"...brilliant, unflinching performances that tie us to their real-life counterparts as I’ve never seen before."
"I'm willing to venture that this material has never seemed so lucid, or emerged with such sweet poetry, as it does here."
"...leave it to Tina Brock and her mighty little Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium to choose to bring The Two Character Play to absurd life once more, and to make us feel all the crazy, despairing desperation it contains."
"The actors, consummate veterans, are ridiculously sublime... top of the line designers—sound, scene, lighting, costume, who know what they’re doing..."
Watching THE TWO-CHARACTER PLAY (OUT-CRY) by Tennessee Williams
“The Eccentricities of a Nightingale is a brilliant cabinet of curiosities.”
“…outrageous mayhem, incorrect and hilarious…” “Sex! Violence! More sex! More violence! IRC’s hilarious production of Christopher Durang’s Betty’s Summer Vacation is a total hoot.”
“...this powerful reappraisal of Come Back, Little Sheba will live on in your memory long after the lights go up. Think you know William Inge? Think again.”
“It's not that way, it's over here...a wonderfully immersive experience...increasingly ridiculous and heightening stakes are a masterclass in comedic scene work...”
“…tragic…hilarious…political…psychological…absurd…People laughed. People cried. Mostly we just sat wide-eyed and amazed.”
“...a sublime trip through the ridiculous... zany, intrepid company…”
“...daring little company…”
Welcome!
Hello Theatergoing Friend of the IRC!
Still here and still at it, Bringing Good Nothingness to Life as we head into 2024, year 18 of explorations of existential questions great and small.
We’ve travelled many miles together over the last couple decades. Journeying was the theme of our Fringe 2023 production by playwright Samuel Beckett, whose chronicles of travels along the road of life make for fine contemplation in modern times.
At once chilling and compassionate, intimate and expansive, All That Fall (a play for radio) offered an inimitably idiosyncratic and, at times, hilarious perspective on loss, grief and old age.
Emily Schilling for Broad Street Review wrote of All That Fall: “All That Fall, a hilarious and unsettling jaunt to a train station in 1950s Ireland, is expertly staged by Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium in this year's Fringe, offering laughs right up to gut-punch finish... it’s a complicated undertaking, and IRC lives up to its reputation for excellence with a flawless, unusual piece of theater in this Fringe Festival production… another top-notch production by IRC, now in its 17th year as Philadelphia’s own theater of the absurd…”
As we chart the course for 2024 and beyond in a radically altered landscape, our primary goal is to expand the number productions in our season to bring us back to pre-pandemic levels, and to offer readings and more opportunities to experience the IRC’s particular brand of absurdist work. We hope you’ll help us continue rebuilding with your gift of support.
Your financial aid is crucial as the IRC illuminates stories from our favorite existentialist authors – classic and contemporary – that inform how we move through our days and how we re-imagine our lives as players on the world’s stage. Your generous gifts will aid in making that goal a reality.
We appreciate your support over the years and look forward to seeing you on the stage in 2024.
Happy Holidays and abundant thanks to you and your loved ones from everyone here at the IRC!
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Check out the IRC Podcast!
Absurd, abstract and intriguing, Into the Absurd reveals the passions and purpose of creators around the country in a 50 minute conversation happening Saturdays at 5 pm at the virtual dinner table, hosted by Tina Brock, Producing Artistic Director of The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, a Philadelphia-based theater whose mission is producing existentialist and absurdist theater. We'll Bring Good Nothingness to Life each week, keeping playwright Samuel Beckett's famous phrase front of mind: "You Must Go On. I Can't Go On. I'll Go On." Join us as we illuminate creative works and creative thinking, finding the poetry in existentially challenging times, sharing a laugh and always a story -- connecting us to our works and to each other. On on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever you get your Podcasts.
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