BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

Argos Productions and Happy Medium Theatre collaborate to present a cast of experienced fringe actors in LIFERS by John Shea and Maureen Cornell. A comedy about change set in a family restaurant in the summer of 2004, one week before the no smoking law goes into effect in Massachusetts, the slice of...

It feels like it could have been written yesterday, but THE COLORED MUSEUM, now in a rollicking revival at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, Mass., was actually first produced in 1986. Written by the estimable Broadway playwright and director George C. Wolfe (Jelly's Last Jam, Angels in Amer...

New Repertory Theatre's second annual Next Rep Black Box Festival celebrates the work of women theater artists, starting with Jessica Dickey's THE AMISH PROJECT. A fictionalized account of the 2006 shooting of Amish schoolgirls in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, the one-woman show features Danielle Kell...

If you like Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, then Company One's SHOCKHEADED PETER is for you. With musical mayhem provided by Walter Sickert and The Army of Broken Toys, the New England premiere at Suffolk University's Modern Theatre is dark, twisted, funny, and never dull. It is not for the faint of he...

The gripping undertow of a turbulent past threatens to drown the three main characters in OCEANSIDE, a searing new play by Nick Gandiello currently in its world premiere at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell. Taut, terse and unrelenting, the play ebbs and flows with a deceivingly gentle rhythm un...

New Repertory Theatre in Watertown revisits Yiddish Theatre with Robert Brustein's new Klezmer musical comedy THE KING OF SECOND AVENUE....

INTIMATE APPAREL is one woman's story of courage and resilience set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing America in early 20th century New York City. Under the direction of Summer L. Williams, who also directed Lynn Nottage's BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK at the Lyric Stage Company, INTIMATE APP...

The first of four APPLE FAMILY PLAYS to be staged in collaboration between Stoneham Theatre and Gloucester Stage Company, THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING has six quality Boston area actors who will stay with the project for the duration, but one hopes that the nutritional value of the plays going forward ...

Celeste Oliva gives a riveting, tour de force performance as The Pilot in George Brant's GROUNDED at the Nora Theatre Company, under the astute direction of Artistic Director Lee Mikeska Gardner. George Brant's play examines the life of one woman, prohibited from flying due to an unexpected pregnanc...

Audra McDonald has picked up two more Tony Awards since her last appearance at the Celebrity Series of Boston in 2011. Accompanied by her music director Andy Einhorn on piano, Gene Lewin on drums, and Dave Phillips on bass, McDonald gave the sold-out Symphony Hall audience an evening of stars, moon...

The Boston Center for American Performance and Boston Playwrights' Theatre co-production of Michael Hammond's comedy UNCLE JACK is a modern-day retelling of Chekhov's UNCLE VANYA relocated to a small summer theater in the Berkshire hills....

THE BIG MEAL, the Boston area premiere of Dan LeFranc's play about the interactions of five generations of an extended family, is the kind of show that Zeitgeist Stage Company and Artistic Director David J. Miller feast upon - a character-driven ensemble piece that showcases the range of the actors,...

Downton Abbey meets Eugene O'Neill in Ronan Noone's new play THE SECOND GIRL, the story of what goes on in the servants' kitchen while O'Neill's fictional Tyrone family suffer through their very long day's journey into night upstairs....

MOTOWN, Berry Gordy's self-aggrandizing tribute to the independent record label that fused gospel, blues, jazz, doo wop and country into a unique and wildly popular Detroit sound, is currently heating things up at the Boston Opera House through February 15....

An epic story is told on an intimate scale in Suzan-Lori Park's splendid mash-up of Civil War slavery and present-day racial strife....

Bridge Repertory Theater of Boston continues its second season with shows two and three running in repertory. While seemingly very different, FUFU & OREOS and SIXTY MILES TO SILVER LAKE are linked by a common theme of struggling to navigate between two worlds. As the Boston theater community examine...

A dive into the haunting and kinetic production that was Brown Box Theatre Project's Echoes....

For thirty-something urban professionals grappling with balancing their personal lives with upwardly mobile careers, Ken Urban's A FUTURE PERFECT may feel timely and relevant. But for Boomers and one-time yuppies who are now the sandwich generation juggling the demands of work, college-bound childre...

Boston area stages feature the kick-ass wit of Molly Ivins in RED HOT PATRIOT; Christopher Durang's hilarious mash-up of Chekhov and Snow White in VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE; the modern-day paranoia of cyber spy vs. spy in MUCKRAKERS; and the black comedy of two sons and a funeral in THE BE...

In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 70th Anniversary of World War II, Goethe-Institut Boston's German Stage, in association with the Austrian Cultural Forum New York and Israeli Stage, presents the American Premiere of A CASE NAMED FREUD in five locations this week. T...

Matthew Woods and his Imaginary Beasts are back with their annual WINTER PANTO: KERPLOP! THE TALE OF THE FROG PRINCE, tickling the funny bones of the many children in the audience, while going over their heads to engage the adults who are along for the ride....

One person's trash is another person's treasure in Eve Ensler's O.P.C., a socio-political comedy currently enjoying its world premiere at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass....

Young Sirena Abalian of Lexington is the shining standout in an otherwise lackluster production of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, Stoneham Theatre's misguided attempt to stage the bland Broadway version of the classic Judy Garland movie musical....

Illustrious stage and screen actress Penny Fuller brings all of her charm and incandescence to Merrimack Repertory Theatre this holiday season in the lovely one-woman musical 13 THINGS ABOUT ED CARPOLOTTI....

The New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, Mass. harks back to a family classic for this season's holiday fare as THE LITTLE PRINCE takes the audience on an imaginative flight of fancy that teaches gentle lessons along the way....