R. Scott Reedy

What did our critic think of LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL at Merrimack Repertory Theatre?

With its magnificent mounting of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” at Hibernian Hall in Nubian Square, Roxbury, through February 23, Actors’ Shakespeare Project has given Boston theatergoers the first must-see production of 2025.

Writer and director Gerard Alessandrini, the comedy mastermind behind “Forbidden Broadway,” has long taken his own Broadway fandom one step further, though, creating iconic parodies of stars like Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Carol Channing, Liza Minnelli, Yul Brynner, Patti LuPone, Chita Rivera, Mandy Patinkin, and Bernadette Peters and shows including “Hello, Dolly!” “The King & I,”  “Annie,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” “The Lion King,” and “Wicked.”

Actor, playwright, producer, and director Jordan E. Cooper is on a roll. The Emmy-nominated television sitcom “The Ms. Pat Show,” which he created, co-executive produces and directs, premiered on BET+ in 2021 and is now in its fifth season on the streaming service.

What did our critic think of HAUNTED at Company One Theatre?

Having landed more than a dozen hits – “Midnight Blue,” “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” “You Should Hear How She Talks About You,” and “Through the Eyes of Love” among them – on the Billboard charts in her long recording career, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Melissa Manchester knows what it’s like to be a part of pop-music history.

Goerke will be doing just that in “Die Tote Stadt” (“The Dead City”) – composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s poignant opera about the struggle with haunting memories of a lost loved one, that captures the final chapter of the Romantic era – which will be presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in collaboration with Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) on January 30 and February 1 at Symphony Hall.

Theater fans have a long and affectionate history with the musical “Peter Pan,” and the J.M. Barrie play, “Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” and subsequent novelization, “Peter and Wendy,” of the classic story of the little boy who can fly that inspired it.

What did our critic think of CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY at Lyric Stage Boston?

What did BroadwayWorld's critic think of A NEW YEAR'S EVE CELEBRATION WITH BERNADETTE PETERS AND THE BOSTON POPS at Boston Symphony Hall? Read the review here!

Get a ticket, if you still can, to her illuminating and immensely entertaining new play “Diary of a Tap Dancer” – being given its world premiere production by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge through January 4, 2025 – and you’ll never forget it.

Lea Salonga, who makes her home in New York, was in Los Angeles recently when she took time out for a telephone call to discuss her new holiday album, her debut with the Boston Pops, and more.

Theater UnCorked has opened its sixth season with a sharp, searing production of “The Lion in Winter” that lays out a powerful story of a royal family struggling both with succession planning and with each other. It may be an unconventional offering given this season’s predictable plethora of holiday productions, but the drama – which inspired the Fox-TV series “Empire” – is definitely a gift for discerning theatergoers.

For the second straight year, Front Porch Arts Collective, Boston’s leading Black theater company, is presenting a “Holiday Feast” of staged readings of Christmas episodes from classic Black sitcoms, at Central Square Theater, December 12–14.

Actor and singer Sarah Milnamow grew up in Northborough watching the classic animated television special “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” every year.

Thanksgiving pageants – complete with Pilgrims, Native Americans, and oddly over-stuffed turkeys – were once the order of the day at elementary schools, with centuries-old precepts presented as truths.

Boston has a long history with “A Christmas Carol.” Victorian-era author Charles Dickens gave his first American reading of the holiday classic at Tremont Temple in December 1867 while he was living just a block away at the Parker House.

What did our critic think of NOISES OFF at Lyric Stage Boston?

Janet Eilber was a high school senior at Michigan’s Interlochen School for the Arts when she first crossed paths with modern dance legend Martha Graham (1894–1991). After auditioning for Graham, the dancer and actor attended the Juilliard School at Graham’s recommendation, and subsequently joined the doyenne’s eponymous dance company where she became a soloist at age 21, dancing many of the roles made famous by Graham.

What did our critic think of SOJOURNERS at The Huntington?