by Anna Pan, Philadelphia City Paper
If you were a private in the army and went AWOL in Iraq, where would you hide? In the body of a teenage girl, of course.
Plays & Players is presenting the world premiere of Joy Cutler’s Pardon My Invasion, an adult dark comedy about Private Malcolm Jack and his residency in 13-year-old Penny’s body. Penny’s mother tries to lure Jack out, and what follows is nothing but pure, rowdy fun.
Naturally, casting Penny/Private Jack was no easy feat. “This city [has] an amazing abundance of quality young female performers — but to find one that can be a 13-year-old girl going through puberty and a [twentysomething] male full of the bravado and the pain necessary to represent a soldier, well, it was no easy task,” says artistic director Daniel Student. “Emily Gibson has both the natural instinct to take on both of these characters.”
Plays & Players has been heralded in Philadelphia Magazine’s Best in Philly issue twice in a row, and this is the fourth year in a row the theater is featuring the world premiere of a local playwright. “It feels that each year we are able to stretch our CONT’D AT CITY PAPER>>