NEWS | FEATURES | PREVIEWS | EVENTS

originally published: 09/16/2022

(PHILADELPHIA, PA) -- The Arden Theatre Company kicks off their 35th Anniversary season with a new staging of the beloved Tennessee Williams’ classic, The Glass Menagerie.  Directed by Producing Artistic Director Terrence J. Nolen, the production will play the F. Otto Haas Stage from October 6 – November 6, 2022.   

“We are so excited to be producing a full season of plays and musicals this coming year and to be launching our 35th anniversary with Tennessee Williams’ great play,” said Nolen.  “This is the first time in the Arden’s history that we’ve produced The Glass Menagerie and, following up on our recent production of Streetcar, we are thrilled to be returning to the passion and poetry of this astonishing playwright. Williams’ exploration of memory, fragility, and the search for hope continues to resonate in such a powerful way, and we can’t wait to share this production with our audiences.”

Amanda Wingfield (Krista Apple, last seen on the Arden stage in 2015’s Metamorphoses) is a faded remnant of Southern gentility who now lives in a dingy St. Louis apartment with her son, Tom (Sean Lally, last seen in 2015’s Equivocation), and her daughter, Laura (Hannah Brannau, founding member of Acting Without Boundaries, in her Arden debut). The father has left home; Tom supports his mother and sister with a shoe-factory job he finds unbearable. When Amanda convinces Tom to bring home from his workplace a “gentleman caller” for Laura (Frank Jimenez, last seen on the Arden stage as an understudy in 2022’s Backing Track), the illusions that Tom, Amanda, and Laura have each created in order to make life bearable collapse about them.

Single tickets to The Glass Menagerie are currently on sale at ardentheatre.org or by calling the box office, 215.922.1122.  Expected runtime is 2 hours and 30 minutes with 1 intermission.  The run will also feature a Pay What You Can performance (October 5) to benefit Acting Without Boundaries. Audio Description/Caption performances are scheduled for October 21 at 8:00pm and October 22 at 2:00pm.

Safety and Health - Safety continues to be front of mind for us as we start this season. At this point in time, masks are optional, but strongly encouraged. All Arden employees are required to be vaccinated, but we will no longer be checking vaccination cards for audience members. We will of course continue to monitor local and CDC guidelines and will share any updates to our safety plan directly with you. You can find our current health and safety practices at ardentheatre.org/reopeningplan. Thank you for helping to make the Arden safe for all – audiences, artists and staff.

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Arden Theatre Company was founded in 1988 by Terrence J. Nolen, Amy Murphy, and Aaron Posner. The company began producing at the 70-seat Walnut Street Theatre Studio, and was immediately hailed as a welcome addition to the Philadelphia theatre community.  After our second season, we co-founded the St. Stephen’s Performing Arts Center, which held a larger theatre and a unified location for classes, education programs, administrative offices, and production shops. 

In 1995, the Arden purchased and renovated a 50,000 square foot building in historic Old City, creating a thriving two-theatre complex and a new home. Our presence has helped Old City emerge as one of the region’s most popular destinations, with a significant economic impact on the neighborhood. The move was also the catalyst for the creation of Arden Children’s Theatre in 1998, the city’s first resident professional children’s theatre. Arden Children’s Theatre was founded on the dual premises that children’s theatre must maintain the same high production values as our nationally-respected Mainstage shows, and that theatre should be affordable for children and their families.  

In November of 2013, we opened the Hamilton Family Arts Center; a two-story, multi-use building situated just north of our main theatre building.  The building houses six classrooms, a teacher resource center, the Arden’s rehearsal hall, scenic design shop, and paint deck, and a third performance space, the 100-seat Bob and Selma Horan Studio Theatre. The additional space provided by the Hamilton gives the Arden the ability to support the development of multiple projects at the same time.

The Arden’s Education Department includes Arden for All (AFA), our theatre access and education program for underserved young people; Arden Drama School, our after-school, Saturday, and summer camp classes for students in grades pre K-12; Teen Arden, an immersive after-school access program for Philadelphia-area based teenagers and the Arden Professional Apprentice Program, a nationally renowned comprehensive theatre management training program.