Justin J. Sacramone

Under the direction of Trip Cullman, MOSCOW is a coruscating blend of juxtaposing anachronisms, fearless of being nasty and messy, and shows the heights theatre can reach when a playwright's singular voice is fleshed out by a director's pastiche concept.

Now revived at the Williamstown Theatre Festival under the direction of Tony winner Rebecca Taichman, THE CLEAN HOUSE earned playwright Sarah Ruhl her first recognition as a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005. Ruhl's lyrical comedy has been produced at some of the nation's top regional theatres leading THE CLEAN HOUSE to tie as the second most produced play in the 2007-2008 American theatre season.

Mark Medoff's Tony-winning play CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD centers around a state school for the deaf in the 1970's and follows several interwoven faculty/student storylines. While the excitement builds once we learn where Medoff has placed his characters at the top, it's a quick deflation to see he's decided not to dive deeper into any of the interesting dynamics. Instead, his play is more about a relationship with poor communication skills than a focus on the deaf community's struggle to assimilate into the hearing community.

What better way to kick off PRIDE month than with a concert celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Boston Gay Men's Chorus? Held at Symphony Hall on June 4th and titled ANYTHING GOES, the show featured 175 chorus members and offered a lineup of music ranging from Leonard Bernstein to original work. The evening was topped off with a solo performance by two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster.

One of the latest in this series of revues is SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM, a brainchild of frequent Sondheim collaborator James Lapine, which premiered on Broadway in 2010. Reorchestrated to fit the Boston Pops, SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM played a two-night engagement at Symphony Hall on June 15 and June 16 under the direction of Sarna Lapine and conducted by Keith Lockhart.

Mikhail Bulgakov never finished "Theatrical Novel," his magnum opus about a playwrights backroom negotiations, but Golyak saw the unfinished work's potential and brought it to life on stage in a mysterious and thrilling new production. Now titled as A DEAD MAN'S DIARY: A THEATRICAL NOVEL, we are given the opportunity to experience this philosophical play by considering the turmoil when an artist and their art uncontrollably move further and further away due to commercial and political interests.

The foundation of ARRABAL builds upon Argentina's tumultuous past of decaying democracy and state-sponsored terrorism while focusing on a single family affected by this conflict. The family here is a captured guerrilla fighter-slash-father, a mourning Abuela, and daughter Arrabal on a quest for closure. Despite sounding overstuffed, the title character's undeveloped journey combined with a vague use of dense themes leads to a performance piece begging to be more.

The bad news first: the 2016/2017 Boston theater season is coming to a close. Now that we got that out of the way let's spin this into a positive because it doesn't mean our theater options suddenly run dry for the next few months! Right now, companies located in a Western Massachusetts region called the Berkshires are preparing to deliver full-length seasons of theater compacted into just a few months.

Regional Contributing Editor, Justin picks his top ten best plays and musicals of 2016.

Now celebrating its 90th anniversary, The Plough and the Stars has been given a reimagined revival by The Abbey Theatre, Ireland's National Theatre and is on tour at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA until October 9th. This Brechtian inspired production is as alien as it is fresh and reminds us of a plightful world outside of our current political climate. Parallels could easily be drawn from turn of the century Ireland to 2016 America, but that's not the story The Abbey Theatre or director Sean Holmes are interested in telling. Not everything on the American Stage needs a path back to us. The Abbey's approach is more vast and profound as evidenced in an early line 'There's no such thing as an Irishman, or an Englishman, or a German or a Turk; we're all only human bein's.'

Broadway Bounty Hunter, a new musical which opened at Barrington Stage Company on August 19th, celebrates the history of B-list movies and modern musical theatre by blending them together in hilarious fashion. At the center of this high-antic musical is Joe Iconis' psychedelic score- a surreal composure in lush form thanks to Charlie Rosen's orchestrations. Broadway Bounty Hunter proves musical theatre reaches its apex when risk is taken and boundaries are broken.

