Mark Cofta’s November theater picks

November offers several one-person plays, joining Curio Theatre Company's excellent one-woman adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale (through November 22; click here for our WNWN interview and here for my review), and a few large musicals for the family.

Solo shows

Lantern Theater Company revives Glen Berger's Underneath the Lintel (November 5 - December 6), with Peter DeLaurier playing The Librarian, for which he won the 2003 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play. Director Kathryn MacMillan's production is new — not restaged, but completely reimagined. Along with last season's QED, which also starred DeLaurier and played at Lantern in 2006, this idea of remounting past plays seems odd, but my trepidation is trumped by the simple fact that both provide DeLaurier's superb performances again.

A resident actor at Malvern's People's Light since 1981, DeLaurier has been a Lantern regular as an actor and director, and directs this season's closer, 36 Views. In Underneath the Lintel, his character receives a tattered Baedeker's travel guide in his Dutch library's overnight slot — 113 years overdue. He embarks on a worldwide journey to find the person who checked out the book to collect the fine, telling his tale in a lecture he calls "An Impressive Presentation of Lovely Evidences." He’s due for next year’s Barrymore Lifetime Achievement Award.

This month's other one-person show is the Walnut Street Theatre's Independence Studio on 3 production of Becoming Dr. Ruth (November 17 - December 27). The real-life Ruth Westheimer just released another book, The Doctor Is In: Dr. Ruth on Love, Life and Joie de Vivre.

Mark St. Germain, a prolific playwright focusing recently on historical characters (Freud's Last Session, Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah), has the famous sex expert tell her own story about fleeing the Nazis, serving as a scout and sniper in Israel, and finally moving to America. Jane Ridley plays Westheimer, born Karola Siegel. Becoming Dr. Ruth played off-Broadway in 2013, starring Debra Jo Rupp (the mom on TV's That '70s Show).

Crowds on stage: Family and holiday shows

November also sees the region gearing up for the holidays, which means family fare. Did you see the Christmas merchandise and decorations hit stores last Sunday, November 1?

The stage celebration starts with Watership Down, under the Simpatico Theatre Project's collaboration with Drexel University's theater program (November 4 - 22), an adaptation of Richard Adams's 1972 novel about rabbit society. Aaron Cromie codesigns with director Allen Radway and also creates the show's puppets; the cast is a mix of students and professionals.

The Walnut Street Theatre's mainstage holiday musical is A Christmas Story, The Musical (November 10 - January 10), yet another film made into a Broadway musical. Did the world need this (or Legally Blonde or The Wedding Singer)? Maybe not, but we love these tuneful retreads, and I guess watching the 1983 film on an endless loop Christmas day just wasn't enough. The show, by Joseph Robinette (book) and composer-lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, played two years on Broadway and earned a slew of Tony Award nominations.

The area's other huge family holiday show is People's Light's annual panto, a revival of The Three Musketeers (The Later Years): A Musical Panto (November 18 - January 10). Kathryn Petersen and Michael Ogborn have revised their 2010 hit, and Peter Pryor directs. They elevate the English panto tradition with their accomplished resident company, led by the incomparable Mark Lazar as The Dame, and add impressive guest actors Dito van Reigersberg and Robert Smythe to the high-energy, all-ages romp.

And that’s just the beginning of the holiday theater season!