Productions at the Arden tell great stories by great storytellers. With recent support from the Center, the Arden has integrated visually dazzling video design into live productions (Sunday in the Park with George); featured full, robust orchestrations in its musicals (Candide); and enhanced its work for young audiences, to which the theater devotes the same resources as to main-stage productions (The Flea and the Professor and the upcoming children's theater consortium with Seattle Children's Theatre and Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis). Center funds have also allowed the theater to invest in longer rehearsal periods and to develop a residency program for visiting playwrights, which offers audiences behind-the-scenes access to the creative process of a theater production. Producing Artistic Director Terrence J. Nolen has a particular passion for directing the work of Stephen Sondheim, who calls the Arden "the pre-eminent producer of my work in Philadelphia."
