Karen MacDonald News

MRT Gaslight opens its 2324 season with a thrilling production. Get ready for a captivating experience.

The 2022/23 Lyric Stage season concludes with Rooted by Deborah Zoe Laufer and directed by Courtney O'Connor.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) has announced its 2023-2024 Season of five plays, celebrating the company's 45th Anniversary Season bringing the best new plays and musicals from national artists to Lowell and the entire Merrimack Valley region.

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. Those words from Charles Dickens ring as true today as when they were written. Dickens' A Christmas Carol will be presented by the Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) for all audiences.

One of Boston’s most iconic actors will take on the holiday season’s most iconic character when Karen MacDonald stars as Ebenezer Scrooge in Courtney Sale’s world premiere adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol from November 30 to December 24 at Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) in Lowell. Sale, the theatre’s Nancy L. Donahue Artistic Director, will also direct.

From September 9 to October 8, 2022, SpeakEasy Stage Company will present the Boston premiere of the provocative drama HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING by Will Arbery.

Broadway performers Tina Fabrique (How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying) and David M. Lutken (Ring of Fire) will headline Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s 43rd Anniversary Gala on Friday, June 17.

The Huntington announces the world premiere of Common Ground Revisited, a new play co-conceived by Obie Award-winning director Melia Bensussen and Obie Award-winning playwright and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Kirsten Greenidge (Our Daughters, Like Pillars; Luck of the Irish; and Milk Like Sugar at The Huntington).

More than 60 nominations in over two dozen categories of outstanding actors, directors, designers, choreographers, musicians, and productions were announced today by the Boston Theater Critics Association (BTCA) for the 39th Elliot Norton Awards.

Due to the surge in Covid-19 infection rates, Merrimack Repertory Theatre announced today that its upcoming production of Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End will pause after the completion of rehearsals next week, and the comedy will restart with both live and video performances on February 24. This move will cause the theatre to shift Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie to June.

Gales of laughter will boost spirits in Lowell this winter when Merrimack Repertory Theatre celebrates America’s funniest Mom ever with Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End by Allison Engel and Margaret Engel, featuring Karen MacDonald, from January 19 to February 6, according to Artistic Director Courtney Sale and Executive Director Bonnie J. Butkas.

For the first time in 21 months, Merrimack Repertory Theatre will return to The Nancy L. Donahue Theatre for indoor performances when it presents a world premiere holiday comedy, The Rise and Fall of Holly Fudge by Trista Baldwin, from November 26 to December 12, according to Artistic Director Courtney Sale and Executive Director Bonnie J. Butkas.

Two dozen nominations of outstanding actors, directors, designers and ensembles were announced today by The Boston Theater Critics Association (BTCA) for the 38th Annual Elliot Norton Awards.

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 constitute a collective master class. Inspired by the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, THE CHILDREN puts issues of climate change, the environment, and a generation's responsibility for stewardship under an unforgiving spotlight, challenging the audience to engage in self-reflection.

From February 28 to March 28, SpeakEasy Stage Company will proudly present the Boston premiere of the acclaimed drama THE CHILDREN by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court handed a narrow victory to a Christian baker from Colorado who refused for religious reasons to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. Hailing from a conservative North Carolina background, playwright Bekah Brunstetter is personally familiar with people like Della, the protagonist of THE CAKE, and ideally positioned to protect her and defend her humanity, while also setting her on a path to self-reflection and change. Although the story may be ripped from the headlines, Brunstetter tells it from the perspectives of a quartet of ordinary, yet multi-faceted characters, each of whom comes with a strong set of beliefs.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) announced today that critically acclaimed Boston actress Karen MacDonald will star next April in Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End by Allison Engel and Margaret Engel, and Terry Berliner, MRT's Interim Artistic Director, will direct.

Playwright Patrick Gabridge, the 2018-2019 Mount Auburn Cemetery Artist-In-Residence, is presenting THE AMERICA PLAYS, the second series of site-specific plays, following THE NATURE PLAYS produced in June. Whereas the earlier work explored the richness of the natural environment at the Cemetery, this series of five short plays brings to life the founder, sculptors, strong women of the era, and a compelling immigrant story about some of Mount Auburn's Armenian denizens. Guiding the audience from site to site through the lush grounds enhances their connection to the elements of the stories being told and grounds the drama in the flora and fauna of the landscaped jewel.

Announcing the world premiere of the The America Plays, the second series of site-specific short plays by Mount Auburn Cemetery's Artist-in-Residence, playwright Patrick Gabridge. The America Plays will run from September 12-22, 2019, for 11 performances at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA.

The Broadway hit musical drama CHOIR BOY; the satirical and timely new comedy ADMISSIONS; the modern urban masterpiece PASS OVER; the Tony-nominated eco-thriller THE CHILDREN;  and the sweeping Broadway musical  BRIGHT STAR will make up SpeakEasy Stage Company's 2019-2020 Season, the company's Founder and Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault announced today.