BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

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....

Ho, ho, ho and Hallelujah! The Gold Dust Orphans are back in Boston with an all-new holiday joyride, exclaiming JESUS CHRIST, IT'S CHRISTMAS! Based on the 1947 classic film THE BISHOP'S WIFE, Ryan Landry's sendup of the romantic comedy is overflowing with winking biblical references and musical numb...

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....

Moonbox Productions opens its fifth season with THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS (THE MUSICAL!), with seamless direction and choreography by Rachel Bertone and music direction by Dan Rodriguez. Paying homage to the stylings of five giants of musical theater, there's something for everyone in this satirical s...

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....

Too much mishegas makes for a muddled tale of midlife meltdown in Charles Busch's first venture into mainstream comedy now at Boston's Lyric Stage through December 20....

Cicely Tyson reprises her Tony Award-winning role as Carrie Watts in Horton Foote's poignant American classic THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL now in its only east coast engagement at the Emerson/Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston, Mass. The ArtsEmerson World on Stage production continues through December 7....

If watching family members spew venom at each other for 100 uninterrupted minutes is your idea of holiday cheer, then by all means head on over to SpeakEasy Stage Company this Thanksgiving weekend for a visit with BAD JEWS....

Actors Shakespeare Project's production of Phedre, which took place at the First Church of Boston, a highly descriptive and heightened diatribe of a play....

PigPen Theatre Company tells a good, old-fashioned story in a good, old-fashioned style with folk music and various forms of theatrical magic at the Paramount Center Main Stage. In THE OLD MAN AND THE OLD MOON, the PigPen guys will draw you into their imaginative world of shadow puppets, sailboats, ...

Review of Bad Habit Productions' THE REAL THING, a dry British comedy by Tom Stoppard...

It is a signal of good writing and significant dramatic impact that a play which premiered in 1935 can be relevant nearly eighty years later. Clifford Odets' classic AWAKE AND SING! is grounded in the dire economics of the depression era and the circumstances of a Jewish immigrant extended family st...