“Life is a Dream” at Egopo Classic Theater, “Personality” at People’s Light’s Leonard C. Haas Stage, and “POOL” at Kelly Natatorium – March theater openings in Philly.
In a post-Covid Philly, bookings are moving so fast, it’s almost impossible to catch each and every show. Live theater in particular seems to be running at the fastest pace to get its actors on stage and its playwright scribbling.
To start, there is the EgoPo Classic Theater company’s world premiere adaptation of author Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream. Currently, in preview at South Philly’s Theater Exile space, the show opens March 18 and runs until March 27.
Barrymore Award-winning local director and writer Brenna Geffers has adapted this highly politicized “Spanish equivalent to Hamlet” with Colombian author Felipe Vergara and promises that this multidisciplinary showcase, choreographed by Hassan Syed, is vivid, visceral and immediate. “Right now, more than ever, we need this live communication across the proscenium that can challenge our norms and provide an alternative way of thinking. By creating an image of a new reality (a dream), theater can set the stage for true societal change,” said EgoPo Artistic Director, Lane Savadove in an email.
Also, world premiering in the Philadelphia area is the story (and songs) of the man behind “Stagger Lee” and countless R&B classics with Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical.
Written by Jeffrey Madoff and directed by Sheldon Epps with Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of The Temptations and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, star Saint Aubyn as Lloyd Price, People’s Light’s Leonard C. Haas Stage is running this jam until April 3, and promises as much unknown history (I didn’t realize he owned his own label) as it does, a funky clunky soundtrack.
“His will to succeed, believing in himself, knowing he had a special gift and then making it happen. With all the obstacles that came across his path, this story feels like a testament of being a Black man in America,” wrote Aubyn in an email.
Coming up at the top of next week is one of the season’s most hotly awaited immersive, multi-disciplinary theater events-installations, whatever you want: POOL: A Social History of Segregation.
This look at the racial divides of swimming pools to-and-for-all, and, of course, touches on all things socially just and unjust as well as who makes the decisions to allow access to the most natural of elements: water. Opening at the Kelly Natatorium below the Fairmount Water Works on March 22, World Water Day, this nearly-5,000 square-foot installation created by Victoria Prizzia was to supposed to open last autumn, but was held up due to inclement weather. Worth the wait, POOL features text from Philly playwright James Ijames and the voice of Black Olympic gold medalist Simone Manuel.
Do this.
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