Boston Theater Reviews
View the latest BroadwayWorld reviews of live + streaming theatre in Boston.
BWW Review: SPRING AWAKENING at Broccoli Hall, Inc.
by Andrew Child - December 29, 2020
In 1891, years before Sigmund Freud would revolutionize the way the human mind is perceived and the significance of symbolism, childhood and sexuality on a person’s psyche, German playwright Frank Wedekind challenged the taboos around the sexual tension of young people with a play that would challen...
BWW Review: CHONBURI INTERNATIONAL HOTEL & BUTTERFLY CLUB at Williamstown Theatre Festival On Audible Theater
by Marc Savitt - December 29, 2020
These characters and the circumstances that bring them together are different. While different can be nice, it sure isn’t pretty. Pretty is not really what CHONBURI INTERNATIONAL HOTEL & BUTTERFLY CLUB is about. Its about keeping or perhaps, making it real. About making one’s way in the world. ...
BWW Review: BSC'S HOLIDAY GETAWAY at Barrington Stage Company– A Delightfully Different, Refreshing and NEW Holiday Offering.
by Marc Savitt - December 19, 2020
Alan H. Green, Alysha Umphress, and Joel Waggoner display ample skill and talent as they present viewers with a selection of 18 musical numbers (credited, although I counted a few uncredited bonus tunes) that are fun, often campy, poignant, tender, notably well- balanced, and entertaining....
BWW Review: ANIMALS at Williamstown Theatre Festival On Audible Theater
by Marc Savitt - December 17, 2020
Directed by Obie Award Winner, Whitney White, the piece is billed as a comedy that “marches into the muddy intersection of romantic entanglement, identity, pride, and survival.” For me the piece is something like the theatrical (verbal) equivalent of a mixed doubles tennis match. There are lots of...
BWW Review: PHOTOGRAPH 51 at Williamstown Theatre Festival On Audible
by Marc Savitt - December 10, 2020
PHOTOGRAPH 51, the second offering in Williamstown Theatre Festival’s 2020 season on Audible Theater is a biographical piece. It focuses on Rosalind Franklin (Anna Chlumsky) a chemist at England’s King's College and her work in the early 1950s. ...
BWW Review: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE at Williamstown Theatre Festival on Audible Theatre.
by Marc Savitt - December 03, 2020
The presentation of the 2020 season at this time, in the audio only format, represents a creative approach to keeping the arts alive during the pandemic. The innovative solution, a collaboration spearheaded by WTF Artistic Director Mandy Greenfield, and Audible Artistic Producer Kate Navin provides...
BWW Review: COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BETTIES by Zoom Theatre
by Andrew Child - November 15, 2020
After registering for a performance by Zoom Theatre, you get an automated email which explains that you will be able to be heard by the actors and other audience members during this virtual performance....
BWW Review: ALICE IN THE PANDEMIC at White Snake Projects
by Andrew Child - October 25, 2020
When performance spaces were shuttered, many companies shuttered their imaginations in solidarity with the rows of seats, choosing to hibernate until they could return to live, in-person events and allowing both to collect dust in the meantime....
BWW Review: THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN at Barrington Stage Company
by Marc Savitt - August 24, 2020
the audience was sincerely and repeatedly thanked for the opportunity to share music that is a?oejust not the same as sitting at homea??. Smiles on the masked faces as the sun set and many were no doubt whistling a happy tune as they returned to their cars suggested that although there are most ce...
BWW Review: HARRY CLARKE at Barrington Stage Company Takes Audiences On A Slide Down A Slippery Slope.
by Marc Savitt - August 11, 2020
Dold demonstrates mastery of an overwhelming amount of dialogue and the nuance necessary to present a total of some 19 characters. Dold navigates the thin line between perception and reality so adeptly, the line blurs and we find ourselves questioning whether the character knows exactly what he is ...
BWW Review: M(O)THER at Boston Experimental Theatre
by Andrew Child - August 09, 2020
With director Vahdat Yeganeh and a team of artists streaming in live from around the globe, Boston Experimental Theatre has perfectly divined that piece of performance art that neither begrudgingly embraces its virtual form nor coyly alludes to its obvious limits, but rather exists in a way that cou...
BWW Review: GODSPELL at Berkshire Theatre Group Marks A Rebirth of Theatre In America That's All For The Best
by Marc Savitt - August 09, 2020
There are many good reasons you might choose to see GODSPELL under the tent at Berkshire Theatre Group's Colonial Theatre. Whatever the motivation, you will experience a new, fresh, relevant, powerful, topical, and most certainly different production. You will also be making history as part of what ...
