The Philadelphia Theatre Company (PTC) is a theater company located

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. It was founded in 1974 as The Philadelphia Company by Robert Hedley and Jean Harrison. Since October 2007, PTC's home has been the new Suzanne Roberts Theatre on the Avenue of the Arts. This move concluded its 25-year residence at the historic

Plays and Players Theatre Plays and Players Theatre, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is one of the oldest professional theater companies in the United States, founded in 1911. The theater building was designed and constructed in 1912 by Philadelphia architect Amos W. Bar ...

History

The Philadelphia Theatre Company was founded in 1974 by Robert Hedley and Jean Harrison. Soon thereafter, Sara Garonzik joined the company, eventually rising to the position of Producing Artistic Director. Joined in 1989 by General Manager Ada Coppock, Garonzik led the company to local and national prominence for her commitment to premiering new American plays. Together, Coppock and Garonzik built the Philadelphia Theatre Company into a commercial and artistic success, allowing them to eventually spearhead the building of a new home for the Philadelphia Theatre Company on the Avenue of the Arts, in the Suzanne Roberts Theatre. In 2017, Paige Price assumed the role of Producing Artistic Director and was joined 5 months later by new Managing Director Emily Zeck. The team had worked together previously at Theatre Aspen, a professional theatre in Aspen, Colorado, where they oversaw improvements in the financial and artistic health of the theatre, as well as completing a successful $2MM capital campaign for a new venue, the Hurst Theatre.

David L. Cohen David L. Cohen (born 1955) is an American businessman, attorney, lobbyist, and diplomat who is the United States ambassador to Canada. He previously served as the senior advisor to the CEO of Comcast Corporation. Until January 1, 2020, he was ...

, senior executive vice president and chief diversity officer at Comcast NBCUniversal, assumed the role of chair in 2017, completing a full leadership transition for the company.

Recent seasons

2006/2007 season

* Murderers by

Jeffrey Hatcher Jeffrey Hatcher is an American playwright and screenwriter. He wrote the stage play ''Compleat Female Stage Beauty'', which he later adapted into a screenplay, shortened to just ''Stage Beauty'' (2004). He also co-wrote the stage adaptation o ...

* The Frog Bride by David Gonzalez * Nerds://A Musical Software Satire (PTC world premiere musical) by

Jordan Allen-Dutton Jordan Allen-Dutton (born April 16, 1977) is an American writer, producer, and director. He is best known for co-creating the play, ''The Bomb-itty of Errors,'' and for his writing on the stop motion television series, '' Robot Chicken''. Biograp ...

Erik Weiner Erik Weiner is an American actor, writer, comedian, and producer best known for co-creating the play '' The Bomb-itty of Errors'' and his role as Agent Sebso on HBO's '' Boardwalk Empire''. Career In 1999, he co-created and starred in '' The Bo ...

& Hal Goldberg * In The Continuum by

Danai Gurira Danai Jekesai Gurira (; born February 14, 1978) is an American-Zimbabwean actress and playwright. She is best known for her starring roles as Michonne on the AMC horror drama series '' The Walking Dead'' (2012–2020, 2022) and as Okoye in the ...

& Nikkole Salter * Orson's Shadow by

Austin Pendleton Austin Campbell Pendleton (born March 27, 1940) is an American actor, playwright, theatre director, and instructor. He is known as a prolific character actor on the stage and screen who has appeared in films including ''Catch-22'' (1970); '' W ...

2007/2008 season

Being Alive "Being Alive" is a song from the musical '' Company'' by George Furth with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The song appears at the end of act two and is sung by the main character, Robert, a 35-year-old bachelor who at the show's end "...r ...

Stephen Sondheim Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March 22, 1930November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with sho ...

, Billy Porter &

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

M. Butterfly ''M. Butterfly'' is a play by David Henry Hwang. The story, while entwined with that of the opera ''Madama Butterfly'', is based most directly on the relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Peking opera singer. T ...

David Henry Hwang David Henry Hwang (born August 11, 1957) is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays '' FOB'', '' Golden Child'', and '' Yell ...

Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...

Wendy Wasserstein Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 – January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. She was an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She received the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1989 fo ...

* The Happiness Lecture by

Bill Irwin William Mills Irwin (born April 11, 1950) is an American actor, clown, and comedian. He began as a vaudeville-style stage performer and has been noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He has made a n ...

2008/2009 season

* Unusual Acts of Devotion by

Terrence McNally Terrence McNally (November 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," ...

* 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother by

Kate Moira Ryan Kate Moira Ryan is an American playwright. Among the plays Ryan has worked on are ''Leaving Queens''; '' The Beebo Brinker Chronicles'', an adaptation of three books by Ann Bannon; ''Caveweller''; and ''Bass for Picasso''. Ryan was the co-wri ...

Judy Gold Judy Gold (born November 15, 1962) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, podcaster, television writer, author and producer. She won two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work as a writer and producer on ''The Rosie O'Donnell Show''. Life and care ...

