“The Melting Pot” is a play written by Israel Zangwill that was first performed in 1908. Yes, 1908. It is the story of David Quixano, a young Jewish composer who flees from Russia after surviving a pogrom in 1903 that has wiped out his family. He flees to New York City where he hopes to “fit in.” After all, isn’t America the place where all races are melted down and can start anew?

But the play doesn’t begin with his flight to America. It begins with David (Adam Galloway) at the home of his Uncle Mendel (J. Hernandez) in New York in 1908. The young man is a talented violinist, who will eventually play in the orchestra of the prominent, Herr Pappelmeister. He is also composing a symphony celebrating America as a country who welcomes and accepts people of all nationalities and religions. And then, he meets Vera (Lexi Thammavong), who he falls for. She is also from Russia, but she is Christian.

Mendel isn’t the only one to frown upon his nephew’s attraction for the Christian girl, Vera (Lexi Thammavong). Quincy Davenport (Eli Lynn) wants the girl to himself and smears David with antisemitic comments.

Is America a melting pot where all can blend in? In fact, Zangwill popularized the use of the expression with this play. But it is so much more we discover when Vera’s father arrives and David learns that the man was largely responsible for carrying out the pogrom in Kishinev, where David’s family was wiped out five years before.

President Theodore Roosevelt was at the New York premier of the play and loved it calling it a “great play.” I thought it was a good play, but I had some issues with it.

I’m not a big fan of plays that are filled with lengthy monologues as “The Melting Pot” is. I like to see more of the drama rather than being told about it in a lecture. I can’t say much about the acting since they didn’t do much beyond the reciting of their lines. And they were dressed in contemporary clothing, so we had little feeling for the times. This is important stuff, given the conditions about immigrants today. It was adapted by the director Jesse Bernstein who told me he only shortened it. Was it more tedious in the original? I wonder.

Also, the venue at Arch Street Meeting House, a historical Quaker building, consisted of several rows of backed wooden benches where it was challenging to sit comfortably. Perhaps that was the reason for the choice of this venue. We’re not supposed to feel comfortable.

“The Melting Pot” by Israel Zangwill at Theatre Ariel and Philadelphia Artists’ Collective being performed at Arch Street Meeting House, 320 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106, 610-667-9230, Info@TheatreAriel.org thru November 8, 2026 

It’s hard to believe that Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula,” was written in 1897! This classic has been made into four different films over the years and manifested itself in other genres. Now, Bristol Riverside Theatre is bringing to its stage a new version (Off-Broadway debut in 2023) of this tale of vampire fiction, a funny version with outrageous humor and crazy characters. It’s titled “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors.” In fact, there is very little terror at all.

Jonathan Harker (William Bednar), a fast-talking solicitor, goes to Transylvania to see his client, Dracula (Davey Miller), who wants to move to England. Aided by Harker, he arrives in a town with a variety of odd characters. And Dracula wants to possess them all in his own way.

Four actors portray more than a dozen characters in this gender bending farce. Mina (Danny Vaccaro) is a sex-starved daughter of Dr. Wallace Westfield (Brenny Campbell). She lusts after Dracula who toys with her. Her younger sister Lucy (Laura Cable) is engaged to Harker and rejects Dracula at first, but he keeps trying to seduce her. Dr. Wallace Westfield (Brenny Campbell), father of Lucy and Mina, is played by a woman, and ironically, he is a male chauvinist who has no respect for women doctors. He will summon a vampire hunter eventually to deal with Dracula.

My favorites in the play were Danny Vaccaro, who plays both Mina and the woman doctor/vampire expert and Miller as Dracula. Vaccaro is both farcical and real. And I can’t say enough about Miller- sexy, strong, determined, and a most modern vampire. When he was on stage, I felt engaged, which I didn’t feel for much of the show. And it was not because of the acting- the small ensemble was very good.

The play itself by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, a farcical version of the classical story is quite silly- tons of jokes. Some of them are funny, but many are not. And although the play is only 90 minutes long, it felt like it was longer. The costumes were great, but I could find no name in the program to give credit.

