SUMMER GUIDE

Musical hit stop: Both serious (The Color Purple, above) and goofball (Mamma Mia!, below) smash tours are coming to town.

Stage Roundup

Diversity illuminates the imagination.

by J. Cooper Robb

If you think the area theater companies darken come summer, think again.

Artistic director Terrence J. Nolen tackles Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town (May 22-June 22) in a new unique production from the Arden Theatre Company. Staged both on the Arden’s Haas Stage and across the street in historic Christ Church, Nolen’s ambitious environmental staging features some of the city’s savviest performers.

InterAct Theatre Company concludes its 20th anniversary season with the world premiere of Larry Loebell’s House Divided (May 23-June 22). Focusing on two brothers in a Philly family, House investigates Israel’s political and economic relationship with the U.S., as well as Israel’s standing as America’s staunchest military ally in the oil-rich Middle East. Director Seth Rozin’s esteemed cast includes classy veteran actor David Howey and two of the city’s hottest performers—David Raphaely and Dan Hodge—as the ideologically divided siblings.

People’s Light & Theatre Company in Malvern explores the horrors of genocide in Sonja Linden’s I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady From Rwanda (May 28-June 22). Linden’s drama concerns a young woman who escapes the violent African nation and strikes up an unlikely friendship with a disillusioned middle-aged novelist. Director David Bradley’s production stars Miriam Hyman, who delivered a stunning performance in PLTC’s 2006 production of The Man From Nebraska.

The sixth annual Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival returns (June 12-28) with six productions and a staged reading at venues throughout Center City. Festival highlights include the return of local composers Dan Martin and Michael Biello’s witty and vibrant musical Q (June 18-28), which made its local premiere in a terrific production at the 2002 Philly Fringe. Also in the pipeline at PGLTF is My Left Breast (June 22-28), Susan Miller’s one-woman play about a Jewish bisexual mom with one breast; Keith Bunin’s look at a female minister and her gay son in The Busy World Is Hushed (June 20-27); and David Sisco’s award-winning comedy Bait (June 20-22), which concerns two mildly desperate single guys on the prowl for Mr. Right.

This summer some of the Philly’s top performers can be found on the bucolic grounds of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival at DeSales University. As usual, PSF is offering a smorgasbord of entertainment on two stages beginning with Jim Helsinger’s one-actor adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula: The Journal of Jonathan Harker (June 11-29). Following the scary blood-sucker is Barrymore Award-winning director James J. Christy’s production of Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night (June 18-July 6) featuring the always intriguing Pete Pryor. PSF rounds out its season with Shakespeare’s epic tragedy King Lear (July 9-Aug. 3) and romantic adventure Cyrano de Bergerac (July 16-Aug. 3) starring acclaimed Philly thespian Greg Wood.

Mama Mia!

It’s Alice Walker! It’s Steven Spielberg! It’s Oprah! The Color Purple (June 17-July 13) splashes in as the local debut to catch this summer at the Academy of Music with a touring production (presented in part by milady Oprah) of the mega successful musical. Based on Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Spielberg’s poignant film, Purple employs a score of blues, jazz, gospel and pop in a story of one courageous woman’s triumph.

ABBA fans rejoice with the return of the smash hit musical Mamma Mia! (July 15-27). Loaded with shiny disco cheese like “Dancing Queen” and “Money, Money, Money,” Mamma is a colorful bit of a theatrical silliness that always seems to inspire otherwise staid theatergoers to leap to their feet in unbridled paroxysms of ecstasy. Go figure.