Lantern Theater Season Preview

The Lantern Theater, located in St. Stephen’s Church, 10th and Ludlow Streets, recently had a lovely season preview event featuring the theater’s education director and the directors of each of the season’s upcoming plays as well as some of the actors in these plays. Education Director Craig Getting enthusiastically described the education programs in the city serving 3000 students, many in the form of in-school residencies.  The programs help students to tell classic stories in their own ways to better understand the original version. Teachers are also being trained and given tools to teach these theater units on their own.

Photograph 51 was presented by director Kathryn MacMillan and actors Geneviève Perrier and Harry Smith. The director informed the audience that she had been in touch with the playwright daily. The show has just opened in London and the playwright has made some changes but MacMillan felt those changes were not suitable for the Lantern. The Lantern’s production will be unique. The main character, Rosalind, is a Jewish female scientist in a man’s world. She is responsible for the discovery of the helix of DNA.  Geneviève Perrier dedicates her performance to her Jewish grandmother who was a dentist in France. Smith portrays Morris Wilkins, an incredibly intelligent young man who is socially inept and doesn’t understand how people work.

Underneath the Lintel- will also be directed by Kathryn MacMillan and Peter DeLaurier will reprise his Barrymore award winning performance.  DeLaurier’s character is a librarian who “dances on the edge of personality disorders.”

Oscar Wilde: From the Depths- Director Craig Getting interviewed playwright Charles McMahon.  McMahon mentioned that in writing The Importance of Being Ernest, Oscar Wilde was writing about his own life.  Wilde also went to prison as a result of a libel suit which he knew to be erroneous.  The question is why?  Perhaps McMahon answers that question and others in his play.

As You Like It- Charles McMahon is the director and J Hernandez the represented actor. McMahon described Shakespeare’s play as one with a lot of jokes and as series of reversals. Consider the  two main characters.  One sees the world as it is and it liberates him.  The other sees the world as it is and it depresses him.

36 Views – by playwright Naomi lizuka, Director Peter DeLaurier and designer Jorge Cousineau. This is a study of what’s true and what’s false.  It uses the metaphor, what is true Asian art? What do we value? What happens when a person whose habitual response to relationships is avoidance finds himself in love? This has been described as a “profoundly unusual play.”

The preview was fascinating. All five shows are bound to be intriguing. For more information, visit online at www.lanterntheater.org or call 215-829-0395.