Comedy is a very personal thing and what one finds funny, another does night. It was not my style of humor and I didn’t laugh often. I noticed that lots of people in the audience wore sober expressions like mine.

Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen at Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe St., Bristol, PA 19007, 215-785-0100, brstage.org,  thru October 25, 2026

Women’s Liberation. We all remember the term. This is a story about that movement, as it deals with so many of the issues from the 1970’s and 50 years later- identity, motherhood, work, and marriage to name a few. Lizzie is trying to figure out things regarding her late mother’s life in a women’s group as she goes back in time to the Ohio town where she lived in a most unique sort of memory play. I was looking forward to seeing “Liberation” as it had already won the Pulitzer Prize for best drama and the Tony award for best play in 2026. I loved the themes it was exploring but am sad to say it didn’t measure up to all the hoopla for me.

Lizzie (Juliana Zinkel) wants to understand her mother’s role in the liberation movement and imagines she has gone back in time and is interacting with six women as they meet in a consciousness-raising group on an empty, indoor basketball court. Each of the women has her own story and reason for being there and I loved them all.

Margie is a housewife who is unhappy with her do-nothing husband. Susan is a gay Jewish woman living in her car with her pet bird. Celeste is a Black feminist Radcliffe grad who has moved home to be with her sick mother. Isadora is an Italian immigrant who married a man to get her green card; she doesn’t like him. She is an aspiring film maker. Dora wandered into the meeting accidentally, thinking it was a knitting group, but stays to get advice on many subjects. It has all the ingredients for a fascinating play as Lizzie moves back and forth in time and we see her connection to all the issues women are confronted with.

There were many clever suggestions that the women make- an artificial womb so women wouldn’t be so tied to the baby, to avoid marriage, a world-wide strike of women so men realized how important women are. So, what was my problem?

Playwright Bess Wohl injects too much silly humor into her writing, and it undermines the gravity of her work. Director Taibi Magar didn’t provide much drama in the spitting out of the lines, and it often became tedious to listen to. I asked myself if I had problems with it because I was a man, but the woman who accompanied me said that she was underwhelmed by the show and didn’t particularly care for it. A woman we met at the reception after the show said it was good but not very good.

The subject of this play is important. It’s about liberation from men and the male society they created. And while all the actors were excellent, the story lines were all over the place and it was hard to stay focused. And it became even harder when it shifted times as well as when women characters played more than one role. But who am I? Certainly not one of the voters for the Pulitzer or the Tony awards.

“Liberation” by Bess Wohl at Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe St., Bristol, PA 19007, 215-785-0100, brstage.org,  thru October 25, 2026

What is a fact? I thought I knew. I believed everything my teachers taught me in school. I believed all that I read in a newspaper. Opinions were reserved for the editorial page. Facts were facts and couldn’t be changed… or could they?

“The Lifespan of a Fact” explores a story of a teenager who committed suicide in Las Vegas as written up by a noted writer. Jack (Adam Howard), an intern at the magazine and a recent Harvard graduate, is assigned the task of fact checking the writer’s story and he finds lots of discrepancies. The first one is a simple one- he says in the essay that there were 34 strip clubs in Vegas instead of the 31 that the fact checker, Jim, discovers. It turns out that the writer, John (Ian Merrill Peakes) has an affinity for certain numbers, and he has changed many in his piece.

Emily Penrose (Karen Peakes) is Jim’s supervisor at the magazine, and she is the one who told Jim to “confirm every detail” in John’s essay. She had no idea he would discover so many discrepancies. And she is a very anxious person herself. Now she is in the middle of the grappling between the two men because John’s 15-page essay will sell lots of magazines for the company which is struggling to stay afloat. But if people or companies sue them for inaccurate facts, it will go down.

As for John, he argues that facts get in the way of the story. He lied about other deaths that day including another suicide in his essay. Big stuff and small stuff- he knows no boundaries.

