Deborah Newhall

You might go home hungry, but you'll have your fill of belly laughs at Wendy MacLeod's SLOW FOOD now having its World Premiere at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell. We've all been there, sitting in a restaurant, starving, and waiting what seems like eons before the waiter sashays over to introduce himself. "Hello, I'm Bryce - like the Canyon - and I'll be taking care of you." This is the premise and the situation for the couple having a bad first day on their anniversary trip to Palm Springs. Their gratification is seriously delayed, but we get 95 minutes of delicious comedy.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) presents a cure for the winter blues with the laugh-out-loud, world premiere comedy Slow Food by Wendy MacLeod, writer of the acclaimed play Women in Jeopardy and the TV cult sensation "Popular," from January 9 to February 3 at the Nancy L. Donahue Theatre at Liberty Hall, according to Artistic Director Sean Daniels and Executive Director Bonnie J. Butkas.

Boston Lyric Opera's Stanford Calderwood General & Artistic Director Esther Nelson announced today an eclectic 2017/18 Season designed to please die-hard opera fans as well as newcomers to the art form.  Each of the Company's productions will be presented on a different area stage, starting October 13-22, 2017 with a new production of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca featuring the American debut of award-winning rising global star Elena Stikhina in the title role. The World Premiere of The Nefarious, Immoral but Highly Profitable Enterprise of Mr. Burke & Mr. Hare (a.k.a. Burke & Hare) by composer Julian Grant and librettist Mark Campbell follows November 8-12, 2017.  From March 16-25, 2018, BLO presents Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's pivotal early-20th century work The Threepenny Opera.  BLO closes its Season in May with Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, paired with his Arias and Barcarolles, to mark the Lawrence, Mass.-born composer's centennial.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) continues its 2016-17 Season with the absolutely off-the-wall "Women in Jeopardy!". The riotous comedy follows Mary and Jo, two middle-aged women who jump to the rescue when their best friend Liz falls for a creepy (and potentially murderous) dentist. MRT Artistic Director Sean Daniels, who helmed the 2015 world premiere at Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY, returns to direct.

Boston, MA – February 16, 2016 – Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) unleashes Jules Massenet's melodic, romantic French opera Werther from its late 18th Century German source material, bringing it to an early-20th-Century arrondissement outside Paris as part of BLO's French-inspired season. This new production of Werther opens March 11 for a five-performance run at Citi Performing Arts CenterSM Shubert Theatre in Boston.

Artistic Director Charles Towers is stepping down after fourteen seasons at the helm of Merrimack Repertory Theatre. He leaves the audience with one final moving drama by playwright Bruce Graham, written with impeccable honesty and directed with the finest attention to every emotional detail.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) will close its 2014-15 Season with the touching drama, "The Outgoing Tide" by Bruce Graham, directed by Charles Towers. Tormented by the menacing grip of an aging mind and with an uncertain future ahead, Gunner Concannon has a plan for his and his family's future - but it is not what his wife Peg and son Jack had in mind. As the family debates his unorthodox idea, they are confronted by memories of the past and fears of the unknown. Ultimately, they must decide what it truly means to love someone. "The Outgoing Tide" is a deeply moving drama shot through with surprising humor.

The gripping undertow of a turbulent past threatens to drown the three main characters in OCEANSIDE, a searing new play by Nick Gandiello currently in its world premiere at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell. Taut, terse and unrelenting, the play ebbs and flows with a deceivingly gentle rhythm until a powerful tsunami all but demolishes each character's carefully constructed new life.

'Oceanside' by Nick Gandiello will have its world premiere production at Merrimack Repertory Theatre under the direction of Melia Bensussen this winter. The production marks the first full-length professional production for Gandiello, an up-and-coming playwright whose work has received considerable national attention from playwriting conferences and workshops.

"Oceanside" by Nick Gandiello will have its world premiere production at Merrimack Repertory Theatre under the direction of Melia Bensussen this winter. The production marks the first full-length professional production for Gandiello, an up-and-coming playwright whose work has received considerable national attention from playwriting conferences and workshops.

The Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) in Lowell, Mass. opens its 36th season with the potent new play YEAR ZERO, a taut and touching comedic drama about a first-generation Cambodian-American teenager coming of age as he comes to grips with the death of his mother, a survivor of the horrific genocide of the Khmer Rouge and a woman who held her family together when abandoned by her husband. Set in Long Beach, California in 2003, YEAR ZERO is the only play written thus far that explores the experiences of the children of Cambodian refugees beginning new lives in America.

59E59 Theaters (Elysabeth Kleinhans, Artistic Director; Peter Tear, Executive Producer) launches Americas Off Broadway with the New York City premiere of the Olivier Award-nominated comedy LOVE SONG, written and directed by John Kolvenbach.

59E59 Theaters (Elysabeth Kleinhans, Artistic Director; Peter Tear, Executive Producer) launches Americas Off Broadway with the New York City premiere of the Olivier Award-nominated comedy LOVE SONG, written and directed by John Kolvenbach. Produced by Jaimie Mayer Phinney/Don't Eat The Pictures Productions in association with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, LOVE SONG begins previews on Tuesday, April 5 for a limited engagement through Sunday, May 8.

59E59 Theaters (Elysabeth Kleinhans, Artistic Director; Peter Tear, Executive Producer) launches Americas Off Broadway with the New York City premiere of the Olivier Award-nominated comedy LOVE SONG, written and directed by John Kolvenbach. Produced by Jaimie Mayer Phinney/Don't Eat The Pictures Productions in association with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, LOVE SONG begins previews on Tuesday, April 5 for a limited engagement through Sunday, May 8.

59E59 Theaters (Elysabeth Kleinhans, Artistic Director; Peter Tear, Executive Producer) launches Americas Off Broadway with the New York City premiere of the Olivier Award-nominated comedy LOVE SONG, written and directed by John Kolvenbach. Produced by Jaimie Mayer Phinney/Don't Eat The Pictures Productions in association with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, LOVE SONG begins previews on Tuesday, April 5 for a limited engagement through Sunday, May 8.

Bob Clyman's smart, funny new play raises difficult issues in the debate about raising exceptional children. Should parents or scientists determine the course of a child's education? And what is society's interest in the outcome? In between the laughs,it will make you think.

One-act four-hander is a compact serio-comic character study about the perils of dealing with aging parents and meddling adult children. It may be a road map or a cautionary tale, depending on your point of view.

The Merrimack Repertory Theatre will end the world premiere of Richard Dresser's THE LAST DAYS OF MICKEY & JEAN on April 11, 2010.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre continues its long relationship with playwright Richard Dresser, commissioning and mounting this world premiere, the seventh of his plays featured on the Lowell stage. Their track record together has been strong, but The Last Days of Mickey and Jean isn't quite ready for prime time.

The Merrimack Repertory Theatre will present the world premiere of Richard Dresser's THE LAST DAYS OF MICKEY & JEAN from March 18, 2010 through April 11, 2010.