BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

New Repertory Theatre continues its third annual Next Rep Black Box Festival with Colm Toibin's THE TESTAMENT OF MARY, a controversial one-woman play that reimagines the life and attitudes of Mary some twenty years after the crucifixion of her son. Artistic Director Jim Petosa directs Paula Langton ...

If the homespun humor and quirky philosophizing that comes to you live from Lake Woebegone via A Prairie Home Companion warms you up on a cold winter's night, then NICE FISH is your cup of cocoa. The brainchild of Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins, based on Jenkins' offbeat down home prose poems writte...

DISGRACED and VIOLET heat up the winter with power and grace as the Huntington Theatre Company and SpeakEasy Stage enter the second half of their 2015-2016 seasons with winners....

When the author greeted the audience at the top of Bistany's Mysteries he explained that when he sat down to give us his latest novel, he realized suddenly he was staring at a partially blank page. Panicked as opening night quickly approached, Mr. Bistany had a brilliant idea: let the audience c...

MRT stages the first of three world premieres with Artistic Director Sean Daniels' play THE WHITE CHIP, a dark comedy about his own alcoholism and recovery. By sharing his personal story, he hopes to help someone else going through the same thing; by lightening the mood, he makes the story entertain...

There's Sondheim music galore playing at the Lyric Stage Company as Producing Artistic Director and recognized Sondheim expert Spiro Veloudos directs an octet of Boston musical theatre performers in SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM. In effect, the composer/lyricist is the ninth member of the ensemble as he appe...

Fresh Ink Theatre Company presents the inaugural production of Ginger Lazarus' THE HOUSEKEEPER at Boston Playwrights' Theatre. The four-character drama includes a ghost, but she's less scary than the teenage girl struggling with her grief and growing pains. An inept father relies on the new housekee...

Directed by Rich McKey, who brings his creative vision of what kind of world Levin's five characters should inhabit as they simultaneously create and avoid their own demise, Deathtrap is a joyride into the minds of maniacal people who think that their plans and intentions will be brought about not o...

Actors are superstitious people. I have seen some pretty outrageous rituals in the rehearsal room during my time as an actor. It seems that during every step along the way from casting to opening night, the actor has something to keep them, and the production, safe. Don't speak the name of this play...

Chase the post-holiday blues and January blahs away with a trip to Oz, courtesy of the imaginary beasts' annual WINTER PANTO 2016: THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ. Artistic Director Matthew Woods presents his 13th panto in collaboration with a talented ensemble of actors and an amazing team of designers....

Formerly the Harwich Junior Theater, CCTC may have changed its name but it has hardly lost its niche for bringing the Cape Cod community productions of the utmost quality, and its most recent production of Oliver! has done much more than provide a wonderfully entertaining time for children and adult...

New Repertory Theatre's 3rd Annual Next Rep Black Box Festival presents British playwright David Hare's VIA DOLOROSA as the first of its three shows. Minimal design elements sharpen the focus on David Bryan Jackson's virtuoso performance as the author. Serving as an animated and amiable tour guide, ...

If the thought of seeing a contemporary opera based on Tolstoy's War and Peace sends Siberian shivers down your spine, fear not. All that Russian angst and all those convoluted relationships between 'people with nine different names' are brought forth with ingenious musical clarity in NATASHA, PIERR...

People have been 'Falling Slowly' in love with ONCE ever since composers Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova first enchanted audiences in 2007 with their tender, surprise hit indie romance. Now fans of the film and equally successful Tony Award-winning Broadway musical adaptation have one last chance t...

RETURN OF THE WINEMAKER: AN IRISH CHRISTMAS COMEDY is a gift of the season from Tir Na Productions. An absurd little dark comedy about the second coming of Jesus, it's not your traditional Christmas show, but it boasts terrific performances by Derry Woodhouse, Colin Hamell, Stephen Russell, and Nanc...

Ryan Landry taps into political and cultural hot topics for the Gold Dust Orphans' new holiday extravaganza. Everyone's favorite villainess Mrs. Grinchley returns, but she has competition from Whitey Bulger and Donald Trump for the most evil character in A LITTLE ORPHAN TRANNY CHRISTMAS. The mash-up...

ONE CHILD BORN: THE MUSIC OF LAURA NYRO is a one-woman cabaret style show that can only be called a labor of love. Co-written by Louis Greenstein and its star Kate Ferber, it grew out of Ferber's own adoration of Nyro since childhood and blossomed into a genuine tribute by including testimonials fro...

In a departure from traditional seasonal fare, two local theater companies are bringing us back to the simpler days of yesteryear, staging live radio productions of Christmas shows set in the 1940s. Stoneham Theatre offers the frothy, musical bagatelle CHRISTMAS ON THE AIR while Merrimack Repertory ...

With a book by Harvey Fierstein, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and under the direction of Maura Hanlon (who must also be recognized and praised for her work on this summer's Failure: A Love Story), Cape Rep's of La Cage Aux Folles allows audiences the privilege of understanding why the original B...

Jeffrey Hatcher's stage adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A CONFERERACY OF DUNCES, now in its world premiere at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, feels like a lost opportunity. Much like its obnoxious and oversized central character Ignatius J. Reilly, a slovenly, unemployed 30-...

In the memory of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Steven Isserlis and Robert Levin proved faultless, performing the first of two all-Beethoven programs at Boston's prestigious Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum....

Even though Whoopi Goldberg was the lead producer of SISTER ACT on Broadway, the "Divine Musical" raising the roof at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Mass. is not the SISTER ACT of Whoopi Goldberg's 1992 hit movie. Yes, the sassy attitude and jubilant spirit of the nightclub singer taking ...

Whatever the past is, it is immortal to the person reliving it, and acknowledging the truth of this statement and thus questioning its relevance in the life of Homer's Poet is something the audience is faced with throughout An Iliad. In this beautiful one-man production, the sole man on stage offers...

This Fall two of Boston's finest theater companies have taken the discussion on abortion out of the public arena and made it much more personal. Last month Company One Theatre explored the devastating reality of do-it-yourself abortions among teenagers in Ruby Rae Spiegel's unflinching new play DRY ...

Bad Habit Productions continues Season 9: To Face Ourselves with John Guare's 1990 play about the interconnectedness of everyone in the world by a chain of no more than six people. In 2015, the parlor game featuring links with Kevin Bacon feels more relevant....