Meanwhile, Jim is a stickler for details, His spread sheet is over 130 pages and includes a challenge as to the number of seconds it takes to fall 1149 feet, the distance the teenager fell when he jumped from the tower of the hotel. John wrote 9 seconds because he likes that number. Jim argues that it takes 8 seconds. And lest I forget, he is most passionate in his arguments. There are so many disputed points and in less capable hands, they might become tedious. But Director Matt Pfeiffer has done such an impeccable job in guiding these three wonderful actors, that we are constantly wondering what will come next. Will either of the men retreat?

I saw this play three and a half years ago at another Philadelphia theater. It was directed by Pfeiffer and Ian Merrill Peakes performed the same role. I came away liking only  parts of it. But this production is great. Peakes repeats his fine performance but in this production, he has Karen Peakes and Adam Howard to play opposite, and they are so passionately real. Is it the actors? Did the director do something different? I don’t remember. All I know is that this play came alive, especially in today’s times where we feel lied to by the people in power. Whatever it is, this production is a must see!

“The Lifespan of a Fact” by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, ane Gordon Farrell at Act II Playhouse, 56 E. Butler Avenue, Ambler, PA 19002, 215-654-0200,  act2.org   Thru November 8, 2026

Two African-American brothers are struggling with work, women, and poverty, as they share a small, one room living space. Their names are Lincoln and Booth. Their father gave them those names as a joke. He left when the boys were 16 and 11. Their mother left two years earlier. They raised themselves. It is now some years later and Lincoln’s wife has recently thrown him out, which is why he lives with his brother. And Booth is trying to learn three-card monte so he can hustle money on the streets.

Topdog/Undrdog, by Suzan-Lori Parks, premiered in New York in 2001. When it moved to Broadway, Parks got the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year for the play. In 2023, it won the Tony for Best Revival of a Play.  People’s Light has brought to its stage this often-produced play. Co-produced by Arden Theatre, it is directed by the outstanding Amina Robinson and is powerfully performed. It sure to be in the running for a Barrymore Award.

The brothers clearly care about each other even thought they constantly bicker. Lincoln (Akeem Davis) was a card hustler before he got the job at an arcade as a whiteface impersonator of Abraham Lincoln. But his job is in jeopardy because the arcade is talking about replacing him with a wax replica of Abraham Lincoln. At the arcade, people pay to relive the man’s assassination, and they fire a gun with blanks at him, and he falls “dead” on the floor. Booth suggests he act out the death more dramatically than a wax model can ever do.

Meanwhile, Booth (George McGriff) has no income. He is an adept shoplifter who is trying to learn what his brother did before taking on the job at the arcade- becoming proficient at three-card monte, a sleight of hand card game where the player is tricked into losing money. He is constantly practicing and trying to get Lincoln back to playing it also.

There is much talk about the women- Lincoln’s wife Cookie who threw him out and Grace, who Booth desperately wants so badly that he lies to his brother about the success of the relationship, though she constantly rejects him.

And then, there are the stories about their parents- powerful, moving stories that left the boys feeling empty and unloved. Parks is a wonderful storyteller, and you will be engrossed. And I can’t say enough about Amina Robinson’s direction. With Akeem Davis and George McGriff, they have recreated this compelling drama, brilliantly!

I saw the final preview before the opening. I’ll bet it gets even better.

“Topdog/Underdog” by Suzan-Lori Parks” at People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, PA 19355, 610-644-3500, peopleslight.org  Thru October 18, 2026

“Summer, 1976.” With a title like that, anyone over 65 today immediately tries to recall what he or she was doing then. I don’t even think that the theme of the Bicentennial enters one’s thoughts at first. The play by David Auburn presents us with two women who meet because their young daughters are in the same babysitting co-op. They couldn’t be more different.

            Diane (McKenna Kerrigan) is a meticulous, opinionated, rigid artist who teaches art at Ohio State in Columbus. Alice (Grace Gonglewski) is the pot smoking, hippy wife of a man teaching math at the school. In one summer, they connect. And they talk about their lives as their differences erode and they become friends.

