Michael Kaye

Get a first look at Lyric Stage Boston's Thirst, playwright Ronán Noone’s captivating and compelling look into the Irish immigrant experience and the struggles in building a meaningful life in a new world. Check out the all-new video!

What did our critic think of THIRST at The Lyric Stage Company Of Boston?

Lyric Stage Boston presents Thirst, playwright Ronán Noone’s captivating and compelling look into the Irish immigrant experience and the struggles in building a meaningful life in a new world.

 The Dallas Opera’s 2023/2024 Season has been announced! See how to purchase tickets!

What did our critic think of THE ART OF BURNING at Hartford Stage? Kate Snodgrass' world premiere play, The Art of Burning, presented by Hartford Stage in association with Huntington Theater Company, is a disappointingly thin work, though the producing theaters are to be congratulated for supporting new scripts. The production itself, led by the sure hand of Hartford Stage Artistic Director Melia Bensussen, is well cast and fascinating to look at: Luciana Stecconi's scenic design creates an atmosphere of alienation, leaving the characters looking uneasy, often lost, and like chess pieces trying to defend their positions on a brutally cold board. However, the set is more original than the plot, which attempts to put a feminist spin on old themes: marriage is difficult; raising a child is even more difficult; affairs lead to thorny divorce settlements; and children get caught in the middle.

The cast has been announced for Hartford Stage's upcoming production The Art of Burning. This inspired new comedy by award-winning playwright Kate Snodgrass explores the love, rage, and responsibility that go with marriage and parenting in America.

The trend of modern plays seems to be that playwrights a trimming down their plays, often to ninety minutes or less. While this brevity can work for many plays, it doesn’t work for all. There’s only so much a playwright can say or do in ninety minutes and sometimes plays move too quickly and the audience leaves wondering if they missed something.

The Huntington will present the world premiere of The Art of Burning, a new play from acclaimed Boston playwright Kate Snodgrass and directed by Melia Bensussen, in association with Hartford Stage.

The Greek National Opera’s 2022-23 season curated by GNO Artistic Director Giorgos Koumendakis will feature ten new opera and ballet productions, one newly commissioned opera, five revivals of past productions, music concerts, major co-productions with some of the world’s foremost opera houses, collaborations with leading conductors and more.

The Huntington announces the world premiere of Common Ground Revisited, a new play co-conceived by Obie Award-winning director Melia Bensussen and Obie Award-winning playwright and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Kirsten Greenidge (Our Daughters, Like Pillars; Luck of the Irish; and Milk Like Sugar at The Huntington).

World-renowned Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli is set to release his new album, Believe, via Sugar/Decca Records on 13th November, celebrating the power of music to soothe the soul. He is joined on the record by Alison Krauss, the most awarded singer in Grammy history, for a powerful and emotional rendition of 'Amazing Grace'.

It's probably just a coincidence, but two fine plays currently running at two award-winning regional theaters share an unusual commonality. Both focus on the issue of white privilege and the prevailing attitude that acknowledging its existence will end it. In THE THANKSGIVING PLAY at Lyric Stage Company of Boston, the idea is to honor Native Americans in an elementary school play without benefit of any of them participating. In ADMISSIONS, receiving its Boston premiere at SpeakEasy Stage Company, a couple of white liberal educators work hard to expand racial diversity at their small New England prep school, but their progressive values are tested when their exceptional son's Ivy League dreams are derailed. Remarkably, there are no indigenous people or people of color on stage in either production, an intentional, pointed omission by the playwrights.

'Welcome to the Pemberley Estate where the family is gathered for the Christmas holiday. There is joy, jealousy, love notes and juxtaposition of the Bennet sister's agendas. Mary Bennet yearns for her place in this world. Is it to be found in music, books or maps? Is it a solitary and invisible life to be hidden between pages and musical refrains? Will she ever find someone who understands her for what she truly is?' These are the words of Phyllis Gitlin, director of Miss Bennet: Christmas as Pemberley describing the storyline.

The holidays are upon us filled with good cheer and family traditions. What better family to spend some time with than the Bennets from Pride and Prejudice? Lamenting a shortage of new plays for the holiday season, playwrights Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon decided to take on the challenge.

From October 25 to November 30, 2019, SpeakEasy Stage Company will present the New England premiere of ADMISSIONS, the winner of the 2018 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

Disney on Broadway continues its 25th anniversary celebration in partnership with the Fashion Institute of Technology, creating a unique design challenge for students to reimagine contemporary designs for some of Disney on Broadway's iconic female characters. The partnership is a first between Disney on Broadway and the college, which will soon be celebrating its 75th anniversary. 

The Long Beach Playhouse opens its 2019 season with Lauren Gunderson's play entitled Exit, Pursued by a Bear. In the play Nan is trapped in an unhappy marriage with a man named Kyle. A fan of Shakespeare, she and her best friend, Simon, along with a stripper named Sweetheart, decide recreating dramatic reenactments of their marriage might help husband Kyle see the error of his ways.

The Long Beach Playhouse opens its 2019 Studio Season with Lauren Gunderson's play entitled Exit, Pursued by a Bear. The play's subtitle is 'A Revenge Comedy.' It's a play that feels like a mashup between Shakespeare and the Coen Brothers. The protagonist, Nan, is trapped in an unhappy marriage with a man named Kyle. She and her best friend, Simon, along with a stripper named Sweetheart, cook up a plot to reenact scenes from Nan and Kyle's miserable marriage in hopes of helping Kyle understand the ways he's failed her.

For its second show of the season, the Long Beach Playhouse presents an engaging new adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. In Jon Jory's reworking, all of the wit and romance of the novel comes to life in a fast-paced, humorous, and engaging production. Like mothers and daughters everywhere, Elizabeth Bennet and her mother do not see eye-to-eye on many of life's big questions. In their case, Elizabeth's disinterest in finding a husband is in opposition to her mother's fervent matchmaking on her daughter's behalf. Still, when a handsome and enigmatic bachelor, Mr. Darcy, comes on the scene Elizabeth's resolve to not let her feelings override her good sense is threatened. Will his pride or her prejudice doom the romance or will the chemistry between them win the day?

For its second show of the season, the Long Beach Playhouse presents an engaging new adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. In Jon Jory's reworking, all of the wit and romance of the novel comes to life in a fast-paced, humorous, and engaging production. Finding a husband is hardly Elizabeth Bennet's most urgent priority, but it is her mother's. And with Mrs. Bennet's overzealous match-making it's difficult to escape the subject.