Promotional poster for Last Night at Black Hollow Kari and Stephen Williamson have written a murder mystery party scripts, a genre which has become a periodic fundraiser for Sock & Busking Theatre Company. Unlike a typical play, which is fully scripted and generally involves minimal audience interaction, the murder mystery parties have relatively brief scripted …
Continue reading Kari and Stephen Williamson’s Last Night at Black Hollow—24 Oct. 2025
Night Watch poster I’ve seen a good amount of professional theatre and university theatre, and both seen and been involved in a good number of community theatre productions. But I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a show as well executed as Sock & Buskin’s production of Lucille Fletcher’s Night Watch, directed by Stefanie Austin. …
Continue reading Lucille Fletcher’s Night Watch—20 Sept. 2025
Program for The Crucible Arthur Miller’s classic anti-McCarthyite play The Crucible is widely regarded as one of the most important plays of the twentieth century, taking a stand against the injustice that comes with authoritarian injustice and religious fanaticism. But it’s also a deeply problematic play. And the choice by Shakespeare’s Globe to put it …
Love, Loss, and What I Wore program The Gamble Mill and Sock & Buskin Theatre Company co-sponsored a staged reading of Nora and Delia Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore—adapted from Ilene Beckerman’s novel—as a charity performance to raise money for Out of the Cold Centre County, which is a shelter. The production was …
Continue reading Nora and Delia Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore—17 Apr. 2025
Slain at the Speakeasy program Kari Williamson and Nate Schierman’s Slain at the Speakeasy is a full-length play developed out of an original semi-scripted murder mystery party script by Stefanie Austin, so this is definitely an in-house project for Sock & Buskin Theatre Company. Although this version was based on the original, the full-length production—directed …
Continue reading Kari Williamson and Nate Schierman’s Slain at the Speakeasy—23 Mar. 2025
Poster for Hoarding Michael Bérubé’s new play Hoarding premiered at Tempest Productions, directed by Cynthia Mazzant (who also starred). The performances were and the script is an emotionally powerful journey through a difficult mother-daughter relationship, strained by both physical and emotional distances and by the traumas and tribulations each character has experienced. The play focuses …
The playbill for the Cutthroat Christmas staged reading This performance was a staged reading of Kari Williamson and Stefanie Austin’s play Cutthroat Christmas, as a kind of prelude to the upcoming sequel Cutthroat Christmas: Deadly Deals. This original script had received a full production two years ago, and this read through was basically done so …
Continue reading Kari Williamson and Stefanie Austin’s Cutthroat Christmas—4 Dec. 2024
The playbill for John Proctor is the Villain Going into Penn State Theatre’s production of John Proctor is the Villain the first time, I was concerned that a play born out of the #MeToo movement might become didactic—basically an essay on stage. But I was pleasantly surprised by the complexity and passion with which Kimberly …
Continue reading Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor is the Villain—16 and 19 Oct. 2024
State College Community Theatre’s production of Ken Ludwig’s The Game’s Afoot, directed by Kerry Clancy-Burns, had some strengths as a production, though overall it was not the best show I’ve ever seen. There were many positive aspects—especially individual performances, most of which were excellent. But there were some technical issues that undercut the show. To …
Continue reading Ken Ludwig’s The Game’s Afoot—13 Sept. 2024
Back to the Future: The Musical Show Poster I’m not really a musicals person, especially in the West End/Broadway style of musical, so Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future: The Musical (with music and lyrics by Allan Silvestri and Glen Ballard) is not normally the kind of show I would seek out. …
Continue reading Back to the Future: The Musical—27 June 2024
Phillip Zapkin 