Author Archives: burdreviews

When I heard there was a play called “Primary Trust,” I figured it was about some sort of financial arrangements that have to do with a will or estate. As I know little about that stuff, I googled it and discovered that the play I was going to see by that name won the PulitzerContinue reading “Primary Trust at Philadelphia Theatre Company”

            Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike by Christopher Durang is a smart comedy that won many awards including the Tony Award for best play in 2013. It revolves around middle-aged single siblings living in the Bucks County country house where they took care of their parents before they died.             Vanya, 57, isContinue reading “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Bristol Riverside Theatre”

            The night before its opening, I received an invitation to go to Souderton, PA to see a play by Deborah Zoe Laufer, “Be Here Now,” at Montgomery Theater. Normally, I wouldn’t respond to such a last-minute invite that is at a theater where I don’t usually review their plays. But I had seen anotherContinue reading “Be Here Now at Montgomery Theater”

Tom Stoppard’s first full length play, “A Walk on Water,” was staged in 1964. Two years later, he gained worldwide fame with his play, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” about two minor characters in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”  Besides the two dozen plus plays he’s written, Stoppard’s adapted lots of plays and books for film and televisionContinue reading “The Real Thing at Lantern Theater Company”

With the summer upon us, I hadn’t seen a play in six weeks as many theaters took a hiatus. So, I was glad that Act II Playhouse’s first play of the 2025-26 season had a show on its intimate stage in Ambler in August. “Theatre People” is a play by Paul Slade Smith, author ofContinue reading “Theatre People at Act II Playhouse”

“Little Shop of Horrors” is defined as a horror, comedy, rock musical when I Googled it. The original movie opened in 1960. Then, it was turned into a musical which opened off-off Broadway in 1982 before it moved to off-Broadway where it ran for five years. After that, the musical was made into another filmContinue reading “Little Shop of Horrors at People’s Light”

“Small Ball” is a new musical about sports but it’s not your usual musical. It doesn’t have the grandeur of “Damn Yankees,” that famous musical of the 1950’s. Rather, it is a quirky story about a basketball player who winds up on an island called Lilliput, where the people are six inches tall. The coachContinue reading “Small Ball at Philadelphia Theatre Company”

“Franklin’s Key” is billed as a thrilling sci-fi adventure weaving Philadelphia history, science, discovery, and magic.  Pig Iron Theatre is presenting the world premier by Dan Rothenberg and Robert Quillen Camp at Plays & Players Theatre. We all know the story of how Benjamin Franklin flew a kite with a key attached in a lightningContinue reading “Franklin’s Key at Pig Iron Theatre”

James Baldwin wrote the novel,” Giovanni’s Room” in 1956.  It is about an American man in Paris, waiting for his fiancé. He meets an Italian man named Giovanni, which brings back all the homosexual feelings he had growing up. The novel deals with sexual identity, masculinity, and bisexuality long before it was in mainstream literature.Continue reading “Giovanni’s Room at Quintessence Theatre”

            Chelle is an artist who grew up in Baltimore in a slum across the street from a park where she just learned that they have removed the statue of Robert E. Lee.  Specializing in installation art, she applies for and receives a grant to create something to replace the Confederate Civil War monument. InContinue reading “Glitter in the Glass at Theatre Exile”