Students shine on Philly stages: Shakespeare to the Rocky Horror Show

Last Friday, I ventured to Drexel University’s black box theater in the URBN Annex for From Beneath It Lurks, a new play loosely based on some H.P. Lovecraft horror stories.

Like a lot of college productions, this had a short run — five performances in four days — and little advertising. But I saw that Adrienne Mackay, the Swim Pony Productions artistic director, conceived the show with the campus group Co-op Theatre Company, and I’ll gladly see anything she directs.

From Beneath It Lurks, scripted by Carl Roa and performed by an up-for-anything student ensemble, skewers the teen horror film trope. Recent graduates show up for a high school reunion at, naturally, a cabin in the woods. Is each a broad stereotype? Yes. Are they soon cut off from the outside world? Of course. Is there something icky in the basement? You know they’re going to check.

This inventively produced low-budget silliness playfully mocks modern gore by featuring only some mildly gross blood-spitting and a scene of messy mutilation with, of all things, cottage cheese.

Yuck. And hilarious. And yuck.

I’m going on about a show you can’t see — unless they revive it next Halloween, or maybe produce it in the Neighborhood Fringe next September — to point out that college theater can be fun, creative, and satisfying.

A modern Macbeth

Villanova Theatre welcomes back Professor Emeritus and Barrymore Lifetime Achievement Award winner James J. Christy to stage Macbeth (November 10 – 22). Villanova’s professional-quality productions feature graduate students and professional designers, including John Bellomo staging the play’s violence. Rather than presenting the oft-told tale as a period piece, Christy's Macbeth occurs in something like the modern world; moreover, his casting of 7 men and 7 women means that some traditionally male roles won’t be.

The University of the Arts undergraduate (BFA) program also hires well-credentialed directors. Barrymore winner Matt Pfeiffer (for Theatre Exile’s The Whale, also named Outstanding Production of a Play) stages the romantic comedy Twelfth Night November 18 – 22 at the program’s sadly underused Arts Bank Theater at the corner of Broad and South Streets.

Beyond Shakespeare

UArts is showcasing its graduating students more, such as senior Matthew Bantock, who directs The Rocky Horror Show (November 6 – 14) in their Caplan Studio. The campy cult classic began as a stage show before the iconic movie. Audience participation will be encouraged, and the run includes several 11pm performances that should be extra wild.

Temple University Theaters produce a full season of plays, continuing with John Guare’s A Free Man of Color (November 11 – 22), a satirical drama set in tumultuous early 1800s New Orleans, which changed greatly when the United States purchased “Louisiana” — actually, the entire Mississippi River basin — from France. Douglas Wager’s cast is all graduate students with professional experience, such as K.O. DelMarcelle, nominated for two supporting actress Barrymore Awards this year.

Other area schools, such as Bryn Mawr College, Arcadia University, and West Chester University, also produce plays well worth seeking out. They don’t always advertise them outside their campuses, but visitors are welcome, and treated to a wide variety of quality shows at low prices. Check them out.

Editor’s note: Alaina Mabaso is a graduate of the theater program at Arcadia University.