            We learn about their relationships with men. We learn how they got pregnant. We learn of the cooperative system of childcare established by Alice’s husband, Doug and see its advantages and flaws. And we see the maladies of each- Alice’s allergies and Diane’s migraines. We hear about Merle, the grad student under Doug who is painting his house and learn of his interactions with the women. And we watch as Alice and Diane squabble and the friendship cools.

It is the life story of two women in the summer of 1976. But this can take place any time in the past 50 years, though I expect it would have greater appeal to boomers like me. These are two tales of two women who in their own way are a bit lost and seeking something they cannot define. And while they seem to come together during that summer, the question we ask of ourselves is- do they really?

In fact, of the 90-minute play, they don’t spend 1/3 of it talking to each other. Rather, it is a series of reflections upon their lives and dreams. But they tell it to us, the audience. The play is a series of long monologues. They talk and talk, but they don’t show us what they feel- they tell us, while standing in front of a collection of Artist Paul Klee’s painting on glass. While every word was meaningful, I had to work to stay focused and I noticed a few in the audience with their eyes closed.

The costumes worn by each didn’t reflect the era. The set, with nothing more than chairs, a bench, and a small table in front of the Klee backdrop, didn’t provide me with anything to look at. McKenna Kerrigan and Grace Gonglewski are superb actors, but this play by David Auburn didn’t provide opportunities for Director Kate Galvin to do a lot with the telling of the stories. On the other hand, it is powerfully strong to listen to and would make a great podcast. “Summer, 1976” by David Auburn at Lantern Theater Company at St. Stephen’s Theater, 923 Ludlow St., Philadelphia, PA 19107. 215-829-0399   lanterntheater.org   thru October 11, 2026

1812 Productions is kicking off its 30^th anniversary season with a world premiere production of a show that will change every night. Yes, it’s improv which they bill as a new musical adventure. These are the Final 4.

Each night, they ask the audience for bad musical titles, a strong emotion, and a one-syllable word, and then, the cast of five and a pianist/music director improvise songs and scenes. The audience votes on the best, which the cast then creates a 30- minute version of,  for the second act.

            I am not usually a fan of improv, but in the past, 1812 has blown me away with so many creative and hilarious shows that I was curious on how they would handle a piece like this, with no script. And I discovered when I saw no asterisks next to the names in the program, I realized that none of the actors were equity. Well, that didn’t make a difference. They were all great and clearly knew how to respond to prompts from the audience and from each other.

            It is about a contest where four different plays are vying for top spot and a performance. We watch as the actors act out the “scripts” that the audience recommended and the actors created. Four teams perform based upon the cues from the audience. The music shifts . It’s unbelievable! How can they be SO good. Then we vote as the group of four plays finally dwindles to a winner.

            The host of the contest is Kristin Finger. That’s her real name as the actors in this production are only called Performer. She moderates and every night there will be different pieces and different prompts and different winners.

            In the second act, they act out the winning piece in a half hour. It is more linear, though the amazing lines they come up with are as good as any prescript. Finger joins the other four (David Dritas, Kelsey Hebert, Eliana Fabiyi, and Mykey Carpenter) in the play. And then there is Jay Rosen, the Music Director and pianist. He is improvising as well. He must figure out when to come in to support the actors in song.

            I’m not going to tell you which piece they selected and performed in the second act. There’s no purpose to that since what you will see will be completely different from what I saw. I will say this- I liked the first act but loved the second act. In the opening act, they went for the silly comedy often. There was a lot of laughter from the younger people in the audience. The older crowd was laughing more in the second, more poignant act.

            This is a most unique piece of theater. It’s about memory. It’s about love. It’s about feelings. Mary Carpenter and Jennifer Childs, who created it, also directed it. I would have loved to watch the rehearsals. How can they prepare? So much brilliance on so many levels!