* Resurrection by

Daniel Beaty Daniel Beaty (born December 28, 1975) is an American actor, singer, writer, composer and poet. Beaty is known for his blend of music, movement, and words in such original works as ''Emergence-See'' and ''Through The Night''. Early life Daniel B ...

* At Home at the Zoo by

Edward Albee Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as ''The Zoo Story'' (1958), '' The Sandbox'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), '' A Delicate Balance'' (1966) ...

Grey Gardens ''Grey Gardens'' is a 1975 American documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive, upper-class women, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived in poverty at Grey Gardens, a ...

Doug Wright Douglas Wright (born December 20, 1962) is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2004 for his play ''I Am My Own Wife''. Early years Wright was born in Dallas, Texas. He attended and ...

Scott Frankel Scott David Frankel (born May 6, 1963) is an American composer. Career Early life Frankel began his music education taking piano lessons with Betty Belkin in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended Interlochen Arts Camp, Hawken School (‘81) and graduated f ...

Michael Korie Michael Korie (born April 1, 1955) is an American librettist and lyricist whose writing for musical theater and opera includes the musicals ''Grey Gardens'' and '' Far From Heaven'', and the operas ''Harvey Milk'' and ''The Grapes of Wrath''. His ...

* City of Nutterly Love: Funny as Bell! by Ed Furman, TJ Shanoff, and

The Second City The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise and is the oldest ongoing improvisational theater troupe to be continually based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City Theatre op ...

2009/2010 season

* Humor Abuse by Lorenzo Pisoni and Erica Schmidt * The Light in the Piazza by

Craig Lucas Craig Lucas (born April 30, 1951) is an American playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, musical actor, and film director. Biography Born on April 30, 1951, he was found abandoned in a car in Atlanta, Georgia. Lucas was adopted when he wa ...

and

Adam Guettel Adam Guettel (; born December 16, 1964) is an American composer- lyricist of musical theater and opera. The grandson of musical theatre composer Richard Rodgers, he is best known for his musical '' The Light in the Piazza'', for which he won the ...

* Golden Age by

* Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of

Molly Ivins Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins (August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007) was an American newspaper columnist, author, political commentator, and humorist. Born in California and raised in Texas, Ivins attended Smith College and the Columbia Univers ...

by Margaret Engel and Allison Engel * Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by

August Wilson August Wilson ( Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called ' (or ...

50th Anniversary Tour

2010/2011 season

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee ''The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'' is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by William Finn, based on a book by Rachel Sheinkin, conceived by Rebecca Feldman with additional material by Jay Reiss. The show centers on a fictional spe ...

William Finn William Alan Finn (born February 28, 1952) is an American composer and lyricist. He is best known for his musicals, which include '' Falsettos'', for which he won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical, ''A New B ...

Race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony Award, Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and ''Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first ...

* Let Me Down Easy by

Anna Deavere Smith Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is known for her roles as National Security Advisor Dr. Nancy McNally in ''The West Wing'' (2000–06), hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series ''Nur ...

Ruined Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

Lynn Nottage Lynn Nottage (born November 2, 1964) is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are Black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for he ...

Colin Quinn Colin Edward Quinn (born June 6, 1959) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. Quinn first gained widespread attention for his work as a cast member and writer for the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1995 to 20 ...

: Long Story Short

2011/2012 season

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

by John Logan * The Scottsboro Boys music and lyrics by

John Kander John Harold Kander (born March 18, 1927) is an American composer, known largely for his work in the musical theater. As part of the songwriting team Kander and Ebb (with lyricist Fred Ebb), Kander wrote the scores for 15 musicals, including ''Ca ...

and

Fred Ebb Fred Ebb (April 8, 1928 – September 11, 2004) was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Riv ...

, book by David Thompson * The Outgoing Tide by Bruce Graham * reasons to be pretty by

Neil LaBute Neil N. LaBute (born March 19, 1963) is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best-known for a play that he wrote and later adapted for film, ''In the Company of Men'' (1997), which won awards from the Sundance Fi ...

2012/2013 season

Stars of David The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...

(world premiere musical) original book by

Abigail Pogrebin Abigail Pogrebin (born May 17, 1965) is an American writer, journalist, podcast host for Tablet magazine, and former Director of Jewish Outreach for the Michael Bloomberg 2020 presidential campaign. Family and early life Pogrebin was born in N ...

book by

Charles Busch Charles Louis Busch (born August 23, 1954) is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and drag queen, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote and starred in his early plays Off-off- ...

conceived by Aaron Harnick *

The Mountaintop ''The Mountaintop'' is a play by American playwright Katori Hall. It is a fictional depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last night on earth set entirely in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel on the eve of his assassination in 1968. Historical b ...

(play) by

Katori Hall Katori Hall (born May 10, 1981) is an American playwright, screenwriter, producer, actress, and director from Memphis, Tennessee. Hall's best known works include the hit television series ''P-Valley'', the Tony-nominated '' Tina: The Tina Turner M ...

Seminar A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some parti ...

(play) by

Theresa Rebeck Theresa Rebeck (born February 19, 1958) is an American playwright, television writer, and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America's E ...

