It's that time of year again and the Boston Theater Critics Association (BTCA) of which I am proud to be President, has just announced more than 60 nominations in over two dozen categories of outstanding actors, directors, designers, choreographers, musicians, and productions for the 39th Elliot Norton Awards! Read the complete list of nominees at [...]
There are two fabulous shows in town right now right next door to each other: BURGERZ at The Paramount and AIN'T TOO PROUD The Life And Times of THE TEMPTATIONS at The Opera House! BURGERZ closes this weekend so time is short and so is the show. Only 70 minutes, but it packs a wallop--and [...]
The brilliant 64th Annual Grammy Awards went a long way to helping me recover from the slap in the face that was the 94th Annual Oscars. There is now a concatenation of awful things happening the world over to knock us sideways: the horrors in Ukraine, the pandemic, global warming, corrosively divided politics, mass shootings... [...]
There's a celebration happening on at least two stages in Boston-- The Emerson Colonial and SpeakEasy Stage and it's just what we need in the shadow of the Ukraine, the pandemic, rising sea levels, and assorted other ills this flesh is heir to. But spring has sprung again and these two shows reinforce joy and [...]
Over the last 10 days, JoycesChoices was hacked by nefarious operatives who caused a big red DANGER sign to appear-- warning you to stay away! You're safe now--it's fixed, and there's a refreshed site in the offing. But while the site was down, I was up and writing, once again contributing a piece to Women [...]
Seeing "SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical" at the Colonial Theatre this week made me long for six more weeks of WINTER. The show which attempts to tell the story of Boston's own LaDonna Adrian Gaines who became the Queen of Disco, is a fiasco from beginning to end. In addition to limp direction and limper choreography, [...]
If anyone doubted that Chekhov could be funny and tragic at the same time, keep your eyes on Marianna Bassham in the opening scene-within-a-scene of "The Seagull" and the actress's hilarious, out of her mind, dazed and confused, wounded deer-in-the-headlights mashup of her character Nina's dialogue before knocking over sets and collapsing on the floor. [...]
I roused myself at the crack of 8AM this morning, and waded through the annoying byplay of hosts Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish) and Leslie Jordan (Will & Grace) to hear the announcement of the 94th OSCAR nominations and was happy to see so many of this year's best films and performances recognized by the Academy. [...]
The title alone--THE BLUEST EYE--suggests the shards of an iris, a lens on a deep dark sea of meaning. Now, the depth and richness of the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison's language and vision is profoundly illuminated by Lydia R. Diamond's sleek 2005 adaptation of Morrison's first novel and The Huntington's graceful and penetrating production-- [...]
I recently went to the theater, vaxxed and masked, and saw two productions which couldn't have been more diametrically opposed. One was an honest, affecting, reality-based memoir that shed light on one of the most crucial and challenging issues of our times. The other was a repackaged bundle of cliched claptrap, an embarrassment in motion. [...]
