My historical farce “Philosophus” opened last night at Best Medicine! Rep -what a great time!
I was very impressed with Best Medicine’s great theater space on the second floor of Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg, MD. It’s a true storefront theater. The location itself (which used to be a toy store) is quite large, fronted by a reception area, followed by a lovely lounge (some great artwork on the walls, courtesy of one of the theater company’s board members) and, in the back, the actual theater space. What a great job John Morogiello (Artistic Director) and his crew have done with the space! Best Medicine read “Philosophus” in November of 2017 in a tiny community room of the mall… and now, just a little over a year later, the theater group has its own theater space, over four full productions to its credit, and has hosted numerous other events from nearby theater groups!
In terms of the show, I was very impressed by the hilarious shtick of the actors and the wonderful directing by Stan Levin. Stan directed the staged reading of “Philosophus” in late 2017 – and almost all the actors in this production were involved also in that reading – so, knowing how impressed I was with the reading back then, I knew I was in for a treat last night. The actors didn’t disappoint: Terence Aselford was charmingly pompous as “Voltaire”, John Morogiello was wonderfully petty and tyrannical as the blustery “Baron von Freytag”, Rebecca A. Herron was terrifyingly domineering as “Frau Schmidt”, Terence Heffernan was wonderfully elastic as he jumped back and forth between Italian “Collini” and Prussian “Dorn” (literally, too – jumping around the stage like a five-year-old), and Khaleshia Thorpe-Price was subtly seductive as “Mademoiselle Denis.”
ALSO… many thanks to Elizabeth Kemmerer for the costumes and John Morogiello for the set!
Looking forward to seeing the show a few more times!
