Your October guide to Philly-area theater

Mt. Airy’s Quintessence Theatre Group opens its season with Jen Silverman’s Witch (Sept. 30-Oct. 25 at the Sedgwick Theater). A riff on the classic Jacobean thriller The Witch of Edmonton, Silverman’s new take concerns the Devil meeting his match when he infiltrates a sleepy English village and matches wits with the town outcast. Frank Jimenez plays the demonic figure, here called Scratch, while Suli Holum takes the role of his adversary. Maura Krause directs. Look out for Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer’s review.

Playwright Bess Wohl bagged two of the theater world’s biggest prizes in quick succession earlier this year. In May, she received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Liberation, which explores a woman’s journey to understand her mother’s role in the feminist movement of the 1970s. A month later, the play won the Tony Award for Best Play. If you missed its Broadway engagement last fall, Liberation will have its local premiere at Philadelphia Theatre Company (Oct. 9-25 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre). Taibi Magar directs a cast that includes Juliana Zinkel, Lee Minora, Campbell O’Hare, and Ciera Gardner. A co-production with Baltimore Center Stage, the production moves to Charm City in January 2027. Look out for my review.

Suzan-Lori Parks’s 2002 Pulitzer winner Topdog/Underdog is getting a major co-production from People’s Light and the Arden. It’s onstage in Malvern through October 18, and then moves to the Arden’s Arcadia Stage (Oct. 29-Dec. 13) in Old City for the second leg of this first collaboration between the two companies. The production stars Akeem Davis and George McGriff as two brothers bound together by generational trauma, crippling codependence, and the specter of Abraham Lincoln. Audiences who saw Parks’s The America Play at the Wilma earlier this year (here’s the BSR review) might be interested to delve deeper into her fascination with the long shadow of the 16th president, and particularly how it impacts contemporary Black lives. The prolific Amina Robinson directs. Look out for the BSR review in November.

Speaking of collaborations: last year, Azuka Theatre and Simpatico Theatre announced a merger, bringing both companies together under the leadership of Allison Heishman. Their season begins with the premiere of #Charlottesville (October 13-November 1), a solo show written and performed by Priyanka Shetty. Actor and writer Shetty came to the United States to pursue an MFA at the University of Virginia, and she was later struck by the open displays of white supremacist violence that befell the city she called home in August 17. Her verbatim piece draws on scores of interviews with city residents in the aftermath of those events. Yury Urnov directs. Look out for a review from Alaina Johns.

Those seeking thrills around Halloween should head out to the suburbs. In Rose Valley, Hedgerow Theatre presents William Goldman’s popular adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery, directed by Catharine Slusar (October 14-November 1). Of course, it’s hard to top the iconic, Oscar-winning performance Kathy Bates gave as the unhinged Annie Wilkes, who holds her favorite writer hostage as she demands a satisfying end to her beloved series of romance novels—but Emma Gibson will certainly put her own spin on the role. In a fun twist, prolific local playwright (and occasional actor) Bruce Graham appears as the novelist, Paul Sheldon, who finds himself trapped in a nightmare he could never have fictionalized.

Also later in the month, Philadelphia Artists’ Collective and Theatre Ariel offer a rare opportunity to catch Israel Zangwell’s The Melting Pot—one of those important plays more discussed than staged (running October 21-November 8). The title coined the controversial term, and the play chronicles a Russian Jewish immigrant who longs to transform his new homeland into an ideal pluralistic society. Adapted and directed by Theatre Ariel’s Jesse Bernstein, the play draws upon the promises, both real and imagined, in the shadow of this year’s Semiquincentennial celebrations. I’m looking forward to seeing what does and doesn’t resonate for a 2026 audience, and how the production uses the Arch Street Meeting House as a non-traditional performance space. You can look for my review in a few weeks.

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