“This Should Never Be A Musical: An Improvised Reality Show” Co-Created by Mary Carpenter and Jennifer Childs at 1812 Productions, at ArdenTheatre Company’s Arcadia Stage, 40 N. 2^nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106, 215-592-9560, info@1812 productions.org   Thru September 27, 2026

After his sold-out engagement of “Monsieur Chopin” at People’s Light last year, Hershey Felder is returning this year with a new piece about another legendary pianist/composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff. I knew little about Chopin’s life before seeing the musical drama and I knew less about Rachmaninoff’s. So naturally, I Googled him. “Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music.” I also read that he fled Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, when Tsar Nicholas II was killed. I wondered what Felder had created.

            “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” is a memory play of the great Russian composer. But it is not real memory since he is on the edge of death in 1943 and is on heavy drugs. But neither would I call it merely hallucinatory. Felder has created a piece that tries to express Rachmaninoff’s dreams, his thoughts, his regrets, and his life as he tries to come to grips with his life as a composer and his life as a Russian. Though he is in California and has been in the U.S. for 25 years ago, he wrestles with his thoughts with Tsar Nicholas II, assassinated during the Russian Revolution, who he confronts as the reason his life evolved the way it did.

            We learn a little of his life. Born in 1873, he was playing the piano by the age of 4. His two older sisters died when he was a child- one from diphtheria, the other from anemia. His father was a gambler and a skirt chaser who deserted the family. Sergei studied music at various institutes. He was a masterful pianist but loved composing even more and at 19 years of age, his works began appearing on many great stages.

            We learn all of this because he is telling it to the tsar, on stage with him throughout the play. And then, he lashes out at Nicholas for screwing up Russia so badly that a revolution changed the country and altered Rachmaninoff’s life.

            We get a brief history of the Russian Revolution and the tales surrounding Nicholas’s daughter, Anastasia, who turns up a few years after she supposedly died with her father. Is it real? Is any of it real? There is a lot of history. There is also a lot of what Felder thinks Rachmaninoff was feeling when he was unable to compose and he was seriously depressed. It is most creative!

Nicholas is just a foil for Sergei, who blames his lack of productivity on the tsar after fleeing Russia. There is lots of story in this hour and forty-five-minute narration- so much story that I wish there was an act break, so I could digest it all. I felt the same way about his Chopin story. That was a solo show and to be frank, this play didn’t need the presence of another character on stage to tell the story. Nicholas (Jonathan Silvestri) just sat there for so much of the play, listening to Rachmaninoff go on and on.

            And lest I forget, this is a musical play. Felder is a fine storyteller, who not only wrote the play and portrayed Sergei Rachmaninoff, but also performed the man’s music. Though I didn’t know the pieces, it was exciting to watch him perform. And my friend Pamela, who accompanied me to the show, told me she was blown away by the music (she knew his music).

            Felder is a master storyteller. He is an extraordinary pianist. “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” will entertain you and educate you at the same time.

“Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” by Hershey Felder at People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, PA 19355, 610-644-3500, peopleslight.org  Thru September 20, 2026

Although I was a young child when Dwight Eisenhower was President of the United States, I remember him rather well. I can visualize him. And I have seen the fine actor, Tony Lawton in at least a dozen plays over the years. Could he portray the 34^th president and make me believe him? Yes, and yes again!

It is 1962, two years after Eisenhower has departed from the oval office. When he left the presidency at the age of 70, he had been the oldest president in the 170 years of that office. He read an article in the New York Times where 25 historians ranked the presidents and called him mediocre, placing many insignificant presidents above him. He is furious as he talks to the editor of the memoir he is working on. What follows is 90 plus minutes of recollections of his life as he records them on tape.

We get to know so much about the man, from his childhood to his years at West Point, to his marriage and the death of his little son, to his promotions and the D-Day invasion. We see how he made the decision to run for President as a Republican to stop isolationist Robert Taft, even though Eisenhower was courted by the Democrats four years earlier. We watch as he relates what he did or tried to do when he was President, his views on race, his dealing with Joe McCarthy.

