BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

Over the course of the last twenty years, Producing Artistic Director Spiro Veloudos has been a man with a mission. During that time period, he has systematically presented the works of composer Stephen Sondheim at the Lyric Stage Company, beginning with ASSASSINS in the 1998-1999 season, and conclu...

Even as Artistic Director and Founder Guy Ben-Aharon rings down the curtain on Israeli Stage after nine seasons, his final offering draws back the curtain to give us a peek at the human collateral damage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Playwrights Hanna Eady and Edward Mast's collaboration on T...

Often when you go to a Broadway show you want to be challenged, enthralled, and blown away. Other times, as Cindy Lauper says in her hit song 'Girls just want to have fun'. Ms. Lauper's 'Kinky Boots' falls under the latter category and that's ok because it is just that, a really, fun and enjoyable s...

Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra opened the 134th Spring Pops season with a 50th anniversary tribute to the watershed events of the summer of 1969, two stunning short films, a homegrown astronaut, and a celestial Broadway legend. Commencing with the 'Opening Fanfare' from Strauss' Also S...

SpeakEasy Stage Company presents the New England premiere of the 2018 Lucille Lortel Award-winner for Outstanding Play (tie), Jocelyn Bioh's SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MAN GIRLS PLAY, directed by Summer L. Williams. A Ghanaian-American playwright, Bioh sets the play in 1986 at a top boarding scho...

Never mind all those Marvel heroes and the new bladder buster movie 'Avengers: Endgame,' if you want to see a real heroine in action, line up for the Gold Dust Orphans' final show at the soon-to-be repurposed Machine Nightclub. Kiki Samko takes the director's reins and wrangles all of the players in...

INDECENT is a beautiful work of art that exists in a realm above and beyond the conventional category of a play, or, in this case, a play with music. It has an ethereal quality that suggests an oil painting in motion, with every movement and every utterance in service to telling a story that cannot ...

New Repertory Theatre presents BECOMING DR. RUTH, Mark St. Germain's (FREUD'S LAST SESSION) biographical comedy that tells you everything you didn't even know you wanted to know about Dr. Ruth, but were glad the playwright asked. Set in her Washington Heights, NY, apartment with a panoramic view ove...

Merrimack Repertory Theatre concludes its 40th season with Molly Smith Metzler's CRY IT OUT, a delightful human comedy that surfs along on the waves of a burgeoning friendship between a pair of mothers of newborn babies, while also acknowledging the myriad challenges that lurk beneath the surface. T...

On December 4, 1956, at Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, a great moment in rock 'n' roll history occurred, almost by chance. Record producer Sam Phillips, sometimes referred to as the "Father of Rock 'n' Roll," brought together the past, present, and future artists of his recording company ...

CAROLINE, OR CHANGE is Tony Kushner's (book and lyrics) semi-autobiographical, sung-through musical, with music by Jeanine Tesori (FUN HOME), that had its origins Off-Broadway in 2003, before transferring to Broadway in 2004 for 136 performances and receiving six Tony nominations. In the ensuing yea...

The Boston theater community is enriched by the presence of Boston Playwrights' Theatre, founded in 1981 at Boston University by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. The BU New Play Initiative is an element of the Boston University College of Fine Arts which fosters a commitment to the School of Theatre's ...

Theater UnCorked drains the bottle of its inaugural season this weekend with a fully-staged production of SYLVIA, prolific playwright A.R. Gurney's homage to man's best friend. Hilarious and heartwarming in equal measure, the play is a welcome respite from the spate of heftier, more serious dramatic...

The world may end with a whimper, but Zeitgeist Stage Company goes out with a bang, presenting the world premiere of Jacques Lamarre's TRIGGER WARNING. David J. Miller and company bring down the curtain after eighteen seasons on the Boston theater scene, leaving a void that will not be soon or easil...

There are times when the percussion in TAP DOGS, the testosterone-fueled tap dance extravaganza now at the Hanover Theatre in Worcester through April 14, is so penetrating that your diaphragm literally pulses in rhythm to the beat. A workman-themed sound and dance performance that seems like the lov...

The North American tour of A BRONX TALE doo-wops its way into the Citizens Bank Opera House through April 14th as part of the 2018-2019 Lexus Broadway In Boston Season. It is at once a nostalgic stroll down memory lane with an original rock 'n' roll score, a gritty depiction of urban turf wars, and ...

In 1982, Extremities, by playwright William Mastrosimone, premiered at Westside Arts in New York starring Susan Sarandon, and later the play was adapted into a movie starring Farrah Fawcett, the final actress to play the role of Marjorie in the Broadway production....

It's a different time and a different war, but the protagonist in this coming of age story faces many of the same challenges as would a young person today. What do I want to do with my life? Where do I fit in the world? How can I make my mark? Meanwhile, set in the City of Lowell in 1941-2, as it is...

What does God want, and who truly knows? Who gets to decide what is right? These are just a couple of the questions raised in Hansol Jung's wrenching new play, CARDBOARD PIANO, in its New England premiere at New Repertory Theatre. Set in Northern Uganda at the turn of the millennium, a forbidden lov...

Playwright Allison Gregory combines myth and magic to craft a non-linear narrative about betrayal, death, motherhood, and the darkest tragedy. It is to her credit that she weaves a great deal of humor and humanity through the play, and Juliet Bowler is adept at playing both sides of the character. T...

The Greater Boston Stage Company presents the U.S. premiere of a new musical by Amiel Gladstone and Veda Hille, based on the poem by Pushkin and the opera by Tchaikovsky. The pop rock score takes flight, but the sung-through libretto doesn't rise to the same lofty level as the music. Depending on yo...

The U.S. tour of the National Theatre's multiple award-winning production of J.B. Priestley's classic thriller, AN INSPECTOR CALLS, presented by ArtsEmerson at Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, features masterful direction by Stephen Daldry (who also directed the 1992 West End revival), Ian MacNeil's...

The Huntington Theatre Company digs into the William Shakespeare canon and pulls out a plum written more than four centuries ago. After dusting it off and giving it a spin in the time machine, Artistic Director Peter DuBois has crafted a contemporary, muscular version of the romantic tragedy ROMEO A...

Once upon a time, a guy and a girl meet on the streets of Dublin, bond over their shared passion for music, enrich each other's lives, and find the way forward to the separate paths that their lives were meant to follow. With its current homegrown production of ONCE, SpeakEasy Stage Company demonstr...

THE ILLUSIONISTS - LIVE FROM BROADWAY can make you forget your troubles and get happy for a couple of hours. From start to finish, the six-member team of multi-talented performers takes turns completing stunning works of prestidigitation, illusion, and daring, mixed with charm, comedy, and extraordi...