Imagine the dryness in your mouth, the knot rising from your stomach and the stiffness of your tongue when knocking on a stranger’s door to tell them their son or daughter, husband or wife, is dead. Your starched green Army dress sends a signal. If the stranger is next of kin to someone in the service, they might already know the content of your message before you can say, “The secretary of the Army has asked me to inform...

A play featuring little more than two characters in a single room could easily lose an audience’s attention, even if the two characters are based on Jason and Medea and the room is in Purgatory. Despite the inherent challenge, Next Act captivates theatergoers with its latest production, featuring David Cecsarini and Angela Iannone in Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio...

Galleries throughout the city offer an eclectic array of artists this week. This surprising mixture of creativity begs to be seen at least once and will provide interesting topics of conversation to help warm a February night. Above the Historic Third Ward Starbucks on Water Street, Cedar Gallery provides an exhibition curated by former gallery owners Jessica Steeber and Cassandra Smith...

For William Faulkner, destiny was a grim piper, forcing humanity to dance like puppets to the tune of a broken instrument. Swarthmore English professor Philip Weinstein sets out to find the melody linking the dour tone of the great writer’s fiction with the dour facts of his life. Becoming Faulkner is a compact biographical analysis that benefits...

Distinguished opera composer Dominick Argento once said to me, “The characters in The Marriage of Figaro are so rich, in both text and music, that I know them better than I know my own family.” There are plenty of reasons to see the new production of Mozart’s opera (sung in English) at Skylight Opera Theatre. Bill Theisen’s direction keeps the characters clear and the complex story moving forward...