As much substance as there is in this piece, it’s more about the feelings he experienced rather than just the political or military acts themselves. After all, he feels rejected. And he reflects on what his accomplishments were and even what he did NOT do though pushed by other Republicans. He believed in social security and a minimum wage. He sent Federal troops to Little Rock to escort a Black girl into school. He is responsible for the construction of the interstate highway system. It’s mind boggling how much is packed into this one man show, written by Richard Hellesen!

Lawton is outstanding in relating what were probably the feelings of this 72-year-old icon. I say probably since the play was constructed with the information garnered from Eisenhower’s memoirs, speeches, and letters. But it is a fictional portrait of a man. How did he feel about sending soldiers off to their deaths? From this narrative, very much.

How great was he? That is for posterity to decide. It is most interesting to see how Eisenhower rose in greatness in the eyes of historians over the next decades after he died. There is much to learn from this most informative show which is accompanied by projected photos on the back wall of the people and times he is talking about. I learned a lot of history as well as a lot about Eisenhower’s personal life. He wanted to be a baseball player. He wanted to go to the Naval Academy. So much fascinating stuff! A learning experience for the young who did not know “Ike,” it is certain to absorb anyone who did.

“Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground,”  by Richard Hellesen at Act II Playhouse, 56 E. Butler Avenue., Ambler, PA 19002, 215-654-0200,  act2.org   thru September 13, 2026

For the first time since I have been reviewing theater, there were two productions of the same show that I saw in the same season- the second of which was 11 weeks after the first. The show is “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” a spirited musical review based on the music of the legendary Fats Waller. Theatre Horizon performed it in May, and it was outstanding. The production mounted on the stage at People’s Light was just as great!

            This is not a traditional musical. Created by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Murray Horwitz, it is a collection of more than two dozen songs that were created during the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance. Black people were limited in what they could and could not do, even in the North. They couldn’t even play the sports they were so good at. What resulted was an outpouring in the arts, created by and for the people they lived near. And the music they created was so extraordinary that whites often went to Harlem to hear it.

            There were many musicians in Harlem and Fats Waller was one of the best. The show, “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” was named after one of his more famous songs.  There are many songs created by this composer as well as other composers in the show, that was produced in 1978, thirty-five years after his death,

            It is not a musical story in the traditional sense. The show, which has been playing around the world for almost 50 years, is a musical review. We don’t meet Waller. What we see are five incredible singers singing powerful songs about love, about challenges, about different relationships. On stage is a pianist accompanying them in a beautifully understated performance. And then, after four or five songs, the curtain opens to reveal the 6-piece band that was also accompanying the singers.

            The first time I saw the show, I was taken with the grandeur of the costumes, the lighting, and the dances, but what impressed me most were the singers. The ensemble of five is just as powerful in the People’s Light production. In fact, local singer, Chabrelle D. Williams was in both productions! She joins a cast that has performed around the country. This is a co-production with Arkansas Repertory Theatre. I found out that the connection was Artistic Director Steve H. Broadnax III, who wrote and directed many plays for People’s Light before he took the reins at Arkansas Rep. What he put together for “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is nothing short of perfection.

            Besides Williams, I feel I must name the others in this great ensemble- Tawanna Campbell, Candace Thomas, Dorse Brown (who also choregraphed), and Marcus Allen Jordan (who was the associate director). What talent!

            I think the reason I loved it so much is that I got so much pleasure watching the ensemble beautifully singing so many great songs that I knew, while listening to the lyrics so exquisitely expressed- it was sheer poetry at its finest!

The music, the singers, the lyrics, the staging- I’m sure you will have your favorites too, but I guarantee you will love them all.

“Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show” A musical revue with a book by Richard Maltby Jr. and Murray Horwitz with music by Fats Waller and others at People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, PA 19355, 610-644-3500, peopleslight.org  Thru August 16, 2026