer Edna O’Brien. I do not know what O’Brien would sound like reading her stories, but if she doesn’t sound like MacIntyre, I bet she wishes she did.”

For 1/2 price tickets to see Take Me Out at Plays and Players, runs March 13 – 27 ($20/ ticket), enter promotional code “PHILACULTURATI” (all caps) when you order tickets online. Click here to purchase tickets.

Plays and Players Presents Take Me Out

Plays & Players, Center City Philadelphia’s longest continually operated theater will present the Tony Award Winning play “Take Me Out” written by Richard Greenberg and directed by Daniel Student.

Set in the world of professional baseball, “Take Me Out” looks at America’s National Pastime. How it is forever altered as Darren Lemmings, star of the New York Empires, comes out of the closet to his team, his friends, and to the public at large. As his deeply racist and homophobic teammate, Shane Mungitt, grows incensed by the news, Darren’s gay financial manager, Mason Marzac, finds a new hero, and the other players see their locker room in a whole new light, the only person who seems unaffected is Darren himself. The drama of the season unfolds on and off the field, with tragic results.

“Take Me Out” was the recipient of the Tony Award for Best Play 2003 and was nominated for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It played 383 performances on Broadway.

Featured in the show are Chuck DeLong, Bill Egan, Sam Han, Gerard Joseph, Joe Matyas, David Mason, Ted Powell, Jerry Rudasill, Dan Sanchez, Ryan Walter, and Peter Zielinski.

Performances are March 11 – 27, 2010. Showtime for Thursday-Saturdays performances are 8:00 pm. Sundays performances are at 4:00 pm. March 11th and 12th are special preview performances, and all regular priced tickets are $5 off.

Following performances on March 12, 19 and 20 audience members are invited to a new play festival “Peanuts and Cracker Jacks” which will feature baseball themed plays Tickets are $10 or free with your Take Me Out ticket stub

Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door for adults, $15 student rush (one half hour before curtain), and $10 for groups of 10 or more. All performances will be given in Plays & Players Main Stage at 1714 Delancey Place (between Spruce & Pine Streets). Tickets may be purchased atwww.playsandplayers.org or by calling (800) 595-4TIX. For additional information call the theatre at (215) 735-0630.

Take Me Out contains adult language and brief nudity.

The Wilma Theater presents the World Premiere of Language Rooms

by Yussef El Guindi

directed by Blanka Zizka

March 3 – April 4, 2010

The Wilma Theater continues its 2009 – 2010 season with the World Premiere production of Language Rooms, a black comedy that exposes the divided loyalties among today’s immigrants, discovering the rising cost of the American Dream. The play, from rising Arab-American playwright Yussef El Guindi, is directed by the Wilma’s co-Artistic Director Blanka Zizka.

A recipient of the Edgerton Foundation’s prestigious New American Play award, Language Rooms begins previews on March 3, opens on March 10 (press night), and closes on April 4, 2010. Tickets range from $36 to $65, and are available at the Wilma’s Box Office by calling (215) 546-7842, visiting www.wilmatheater.org, or coming to the theater, located at 265 South Broad Street in Philadelphia. Student tickets are available for as little as $10, depending on date and time, made possible through a grant from PNC Arts Alive.

Ahmed is a shining example of the American Dream, successfully landing a big-time position as a translator at a top-secret detainment facility. But things are not what they seem in this twisted workplace, as he soon finds himself dodging shifty video cameras and absurd interoffice mind games. Brilliantly shifting between comedy and political suspense with surprising twists along the way, Language Rooms is a riveting dark comedy about the abuses of patriotism and loyalty.

Director Blanka Zizka says, “What I like so much about the play is that it deals with the world we live in right now, without suffering from ideological or political agendas or predictability. Just the opposite: the play is fresh, inventive, darkly funny, and fiercely original. It explores the absurd reality that can ensue from pursuing a dream without noticing that the dream has lost its moral standing, leaving merely insistence on loyalty.”

Language Rooms tells an updated immigrant story, pinned down in the glare of an interrogator’s lamp and through the lens of the Arab-American experience. El Guindi’s script highlights the tension between first- and second-generation immigrants, as their personal desires get caught in the machinery of the outside world. As Egyptian-born playwright El Guindi says, “the price for a better life is always a little higher than you think it will be.”

As El Guindi tells Wilma Dramaturg Walter Bilderback, “The wonderful optimism of this country, the propulsion to keep going, to reinvent, that weightlessness, the acceptance that you can change your name, your history, kick your past to the curb as you gun for a new beginning, I think all those good things end up gutting you of a center, a wholeness. What becomes of your touchstones, your anchor, your story, after you leave so much behind?  Who are you when you’re always in flux?”

The Wilma’s World Premiere of Language Rooms grows out of an intensive development process, which began with a reading on the Wilma stage a year ago, in addition to workshops at Vassar & New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater and at the Wilma this summer. The Wilma welcomes back Yussef El Guindi – who The Philadelphia Inquirer calls “laugh-out-loud funny” – for an extended residency during rehearsals.

Attention Parents!

Here’s a Drama Class for Kids…

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Introduction to the Stage

Do you have a child who has always wanted to try acting, but never has? Or has been in school plays, and wants to do more? Here is a beginning theater class for kids who want to know what it’s like to put on plays. In this class, kids will get a tour of the historic Plays & Players Theater, learn some acting and improvisation games, and get a sense of the basics of creating theater, both onstage and backstage. The final class will be a small showcase of what the kids have learned, with games and/or scenes.  2 hour sessions, Ages: 6-10

Instructors: Ryan Walter and Laura Zingle

Sessions: Saturdays, February 6-March 27; Time: 10am-noon

Performance March 27 at 11am.

Location: Skinner Studio, 3rd floor of Plays & Players Theater

1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Cost: $100 per student; Additional kids in the same family $80

25% discount for Members of Plays & Players

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SPECIAL: If you get a friend to sign up for the class with you, you each get 50% off! That’s $50! Enter the code BUYTWO on the website.

For more info, or to sign up for this class, visit

www.playsandplayers.org

Call the theater at 215-735-0630

Or call Laura Zingle (one of the instructors) at 215-470-8932

INTERACT THEATRE & MURAL ARTS
COLLABORATE TO PREMIERE NEW PLAY
ADDRESSING CRIME IN PHILADELPHIA

CITY OF NUMBERS
mixtape of a city…

Written by Sean Christopher Lewis

Directed by Matt Slaybaugh

Please Note: CITY OF NUMBERS contains adult language.

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OVERVIEW:

WHAT: CITY OF NUMBERS

mixtape of a city…

Written & Performed by Sean Christopher Lewis

Directed by Matt Slaybaugh

WHEN: January 22 – February 21, 2010

Tuesdays & Wednesdays @ 7 p.m.; Thursdays – Saturdays @ 8 p.m.; Sundays @ 2 p.m.; Saturday, January 23 @ 2 p.m.

PRICE: $16 Previews

$25 Tuesdays – Thursdays

$29 Fridays – Sundays

Discounts available for groups, seniors and students

WHERE: On the Mainstage of The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia

INFO / RESERVATIONS: InterAct Theatre Company Box Office

Phone: 215.568.8079

Online: www.InterActTheatre.org

PHOTOS from the Opening Night Reception now on FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=138407&id=49107703151