Venus In Fur Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

(play) by

David Ives David Ives (born July 11, 1950) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is perhaps best known for his comic one-act plays; ''The New York Times'' in 1997 referred to him as the "maestro of the short form". Ives has also written ...

Love, Loss, and What I Wore ''Love, Loss, and What I Wore'' is a play written by Nora and Delia Ephron based on the 1995 book of the same name by Ilene Beckerman. It is organized as a series of monologues and uses a rotating cast of five principal women. The subject matter ...

(play) by

Nora Ephron Nora Ephron ( ; May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for her romantic comedy films and was nominated three times for the Writers Guild of America Award and the Academy Award f ...

and

Delia Ephron Delia Ephron ( ; born July 12, 1944) is an American bestselling author, screenwriter, and playwright. Life and career Ephron was born in New York City, the second eldest of four daughters of screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron. Her movies i ...

based on a book by

Ilene Beckerman Ilene Beckerman (born 1935) is an American writer, who was not published until she was 60 years old, and a former advertising agency executive. She is best known for her first book ''Love, Loss, and What I Wore'', published in 1995, which in 2008 ...

2013/2014 season

* 4,000 Miles (play) written by

Amy Herzog Amy Herzog is an American playwright. Her play ''4000 Miles'', which ran Off-Broadway in 2011, was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Her play ''Mary Jane'', which ran Off-Broadway in 2017, won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Aw ...

* ''NERDS'' (play) book and lyrics by Jordan Allen-Dutton and Erik Weiner music by Hal Goldberg *

Tribes The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to conflic ...

(play) book by

Nina Raine Nina Raine is an English theatre director and playwright, the only daughter of Craig Raine and Ann Pasternak Slater, and a grand niece of the Russian novelist Boris Pasternak. She graduated from Christ Church, Oxford in 1998 with a First in Eng ...

* Vanya and Sasha and Masha and Spike (play) by

Christopher Durang Christopher Ferdinand Durang (born January 2, 1949) is an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s, though his career seemed to get a second wind in the late 1990s. ...

Unconstitutional Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...

(play/comedy) written and performed by

2014/2015 season

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

(play) written by Lisa D’Amour *

Outside Mullingar ''Outside Mullingar'' is a play by John Patrick Shanley, which ran on Broadway in 2014. Production ''Outside Mullingar'' premiered on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in a Manhattan Theatre Club production on January 3, 2014 (previews) ...

(play) book by

John Patrick Shanley John Patrick Shanley (born October 13, 1950) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director. He won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film ''Moonstruck''. His play, '' Doubt: A Parable'', won the 2005 Pulitzer P ...

* ''Mothers and Sons'' (play) by

* brownsville song (b-side for tray) (play) by

Kimber Lee Kimberly Ann Frankele (born June 27, 1990), better known by her ring name Kimber Lee, is an American professional wrestler who is currently a free agent. She is known for her work on both the American and international independent circuits, mos ...

* Murder For Two (play) book and lyrics by Kellan Blair book and music by Joe Kinosian

2015/2016 season

* ''Rizzo'' (play) written by

Bruce Graham Bruce John Graham (December 1, 1925 – March 6, 2010) was a Peruvian-American architect. Graham built buildings all over the world and was deeply involved with evolving the Burnham Plan of Chicago. Among his most notable buildings are the ...

* FOUND (musical) book by Hunter Bell and Lee Overtree music and lyrics by Eli Bolin * Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (play) by Emily Mann * ''Hand To God'' (play) by Robert Askins * The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (play) written and performed by

Celeste Lecesne Celeste Lecesne (formerly James Celeste Lecesne; born November 24, 1954), is an American actor, author, screenwriter, and LGBT rights activist, best known for the Academy-award-winning short film ''Trevor (film), Trevor.'' Lecesne has written sev ...

2016/2017 season

* Wrestling Jerusalem (play) written and performed by Aaron Davidman * Small Mouth Sounds (play) by Bess Wohl

2017/2018 season

Sweat Perspiration, also known as sweating, is the production of fluids secreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals. Two types of sweat glands can be found in humans: eccrine glands and apocrine glands. The eccrine sweat glands are distribut ...

(Pulitzer Prize Winner) written by

The Bridges of Madison County ''The Bridges of Madison County'' (also published as ''Love in Black and White'') is a 1992 best-selling romance novel by American writer Robert James Waller that tells the story of a married Italian-American woman (WWII war bride) living on a ...

(musical) original book by

Marsha Norman Marsha Norman (born September 21, 1947) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play '' 'night, Mother''. She wrote the book and lyrics for such Broadway musicals as ''The Se ...

music and lyrics by

Jason Robert Brown Jason Robert Brown (born June 20, 1970) is an American musical theatre composer, lyricist, and playwright. Brown's music sensibility fuses pop-rock stylings with theatrical lyrics. He is the recipient of three Tony Awards for his work on ''Parad ...

Based on the novel by Robert James Waller * How to Catch Creation (play) by Christina Anderson

References

Notes

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org Culture of Philadelphia Theatre companies in Philadelphia