The Pay What You Can Season was a huge success.
The Tattooed Lady
The Tattooed Lady, a developing new musical from Max Vernon and Erin Courtney, along with director and co-developer Ellie Heyman, is coming Fall 2022! A mini-documentary about the making of the musical is here: watch the teaser or watch the 20-minute documentary.
The new musical has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Read more HERE.
The Tattooed Lady will be introduced to our audiences in a 30-minute mini-documentary called “The Tattooed Lady: Make Your Mark.” This mini-doc reveals what it’s like for a creative team to make a new musical during “pandemic times.” Featuring a mix of behind the scenes collaboration, musical segments from Joe’s Pub, and other surprises from Philly artists, this teaser will make its mark on audiences, and show you why we were so excited to commission these artists.
The story of The Tattooed Lady highlights one of sideshow’s biggest stars, Ida Gibson, in a moving, fantastical tale that reveals the ultimate bond between mother and daughter. Featuring a parade of beguiling characters with both visible and invisible marks, the musical celebrates the resilience of women whose choices have the potential to liberate them. The Tattooed Lady is a musical meditation on beauty, perversity, shattering of taboos, and a woman’s right to control her body and choose her destiny.
The Tattooed Lady will be Philadelphia Theatre Company’s first commission under Artistic Director Paige Price’s leadership. Here’s the show page.
Conversation Series: “PTC Call Time”
PTC is hosting a series of digital conversations with Artistic Director Paige Price, Resident Artist Jeffrey Page and other artistic influencers from across the city and country in response to social, economic and artistic themes that have emerged during the current pause in production. As part of our commitment to facilitating crucial and inventive civil discourse and elevating voices most affected by systemic racism and a corrupt criminal justice system, we hope to make these conversations one of the most exciting elements of the 2020-21 Season.
The next PTC Call Time was Monday, July 19th, at 7pm. Our special presentation called NEW VOICES, featuring the Terrence McNally runners up Lori Felipe-Barkin, Jarrett McCreary and Paige Zubel, who appeared live to talk to our audience about their work and plays. Excerpts were read by actors (via zoom) and the evening was, of course, free to the public. WE WILL OFFER AN ENCORE OF THIS PRESENTATION IN FALL 2021.
Our first conversation was February 1st, 2021 and you can now watch it on YouTube at your convenience. Special guests are Catherine M. Cahill, President and CEO, The Mann Center for the Performing Arts & LaNeshe Miller-White, Executive Director, Theatre Philadelphia.
See & Be Scene
See & Be Scene showcases selections from several plays and musicals under consideration for future seasons. See & Be Scene will invites our audience members to offer feedback in response to the excerpts presented throughout the event.
New this season, the Company is exploring ways to use the See & Be Scene platform to highlight some of the Philly playwrights who submitted work to the McNally New Play Award. Stay tuned for a one-time-only digital July event showcasing New Voices in Philly!
(Currently, we’re planning for SEE & BE SCENE to be back (in person!) in December, 2021. Stay tuned for updates.
Sponsored by
New Voices Sponsor
Season Sponsor
Fund the Future
Philadelphia Theatre Company needs your support more than ever. We are working hard to provide artists with opportunities to work during a time when their livelihoods have been devastated.
Help us come back strong when it is safe to bring our artists and audiences together.
We are dedicated to creating virtual programming not only to create opportunities for artists and but also to provide you with an opportunity to stay close to us while we’re apart.
Thank you for your generosity!
If you need to reach us for any reason, please call the main office number at 215.985.1400.
Staff is working from home but will respond as soon as possible. Please be aware that there may be some delays.
Previously this season…
Jeffrey Page Projects
The 2020-21 season welcomes Jeffrey L. Page as PTC’s Resident Artist. Jeffrey has two things to share with us this spring: a film he directed called MAKING MICHEAUX, and weekly appearances on WURD radio’s new one-hour segment STAGE DOOR, part of THE SOURCE with Tiffany Bacon. Jeffrey, Tiffany and guests will talk about theatre, arts, culture and current events. (Fridays at noon, 96.1FM and 900AM)
MAKING MICHEAUX is a 15-minute whirlwind jazz-musical-on-film about the first major Black filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux. Set in 1918 Chicago, Oscar Micheaux stands at a turning point in his life: Facing down a world which denies him a place in the narrative, what path will he take? PTC shares the original production by Prospect Theatre Company in New York.
Page—an opera and theatre director as well as choreographer —was the first African American to be named Marcus Institute Fellow for Opera Directing at the Juilliard School and has been nominated for an Emmy. Read more…
Stage Door on WURD is sponsored by
New Voices Sponsor
Making Micheaux is sponsored by
The Return of The Terrence McNally New Play Award
On April 30th at 7pm we announced the new Terrence McNally Award winner, Donja R. Love for his play What Will Happen to All That Beauty? As part of Philly Theatre Week, Donja appeared to discuss his play, his early time as a teaching artist at PTC and his current projects. We also we introduced the amazing Philly-based writers that comprised the 11 finalists. In 2021, PTC will present a virtual reading of work by the 2021 Terrence McNally New Play Award winner and will also offer dramaturgical support to our PTC Playwriting Fellow Paige Zubel for her submission Actually, Honestly Going to Fucking Die. Honorable mentions went to Jarrett McCreary (Dirt, Ash, Dead Tree) and Lori Felipe-Barkin (Flor Underwater).
During its first iteration, the Terrence McNally New Play Award recognized new plays that celebrated themes central to McNally’s work; social justice, queer rights, and the transformative power of art. The McNally Award, as reimagined, follows the original spirit of the awards, but is now awarded to a Philadelphia playwright, promising to further the Company’s commitment to artists, developmental theatre, and equitable opportunities for years to come.
Supported by
Gayle & David Smith
Dr. Peter H. Arger in memory of Donald S. Wilf
Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves: A Virtual ‘Staging’
Sarah DeLappe’s Pulitzer-nominated The Wolves concluded its run December 20th. (Read: How ‘Wolves’ and ‘Heroes’ Are Saving Pandemic Theater – Jesse Green, New York Times). This lauded play, which won the 2017 Obie Award for Best Ensemble and was named ‘Best of the Decade’ by The Hollywood Reporter, follows nine young women from a variety of backgrounds, training together on a competitive high school soccer team. With just a few weeks to go until nationals, the pressure is on.
Taking place across nine weekend practice sessions, the pack of warriors at the heart of The Wolves push and train for their games while navigating a growing understanding of their complicated world. A coming-of-age story that tackles everything from Harry Potter to the Khmer Rouge and from ambition to abortion, The Wolves is about life, love, and loss on and off the Astroturf. READ MORE…
SPONSORS
Actor fees for The Wolves are generously supported by The Charlotte Cushman Foundation.
Kilroys@PTC new play initiative is supported by The CHG Charitable Trust & Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation
Sinclair Lewis: It Can’t Happen Here – October 13-November 8, 2020 EXTENDED TO NOV 13TH!
By Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen, adapted from the novel by Sinclair Lewis
Sound design and music by Paul James Prendergast
Directed by Lisa Peterson
In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can’t Happen Here, a novel that imagines the rise of fascism in America and reads like it was ripped out of today’s headlines. Shortly after, Lewis wrote a play by the same name for the Federal Theatre Project. Lewis’s ability to imagine what had seemed unimaginable and then suddenly became very real showed a remarkable understanding of the power of the darkest forces in our country.
PTC joined 100 theatres across the nation in presenting the Berkeley Rep production for free, as a way to use our theatrical tools and collective reach to get out the vote. READ MORE…
Here’s the broadcast link to YouTube. Available through 11.13.20