THEATER

valley theater city theater

Edith Piaf: Hymn to Love. Touchstone Theatre and Teatro Potlach reboot a 2015 solo show about the larger-than-life, legendary chanteuse. (Touchstone, 321 E. 4th St., Bethlehem, March 5–8)

Silence! The Musical. This musical spoof of “Silence of the Lambs” scored big at the NY Fringe Festival. Serial killer Hannibal Lecter and FBI agent Clarice Starling duet on “Quid Pro Quo”; serial skinner Buffalo Bill wonders “Are You About a Size 14?” (Civic Theatre of Allentown, 514 N. 19 St., March 13–15, 19–21)

The Revolutionists. Selkie Theatre stages Lauren Gunderson’s rollickingly revisionary feminist four-hander for a playwright, a Haitian rebel, an assassin and Marie Antoinette in 1793 Paris. (Ice House, 56 River St., Bethlehem, March 20-29)

Silent Sky. Lauren Gunderson telescopes the scientific and social breakthroughs of Henrietta Leavitt and other women astronomers. (Samuels Theatre, Tompkins College Center, Cedar Crest College, 100 College Dr., Allentown, March 26–29)

Finding Neverland. Kelsey Grammer was Captain Hook in the Broadway production of this musical baptism of Peter Pan. (Baker Theater, Zoellner Center for the Arts, Lehigh University, 420 E. Packer Ave., March 22)

Newsies. An ambitious rookie reporter tells and sells the musical story of smart-ass newsboys who strike after a publisher hikes their distribution fee. (Star of the Day Event Productions, St. John’s UCC, 139 N. 4th St., Emmaus, March 27–29, April 3–5)

The Bacchae. Karen Dearborn, an esteemed professor of dance, choreographs Muhlenberg College’s rendition of Euripides’ storied showcase for Dionysus, who disguises himself as a mortal to punish mortals for not honoring him as immortal. (Baker Theatre, Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance, 2400 Chew St., Allentown, March 26–29)

An Enemy of the People. Moravian College presents Ibsen’s fiery debate between a geologist who wants to close a polluted spa and citizens hungry for a new meal ticket. (Arena Theatre, 1200 Main St., Bethlehem, March 26–29)

Twelve Angry Men. A trial severely tests jurors charged with the destiny of a young man charged with his father’s murder. Comedians starred in a 2003 production directed by Guy Masterson, who performed his solo A Christmas Carol in December in Bethlehem. (Pennsylvania Playhouse, 390 Illick’s Mill Rd., Bethlehem, March 27–29, April 3–5, 17–19)

Lombardi. Northampton Community College offered a crisp, colorful, tightly contested take on Eric Simonson’s portrait of a fanatically successful football coach’s tumultuous week. Robert Trexler smoothly navigated Vince Lombardi’s blazing bluster, lashing guilt and stoic logic. Ryan Patrick Allen’s tenacious magazine writer had the right combination of stiff spine and stiff arm. Lori Colacito gave Lombardi’s wife a winning weariness, wariness and wisdom. Director Bill Mutimer coached an exceptional game, making sure dynamics were dynamite in locker room, bar room and living room.

The Humans. Civic Theatre of Allentown offered a seamlessly naturalistic, gently engrossing version of Stephen Karam’s fly-on-the-nose view of a troubled family’s not-so-thankful Thanksgiving. Rachel Williams radiated poignant pain as a daughter mourning losses of job, love and health. Pat Kelly was remarkably flexible as a father scarred by a near 9/11 disaster, shifting carefully between ashy optimism and cheery desperation. Director Will Morris conducted a sublimely magnetic score of mundane and momentous notes, spoiled only by a tediously long nightmarish finale. n

Ship. Famed Orbiter 5 organizer and playwright Douglas Williams and Azuka Theatre’s Artistic Director Kevin Glaccum join forces for a story of a Connecticut woman looking for a one-time classmate who tried and failed to grow the longest fingernails in the world and hopes to become a tour guide at her neighboring seaport. My guess is that this looks something like Blue Velvet, but I’ll wait and see to pass such judgment. Either way, both Williams and Glaccum are expert storytellers when it comes to the subject of ‘the outsider,’ so…. (Azuka Theatre at the at The Drake, 302 S. Hicks Street, through March 15)

The Agitators . Beyond Black History Month, any word on the quietly incendiary author, activist, statesman, and educator Frederick Douglass is a good word. Together with original Caucasian suffragist Susan B. Anthony, in playwright Mat Smart’s The Agitators, Douglass crafts the American Dream in their rebellious image, whether in total agreement or defiance of each other’s vision. Starring Charlotte Northeast and Steven Wright, expect fire and rage on the stage on Theatre Horizon. (Theatre Horizon, 401 DeKalb Street, through March 22)

Oedipus el Rey . Directed by writer and actor Tanaquil Marquez from a script by playwright Luis Alfaro, Oedipus el Rey is a fresh and frenetic LatinX twist on the classic Greek tragedy, as played out in prisons, real and imagined. As this is the final show of Teatro del Sol’s 2019-2020 season, expect Marquez’s crew to go all out with abandon. Teatro del Sol at the Bob and Selma Horan Studio Theatre at the Arden, 62 N. 2nd Street, March 7–22)

Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles . The four men who dress up and play Fab Four songs have been doing this for over three decades by this point—far longer than the Beatles themselves did likewise—and are creating concepts set to go beyond the original material. For this live stage showcase, Rain pays tribute and lends focus to Abbey Road, so expect long hair rather than mop tops and bell-bottoms rather than tight suits with Nehru collars. (Merriam Theater, 250 S Broad Street, March 13–15)

Les Misérables . Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Tony Awardwinning musical based on the Victor Hugo legend is depressing and slow, yet somehow victorious and reminiscent of why the resilience of the human spirit always works on stage. Bring your French flag. (Academy Of Music, 240 S Broad Street, March 17–29)

Set It Off: Live On Stage. In 1996, Vivica A. Fox), Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett—before she became Will Smith’s wife, and Pinkett Smith—filmed a taught and thrilling drama that changed the game for women criminal masterminds. Take that Oceans 8. Now actor/director Je’Caryous Johnson brings the bank heist, urban cult classic on stage in an action-packed rendition with rappers Lil Mo and Da Brat, The Cosby Show’s Keshia Knight Pulliam, Drew Sidora, and Leon. Just wow. (Merriam Theater, 250 S Broad Street, March 26–28)

Pee Wee Herman’s 35th Anniversary. Considering that the Los Angelino comedian and actor started off as a performance artist, and his Playground was, in reality, a Gary Panter-esque mess of mazes, colors and swirls, yes—this is as much a theatrical event as it is a comic one. (The Met Philadelphia, 858 N Broad Street, March 27)

Twelfth Night. Philly’s first time crack at Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub’s musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s legendary romantic comedy about mistaken identity comes courtesy the Jenkintown Music Theatre with a new original dazz-disco funk-jazz score from Taub. I’m in. (The Kuykendall Auditorium at Jenkintown HS, 285 West Avenue, March 27–April 4) n