Boston Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 20

BWW Review: THE HEARING: American Premiere at Israeli Stage
by Nancy Grossman - November 13, 2017

In celebration of its seventh anniversary, Israeli Stage presents the American premiere of Renana Raz's theatrical event. The staged reading by Nael Nacer, Maureen Keiller, Melinda Lopez, and Lonnie Farmer explores the basic question of freedom of speech as it pertains to an educational setting. Co-...

BWW Review: ELEMENO PEA: Life's a Beach
by Nancy Grossman - November 08, 2017

Boston Playwrights' Theatre presents the Boston premiere of Molly Smith Metzler's own revision of her charming, funny 2011 play ELEMENO PEA. Set at the end of the summer on Martha's Vineyard, a couple of blue collar siblings from Buffalo try to reconnect with each other while caught up in the world ...

BWW Review: KISS: Emerson Undergrads Excel in Calderón's Syrian Soap Opera
by Nancy Grossman - October 30, 2017

ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage presents Chilean-born playwright Guillermo Calder n's KISS, a play-within-a-play that delivers a message about cultural ignorance, the danger of living within a comfortable remove, and the potential of artists to change the world. Directed by Co-Artistic Director Davi...

BWW Review: THE REVOLUTIONISTS: Make Art, Not War
by Nancy Grossman - October 26, 2017

The Nora Theatre Company presents Lauren Gunderson's THE REVOLUTIONISTS, a play which loudly and proudly shows the contribution of four badass women to the story of the French Revolution. The play is set in 1793, but these themes echo too loudly in 2017, reminding us that women must persist to res...

BWW Review: SOUVENIR Redux: A Joyful Noise
by Nancy Grossman - October 25, 2017

What matters most is the music you hear in your head, according to Florence Foster Jenkins, a passionate music lover who never met a tune she could actually carry. Lyric Stage Company Producing Artistic Director Spiro Veloudos celebrates his 20th season in his post by revisiting one of his favorit...

BWW REVIEW: FUN HOME Tour Is Sharply Drawn
by Jan Nargi - October 24, 2017

The national tour of the Tony Award-winning musical FUN HOME has landed in Boston and it's as sharply drawn and richly performed as its highly acclaimed Broadway predecessor. Once again mounted on a proscenium stage (it played in the round at Circle in the Square following its original Off-Broadway ...

BWW Review: A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK: A Haunting World Premiere
by Nancy Grossman - October 24, 2017

Playwright Ken Urban was commissioned by Epic Theatre Ensemble to write a play about international aid workers, and his interviews with volunteers for Doctors Without Borders inform his new thought-provoking drama, A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK, now receiving its world premiere by the Huntington Theatre ...

BWW Review: OLEANNA: Still Controversial After All These Years
by Nancy Grossman - October 19, 2017

Twenty-five years after first being produced, David Mamet's OLEANNA remains controversial as an intense drama driven by themes of political correctness, sexual harassment, power, and perception. Johnny Lee Davenport and Obehi Janice, two of Boston's finest actors, give fiery performances in this tim...

BWW Review: ALLIGATOR ROAD: More Bark Than Bite
by Nancy Grossman - October 16, 2017

Greater Boston Stage Company has a commitment to produce a world premiere play each year, a mission now underwritten by the largesse of a long-time audience member and supporter. The 18th season at the Stoneham theater continues with ALLIGATOR ROAD, the inaugural offering of the Don Fulton New Play ...

BWW Review: Gloucester Stage Season Closes Strong with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
by Nancy Grossman - October 12, 2017

Gloucester Stage Company concludes its 38th season with a thoughtful and thought-provoking production of Harper Lee's American classic, adapted for the stage by Christopher Sergel. Directed by Judy Braha, this affecting production is buoyed by guileless child actors and strong performances from a be...

BWW Review: Cliff Odle's LOST TEMPO: Ode to Jazz and Rhythm of Life
by Nancy Grossman - October 09, 2017

Boston Playwrights' Theatre opens its 36th season with Cliff Odle's ode to jazz and its place in the transitional period of the late 1950s to early 1960s. Director Diego Arciniegas does a first-rate job of translating Odle's play with music into a living, breathing entity with a rhythmic ebb and flo...

BWW Review: Celebrity Series of Boston Presents ALAN CUMMING SINGS SAPPY SONGS
by Nancy Grossman - October 08, 2017

In his touring show which stopped in at Sanders Theatre on Friday evening, Alan Cumming displays an eclectic array of entertaining abilities, including singing, movement, and story-telling, and proves to be a loquacious bon vivant. His personalized renditions of pop songs were accompanied by Music D...

