QUICK TAKES on what's onstage NOW in and around Boston-- This is the last weekend to see MY FAIR LADY presented by Broadway in Boston at the OPERA HOUSE. ACT I was bogged down in muddy sound and even muddier cockney accents. Madeline Powell as leading lady Eliza Doolittle lacked the role's requisite charm and [...]
Bobbie Steinbach, 2023 recipient of The Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence The NOMINATIONS for The 40th ANNIVERSARY ELLIOT NORTON AWARDS are out! FRONT PORCH ARTS COLLECTIVE and THE HUNTINGTON lead the pack with 30 and 29 nominations respectively in a field of 137 nominees in total. The winners will be announced at [...]
Once upon a time...there was a brilliant Tony Award-winning musical INTO THE WOODS by the late great Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine which won three Tony's its first time out. Now its first acclaimed Broadway production in 20 years has made its way from the great white way to Boston's Colonial Theatre with much of [...]
OK. I just saw the most exhilarating show of the season-- and YOU MUST SEE IT too! Presented by The Huntington in association with Front Porch Arts Collective: K-I-S-S-I-N-G is as sweet and lovely as that little jingle suggests- audience and actors "sittin' in a tree" in love with life and possibility! Supported by our [...]
Imagine over an hour of watching someone working flat out, every minute, center stage, almost desperate to hold our attention and make a point. Exhausting. And the teller? British Actress Clare Perkins in the title role and she is undeniably talented. The tale? The one told by Chaucer's bawdy, outspoken "The Wife of Bath" here [...]
Otherness. The state of being unlike whoever "we" think we are and all the issues that follow -- fear, power, safety-- are the hyper-relevant themes of two recent plays. Both works challenge the outsize dominance of "whiteness" over the non-white global majority, and one play requires the white minority not only to see itself, but [...]
A haunting and beautiful production of playwright August Wilson's most ruminative work, SEVEN GUITARS, is now onstage in the heart of Roxbury at historic Hibernian Hall. Mounted by Actors' Shakespeare Project with a compelling ensemble cast and directed by resident company member and award-winning actor/director Maurice Emmanuel Parent, the production is a glowing ember in [...]
The news is out! The BOSTON THEATER CRITICS ASSOCIATION of which I am proud to be President has officially announced that our season-end extravaganza known as The Elliot Norton Awards honoring the best of greater Boston theater is back LIVE and IN PERSON after three years! The Boston Globe ran the story today-- READ IT [...]
TWO WORLD PREMIERES hit the stage in Boston-- BOTH very much worth seeing. While not perfect, these works live at the edge of what's happening now, reminding us with urgency of what we already know and need to address. THE ART OF BURNING is onstage now at Huntington's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. It's [...]
Two to see as we head into Christmas WEEKEND! Moonbox productions continually grows in stature as a presenter of first-rate productions in a consistently excellent repertoire! This time it's Harvey Fierstein's classic TORCH SONG (Fierstein's 2017 reworked and reduced revival of "Torch Song Trilogy") with a funny, tender performance by Peter Mill as Arnold Beckoff [...]
