Mark Cofta’s July theater picks

Over the past decade, several theater companies producing outdoors have become well-established, professional organizations that we can rely on for innovative summer entertainment.

Commonwealth Classic Theatre Company began in 2005 aiming to produce free classics — mainly, but not exclusively, works by William Shakespeare — in area parks. Their production of Tartuffe (July 8-23), their second Molière after 2010's The Miser, tours to twelve parks in Philadelphia and nearby suburbs. Director Allison Heishman's cast includes J Hernandez in the title role of the duplicitous monk and Barrymore Award-winner Amanda Schoonover as wise and wisecracking maid Dorine.

I love that Commonwealth does not limit itself to Shakespeare, but I have no problem with the companies that do. One is the Delaware Shakespeare Festival, which premiered in 2003 at Wilmington's Archmere Academy and since 2006 has performed on a lovely lawn outside the Rockwood Park mansion. Artistic Director David Stradley directs The Comedy of Errors this summer (July 15-31), with a cast including Philadelphia's Sean Close and Danielle Lenee.

Shakespeare in Clark Park is also well established, producing free Shakespeare annually in the West Philly park's spacious bowl since 2006. This year's The Two Gentlemen of Verona (July 27-31) continues the tradition started with Henry IV (2014) and The Winter's Tale (2015) of involving community members, with director Kathryn MacMillan incorporating a troupe of community swing dancers. SCP's productions by rule run about 90 minutes without intermission, timed to end as the sun sets.

All three companies promote a casual atmosphere and audience comfort (though they can't do much about the heat and humidity, other than distract us with great performances), and their productions tend to be accessible and family-friendly, yet also innovative and distinctive. I bought myself a nice lawn chair just for these companies!

PlayPenn and other worthy premieres

PlayPenn's annual conference (July 5-24), at its new home at the Drake, features two free staged reading performances each of six plays in development, including Philadelphian Lauren Feldman's Another Kind of Silence. Artistic director Paul Meshejian's annual schedule of readings, classes, and a symposium is for aspiring playwrights and theater audiences in general. This year, PlayPenn reaches 100 plays developed through weeks of intensive rehearsal work with professional directors, dramaturgs, actors, and designers.

1812 Productions offers the first JillineFest (July 11-15), a festival of solo performances by women celebrating the 10th anniversary of their Jilline Ringle Solo Performance Program. Ringle was a beloved and talented performer who created her own wonderful solo "concept cabarets," billing herself as the "six-foot redheaded Amazon from Hell whom all men desire." She passed away much too young in 2005 at age 39 and is memorialized by this program, which includes a cabaret night hosted by Mary Martello and performances of new work by local theater artists Jessica Bedford, Hallie Martenson, Tracie Higgins, Caroline Dooner, and Mary Carpenter.

New City Stage Company's new drama Roseburg (July 9-31), timed to coincide with the Democratic National Convention, is written by Ginger Dayle and features Russ Widdall as Senator Robert Kennedy in a play that connects Kennedy's 1968 gun control speech in Roseburg, Oregon with the mass shooting at a local college there last year. Why are we still arguing about this, the play asks, and when will the killings cease?

Cast members of Two Gentlemen of Verona unwind before hitting Clark Park. (Photo by Kyle Cassidy.)