Howard Shapiro

Howard Shapiro joined The Inquirer in 1970 and has held many writing and editing positions, including cultural arts editor and travel editor. He now writes for The Inquirer’s features section.

His “On Travel” column appears occasionally on Sundays in Travel, and his theater reviews appear in the Daily Magazine and Weekend.

Find his podcasts with theater artists at http://go.philly.com/theater

Email Howard at hshapiro@phillynews.com

A wave of new theater ideas hits an old Shore resort

Roy Steinberg, after successes in New York and Hollywood, is bringing energy and professionalism to Cape May Stage.

By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted 06/26/2009

CAPE MAY - On Tuesday, as the lunchtime sun finally lit Cape May and beachgoers began toting their chairs to the sand, the cool, dim interior of the theater at the edge of town was a hive of activity. The preview performance of Cape May Stage's Say Goodnight Gracie was a night away, and there were final director's notes to make, umpteen lighting cues to be refined.

Spencer Plachy (left) as Jefferson, Richard Pruitt as Franklin, and Richard B. Watson as Adams.

A spoiler, of course, but '76-spirited

By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted 06/23/2009

When things get serious in the quirky musical 1776 - now in a spirited Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival production that forces you to overlook the show's silly buffoonery - the tension is high and the audience hooked.

A welcome spark for small theaters - 06/18/2009: By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

A small Philadelphia theater company called Hotel Obligado folded in December - which ended up, oddly, being good news. After producing offbeat and new work for eight years, Hotel Obligado closed with a surplus of about $5,000 - which has become its legacy, funding the city's newest theater prize, the Hotel Obligado Audience Choice Award for New Work. A $1,000 chunk of it
Doing their own thing - 06/12/2009: By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

To see or not to see? Should Ceal Phelan, playing the role of the insufferably righteous Sister Aloysius in the People's Light & Theatre Company stage version of Doubt, check out Meryl Streep's take on the same character in the recent movie?
Same name, different game - 06/11/2009: Like her great-grandfather Ike, Jennie Eisenhower is used to the spotlight. But hers is on the stage.

By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

The first thing you notice, of course, is the performance. The tall woman with the dazzling smile, malleable face, and ability to pull off a sort of physical comedy that even she calls "a little reckless" fully commands a stage. If she's in a musical, she can envelop a house with a soprano voice that carries hints of a sultry mezzo.
All of Shakespeare, mixed up in a well-blended shake - 06/10/2009: By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

"Speak the speech, I pray you," Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, and also wreck the words, mangle the meaning, destroy the delivery, and slash the syntax. OK, so the Bard never wrote all that. And his Hamlet didn't ask a troupe of actors to "speak trippingly" while actually tripping.
Watching himself on stage - 06/02/2009: As a teen, Jerry Torre befriended two eccentric women living in a decaying mansion. On Friday, he watched an actor portraying him in "Grey Gardens."

By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

What's it like to sit in a theater and watch a stage version of yourself - and of others who are only characters to the audience but are very real to you? For 54-year-old Jerry Torre, on Friday night at Philadelphia Theatre Company's Grey Gardens, it clearly was touching, a revisit to a treasured part of his formative years.
Literary-slaughterhouse plot not quite prime - 06/01/2009: By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

Virtually nothing makes much sense or rings true in Kathy Anderson's new play, The Meatpackers Book Club, all the worse because it's not one of those plays that's supposed to make no sense.
Imbuing art with fact - 05/29/2009: By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

When playwright Michael Whistler arrived for a session with Wyndmoor family therapist Abby Ruder earlier this year, it was hardly your typical hour - more like four. And Whistler didn't even have personal issues that needed a going-over.
Revue on marriage combines charm and smarm - 05/29/2009: By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

I don't know, maybe it's just me or maybe it's the times, but I sure could use an evening of 100 percent unadulterated charm. And I've found one. Let's Pretend We're Married, a creation of the two major-league talents who star in it, is a delight as much as a surprise.
Compelling 'Brother/Sister' tales - 05/25/2009: By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

Partly spiritual, very funny and altogether grabbing, Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet is the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale by Tarell Alvin McCraney - at age 29, a master storyteller and one of the American theater's boldest, brightest new voices.
'The Seafarer' rights itself after an unsteady start - 05/22/2009: By Howard Shapiro, Inquirer Staff Writer

A drawn-out night of boozing and poker-playing on Christmas Eve - what a hell of an idea. And may the devil be with you. In Conor McPherson's inventive, invective-strewn The Seafarer, which opened Wednesday at the Arden, four men celebrate with a stranger in a way that hardly conjures Santa slipping down their Dublin chimney for a yummy glass of milk. Jamison's, maybe.