#WalnutStreetTheatre Episodes

Grace has been performing and creating in Philadelphia theaters for the last four decades! She shares with us her memories of her life and work.

The rise of the Arden Theatre  Company - as well as the beginnings of the modern Walnut Street Theatre Company and the Lantern Theater Company.

A reprise of our 2023 interview with Bernard Havard of the Walnut Street Theatre - including a tour of the historic building.

Gregory Poggi successfully led the Philadelphia Drama Guild throughout the decade of the 1980s. He talked with us about his tussles with board members, battles with critics, fundraising triumphs and the growing audience support for professional nonprofit theater companies

The sudden success of the Drama Guild - a former amateur theater group transformed into a professional local powerhouse - finally fulfills the promise of giving Philadelphia a flagship nonprofit theater company.

Three new Philadelphia theater complexes are built for the mid-century modern era - funded by wealthy philanthropists.

Six stories of 19th century Philadelphia theater. We discuss Alexander Reinagle, Joseph Jefferson III, James Murdoch, Matilda Heron, John McCullough - as well as two stagehands at the Walnut Street Theater you likely never heard of before, but may never forget!

We begin the story of Philadelphia's own Edwin Forrest, the first great star of the American stage! We follow him from birth, through his early years, to his initial success.