Here’s what we are watching at this year’s Philly Theatre Week

It’s a strange, yet interesting, time in theater. Audiences are not returning en masse post-pandemic, and most are holding off on buying tickets until the last minute. Meanwhile, theater companies have become comfortable with experimentation, both with new ways of presenting art (Zoom, live-streaming), and with new ways of attracting audiences.

That framework informs this year’s Philly Theatre Week, running March 23 through April 2.

“It’s a good experimentation time,” said LaNeshe Miller-White, executive director of Theatre Philadelphia, the umbrella marketing organization for the region’s theater community and the organizer of Theatre Week.

Theatre Week offers more than a hundred performances of 50 different productions presented by 41 theater organizations. As a part of this year’s experimentation, pricing is pay-what-you-can for tickets sold through Theatre Philadelphia’s website. Regular pricing applies for tickets bought at box offices.

Past Theatre Weeks have offered tickets at $5, $15, and $30.

“If you get more people in, they can also become your subscribers. They can become your donors. It also opens it up to more people,” Miller-White said. “With pay-what-you-can, the majority of people are paying something and you are getting some people who can pay more, paying more.”

This year’s Theatre Week has fewer offerings than last year’s, when 64 organizations presented 85 shows, and even fewer than 2021, with 54 organizations presenting 72 shows.

Some of the main stages are also offering pay-as-you-can pricing via the Theatre Philadelphia website for productions opening later in the spring. Among them are Wilma Theater’s Eternal Life, Part 1 opening mid-April, and Twelfth Night in June, as well as The Philadelphia Theatre Co.’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, set to begin five days after Theatre Week ends.

Many of the bigger theaters’ shows ended in late February or mid-March — too early for Theatre Week — and their next productions open after Theatre Week. Early on, plans were for a February week, but Miller-White and her crew pushed it back until March because they were worried about snow. Ha! They plan a survey to pick the dates for next year.

So, what’s on tap?

The first thing is a celebration — a free Philly Theatre Week open house at the Kimmel Center, on March 20, where some groups will showcase scenes from their shows. Miller-White describes it as a theater cabaret. A similar soiree comes to the Maas Building on April 1 from Almanac Dance Circus Theatre, the producers of the Cannonball Festival’s Miniball. “There’s a lot of interactive things, more than normal,” Miller-White said. “It’s non-traditional in that way. My anecdotal thought is: we’re all trying to get people back into theaters. The more we can engage people, that’s more inviting, especially for new theatergoers.”

Jenna Kuerzi promises part history lesson and part drunken sing-along at Fergie’s Pub in Johnny Depp (A Retrospective on Late Night Capitalism) and Unattended Baggage invites audience participation in The Bed Show, a show performed in a bed in an apartment. (No, the audience doesn’t get in bed with the performers, but they’re not far, either.)

Crossroads Comedy Theater presents a full lineup of shows including Electoral Dysfunction (what could that be about?) and classroom humor in Ben Miller’s Stand-up Science and Extra Credit-Educational Comedy for Short Attention Spans. Chris Davis curates Your Sunday Best, an evening of variety comedy.

Food’s a feature in some shows. The Savoy Company promises Gilbert and Sullivan appropriate cocktails in The Best of Gilbert and Sullivan Served With the Best of Local Cocktails. Light desserts plus cocktails can be purchased as the audience helps the cast of A Golden Girls Murder Mystery: A Philly Story solve the crime, from Without A Cue.

More traditional shows are on the roster. There is The Tempest at Quintessence Theatre Group in Mt. Airy, Cabaret from Bristol Riverside Theatre and Pay No Worship, a world premiere from InterAct Theatre Co.

Philly Theatre Week’s program book, available for download, has performances listed by company, date, and neighborhood. Besides shows, there are readings and industry roundtables.

A word to the wise: Don’t delay in obtaining tickets. Each organization sets aside just ten pay-what-you-can tickets. When those are sold out, that price point is gone, unless the individual theater groups are offering their own deals.

(March 23-April 2, Philly Theatre Week, pay-what-you-can, theatrephiladelphia.org)