BOSTON THEATER REVIEWS

The Nora Theatre Company and Catalyst Collaborative @ MIT present the world premiere of MIT Professor Alan Brody's dramatic treatment of actual events at the close of World War II. On the brink of the United States dropping the atom bomb on Japan, the Allies held ten German scientists captive to det...

Moonbox Productions and Director Allison Olivia Choat have reverted to the familiar terrain of musical theater with this intimate, sung-through look into the heart and mind (er, brain) of Tony Award-winning composer William Finn (FALSETTOS, THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE) who grew up in ...

Happy Medium Theatre's production of Bert V. Royal's DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD makes good use of the intimate Factory Theatre with some strong individual performances and minimal design elements. If only the playwright had subscribed to the philosophy of less is more…...

What I love best about the UMass Amherst Theatre department shows is the originality each brings to the productions. Everything is so different, like nothing you have ever seen before. The production of 'Suitors' was the epitome of originality....

Bridge Repertory Theater of Boston shows promise with Director Shana Gozansky helming Pinter's THE LOVER. Joe Short and 5-time IRNE Award nominee McCaela Donovan give virtuosic performances in the cozy confines of Deane Hall at the Boston Center for the Arts....

Daniel Berger-Jones and Phil Tayler play more than a dozen characters between them in Marie Jones' 2001 Olivier Award-winner for Best New Comedy. They make it look easy, but their achievement is no small feat as they breathe life into the citizens of a rural Irish village in County Kerry who vie for...

Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans take on Joan Crawford (and Bette Davis) in the noir musical MILDRED FIERCE. Add this one to a long string of hilarious productions recognized by their clever irreverence, dazzling costumes, done-on-a-dime sets, and multi-talented ensembles. Varla Jean Merman is ...

Tony Award-winning director John Tiffany blends the strength and delicacy of Tennessee Williams' haunting memory play The Glass Menagerie into a heart-breaking metaphor for the fragility of dreams...

A liberal, thinking couple must weigh their desire to have a baby against their view of themselves as good people who care about the planet's survival. Duncan Macmillan's LUNGS is in its Boston premiere at New Repertory Theatre's Black Box Theater, featuring Liz Hayes and Nael Nacer, under the direc...

Ten new dramas and comedies, absorbing and entertaining, are featured in the second year of the Barrington Stage 10X10 NEW PLAY FESTIVAL. Ten minutes each and playing for just ten days, the offers provide a tasty sample of what is new in the regional theatre community today....

Boston Playwrights' Theatre final new play of the season is Dan Hunter's LEGALLY DEAD, a dark comedy about a dysfunctional family deciding how to deal with its missing Dad. The wacky, scary characters are immensely entertaining, but you wouldn't want them on your family tree....

For the fourth year in a row, Zeitgeist Stage Company produces an Alan Ayckbourn play. The East Coast premiere of LIFE OF RILEY features a cast of Zeitgeist regulars under the direction of David J. Miller....

With classic wordplay to delight the intellect, and on-stage farcical situations to provoke the belly laughs, THE LIAR at Shakespeaere & Company is welcome relief from the Winter storms in the currently dormant Berkshires of Massachusetts. It runs until March 24 in Lenox, MA....

As a white, middle-class female from small town America, I have had only a few small hardships in my life. Nothing I have been through compared to what I witnessed on stage at the Rand Theatre at UMass Amherst the night of January 30th, 2013....

Fresh Ink Theatre stages new play by Patrick Gabridge about the illegal translation of the Bible into English in the early part of the 16th century. Based on a true story, FIRE ON EARTH chronicles the struggle between the powerful Catholic Church and the Army of Reformers willing to challenge the st...

A little bit of Irish history and a lot of Irish music comprise THE IRISH...AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY at the Davis Square Theatre in Somerville. A multi-talented ensemble of three women and three men sing and dance their way through Frank McCourt's wide swath of history on both sides of the pond....

Two-time Tony Award-winning actress Christine Ebersole made her Celebrity Series of Boston debut at Sanders Theatre with an intimate cabaret performance that brought much-needed warmth to a cold January night. The former "Not Ready for Prime Time" player on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE is now the toast of Br...

Direct from Broadway, the National Tour of the five-time Tony-nominated SISTER ACT is in town, featuring an original score by award-winning composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater, and a book by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner with additional book material by Douglas Carter Beane. Based on the To...

Company One presents the New England premiere of Providence playwright Mia Chung's YOU FOR ME FOR YOU, an imaginative tale of two North Korean sisters who contemplate fleeing their homeland. The story relies heavily on magical realism and suspension of disbelief; not for the cynics in the audience....

New England premiere of acclaimed Broadway play at SpeakEasy Stage Company is a complex comedy-drama about the generational and cultural divide in one family plagued by secrets. Scott Edmiston directs a stellar ensemble....

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, URT brings a powerful and riveting production of Katori Hall's award-winning play to Central Square Theater. Bravura performances by Maurice Emmanuel Parent and Kami Rushell Smith....

Vern Thiessen's play at Merrimack Repertory Theatre is a one-woman show about Shakespeare's wife and the strange bequest he left her in his will. Seana McKenna, lead actress of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, gives a riveting performance under the direction of Miles Potter....

The Wellesley Summer Theatre Company does what it does best with a familiar cast and a couple of fresh faces in the 1928 comedy of manners, Philip Barry's HOLIDAY....

Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel has been called a masterpiece that changed the shape of American literature. Adapted into a play by Oren Jacoby, INVISIBLE MAN is having its New England premiere at Huntington Theatre Company with an epic performance by Teagle F. Bougere, under the direction of Christopher...

Casting Paula Plum as Katherine Brandt in Moisés Kaufman's 33 VARIATIONS was a no-brainer for Lyric Stage Artistic Director Spiro Veloudos. Her performance is courageous and heartfelt, and she and pianist Catherine Stornetta are the linchpins that give the play its heart and its soul....