This is a BUSY time for theater and award-worthy movie releases --and I've seen a lot lately. Here's a roundup of my take on some of the latest! MUST SEE: The New England premiere of THE HEART SELLERS! The Huntington has done it again. This funny and moving new play by Lloyd Suh (who also [...]
THE BAND'S VISIT is a profoundly beautiful production by two of Boston’s best companies. It goes where only the arts and theater can go—straight to the heart of what unites us. This is "must-see" theater for everyone at this time in our world. A co-production by The Huntington where it was performed, and SpeakEasy Stage, [...]
Actors' Shakespeare Project production of HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE has earned a Boston Theater Critic's Pick and rattled me to my core. This is one of the very best productions I have seen all year. Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is brilliantly structured, slowly but surely gathering momentum as it takes us back to [...]
FROZEN melted my heart! I am late to this game. Was not a fan of the Disney movie's animation, and was somewhat mystified at the extent to which little girls were entranced by it. I have seen these little Elsa's and Anna's turning up at my door at Halloween in sparkles and tulle looking just [...]
What's most extraordinary about KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is not that it was made by the masterful Martin Scorsese who began bringing it into focus pre-pandemic. Nor that it features one of Leonardo DiCaprio's most subtly communicative performances in a career of compelling, wildly varied, and complex roles. Or that it delivers a central [...]
I must say, I'm not crazy about THE ADDAMS FAMILY musical, despite adoring the TV show based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles Addams. I was mad about Carolyn Jones as the slender, pale-faced, black-haired Morticia (I once dressed as Morticia for Hallowe'en) and John Astin as Gomez, her googly-eyed, Romeo of a husband. [...]
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET kicks off the soft opening of a new performance space in Harvard Square. What used to be the A.R.T.'s second stage Club Oberon is now ARROW STREET ARTS home to Moonbox Productions which delivers a well-sung but awkwardly-mounted production of Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning musical. The cast [...]
FALL drops us into the season for serious movie-going. Most of the best films and performances of the year, many of which will turn up during awards season, are being released now through December. Here are two I can recommend-- with lots more to come in the next few weeks! THE ROAD DANCE [...]
The Huntington in association with Alliance Theatre and Front Porch Arts Collective has kicked off its seventh season at the BCA Calderwood Pavilion with a brilliant production of the wildly funny and wise FAT HAM! This show which has already been extended through October 29, marks yet another chapter in a remarkable and eye-opening collaboration [...]
Theater continues busting out all over Boston and beyond-- here's my take on what I've seen lately: ASSASSINS: Lyric Stage has kicked off its season with a first-rate production of this lesser-known Stephen Sondheim musical, book by John Weidman, about 9 real-life assassins or wanna be's who each tried to or succeeded in killing a [...]
