Death by Chocolate poster Sock & Buskin Theatre Company’s 2026 Valentine’s Day murder mystery party was Stefanie Austin and Kari Williamson’s Death by Chocolate, which I saw as part of the dress rehearsal mock audience. This type of semi-scripted performance is difficult to do, especially with a smaller audience, since so much of the show …
Continue reading Stefanie Austin and Kari Williamson’s Death by Chocolate—5 Feb. 2026
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
Rhinoceros program Apart from Shakespeare, one of the first genres of drama I really fell in love with was theatre of the absurd, and so when Penn State’s school of theatre announced that it was opening the 2025-26 season with Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, I was thrilled to see what they’d do with it. Under the …
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
And Then There Were None program This weekend I saw the State College Community Theatre’s (SCCT) production of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None directed by Eli Beers-Altman and assistant directed by Joe Appel. Our story begins with eight very different house guests, eccentric in their own ways, arriving at an isolated mansion situated …
Continue reading Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None – 13 Sept. 2025 by Andi Stout
Giant promotional poster I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant, performed at the Harold Pinter Theatre under the direction of Nicholas Hytner. It was the play selected by this year’s Comparative Drama Conference, and I attended on a ticket through the conference. Since I don’t know much about Roald …
Poster for Merry Wives of Windsor It was a wonderful coincidence when Shakespeare’s Globe posted their 2025 summer season, because they were doing Merry Wives of Windsor, which I had already decided to teach for my Literary London course. This followed them doing Richard III in 2024, while I was teaching that play. It was …
Continue reading William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor—5 July 2025
I saw Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution roughly one year ago in the London County Hall, under the direction of Lucy Bailey both times. My previous review (which includes a plot summary in the second paragraph) is available here: https://phillipzapkin.com/2024/06/13/agatha-christies-witness-for-the-prosecution-12-june-2024/. It’s interesting to see a trial play twice, because you no longer have to …
Continue reading Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution—1 July 2025
Poster for Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is one of those plays that is incredibly famous, but also quite easy to hate: because so many of us are forced to read it in school, because so many people think of this story of teenage angst and suicide as the ultimate love story, even …
Continue reading William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet—29 June 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 …
Phillip Zapkin 