BWW Review: WORLD LINE at TC Squared Theatre Company
by Andrew Child - July 18, 2020
TC Squared's Volume Up series of virtual one act plays is posed to convince audiences they are up for the task of taking their programs to the digital realm for the time being. After logging in to their YouTube stream, one is met with a smooth, animated countdown set to a quiescent techno beat by Ka...
BWW Review: WOMEN BEHIND THE CURTAIN by Asian American Theatre Artists Of Boston
by Andrew Child - July 01, 2020
In Women Behind the Curtain, Michael Lin weaves a narrative about a French spy, Renee, on a mission in Cold War Moscow. When a suspiciously-invested secretary, Aleksandra, joins her in her covert travels, the two are set on an action-packed journey through mistrusted informants, double agents, and s...
BWW Review: Arlekin Players' STATE VS NATASHA BANINA: Live Theater on Zoom
by Nancy Grossman - May 18, 2020
Fresh on the heels of a solid showing at the virtual 38th Annual Elliot Norton Awards, where the Boston Theater Critics Association recognized their achievements during the abbreviated 2019-2020 season with ten nominations and four wins, the Arlekin Players Theatre boldly launches a new production i...
BWW Review: KIND THING; NICE THING at Homesick Play Project
by Andrew Child - May 10, 2020
My immediate response to this reading of the play, which had its premiere at Tufts University unfortunately canceled, is that I would love to see how it would change were the actors cast actually artists who use they/them pronouns in their lives....
BWW Review: BELOVED KING: A QUEER BIBLE MUSICAL at Oberon
by Andrew Child - May 07, 2020
The score is catchy, folksy, and declamatory in a way that fuses rock sounds with medieval sensibilities, and Kaedon Gray as the prophet, Samuel, begins the show with an expository narration worthy of a mystery play. The stage is set and we launch into the familiar story of King Saul, Jonathan, Davi...
BWW Review: TORREY PINES at ArtsEmerson
by Andrew Child - May 07, 2020
Beginning in darkness with the sounds of the sea, we launch into a film that directly serves as a companion to a well-constructed soundtrack. Seattle-based director and creator Clyde Petersen opens the autobiographical work with a delightfully familiar reimagining of a coming-of-age story cliche....
BWW Review: THE CHILDREN: Cleaning Up Our Own Mess
by Nancy Grossman - March 03, 2020
The Boston premiere of Lucy Kirkwood's 2018 Tony Award-nominated play THE CHILDREN at SpeakEasy Stage Company is an affecting drama, thanks to a combination of the playwright's excellence at her craft, Director Bryn Boice's focus, and the trio of Elliot Norton Award-winning actors whose portrayals c...
BWW Review: REVOLUTION: DANCE ON THE EDGE at Boston Ballet
by Andrew Child - March 02, 2020
Boston Ballet's rEVOLUTION: Dance on the Edge features three works by pivotal choreographers which stretch the label 'contemporary' to its breaking point. The three pieces, which all premiered between 1957-1987 may trace through the timeline of progress for commercial ballet in America, but I questi...
BWW Review: THE TREASURER at Lyric Stage Company of Boston
by Andrew Child - March 01, 2020
For playwright Max Posner, sitting down to write The Treasurer must have been a feat of de-centering oneself. The narrative takes a dusky, balmy look back at the relationship between his father and his grandmother, a wealthy, New York socialite who lived with dementia in her old age. While the story...
BWW Review: WOLF PLAY at Company One Theatre
by Andrew Child - February 24, 2020
For a long time within their history, Company One has cornered the market in Boston for selecting those cutting-edge new works that are able to effectively spark conversations and juxtaposing them against each other in ways that are both productive and incendiary. Hats off to Director of New Work, I...
BWW Review: 10 X 10 NEW PLAY FESTIVAL at Barrington Stage Company Offers A Little Something for Everyone.
by Marc Savitt - February 17, 2020
With costumes by Trinity Koch, lighting by Lucas Pawelski, sound by Alex Sovronsky, stage management by Rachel Lynne Harper, and line production by Nora Zahn, ten new plays presented by six fine performers under the guidance of two strong directors, the 10 x 10 NEW PLAY FESTIVAL continues at Barrin...
BWW Review: HAMLET 360: THY FATHER'S SPIRIT at Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
by Andrew Child - February 15, 2020
It is interesting to look at the history of art and entertainment by analyzing the innovations which have been deemed exclusively novelties and written off as fleeting trends by their contemporaries. For film, color and sound were both considered by many to be cheap gimmicks that would quickly fade ...
BWW Review: MEAN GIRLS at Citizens Bank Opera House
by Jan Nargi - February 09, 2020
With friends like The Plastics, who needs enemies? That's the basic premise for the surprisingly fresh and sometimes scathingly funny high school musical MEAN GIRLS written by Emmy Award winner Tina Fey based on her 2004 hit film. Treading the familiar teen angst territory of cafeterias, locker room...
