Toby Zinman

Toby Zinman has been reviewing theater for The Inquirer since January 2006; she's the Philadelpha reviewer for Variety and a frequent contributor to American Theatre magazine.

Her “day job” is professor of English at the University of the Arts, where she was awarded the prize for distinguished teaching. As an academic, she has published widely and lectured internationally on contemporary American drama.

A Fulbright professor in theater at Tel Aviv University, she also has received five grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been invited to be a visiting lecturer in China. Her third book, on Edward Albee’s plays, is set for 2008 publication by the University of Michigan Press.

Her third career, as an adventure travel writer, has taken her all over the world.

"The Light in the Piazza" stars Sherri L. Edelen as Margaret and Whitney Bashor as her daughter Clara, traveling in Florence. When Clara fallsin love, Margaret is torn by her secret that Clara is brain-damaged.

Lovely musical on love and risk

By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

Posted 11/20/2009

'Reader, I married him." Is there a fantasy dearer to the female heart than Charlotte Brontë's long-suffering governess finally marrying the lord of the manor?

Paul Kuhn, in the cast of Conor McPherson´s "The Weir."

Ghost tales at an Irish pub

By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

Posted 11/09/2009

There's no pub like a Conor McPherson pub. The Irish playwright's award-winner, The Weir, is being given a superb production by Curio Theatre under Gay Carducci's direction. If you have a taste for ghost stories and great gabbers, pull up a chair and listen.

'Hunter Gatherers' is farcical frolic with friends - 11/06/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

Wife enters, carrying flowers and vegetables in a Trader Joe's bag. She asks, "How fresh does the lamb have to be?"
Do you really want to take a chance on this 'Mamma Mia!'? - 11/05/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

What's left to say? Unless you've been hermiting on Mars, chances are you've seen Mamma Mia! on stage, or heard the score, or seen the movie. Or all of the above. Multiple times. The cheesy touring production at the Academy of Music was my third MM, not counting the delish movie. As my date for the evening said, when he heard my teeth grinding: "It is what it is." He's deep, this guy.
Austerity, grandeur absent - 11/02/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

"Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished." This odd first line of Endgame seems to end the play just as it begins. But then it undoes itself, getting less finished as the sentence goes on. So it goes: Just when you're really fed up, just when it seems things couldn't get worse and might actually, finally end, you find you're only in the middle. Again. Endgames - in chess, politics, or life - can be very long. Onstage, too.
A formulaic family tragedy that soothes - 10/30/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

Sometimes it's obvious why a play wins the Pulitzer Prize. Rabbit Hole, by David Lindsay-Abaire, currently at the Arden Theatre and directed by James J. Christy, is a cathartic crowd-pleaser: Waves of compassion flow toward the stage, nods of understanding in the dark. I was waving and nodding too, in Act One.
The funny side of horror - 10/26/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

Screaming. Blood. Impalements. Meat hooks. Electric drills. Objectified sexy women. Crazy mother in wheelchair. Whaddya expect? It's a slasher movie.
An old comedy delights - 10/21/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

Under Nicholas Martin's clever direction, the McCarter Theater's production of She Stoops to Conquer: Or, The Mistakes of a Night is, simply, delectable. The 18th-century comedy by Oliver Goldsmith is entertaining and spirit-lifting and altogether a pleasure.
Macbeth meets Simpson in a one-man show - 10/16/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

The wildly talented Rick Miller, the man of a million voices, wrote my review for me. Near the end of his 70-minute show MacHomer, his bizarre take on Shakespeare's Macbeth combined with The Simpsons, Homer, also known as the bloodthirsty, doughnut-hungry MacHomer, pretends to read a review about himself from a newspaper: " 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' The Inquirer. Stupid rag."
A tired, shopworn Cirque - 10/15/2009: Even a high-flying trapeze act fails to lift a leaden "Alegria" staged indoors.

By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

Cirque du Soleil is back in town, although not under its usual blue-and-yellow big top on South Broad Street. Its new, temporary venue is the cavernous Liacouras Center, Temple's basketball arena, with too many unfilled seats and an atmosphere entirely lacking in festivity and whimsy.
Fugard sequel to 'Valley Song' at the Wilma - 10/10/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

South African playwright Athol Fugard's new play Coming Home will start previews Wednesday and launch the Wilma Theater's season a week later. A sequel to 1995's Valley Song, it takes up the life of Veronica, who as a girl years before left her grandfather's farm in South Africa's Karoo region to seek fame and fortune as a singer in Cape Town.
An overlong skit about parents trying their hand at swinging - 10/09/2009: By Toby Zinman, For The Inquirer

Same time, next year. Remember that 1978 movie about two people who met for sex once a year, every year, unbeknownst to their spouses?