There's a world premiere onstage right now at SpeakEasy Stage Company that rattled my cage;Ā in fact, it's staged in a cage, the audience peering in fromĀ either side as NECESSARY MONSTERS took shape before us. Award- winning actor/playwright John Kuntz and award-winning director David R. Gammons along with a cast of Boston's best actors have [...]
It's nuts out there on the boards! We've gotĀ bad Jews &Ā displaced Hindu gods,Ā dead poets andĀ long lost lovers wrestling with love. Here we go! BAD JEWS: This is a real crowd pleaser written by Joshua Harmon, and directed by Rebecca Bradshaw, now breaking records over at SPEAKEASY STAGE.Ā It's raucous and funny and plunges us right into [...]
Musicals take the stage in Boston this spring--and it's hit and miss. HIT: INTO THE WOODS, Stephen Sondheim's brilliant, bittersweet musical romp through the thicket of life, and Lyric Stage Company of Boston has mounted a marvelous production directed by Spiro Veloudos which has just been extended through June 29th! We're talking ingenious sets (including [...]
Boston Theater Critics Association members with Olympia Dukakis and Paul Daigneault Ā Olympia Dukakis Paul Daigneault It was a fabulous night!! THE MAYOR Marty Walsh spoke about his commitment to Boston as an ARTS town; OSCAR-WINNER Olympia Dukakis was honored, and her cousin and former GOVERNOR Mike Dukakis paid [...]
MORE great theater in town--this time at SpeakEasy Stage Company which presents the New England premiere of Samuel D. Hunter's off-broadway hit THE WHALE.Ā Superbly cast and tackling a profusion of problems, the show rivets us with its initial image. But first-- we hear the ocean; then we see a 600 pound man sittingĀ center stage [...]
The FALL theater season is on-- with mostly winning productions! This is what I've seen so far--in order ofĀ "shelf-life."And so I begin with the first to expire: THE ELEPHANT MAN-- which is dead on arrival at New Rep Theatre in Watertown. It's a plodding play based on the true story of John Merrick born [...]
CLYBOURNE PARK won the Tony for Best Play in 2012-- and it's hard to imagine a better production than what's onstage at the SpeakEasy right now! Bruce Norris's Pulitzer-Prize winning drama cracks open the racial divide and an earthquake of moral, ethical, familial and economic dilemmas reverberate through the echo chamber of history. The action [...]
So much to see, so little time-- here are few more productions in order of preference beginning with: 33 VARIATIONS--This lovely and satisfying production at the Lyric Stage, elegantly directed by Spiro Veloudos and written by Moises Kaufman, is a tale of two creative minds trying to solve a problem in a race against time. [...]
The political scene is running red as we inch on up to election eve. So the Boston Premiere of BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON at SpeakEasy Stage Company is timely-- a rock musical about our rabble-rousing, Indian killing, Spanish crushing, king of the wild frontier, founder of the democratic party, and our 7th President.Ā That he [...]
The SpeakEasy Stage Company is off to a roaring start! Obscene? Most definitely. Three legged kittens, mothers, the deity herself --no one escapes unscathed. There's even mention of oral sex at Appleby's. But I was moved, and glued--first scene to last-- to this "street smart comedy" about deeply flawed people and their bruising [...]