Dr. Lyssa Dent Hughes is about to be named Surgeon General of the United States. She has devoted her entire career to the advocacy of women's rights. She married well, has great kids, and surrounds herself with an elite group of accomplished friends. Her confirmation seems likely as the curtain rises on An American Daughter. Dr. Lyssa Dent Hughes, a descendant of President Ulysses S. Grant will become a household name and champion for women across the nation if she's confirmed. The stakes could not be higher

Nick Payne's Constellations uses the hypothetical existence of a multiverse and applies it to the coupling of Marianne and Roland over and over again. A multiverse is the scientific theory that challenges physics and suggests all consequences of our lives are living symmetrically on a plane and the outcome is an endless roll of the dice. We witness the action progressing them forward in life as it consistently resets, skews or diverts dramatically. Boy meets girl is no longer a simple narrative. What sounds like a storytelling gimmick, expediently becomes throbbing unsuspecting drama that is as intimate as is it vast. Perhaps I would have paid attention in high school science if it was taught to me this way.

The Pirates of Penzance is possibly the most popular comic operetta and its history of adoration has been consistent since its premier in 1879. Revivals of The Pirates of Penzance were ubiquitous throughout the 20th Century with Joseph Papp's production in 1980 becoming the most lauded. This version featured new musical arrangements which pulled the operetta closer to musical theatre, making it accessible for contemporary audiences all while remaining respectful to the original version. Other adaptators have tried their hands only to fall short. Pirates (or, Gilbert and Sullivan Plunder'd) was a failed experiment that set the story in the caribbean and transformed the Pirate King into a pseudo-Captain Jack Sparrow.

Kendra Ellis-Connor is living every mother's worst nightmare. Her son is missing. It's now four o'clock in the morning and she's at the police station trying to get answers. The officer working the nightshift is useless, her ex-husband isn't picking up his phone and the speculations are beginning to consume her. Her son's disappearance and the station's lack of information raise questions. Kendra has a hunch why. Both she and her son are black. American Son, a new play by Christopher Demos-Brown which ran at the Barrington Stage Company from June 17 through July 9, 2016 is a turbulent parable of America's systemic racism.

'The sh*t that happens is not meant to be understood,' says lonely truck driver Eddie. The chewing gum and shoe string holding Eddie's head up is beginning to wane- teetering him on the edge of devastation. He is now thrust back into reality trying to grasp the circumstance that landed him in this specific bar on this specific night. The dark loneliness of long, distant drives in his vocation were nothing compared to his present despair.

If North Shore Music Theatre's production of Mary Poppins was conceived to prove Murphy's Law right (Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong), then producer Bill Hanney and director Kevin P. Hill have crafted a masterpiece. Perhaps it's best described through the disbelief of Michael Banks following an afternoon spent rollicking in the park with his mystical nanny; 'Did that really just happen?' It certainly did and with a calamitous kerplunk.

Art isn't easy. From Edvard Munch's agoraphobia to Sarah Kane's depression, the art world's rap sheet for its dense population of individuals with mental illness is haunting. Just ask Turner, the newest 'it talent' on the Chelsea art scene, who is struggling with a myriad of emotional and psychological trauma. Set on the night of Turner's newest art exhibition, Eyes Shut. Door Open. explores the tortured artist archetype by chronicling Turner's existential crisis.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. God walks into a therapist's office and says he's depressed. The therapist asks "how long have you felt this way?" and God says, "something like...two thousand, two thousand five hundred years, give or take." "You've been depressed for two thousand years and only now you've come for therapy? What were you waiting for?" asks the therapist and God says "I thought time would heal." Sometimes, everyone needs a swift 90 minute session of cathartic therapy to unpack some problems festering for two thousand years. In Anat Gov's play "Oh, God," an earthly psychologist is chosen to have a session with the Big Guy about a 2000 year old itch.

Presidential candidates are not the only ones taking to the debate stage these days. In Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, characters stand and challenge each other, far more diplomatically than our friends running for higher office, on a long list of mathematical, scientific, and philosophical theories. Characters with strong conviction passionately defending those convictions can make for the type of thought-provoking theatre that stays with you long after curtain call.