BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

ELF THE MUSICAL is a fun family favorite for all ages. Based on the 2003 film which starred Will Ferrell, the show debuted on Broadway in 2010 with George Wendt as Santa Claus. He reprises the role in the touring production at the Wang Theatre, leading an ensemble of singing and dancing elves, and ...

Ilyse Robbins leads a team of champions in Greater Boston Stage Company's SHE LOVES ME, a delightful musical for the holiday season - or any season, for that matter. Music Director Matthew Stern brings out the best in the Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick score with the voices of Jennifer Ellis, Sam Simahk...

Moonbox Productions requires you to use your imagination, but you will be duly rewarded thanks to the talents of Director Allison Olivia Choat, her crew, and the four-person cast of THE 39 STEPS. Kevin Cirone, Sarah Gazdowicz, Bob Mussett, and Matthew Zahnzinger are all top-notch, and the designers ...

Moli re's TARTUFFE, as translated by Ranjit Bolt, is directed by Huntington Theatre Company's Artistic Director Peter DuBois and features an accomplished cast, led by Frank Wood and Brett Gelman. The story of a charlatan getting the better of a fool, despite the misgivings and warnings of his family...

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company Artistic Director Steven Maler directed an accomplished cast in Bertolt Brecht's FEAR AND MISERY IN THE THIRD REICH, in a staged reading at Babson College, headlined by notable stage and screen actors Tony Shalhoub and Brooke Adams....

In celebration of its seventh anniversary, Israeli Stage presents the American premiere of Renana Raz's theatrical event. The staged reading by Nael Nacer, Maureen Keiller, Melinda Lopez, and Lonnie Farmer explores the basic question of freedom of speech as it pertains to an educational setting. Co-...

Boston Playwrights' Theatre presents the Boston premiere of Molly Smith Metzler's own revision of her charming, funny 2011 play ELEMENO PEA. Set at the end of the summer on Martha's Vineyard, a couple of blue collar siblings from Buffalo try to reconnect with each other while caught up in the world ...

ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage presents Chilean-born playwright Guillermo Calder n's KISS, a play-within-a-play that delivers a message about cultural ignorance, the danger of living within a comfortable remove, and the potential of artists to change the world. Directed by Co-Artistic Director Davi...

The Nora Theatre Company presents Lauren Gunderson's THE REVOLUTIONISTS, a play which loudly and proudly shows the contribution of four badass women to the story of the French Revolution. The play is set in 1793, but these themes echo too loudly in 2017, reminding us that women must persist to res...

What matters most is the music you hear in your head, according to Florence Foster Jenkins, a passionate music lover who never met a tune she could actually carry. Lyric Stage Company Producing Artistic Director Spiro Veloudos celebrates his 20th season in his post by revisiting one of his favorit...

The national tour of the Tony Award-winning musical FUN HOME has landed in Boston and it's as sharply drawn and richly performed as its highly acclaimed Broadway predecessor. Once again mounted on a proscenium stage (it played in the round at Circle in the Square following its original Off-Broadway ...

Playwright Ken Urban was commissioned by Epic Theatre Ensemble to write a play about international aid workers, and his interviews with volunteers for Doctors Without Borders inform his new thought-provoking drama, A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK, now receiving its world premiere by the Huntington Theatre ...

Twenty-five years after first being produced, David Mamet's OLEANNA remains controversial as an intense drama driven by themes of political correctness, sexual harassment, power, and perception. Johnny Lee Davenport and Obehi Janice, two of Boston's finest actors, give fiery performances in this tim...

Greater Boston Stage Company has a commitment to produce a world premiere play each year, a mission now underwritten by the largesse of a long-time audience member and supporter. The 18th season at the Stoneham theater continues with ALLIGATOR ROAD, the inaugural offering of the Don Fulton New Play ...

Gloucester Stage Company concludes its 38th season with a thoughtful and thought-provoking production of Harper Lee's American classic, adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel. Directed by Judy Braha, this affecting production is buoyed by guileless child actors and strong performances from a be...

Boston Playwrights' Theatre opens its 36th season with Cliff Odle's ode to jazz and its place in the transitional period of the late 1950s to early 1960s. Director Diego Arciniegas does a first-rate job of translating Odle's play with music into a living, breathing entity with a rhythmic ebb and flo...

In his touring show which stopped in at Sanders Theatre on Friday evening, Alan Cumming displays an eclectic array of entertaining abilities, including singing, movement, and story-telling, and proves to be a loquacious bon vivant. His personalized renditions of pop songs were accompanied by Music D...

Flat Earth Theatre open its 12th season with Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Tony Kushner's 1987 play, a juxtaposition of the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany with the Reagan administration's neglect of the AIDS crisis in America. In 2017, there are lessons to heed from these waters...

Director Maria Friedman's Olivier Award-winning London revival of Stephen Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG lives up to its acclaim in this Huntington Theatre Company production continuing now through October 15. Both Sondheim and Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois have called Friedman's MERRI...

The world premiere production of WARHOLCAPOTE: A Non-Fiction Invention at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge exposes us to never-before-heard conversations between these two icons, brought vividly to life by Stephen Spinella and Dan Butler. Adaptor Rob Roth used their own words to enlighten us ...

Zeitgeist Stage Company begins its 17th season with the East Coast premiere of Selina Fillinger's FACELESS, a play with a storyline that sits smack in the middle of the national zeitgeist. It pits a sheltered 18-year old white girl against a Harvard Law School graduate and practicing Muslim in a tau...

Actors' Shakespeare Project opens its 14th season, The Downfall of Despots, with a comedy about a narcissistic despot who is having difficulty accepting his mortality. Director Dmitry Troyanovsky has the good fortune to work with a stellar ensemble, lead by the inimitable Richard Snee, and Sarah N...

Merrimack Repertory Theatre rings the bell for the start of its 39th season with the New England premiere of Marco Ramirez's award-winning play inspired by the life of Jack Johnson, the first black man to fight for the title of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. THE ROYALE is a beautifully-written a...

SpeakEasy Stage Company opens its 27th season with the Boston-area premiere of MEN ON BOATS, directed by Dawn Simmons, and featuring an all-female design team and a racially diverse, non-male cast. The playwright specifies in the script that the actors are to be female-identifying, trans-identifyin...

Gloucester Stage Company presents the world premiere of playwright Jim Frangione's FLIGHT OF THE MONARCH following an overwhelming audience response to a reading last fall. Managing Director Jeff Zinn is at the controls, with a fine pair of collaborators in Nancy E. Carroll and J. Tucker Smith as a...