A Streetcar Named Durang
Through Nov. 28
L’etage
624 S. Sixth St.
$10, 215-285-0472
www.idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.org
Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard are two of American’s all-time greatest playwrights. Still, all that insanity and family dysfunction can be a little much, which is why we’re glad this show by the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, providing delirious send-ups of Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Glass Menagerie” and Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind,” is out there, doing its wacky thing. TALK
Ruby Wax: ‘SaneNew World’
Thursday, 9 p.m.
Christ Church Neighborhood House
20 N. American St.
$28-$35, 267-402-2055
Ruby Wax combines a comedian’s charisma, a memoirist’s candor and a scholar’s expertise in her one-woman show “Sane New World,” part of the First Person Arts Festival. Based on her book of the same name, it presents theories of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy as a means of quelling life’s umpteen anxieties. DRINK
Develop YourWine IQ
Thursday, 7 p.m.
Pinot Boutique
227 Market St.
$25, 215-627-9463
Pinot Boutique owner Dan Soskin will be your guide into the universe of wine connoisseurship. If you’ve always wanted to know what the real differences are between all those grape varieties or how to decipher talk about “notes of blackberry and tobacco,” this is the place. DANCE
Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company
Thursday through Saturday
Annenberg Center
3680 Walnut St.
$20-$60, 215-898-3900
This Israeli dance company, noted for its balance of athleticism and grace, performs for the first time in Philadelphia. The evening-length work that makes up the program, “If At All,” is nothing if not intense, full of dramatic mood swings played out under the watchful eye of a pale yellow moon and set against a bracing, occasionally atonal soundtrack. ‘Hold It, Control’
Through Friday
Crane Arts Community Space
1400 N. American St.
$15, [email protected]
Choreographer Meg Foley and artist J. Louise Makary teamed up to create this show in which pieces revolve around themes of what you might called spheres of personal influence. Where does my zone of control end and the great unknown begin? Foley’s “Togetherish” explores the spatial side of the question, and Makary’s “Drunk and High: a Duet” tackles the psychological side. THEATER
‘Red Speedo’
Through Nov. 23
Studio X
1340 S. 13th St.
$10-$50, 215-218-4022
Theatre Exile presents this play by Lucas Hnath, in which a performance-enhancing drugs scandal threatens to leave the Olympic hopes of top swimmer Ray and his team dead in the water. Whether Ray is innocent or not, it’s clear he’s not the only member of his conniving entourage who could be accused of a “whatever it takes” attitude. ‘The Matter of Frank Schaefer’
Saturday through Dec. 12
Curio Theatre Company
4740 Baltimore Ave.
$20-$25, 215-525-1350
Curio Theatre Company presents an in-house work based on the true and still-unfolding story of Frank Schaefer, a minister in the United Methodist Church who was defrocked in 2013 for refusing to denounce gay marriage. His stand is not simply ideological but personal — he has a gay son, whose wedding he officiated. MUSIC
‘L’italianain Algeri’
Through Saturday
Academy of Vocal Arts
1920 Spruce St.
$25-$60, 215-735-1685
Academy of Vocal Arts presents this early Rossini opera about a group of shipwrecked Italian travelers who are captured by Ottoman Algerians — but the diva of the group proves more than their captors can handle. Rossini’s blending of comic and dramatic elements contributes to an eccentric tone the Academy describes as “blurring the line between blatant sentimentality and utter lunacy.” Abraxas
Thursday, 8 p.m.
The Little Shul
215 S. Fourth St.
$20, 866-777-8932
This avant-garde group will perform “Psychomagia,” a work written expressly for them by the legendary John Zorn, with whom they’ve often collaborated. Their electric sound combines prog rock precision, punk fury and a good deal of Sephardic Jewish influence — rather than a bass guitar, bandleader Shanir Blumenkrantz plays the gimbri, a type of stringed bass instrument from North Africa. ART
‘Apples and Oranges’: Sarah Roche and Bill Macholdt
Through Nov. 22
Cerulean Arts
1355 Ridge Ave.
Free, 267-514-8647
www.ceruleanarts.com Despite the suggestion of incongruity in the title of this dual exhibition featuring painter Sarah Roche and sculptor Bill Macholdt, there’s actually a lot of potential dialogue between the works of these two artists, in the realms of color and form, and a masterful awkwardness of depiction that has a quiet but persistent comedy to it. Philadelphia Lensmen
Friday through Dec. 1
Twenty-Two Gallery
236 S. 22nd St.
Free, 215-772-1911
This exhibition showcases the work of two locally based 20th century photographers who also happened to be father and son: Bruce Murray Sr. and Bruce Murray Jr. Compiled by Bruce Jr.’s son Shawn, these images span 50 years of American history, showing a bygone society at work, play and, in the case of Bruce Sr.’s photos of pro baseball players, both.