Nancy Grossman - Page 28

Playwright Aditi Brennan Kapil's multilingual (English, Sanskrit, American Sign Language, and email) love story is having its Boston premiere at the Boston Center for the Arts. This play with little action focuses on and gives special significance to language, facial expressions, and the complications that sometimes develop in relationships when we're not paying enough attention. Director M. Bevin O'Gara does an amazing job with the challenges inherent in staging Kapil's play, and draws authentic performances from the cast of hearing and Deaf actors.

Wellesley Summer Theatre Company has a knack for creating the world of its plays and this love story within a war story is no exception. It is funny and dramatic, like life, and infused with earnest warmth by this solid ensemble. Playwright C.P. Taylor gives us characters to care about with flaws that make them interesting and human, and his charming dialogue is steeped in colloquial expressions that are peculiar to the British wordscape.

The Lyric Stage Company production of AVENUE Q rivals the national tour that passed this way four years ago. The run has been extended (twice) by popular demand to July 1st. Director Spiro Veloudos has assembled one of the best musical ensemble casts of the season.

The annual party known as the Elliot Norton Awards was held at the Paramount Center, bringing the Boston theater community together to celebrate achievements of a lifetime, as well as of the past year. Individuals singled out for recognition included song-and-dance man extraordinaire Tommy Tune, Broadway producer Spring Sirkin, and Kate Snodgrass, Artistic Director of Boston Playwrights' Theatre and Co-Founder of the Boston Theater Marathon.

You don't have to be an old folkie to appreciate the music and message in WOODY SEZ: THE LIFE & MUSIC OF WOODY GUTHRIE at the A.R.T.'s Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square. Four talented musicians sketch the life and times that were the foundation of Guthrie's music and made him into an icon of the folk/protest culture. They are unamplified, but they put across Woody's message loud and clear.

Inspired by a headline in the Provincetown Banner, Boston-based trio collaborates on world premiere musical about a baker who sells his irresistible cupcakes on the streets of "Summertown," his adoring customers, and the Keystone Cop who tracks his scent.

The Boston Pops Orchestra, Keith Lockhart Conducting: Opening Night with Guest Artists Maggie Scott, Michael Chertock, Bernadette Peters; Wednesday, May 9, 2012, at Symphony Hall.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, the third longest-running show in off-Broadway history, has been extended through May 27 at the Charles Mosesian Theater in Watertown. Like the nefarious, carnivorous plant at the center of its story, LITTLE SHOP is on a long, deliberate path to conquer the world…of stage and screen. Director/choreographer Russell Garrett and his team of designers have crafted a production that is visually and technically spot on, with Musical Direction by Todd C. Gordon and a cast that is vocally up to the task.

The venerable Symphony Hall stage served as ground zero for the humor of David Sedaris as part of the Celebrity Series of Boston on Sunday. Socialized medicine, taxidermy, matchmaking, and foreign idiosyncrasies were only a few of the topics covered in his wide-ranging, hilarious essays.

Boston Youth Moves twelfth annual Swellegance Gala Benefit presented one-night only performance by walking, singing, dancing icon of the Golden Age of Broadway musicals at Citi Shubert Theatre.

Hershey Felder projects the persona of Leonard Bernstein and delves into the man behind the music, examining the musical and personal influences that shaped the great American composer/conductor. The musical selections begin and end with WEST SIDE STORY, and feature songs from his other Broadway shows (ON THE TOWN, CANDIDE), but provide a good balance with his classical, albeit lesser known, compositions.

The latest offering from Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans simultaneously displays irreverence and pays loving homage to Disney's Mary with clever repartee, flights of the imagination, and kickin' production numbers.

Playwright Michael Hollinger pulls the audience into the drama and challenges us to decide for ourselves whether or not we believe in ghosts in Merrimack Repertory Theatre's haunting production.

YESTERDAY HAPPENED: REMEMBERING H.M. is a memory play with a distinct handicap in that the protagonist, Henry Molaison (the H.M. of the title) has no memory. The result is a loose collection of scenes and encounters that disseminate a lot of fascinating scientific information, but don't add up to the dramatic expectations of a play. The highlight of this theatrical experience is the musicalization by Composer/Sound Designer Tod Machover, affected brilliantly by Pianist Tae Kim. Classical improvisations infused with variations on popular themes strike chords in our collective memory.

Boston area premiere at Zeitgeist Stage Company is billed as a "comedy about depression." But wait a day or two and the real impact will sneak up on you…like a tiger.

Moonbox Productions marks its first anniversary with a moving production of Adam Guettel's FLOYD COLLINS at the Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts. The composer-lyricist was in the house for the Easter Sunday press opening and talk-back.

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston presents the Boston premiere of Jon Marans' Off-Broadway hit THE TEMPERAMENTALS, a chronicle of the love story between Harry Hay and Rudi Gernreich, founders of the Mattachine Society in 1950s Los Angeles. Director Jeremy Johnson's vision employs techniques of film noir to take the audience on a temperamental journey for a view of the grassroots effort that began to change the world, nearly two decades prior to the Stonewall Riots.

Oberon hosts world premiere of ambitious Civil War musical that combines history, science fiction, technology, and imagination, but its reach exceeds its grasp. The book is muddled, but the music stands on its own.

The Huntington Theatre Company's production of MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM completes August Wilson's Century Cycle, ten plays that reflect the African-American experience in America by the decade throughout the 20th century. Yvette Freeman (NBC's ER) is a force of nature in the title role, and local actor Jason Bowen captivates as the hotheaded young trumpeter who personifies the Zeitgeist.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre presents John Kolvenbach's MRS. WHITNEY, an unsentimental and humorous look at the lengths to which people will go in pursuit of romance as the antidote to isolation.