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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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. [...]
There are stories that remain forever at the heart of the human experience and WITNESS, the latest virtual theater piece by Arlekin Players Theatre and Zero Gravity Virtual Theater Lab, is one of them. This world premiere and startlingly innovative work is based on an historical saga which began in 1939 when more than 900 [...]
There's holiday entertainment still to be had ONLINE this holiday week and here are two that encompass the dynamics and traditions of the season-- which this year feels more fraught than most. Take comfort and joy in the following offerings which dust off the past, dive into the complexities of the present, and emerge with [...]
MUST SEES: Two plays now onstage in Boston: one a gloss on a Shakespearean historical tragedy, the other a clarion call to avert an historical tragedy! Playwright Mike Lew's TEENAGE DICK now onstage at THE HUNTINGTON exploded the pile of preconceptions I was sitting on, confounded my expectations, and expanded my world. THIS [...]
