Mark Cofta’s December theater picks

This December’s theater, apart from the holiday offerings, is surprisingly robust, with decidedly nonseasonal plays. Aside from more choice being better, it shows a strong community that’s seizing every opportunity the calendar provides to produce good theater.

Bald Soprano, Hedda, a world premiere, and more

Playwright Emma Goidel’s A Knee that Can Bend (through December 20) is the second production from Orbiter 3, a group of young playwrights who formed a company to produce their own plays. Goidel’s world premiere follows a student studying gays in Africa who’s drawn into Dakar’s queer underground. Her play Local Girls will be produced by Azuka Theatre Company, February 24-March 13.

Curio Theatre Company ventures into Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium territory with Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist classic The Bald Soprano, adapted by Tina Howe and directed by the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective’s Charlotte Northeast (through December 19).

Perhaps December’s darkest play — and a rarely seen classic, running at the historic Physick House in Society Hill — is Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (December 10-20), produced by the new Laurel Tree Theater Company and starring Curio and Hedgerow veteran Jennifer Summerfield.

Any remounting of a Pig Iron Theatre Company show is a rare treat; they often tour, but don’t perform here nearly enough. To coincide with the company’s 20th anniversary and the First World War’s 100th, they bring back Gentlemen Volunteers (December 10-27) with a new cast directed by Dan Rothenberg performing “promenade style,” in which the audience follows the action around a big open room.

Also playing is the Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio on 3 production of Becoming Dr. Ruth (through December 27), Mark St. Germain’s one-woman biographical play about the beloved sex therapist (here’s Naomi Orwin’s review).

Music, pizza, and Sherlock

Delaware Theatre Company’s Diner the Musical (extended through January 3) is yet another musical based on a movie, but the creative team gives me hope. Barry Levinson directed the iconic film about young friends coming of age in 1959 Baltimore and writes this show’s book. Grammy winner Sheryl Crow pens the music and lyrics, and Kathleen Marshall, a three-time Tony Award winner, directs and choreographs.

Tiny Dynamite’s A Play, A Pie, and A Pint returns with a remounting of David Greig’s Being Norwegian, running December 11-13 in the First Unitarian Church Chapel. PPP features one-act plays, usually about 45 minutes, served at dinnertime with a (pizza) pie and a pint (of soda or beer).

Busy composer Michael Ogborn (the People's Light pantos, 11th Hour's hit last season Field Hockey Hot) premieres The Three Maries: A Philadelphia Phable (December 15-January 10) at the Prince Theater. Ogborn's inspiration is the 1926 visit to our fair city by Queen Marie of Romania, and Mummers. Director Peter Rios's cast includes Jeffrey Coon and Mary Martello.

Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville, a hectic five-person Sherlock Holmes mystery continuing at the Philadelphia Theatre Company in a production by Arena Stage and the McCarter Theatre (see reviews of the current show by Dan Rottenberg and Gary Day; here’s my review of the McCarter run), plays through December 27.

Holiday improv

1812 Productions mounts an all-new, changes-every-night This Is the Week That Is, their news parody show about local and national politics. This enduring tradition is always worthwhile because they don’t allow it to become stale, but do reprise some characters and bits, like Dave Jadico’s “man on the street” interviews and Jennifer Childs’s adorably gruff Patsy from South Philly. (Through December 31.)

1812 also reprises Improvukkah: Improv for the Holidays (December 14 and 15) with veteran improv actors. The show might be about Hanukkah, depending on the audience suggestions they use in each performance.

Tongue & Groove Spontaneous Theater presents its own brand of improv on the second Friday of each month. Their Secrets show (December 11) will have a holiday theme, in that the secrets the audience anonymously shares to inspire long-form improv should concern confidential doings during the holidays.

Consider it a stocking stuffer for an exciting month of theater! For a special roundup of holiday shows for everyone, from Christmas Carol to burlesque, click here.