Theater in the Round (Up): Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Inis Nua sings a ‘Lovesong’, InterAct goes for a ‘Climb’

Despite local companies shutting down their annual season programming in May, Philadelphia’s theater creatives are bringing plenty to the stage in June.

Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

The Professional Theatre at DeSales University will host the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, now in its 33rd season, through Aug. 4. Co-leading artistic directors Jason King Jones and Casey William Gallagher, working on a self-given theme of “Persistence of Love,” have an impressive line-up of plays and musicals that might not seem Shakespearian, but are, nonetheless, epic and poetic in their own way.

Take, for example, the production of ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ — by Brits Henry Lewis, Henry Shields and Jonathan Sayer — which is filled with manic-panicked action, absurd comedy and local actors and directors (Jennifer Childs, Sean Close, Melanie Cotton, Scott Greer, Justin Jain, Tony Lawton, Eli Lynn, Karen Peakes, and Ian Merrill Peakes) falling down and hurting each other.

Following ‘The Play Goes Wrong’ is playwright, composer and Ariana Grande collaborator Jason Robert Brown’s ‘The Last Five Years,’ about two aspiring artists falling in love in New York City, telling their stories backwards and forwards. Along with its handful on non-Shakespearian work (such as ‘The Color Purple’ musical and a Winnie the Pooh play for all-ages), The Bard is fully represented by ‘Cymbeline’, ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ and ‘The Comedy of Errors’.

“We hope the ‘Persistence of Love’ season fosters empathy and ignites meaningful conversations through the medium of theatre,” wrote Jason King Jones, the PSF’s Artistic Director.

Lovesong

‘Lovesong’ by playwright Abi Morgan is one of the those ultimately mournful stories of lifelong, complicated romance that will hold you captive with its passionate and inventive brand of intimacy, as it spans one relationship — all of its joys, peculiarities, foibles and tragedies over the course of 50+ years — within two and a half hours’ time.

What that means is having its two central characters in old age “encountering their younger selves in vivid, living memories.” And that takes real craftspeople such as those at Inis Nua Theatre – producing Artistic Director KC MacMillan doubling up for ‘Lovesong’ as its director – with Mary Martello and Kirk Wendell Brown playing the couple in its maturity, along with Taylor Congdon and Gabe Moses playing Maggie and Billy in their youth.

“’Lovesong’ is a funny, beautiful Welsh play, and it is an expression of the kind of work audiences will see from Inis Nua under my leadership,” wrote MacMillan.

‘Lovesong‘ will be on stage June 5 to 23 at the Louis Bluver Theatre at the Drake.

The Climb

Brooklyn-based playwright C.A. Johnson and beloved Philadelphia theater creative Catharine K. Slusar (here, as director) bring the heated codependency of artist and model/muse to new heights in ‘The Climb.‘

Yes, InterAct and its producing artistic director Seth Rozin usually build its tensely suspenseful drama from politically-themed and more worldly socio-conscious driven work. ‘The Climb’, however, is no less strained or socially aware in its telling of two people’s story of intimacy (played by actors Sam Rosentrater and Ciera Gardner), and interconnected personal addictions “while reckoning with the impact of relentless objectification and the white gaze that have defined their relationship.”

Slusar writes, “With any play, my interest begins with the questions, and I am excited about those posed by ‘The Climb’? Are photographs the truth? … Photography tells a story about its subject, and defines it for us. What happens when the subject wants to tell her own story, and no longer wishes to be defined?”

The Climb is running now through June 23 at The Proscenium Theatre at The Drake, and if you get there before June 6, there’s free ice cream from Scoop DeVille with a signature flavor created just for the show.