BWW Review: A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY: A Call to Dissent From Flat Earth Theatre
by Nancy Grossman - October 06, 2017

Flat Earth Theatre open its 12th season with Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Tony Kushner's 1987 play, a juxtaposition of the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany with the Reagan administration's neglect of the AIDS crisis in America. In 2017, there are lessons to heed from these waters...

BWW REVIEW: Huntington's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Has a Good Thing Going
by Jan Nargi - October 04, 2017

Director Maria Friedman's Olivier Award-winning London revival of Stephen Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG lives up to its acclaim in this Huntington Theatre Company production continuing now through October 15. Both Sondheim and Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois have called Friedman's MERRI...

BWW Review: WARHOLCAPOTE: Soup or Art?
by Nancy Grossman - September 30, 2017

The world premiere production of WARHOLCAPOTE: A Non-Fiction Invention at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge exposes us to never-before-heard conversations between these two icons, brought vividly to life by Stephen Spinella and Dan Butler. Adaptor Rob Roth used their own words to enlighten us ...

BWW Review: Powerful, Thought-provoking FACELESS at Zeitgeist Stage Company
by Nancy Grossman - September 28, 2017

Zeitgeist Stage Company begins its 17th season with the East Coast premiere of Selina Fillinger's FACELESS, a play with a storyline that sits smack in the middle of the national zeitgeist. It pits a sheltered 18-year old white girl against a Harvard Law School graduate and practicing Muslim in a tau...

BWW Review: EXIT THE KING: Desperate Despot
by Nancy Grossman - September 25, 2017

Actors' Shakespeare Project opens its 14th season, The Downfall of Despots, with a comedy about a narcissistic despot who is having difficulty accepting his mortality. Director Dmitry Troyanovsky has the good fortune to work with a stellar ensemble, lead by the inimitable Richard Snee, and Sarah N...

BWW Review: New England Premiere of THE ROYALE: Boxing for Dignity
by Nancy Grossman - September 20, 2017

Merrimack Repertory Theatre rings the bell for the start of its 39th season with the New England premiere of Marco Ramirez's award-winning play inspired by the life of Jack Johnson, the first black man to fight for the title of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. THE ROYALE is a beautifully-written a...

BWW Review: Boston Premiere MEN ON BOATS
by Nancy Grossman - September 18, 2017

SpeakEasy Stage Company opens its 27th season with the Boston-area premiere of MEN ON BOATS, directed by Dawn Simmons, and featuring an all-female design team and a racially diverse, non-male cast. The playwright specifies in the script that the actors are to be female-identifying, trans-identifyin...

BWW Review: World Premiere of FLIGHT OF THE MONARCH at Gloucester Stage Company
by Nancy Grossman - September 13, 2017

Gloucester Stage Company presents the world premiere of playwright Jim Frangione's FLIGHT OF THE MONARCH following an overwhelming audience response to a reading last fall. Managing Director Jeff Zinn is at the controls, with a fine pair of collaborators in Nancy E. Carroll and J. Tucker Smith as a...

BWW Review: DAMES AT SEA: Bon Voyage!
by Nancy Grossman - September 11, 2017

DAMES AT SEA is a welcome escape from the upheaval of the moment, if only for a couple of hours. The six-member cast shines with an abundance of smiles, vocal belts, and tap routines that they make look easy. Ephie Aardema, who has previously made a few splashes on this stage (HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSI...

BWW Review: IDEATION: Is It Only a Test?
by Nancy Grossman - September 08, 2017

New Repertory Theatre opens its season with IDEATION, the Boston-area premiere of Aaron Loeb's play that is equally thrilling and disturbing as we try to adapt to the rapidly changing normal in America. With an unpredictable neophyte at the helm of our ship of state, a legislative body in a perilous...

BWW Review: GYPSY Takes Off at Lyric Stage
by Nancy Grossman - September 07, 2017

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston has hit the trifecta with their season opener GYPSY, directed and choreographed by Rachel Bertone, music directed by Dan Rodriguez, and raised to the rafters by Leigh Barrett's forceful Mama Rose. This is one for the ages....

BWW Review: N.E. Premiere of Israel Horovitz Comedy, OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES
by Nancy Grossman - August 14, 2017

Founding Artistic Director of Gloucester Stage Company returns to direct the New England premiere of his latest comedy, OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES. Paula Plum, Sarah Hickler, Obehi Janice, and Debra Wise play four diverse women who meet in a spacious Paris apartment to remember and memorialize the r...

BWW Review: Fortune Wags Its Tail at Element Theatre Company's SYLVIA
by Kristen Morale - August 13, 2017

With time spent on Broadway, off-Broadway and on stages from France to China, A.R. Gurney's Sylvia is now in performances at Elements Theatre Company at Rock Harbor. It is the epitome of taking something that is seemingly normal and turning it into a drama-filled, heartfelt tale of what it means to ...