BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

Jersey Boys opened this week to one of the most enthusiastic welcomes I have ever witnessed at NSMT. The show stopping ovations were so heartfelt & sustained that the actors literally had to stop, numerous times, to wait for the applause to finish before continuing, and the show deserved the adorati...

Gloucester Stage Company presents the Boston area premiere of Richard Strand's BEN BUTLER, a Union army general who was a settler of Gloucester's Bayview neighborhood, a presidential candidate, and the 33rd Governor of Massachusetts. Those achievements came after he retired from the military, where ...

There are a few slower moving moments in Tony Award winning (Book of Dear Evan Hansen) playwright Steven Levonson's work but there is plenty of pathos as well as lots of levity and laughter in IF I FORGET. The ensemble cast is very strong and extremely well balanced. So much so that at some poin...

There's no doubt that dark times are ahead for the people of Berlin in this faithful recreation of the tawdry 1998 Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of CABARET. Using the original Broadway sets by Robert Brill and costumes by William Ivey Long, this Ogunquit Playhouse version, running now through ...

There is quite a lot to like about this exemplary Williamstown Theatre Festival Commission and recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. I've discussed the play with several people who've seen it.  They all enjoyed and spoke highly of the experience, but each focused on a different aspe...

With book by Zoe Bradford and Michael Hammond, and music and lyrics by Adam Brooks, PARAGON PARK: THE MUSICAL is a lovingly-crafted reflection of a moment in time that spans eight decades. There's more than enough small town politics, quirky characters, and human interest in the overstuffed book, bu...

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BSC Artistic Director, Julieanne Boyd, Directed the ambitious endeavor. This play represents quite an undertaking on many levels and on most them, this production succeeds....

In this musical exploration of 26 people from various walks of life and how people's relationships to their work ultimately reveal key aspects of their humanity you will meet and learn about your friends, neighbors, service providers, and maybe even yourself....

How much one enjoys THE LIGHTNING THIEF, The Percy Jackson Musical, currently at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston through July 28, may correlate directly with one's familiarity with the source material. On opening night, the large number of teens and tweens in the audience - who were clearly...

DEAR EVAN HANSEN, the 2017 Tony Award-winning musical currently at the Boston Opera House through August 4, is that rare teen angst story that neither trivializes nor over dramatizes the challenges of coming of age in modern America. Rather, this at times funny, at times penetrating, and always tend...

The sometimes confusing, amusing, and thought-provoking play premiered in 1942. This production has been freshened up a bit and includes modern references some of which are particularly relevant to the Berkshires. The main characters are George and Maggie Antrobus, their two children, Henry and Gla...

SELLING KABUL is a powerful, raw, riveting and highly relevant new drama that connects on a level seldom seen and rarely felt. The world premiere run continues on the Nikos Stage at Williamstown Theatre Festival through July 20....

If there's one thing that summer theater should be, it's fun, and Gloucester Stage Company's production of THE 39 STEPS happily fulfills the requirement. Actually, it is more than fun - it is laugh out loud funny, thanks to the witty script, the crisp direction by Artistic Director Robert Walsh, and...

BSC veterans Carson Elrod, Jeff McCarthy, and Debra Jo Rupp, all of whom are well known to area theatre goers are joined by Cary Donaldson and Ruth Pferdehirt. The ensemble is well balanced and show themselves to be exceptional character actors. Not every line lands solidly, but the skilled cast u...

Disney's Freaky Friday just opened at North Shore Music Theatre. Based on the 1972 novel by Mary Rodgers. It was then made into a movie by Disney in 1976 staring Jody Foster and Barbara Harris, with a less memorable movie remake in 2018. It is now a newly created, fun family musical with all the bel...

The entire cast proves themselves to be exemplary delivering long complicated dialogue that remains true to the old English, not with trite overdone accents but with polished voices and presentation that helps to make each unique, authentic, and engaging. Although the language can be challenging at...

On Monday night, the Emerson Colonial Theatre presented THE SETH RUDESTSKY SERIES STARRING JESSIE MUELLER, the first of three concerts with Cheyenne Jackson (October 4) and Kelli O'Hara (January 9) to follow. The host of Sirius SM's On Broadway channel, Rudetsky is a pianist, a music director, and p...

There is a lot to like packed into this production directed by Randal Myler. The action is well paced and well-staged. The use of turntables, tiering, and scrims are particularly effective elements of the scenic design by Tim Mackabee. The choreography by Brian Reeder, and costumes designed by ...

A HUMAN BEING, OF A SORT represents an examination of what may lie beneath the surface. It suggests we look more closely at a reality complicated by context. It presents many of the paradoxes seemingly present in human interaction. It is a period piece but also quite timely and relevant. We find ou...

Playwright Matthew Lombardo revisits his 2002 play as a one-act solo vehicle for Faye Dunaway, now receiving a pre-Broadway premiere at the Huntington Avenue Theatre in Boston. Attractive design elements evoke the Old Saybrook, Connecticut world of Katharine Hepburn, but neither the script nor the s...

Directed by Obie Award winner Robert O'Hara, Hansberry's fearless interrogation of hope in the face of racial and economic strife is as provocative and powerful today as when it premiered. In the hands of this talented team, the issues the younger family faces transcend traditional lines and disti...

There's an unmistakeable sound of thunder emanating from the Ogunquit Playhouse these days, commencing with the rhythmic pounding of nearly two dozen pairs of feet, and ending in a crescendo of audience applause. It is not fulsome praise to give DirectorChoreographer Randy Skinner multiple huzzahs a...

A year shy of its 100th birthday, the Cabot Theatre in Beverly, a North Shore treasure for the performing arts, presented multiple Grammy Award-winning recording artist Dionne Warwick in concert before a sold-out house on Friday night. Now in the sixth decade of her singing career, Warwick and her v...

In a time when most of us are tied to and dependent on electronic devices, and we are bombarded by messages, tweets, compressed news cycles, and Fear Of Missing Out, it is rare that we have an opportunity to step-back, disconnect, decompress, and focus simply on the people and things that really mat...