Charles Schoonmaker News

Due to unprecedented demand, SpeakEasy Stage will remount its acclaimed production of FUN HOME for four additional weeks, June 8-30, 2019.  Amy Jo Jackson, Ellie van Amerongen, and Marissa Simeqi will return to play the three Alisons in the production, which was SpeakEasy's top-selling show ever and was hailed as "one of the greatest musicals of all time" by the Boston Globe.  Tickets for the added dates are now on sale.

FUN HOME is a true story about real people, and Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault's production at SpeakEasy Stage Company, the Boston regional premiere of the 2015 Tony Award-winning musical, will make a believer out of anyone who sets foot in the Roberts Studio Theatre. Based on Alison Bechdel's memoir/graphic novel of the same name, the groundbreaking musical tells the story of the cartoonist's complicated family, looking back at her childhood and adolescence with Alison at three different ages as our guide. It is a memory play, a coming out story, a tragedy, and a comedy. Above all else, it is one of the highest points in a Boston theater season that has already had some very high points.

From October 19 to November 24, 2018, SpeakEasy Stage will present the Boston Regional Theatre Premiere of the 2015 Tony Award-winning musical FUN HOME.

From October 19 to November 24, 2018, SpeakEasy Stage will present the Boston Regional Theatre Premiere of the 2015 Tony Award-winning musical FUN HOME.

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) presents the American Premiere of Mark Leiren-Young's Bar Mitzvah Boy in Town Hall Theatre, 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA from June 21 through July 1, 2018.  

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) presents the American Premiere of Mark Leiren-Young's Bar Mitzvah Boy in Town Hall Theatre, 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA from June 21 through July 1, 2018.  

Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol, unable to find a theater in his home country, stages the world premiere production of THE LAST ACT at Boston's Israeli Stage Company. Producing Artistic Director Guy Ben-Aharon asserts the importance of engaging with the audience to spark thought and conversation, regardless of which side of the issue one might align with. A quartet of accomplished actors gives compelling performances that draw us into the personal drama, played out against a backdrop of the political divide between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Director Scott Edmiston has to thank the guy who wrote a taut adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning play ANNA CHRISTIE, thus positioning him to lead a seamless production which combines inventive stagecraft, stunning design elements, and a group of actors who seem born to their roles. The fact that Edmiston is that guy who Lyric Stage Company enlisted to adapt the play is a tribute to his depth of knowledge about O'Neill and his ability to stay true to the playwright's themes, while making the work both accessible and relevant to a modern audience.

Underground Railway Theater will present Nick Payne's Constellations from September 7 - October 8, 2017. Constellations is directed by Scott Edmiston.

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) is proud to present Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe's Every Brilliant Thing in the historic Chester Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA, from August 2 - 13, 2017. The production is directed by CTC Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer. 

Israeli Stage presents the North American premiere production of Hanna Azoulay-Hasfari's DAYS OF ATONEMENT, a dramatic exploration of the Moroccan-Israeli immigrant experience through the eyes of four estranged sisters who reunite when their mother goes missing on the eve of Yom Kippur. Producing Artistic Director Guy Ben-Aharon directs the stripped-down staging featuring a quartet of strong, complex performances from Jackie Davis, Adrianne Krstansky, Ramona Lisa Alexander, and Dana Stern.

Dynamic. Aggressive. Funny. Warm. The Ohana sisters force you into their world. With a deep sense of urgency, these four women gather to figure out where and why their mother is missing. Differences of religious beliefs, professions and class clash. And the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) approaches. Experience these four powerful women at their most vulnerable, struggling to reconnect, forgive and forget.

Dynamic. Aggressive. Funny. Warm. The Ohana sisters force you into their world. With a deep sense of urgency, these four women gather to figure out where and why their mother is missing. Differences of religious beliefs, professions and class clash.

Edward Albee's 1962 barn-burner at the Lyric Stage Company is an emotional conflagration that rages and consumes everyone in its path. Director Scott Edmiston adheres to the playwright's strict blueprint, but takes full advantage of the singular qualities of his quartet of actors - Steven Barkhimer, Paula Plum, Dan Whelton, and Erica Spyres. Definitely do not miss this one.

There's good news and bad news in the Gloucester Stage production of Jason Robert Brown's SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD. The inspiring song cycle from 1995 shows the composer's promise that has been fulfilled, as evidenced by his three Tony Awards, and there is much to enjoy in both the music and lyrics (when you can hear them). The five-member cast features quality vocalists, but they often lose focus while they are busily moving around the stage in Director Robert Walsh's zeal to substitute action for the nonexistent connective libretto.

Bridge Rep dives into its fourth year with the U.S. premiere of Reto Finger's DOG PADDLE (Or, Struggling Inelegantly Against Drowning), translated by Lily Sykes and directed by Israeli Stage founder Guy Ben-Aharon. While maintaining their expected standard of excellence, Bridge Rep expands their tent to include new actors and a new (to them) venue. The cast of five gives intelligent character interpretations that leave room for each audience member to experience the play through their own lens.

Running June 16 through July 2 as part of a bold experiment and historic collaboration = one trilogy, one cast, one creative team, three directors, three plays, three theaters, three Vermont towns - Dorset Theatre Festival presents Table Manners, the second play in Alan Ayckbourn's acclaimed comic trilogy, The Norman Conquests. 

Stop me if you've heard this one before. God walks into a therapist's office and says he's depressed. The therapist asks "how long have you felt this way?" and God says, "something like...two thousand, two thousand five hundred years, give or take." "You've been depressed for two thousand years and only now you've come for therapy? What were you waiting for?" asks the therapist and God says "I thought time would heal." Sometimes, everyone needs a swift 90 minute session of cathartic therapy to unpack some problems festering for two thousand years. In Anat Gov's play "Oh, God," an earthly psychologist is chosen to have a session with the Big Guy about a 2000 year old itch.

Three theatres in one of the country's smallest states have a big idea.  Vermont's Dorset Theatre Festival, Northern Stage, and Weston Playhouse Theatre Company are creating an historic partnership to bring British playwright Alan Ayckbourn's celebrated comic trilogy, The Norman Conquests, to their stages in the spring and summer of 2016.  More than a year in the planning, the collaboration has three nationally prominent directors working with the same cast and creative team on successive productions of the three plays in White River Junction, Dorset, and Weston.

Three theatres in one of the country's smallest states have a big idea. Vermont's Dorset Theatre Festival, Northern Stage, and Weston Playhouse Theatre Company are creating an historic partnership to bring British playwright Alan Ayckbourn's celebrated comic trilogy, The Norman Conquests, to their stages in the spring and summer of 2016. More than a year in the planning, the collaboration has three nationally prominent directors working with the same cast and creative team on successive productions of the three plays in White River Junction, Dorset, and Weston.