Mac Young News

Actors' Shakespeare Project closes its 13th season with the definitive Shakespearean recipe for mirth and magic. Start with equal parts poetry and wit, add one misapplied love potion, stir in a feuding celestial couple, and finish with the most unintentionally awful play-within-a-play ever created, and you get A Midsummer Night's Dream. Directed by Patrick Swanson (Revels' Artistic Director), the production features Resident Acting Company members Steven Barkhimer* (Bottom), Sarah Newhouse* (Puck), and Paula Plum* (Titania) (Picture left by Nile Scott Shots.) Performances are May 10 - June 4, 2017 (Press Performance Saturday, May 13, 2017, 8 PM) at Multicultural Arts Center, 41 Second Street, Cambridge. For tickets and more information, visit actorsshakespeareproject.org.

Actors are superstitious people. I have seen some pretty outrageous rituals in the rehearsal room during my time as an actor. It seems that during every step along the way from casting to opening night, the actor has something to keep them, and the production, safe. Don't speak the name of this play. Don't wish each other 'good luck'. Did someone remember to turn on the Ghost Light? With all of these superstitions aside, no amount of good luck can prepare a cast for the unavoidable. In the situation of Sh*t-Faced Shakespeare, which is now playing at the Davis Square Theatre and features one heavily intoxicated cast member surrounded by a troupe of sober actors, the hilarity lives when everything goes horribly wrong.

RETURN OF THE WINEMAKER: AN IRISH CHRISTMAS COMEDY is a gift of the season from Tir Na Productions. An absurd little dark comedy about the second coming of Jesus, it's not your traditional Christmas show, but it boasts terrific performances by Derry Woodhouse, Colin Hamell, Stephen Russell, and Nancy E. Carroll, under the direction of Carmel O'Reilly. Singing, dancing, and freely flowing libations are crucial to playwright Bernard McMullan's story and you will definitely leave the Davis Square Theatre feeling merry.

Playwright Katori Hall's lively play about seven African-American women awaiting the end of World War II in a Memphis beauty parlor/boarding house shows a slice of life with authenticity, empathy, and humor. Dawn M. Simmons directs an ensemble of wonderful actors, and the design team brings out the flavor of 1945 Memphis.

In the tradition of the moving Intimate Apparel and hilarious By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning is a 'fresh, spontaneous, and highly watchable'* play that brings together seven African-American women in a Memphis beauty parlor/boarding house during the waning days of World War II. As they wrestle with the uncertainty of what the future will hold when, and if, their men return, they fight dirty - with each other and with their own fears and desires, uncovering newfound friendship and love. Katori Hall is an exciting new theatrical voice best known for her play The Mountaintop, about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final night before his assassination.

Boxer Shorts is a ninety-minute night consisting of four short plays from three classic 20th century playwrights (Beckett, Pinter, and Williams) and one contemporary playwright (Raznovich).

A dive into the haunting and kinetic production that was Brown Box Theatre Project's Echoes.

Regardless of your opinion about the Affordable Care Act, you might be interested to know how paying for healthcare started and the reluctant role played by surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital. Set primarily in Hartford and Boston, ETHER DOME has special significance for the local audience, offering both a history lesson and theatrical entertainment of the highest order.

Actors' Shakespeare Project mounts a lighter, accessible version of Anton Chekhov's final play in Founder's Hall at The Dane Estate at Pine Manor College in Brookline. Performing in the round in this stately, dramatic setting, the actors inhabit space and time in a way that allows their characters to emerge naturally, enhanced by the proximity of their audience

Actors' Shakespeare Project presents The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov's absurdist comedy of human frailties in an evolving world, February 12 to March 9, 2014 at The Dane Estate at Pine Manor College, 400 Heath Street, Chestnut Hill, MA. Directed by Obie Award-winner Melia Bensussen. For tickets go online to www.actorsshakespeareproject.org or call OvationTix.com at 866-811-4111. Check out a first look at the cast below!

Actors' Shakespeare Project will present The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov's absurdist comedy of human frailties in an evolving world, tonight, February 12 to March 9, 2014 at The Dane Estate at Pine Manor College, 400 Heath Street, Chestnut Hill, MA. The production is directed by Obie Award-winner Melia Bensussen.

Actors' Shakespeare Project will present The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov's absurdist comedy of human frailties in an evolving world, February 12 to March 9, 2014 at The Dane Estate at Pine Manor College, 400 Heath Street, Chestnut Hill, MA. The production is directed by Obie Award-winner Melia Bensussen.

The 12th season at Stoneham Theatre continues with Romeo and Juliet, the theatre's first-ever Shakespearian production. The play opens March 1 and will run through March 18.

The 12th season at Stoneham Theatre continues with Romeo and Juliet, the theatre's first-ever Shakespearian production. The play opens March 1 and will run through March 18.

Whistler in the Dark returns home to The Factory Theatre with a three-week repertory series celebrating Caryl Churchill, one of the leading playwrights of our time, with full productions of Fen and A Number.

imaginary beasts bring their traditional winter Pantomime to Boston audiences for the first time, with the tale of the eponymous egg from Nursery Rhyme Land. After nine years of performing a Panto each winter on the North Shore, imaginary beasts artistic director Matthew Woods has made the move to Boston for Winter Panto 2012.

'Winter Panto 2012: The Half-Baked & Hard-to-Swallow History of Humpty Dumpty, Or, One Egg is Enough' is imaginary beasts' first foray to Boston following nine years of developing accessible theatre for the North Shore community. Think Fractured Fairy Tales meets Dr. Seuss, and you've got a pretty good idea of what is on the bill of fare in 'Humpty Dumpty' in the Plaza Black Box Theatre at The Boston Center for the Arts.

Whistler in the Dark returns home to The Factory Theatre with a three-week repertory series celebrating Caryl Churchill, one of the leading playwrights of our time, with full productions of Fen and A Number.

imaginary beasts bring their traditional winter Pantomime to Boston audiences for the first time, with the tale of the eponymous egg from Nursery Rhyme Land. After nine years of performing a Panto each winter on the North Shore, imaginary beasts artistic director Matthew Woods has made the move to Boston for Winter Panto 2012.