BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

The Greater Boston Stage Company production of Christopher M. Walsh's MISS HOLMES is chock full of delightful elements. Producing Artistic Director Weylin Symes integrates minimalist and inventive stagecraft with a cast combining the usual suspects and a few first offenders for a spellbinding theatr...

THE BAKELITE MASTERPIECE is the Boston area premiere of Kate Cayley's two-hander, directed by Jim Petosa, with stellar performances by Benjamin Evett and Laura Latreille. It is based on the true story of Dutch artist Han van Meegeren, a noted forger accused of treason for selling a long-lost Vermeer...

THE THREEPENNY OPERA is a 20th century classic that is rarely performed by a professional opera company. Boston Lyric Opera and Director James Darrah have brought together an ensemble of artists whose acting skills and stellar vocal talents distinctively portray the cast of memorable characters and ...

The National Tour of the 2016 Tony Award-winning play THE HUMANS makes its Boston debut at the Boch Center Shubert Theatre. Playwright Stephen Karam, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, is well-known to local theater audiences from his dark comedy SONS OF THE PROPHET, and SPEECH AND DEBATE. With hum...

SpeakEasy Stage Company presents Boston premiere of British playwright Duncan Macmillan's one-person show that explores depression with humor. Marianna Bassham directs Adrianne Krstansky in a brilliant performance as the daughter of a suicidal mother, who copes by creating a list of things worth liv...

According to AMERICAN THEATRE magazine, Dominique Morisseau's SKELETON CREW is the third most-widely produced play of the 2017-2018 season at regional theaters nationwide. Huntington Theatre Company stages the timely final chapter of the playwright's Detroit trilogy, a powerful drama about the hards...

STEVE is a character-driven play in which not much happens, but it is a humorous treatise on the lives of a couple of middle-aged gay couples who are exploring ways to enliven their 'post-passion' relationships. Right about now, we can all use a shot of humor, and whether one is gay or straight, the...

In the world premiere of BRAWLER at Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Walt McGough places the action in a hockey arena to explore what happens to an 'enforcer' who is demoted from the Boston Bruins to the minor league team in Providence. Can the former hero of the ice rink find an outlet for his violent ...

ArtsEmerson and the American Repertory Theater present the world premiere of THE WHITE CARD by playwright and poet Claudia Rankine. The groundbreaking piece of theater begins a conversation and challenges us to stay in the room to talk about race in America. It suggests that society cannot progress ...

Nearly three years after it premiered at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, and while still enjoying a successful run on Broadway, the national tour of WAITRESS is serving customers at the Boston Opera House as part of the Lexus Broadway In Boston 2017-2018 season. The Diane Paulus-driven ...

Merrimack Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of LOST LAUGHS: THE SLAPSTICK TRAGEDY OF FATTY ARBUCKLE, bringing to life the story of one of the great comics of silent films. A century ago, he was Hollywood's first million-dollar man, but fell from grace when charged with murder. Despite hi...

BAD DATES remount at Huntington Theatre Company reunites Director Jessica Stone and actor Haneefah Wood who worked together in HTC's VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE (2015). Put aside any qualms you may have about one-person plays because Theresa Rebeck has conjured up a character with a multitu...

New Repertory Theatre and Boston Center for American Performance team up to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Steven Dietz's LONELY PLANET, a story of friendship, loss, and hope during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Artistic Director Jim Petosa directs with a smooth ebb and flow, keeping our foc...

World premiere production of Kira Rockwell's NOMAD AMERICANA introduces the eccentric Echo family, whose vagabond lifestyle allows them the freedom to be who they are while looking for the magic in the universe. The play is a gently meandering character study and a breath of fresh air....

Chilean author Ariel Dorfman's 1990 play DEATH AND THE MAIDEN is set in an unnamed country that is probably Chile as it emerges from a long period of dictatorship and adjusts to life under a fledgling democratic government. Even as the nation struggles to reinvent itself, one woman's road to recover...

The North American tour of LOVE NEVER DIES brings the musical to the United States for the first time since its 2010 London premiere, and is playing at the Boston Opera House through February 11th as part of the 2017-2018 Lexus Broadway in Boston Season....

The Lyric Stage Company continues to meander through the works of Stephen Sondheim with ROAD SHOW, his most recent collaboration with librettist John Weidman. While not in the upper echelon of Sondheim's works, the score and the Lyric production make it worthwhile. This musical travelogue about the ...

On the occasion of what would have been her 75th birthday, A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN opened a two-night engagement at the Boch Center Shubert Theatre, sharing with Boston the spirit of Janis and the blues vocalists who inspired her. Newton native Kelly McIntyre evokes Joplin with her body language, ...

In the latest instalment of an annual Tyngsborough tradition, the town's high school theatre program puts on SHE LOVES ME as this year's dinner theatre production, which you do not want to miss. Resolve to see this show with a dear friend before the days go by!...

SpeakEasy Stage Company's New England premiere production of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is a meaty, fast-paced comic romp with lots of sizzle to go with that steak. Jennifer Ellis and new leading man in town, George Olesky, are a match made in heaven, surrounded by a talented ensemble that includes Nancy E...

BEDLAM'S SENSE & SENSIBILITY is Kate Hamill's adaptation of Jane Austen's classic woman-centered novel, a free-wheeling offering for the holiday season that is the right story at the right time. The ensemble cast embraces the spirit of play that is Bedlam's stock in trade, while conveying the power ...

HOLD THESE TRUTHS blends historical fact with fiction to tell Gordon Hirabayashi's compelling story of standing up for his constitutional rights when he was ordered to report to an internment camp only months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The events of the past echo loudly today and the...

New Repertory Theatre's 2017-2018 season is labeled Resilience, and it doubles down on the theme with its current production of MAN OF LA MANCHA. The 1965 Tony Award-winning Best Musical, which was based on the play I, DON QUIXOTE, ran for 2,328 performances, has been revived on Broadway four times,...

Merrimack Repertory Theatre's production of Tony Brown's adaptation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL has Joel Colodner as the author performing his own work in front of an audience. Directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian, this inventive version is enhanced and enriched by the musical accompaniment of Rebecca White a...

As sure as Christmas rolls around every December 25th, Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans return to the stage at the Ramrod Center for the Performing Arts at Machine Night Club with a Christmas-themed musical mystery, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JESUS? The inventive mash-up is unlike any other holi...