Regional theaters produce suffered a severe drop in freshness last year.
The growing trend--- you may more accurately call it an obsession-- of theater company boards to favor the familiar and fainthearted over the new and intrepid effectively smothered much of our theaters creative flames in the greater Lehigh Valley.
Yes, there were many fine performances of shows at Shawnee Playhouse, Civic Theatre of Allentown, Dutch Country Players, Pa Shakespeare Festival, and elsewhere including 'Wait Until Dark', 'Young Frankenstein', 'Urinetown', 'Over the River and Through the Woods', and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.
However, only Touchstone Theatre, with persistent new works and international flavor; Muhlenberg College and its reliable resurrection of obscure classical material; Mock Turtle Marionettes and its seemingly bottomless trunk of new puppets; Pines Dinner Theatre, which keeps churning out its starchy, but thoroughly honest, toe-tapping, juke-box musicals and send-ups; and the ubiquitous Crowded Kitchen Players with their three original main stage productions in one season, made much of an attempt to offer freshness and creativity to local theater goers.
Too many years of too much Bard; way too much fuss over high school productions of Broadway musicals; too much concern for generating large audiences at the expense of well-served audiences; too little regard for innovation; and insufficient recognition of new and resuscitated productions have conspired to make our region appear effectively hostile to theatrical creativity.
The most highly acclaimed and attended shows in the region last year were all either Broadway musical retreads, or adaptations of popular motion pictures, or--- shudder--- both!
Despite the almost complete failure of regional theater producers to grasp their obligation, as non-profits, to refresh their seasons calendars with new works and fruits long untasted in these parts, we must applaud our choice
for 2014s outstanding achievement in creativity and artistic courage,
Touchstone Theatre of Bethlehem, PA, highlighted by its Journey: Dream of a Red Pavilion, and its association with Doug Roysdons Mock Turtle Marionettes and singer/song writer Anne Hills on The Morningtime of Now.