BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

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....

The U.S. National Tour of BEAUTIFUL - THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL plays a two-week engagement at the Boston Opera House. Focusing on King's early life and career, the good-time time machine rolls out the incredible string of hits written by the composing teams of Carole King/Gerry Goffin and Barry Mann/...

Playwright Katori Hall's lively play about seven African-American women awaiting the end of World War II in a Memphis beauty parlor/boarding house shows a slice of life with authenticity, empathy, and humor. Dawn M. Simmons directs an ensemble of wonderful actors, and the design team brings out the ...

SpeakEasy Stage Company presents the New England premiere of Harvey Fierstein's 2014 Tony Award nominee for Best Play. CASA VALENTINA invites and initiates the audience into a world where normal is in the eye of the beholder when a group of heterosexual men meet secretly to release the girl within. ...

Now brought to the stage, thus making the message of a shared humanity that much more profound, the Cape Cod Theatre Company has given us a production that is worthy of more than just the audience's time and consideration: it is a lesson that must be carefully taught to each of us again and again, a...

Unwanted pregnancy and terminal illness haunt the flinty girls at the center of two gritty new plays by playwrights Ruby Rae Spiegel and Lauren Gunderson now receiving their New England premieres at Company One in Boston and Merrimack Rep in Lowell....

David Sedaris makes his 11th appearance with the Celebrity Series of Boston, performing before a packed audience at Symphony Hall. His program adheres to a routine format, but there is nothing routine about the subject matter and content of Sedaris' writing, except for the irony, sarcasm and guarant...

With score and lyrics by the [in]famous Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, Director Peter Earle brings Sweeney Todd to the town of Orleans, enshrouding the Academy Playhouse's intimate black-box theater in darkness as black as the hearts of many of the characters that make this show of suc...