BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

In one of the most mesmerizing performances in recent memory, Jade Wheeler answers the question with a stunning interpretation of Eartha Kitt, both as an artist and as a person. With a foundation of creative direction by Cailin Doran, outstanding piano accompaniment by music director Seulah Noh, and...

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 introdu...

HEARTLAND conjures up an image of amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesties. For the part of it that is set in Nebraska, some of that may be appropriate. However, for the portion of it that is set in Afghanistan, it may be nothing more than a mirage. Likewise, the image of the United State...

Around this time last year, Chicago-based theatre troupe Manual Cinema made its debut appearance at ArtsEmerson: The World On Stage with a five-day run of ADA/AVA. Having been a big hit, they have returned for a second visit, presenting THE END OF TV for a two-week run at the Emerson Paramount Cente...

The 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist for drama is a compelling production at the Lyric Stage Company with an all-female team of director, designers, and actors. Focusing on the lives of nine teenage girls, it is played out on a suburban soccer practice field where the challenges of the game are mingled ...

Nearly a century and a half after Nora Helmer walked out on her husband Torvald and their three children in Henrik Ibsen's 1879 classic A DOLL'S HOUSE, playwright Lucas Hnath proposes a well-thought reply to the speculation of what became of her in A DOLL'S HOUSE, PART 2. Its 2017 Broadway staging r...

The Boston premiere of the US National Tour of Roald Dahl's CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY opened at the Boston Opera House this week, just a year after the Broadway production closed. The core of the Broadway creative team brings in a 36-member cast, including the beguiling candy man Willy Wonka...

SpeakEasy Stage Company presents Boston premiere of Bess Wohl's 2015 Off-Broadway comedy with a stellar cast of locals under the masterful direction of M. Bevin O'Gara. A play with limited dialogue challenges the actors to bare their inner personae, while requiring that the audience listen harder an...

BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES takes you on a cultural exchange trip across the continent of Africa, with a side journey to the UK, to meet and listen in on communities of men who go to the barber shop for much more than a shave and a haircut. Focusing on the relationships of men with fathers, children, fri...

Playwright Laura Neill is an angry person who channels her fiery passion onto the page and, ultimately, onto the stage. In WINTER PEOPLE, her newest work produced by Boston Playwrights' Theatre and Boston University College of Arts School of Theatre, she takes up the mantle for the underserved famil...

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1776 is a show that appreciates in value and import when viewed in the context of its time. It opened on Broadway in 1969 when Richard Nixon was president, the controversial war in Vietnam raged on, and civil unrest was the domestic order of the day. With that backdrop, it's popularity was unexpecte...

The Front Porch Arts Collective partners with the Lyric Stage Company to start their second season with BREATH & IMAGINATION, Daniel Beaty's musical about Roland Hayes. First-time director Maurice Emmanuel Parent draws tour de force performance from Davron S. Monroe as the acclaimed African-American...

If you like a little horror with your ho-ho-ho, then program your GPS to guide your sleigh to Machine in the Fenway where Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans' 2018 Christmas spectacular is A NIGHTMARE ON ELF STREET, their holiday-themed tribute to '80's slasher films. A Freddy Krueger-like serial ...

MAN IN THE RING deserves better than to be described with boxing cliches, but the Huntington Theatre Company production of Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cristofer's play is a knockout. Its complex structure, authentic dialogue, and poignant portrayals by an outstanding cast of actors make this biogr...

The American Repertory Theater looks very different in 2018 after ten years with Artistic Director Diane Paulus at the helm. She has changed the institution with her vision and creativity, sculpting, in her words, a 'legacy of boundary-breaking musical theater.' In celebration of the past decade, wh...

Renowned British playwright Caryl Churchill is the author of a pair of one-act plays merged into Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's UNIVERSE RUSHING APART: BLUE KETTLE and HERE WE GO, playing through the weekend in the Black Box Theater at Babson College's Sorenson Center for the Arts in Wellesley. ...

THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG gives new meaning to the phrase "brings down the house." An incredible ensemble, seamless direction, and a Tony Award-winning set combine for non-stop, laugh-inducing antics that make this night of theater an absolute delight....

At the Saturday afternoon Matinee, at the United Parish Church, Brookline, MA, The Actor's Shakespeare Project presented Bill Cain's Play Equivocation. The result was a success in every way. This was my first viewing of this play and while it is a lot to take in, (more about that later) I thoroughly...

In Saturday Night's performance of Macbeth at The United Parish Church, Brookline, MA, Nael Nacer as Macbeth, (and in an inspired bit of casting as Macduff's son), was truly outstanding, backed by a strong company of actors. This production of Macbeth is the world premiere of a new verse translation...

The 2003 Broadway Musical Hairspray, with a Tony Award-winning book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan and a Tony Award-winning score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman featuring the hit songs 'Welcome To The '60s,' 'You Can't Stop The Beat,' 'Mamma, I'm A Big Girl Now,' 'I Know Where I've Boon,' ...

It is probably an unintended coincidence that the Lyric Stage Company's production of Jen Silverman's two-hander, THE ROOMMATE, passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, even as FUN HOME, based on Alison Bechdel's graphic novel/memoir is onstage down the street at the Boston Center for the Arts. F...

The Emerson String Quartet's concert on Sunday, October 21, 2018 was a rich and satisfying chamber music feast....

FUN HOME is a true story about real people, and Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault's production at SpeakEasy Stage Company, the Boston regional premiere of the 2015 Tony Award-winning musical, will make a believer out of anyone who sets foot in the Roberts Studio Theatre. Based on Alison Be...

Inspired by her experiences working in the recreation department at a youth residential care facility in the Lone Star State, Kira Rockwell has written a fictional story about five adolescent girls that portrays their back stories, personalities, and behaviors with authenticity, while trying to eras...