There's a pile of new shows onstage in town-- and I will sort through it for you right now! CAPS FOR SALE: The Musical--Take the kids to see this world premiere production based on the classic children's book, whimsically performed by Boston Children's Theatre at the Calderwood Pavilion. This tale of Pezzo the Peddler and his passel of caps burgled by a [...]
This is a MUST SEE now onstage only through Sunday 3/6: a breathtaking, translucent production of Chekhov's THREE SISTERS in Russian that was so staggeringly beautiful, vibrant, and accessible that I apprehended every word, every nuance. And I don't speak Russian. Rarely have I seen a production of a [...]
No one said totalitarianism was a walk in the park. But to the folks on opening night who walked out of the deeply disturbing and horrifying new adaptation of George Orwell's sci-fi cautionary tale 1984-- I don't blame you. The show now onstage at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge adapted and directed by Robert Icke & Duncan Macmillan [...]
Paying the rent, colonizing a country, and milk like sugar--all cost; but these issues are definitely worth the price of admission as enacted on stages around town over the next few weeks. The 20th Anniversary production of RENT by Fiddlehead Theatre Company which runs only through February 21 at the Back Bay Events Center is a musical about starving artists, drag queens, and AIDS based [...]
It's fair to mention that PIPPIN is not my favorite musical. I also happened to be sick as a dog as I sat in the audience on opening night. BUT, that said, I enjoyed this production so much more than I did the A.R.T.'s pre-broadway update of the 1972 Tony-Award winning musical onstage in Cambridge. That adaptation did go on to Broadway and another Tony [...]
AN OCTOROON co-presented by Company One Theatre and Arts Emerson is smart, sassy, devastating "play-within- a-play"making, which begins with a black playwright casually putting on white face, and speaking directly to us through the layers. The central questions-- what it is to be black, to be white, to be any color in between, what those designations have to do with [...]
Mark Rylance, Tony award- winner and recent OSCAR nominee for Spielberg's BRIDGE OF SPIES, has arrived onstage at the American Repertory Theater trailing a list of serious thespian credits among them HAMLET, and THE SEAGULL. He is back at the A. R. T. as playwright and star in a furry, floppy-eared hat, a bemused expression, and a whale of a [...]
Fiddlehead Theatre Company is giving away 5 PAIRS of tickets to the opening night of RENT on Friday, Feb. 5th exclusively through Joyce’s Choices! One lucky winner will also win the chance to meet original RENT cast member Fredi Walker-Browne! The 20th Anniversary Celebration of the iconic musical RENT runs from February 5-21 at the Back Bay Events Center (180 Berkeley Street, [...]
IF you love Stephen Sondheim-- and what self-respecting theater-goer with any taste doesn't--get immediately over to the Lyric Stage and revel in their splendid production of SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM, a treasure trove of Sondheim tunes and tales, delivered by some of our most treasured local musical theater talents. The original production was conceived and directed on Broadway [...]
The Pulitzer Prize-winning DISGRACED by Ayad Akhtar presented by the Huntington Theatre Company and Long Wharf Theatre is a stellar production of an explosive piece of work. The material cuts to the quick of the racial, ethnic, religious, and social divide--embedded with assumptions, and laced with tribal allegiances; pile on the politically correct reactions triggered, and we've got a powder [...]
