Boston Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 26

BWW Review: A Vision's Just A Vision If It's Only In Your Head, EYES SHUT. DOOR OPEN. Returns To Boston
by Justin J Sacramone - May 26, 2016

Art isn't easy. From Edvard Munch's agoraphobia to Sarah Kane's depression, the art world's rap sheet for its dense population of individuals with mental illness is haunting. Just ask Turner, the newest 'it talent' on the Chelsea art scene, who is struggling with a myriad of emotional and psychologi...

BWW REVIEW: Ensler Premieres IN THE BODY OF THE WORLD at A.R.T.
by Jan Nargi - May 24, 2016

At one point during her new one-woman play IN THE BODY OF THE WORLD, based on her highly acclaimed 2013 memoir of the same name, Eve Ensler repeats a phrase over and over to one of her doctors: "You're going to radiate my vagina. Radiate. My vagina. Radiate. My vagina. Radiate. My. Vagina." A pause,...

BWW Review: Rocking Out to the Life of Johnny Cash with RING OF FIRE at CCTC
by Kristen Morale - May 25, 2016

The Cape Cod Theatre Company, home of the Harwich Junior Theatre, has decided to step away traditional staged storytelling and try something different with its newest "jukebox" production of Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash. Created by Richard Maltby, Jr and hereby directed and choreographed b...

BWW REVIEW: Kindness Grapples with Cruelty in SpeakEasy's Powerful DOGFIGHT
by Jan Nargi - May 24, 2016

The coming of age of America during the tumultuous 1960s is brought vividly to life in DOGFIGHT, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's exquisite little musical now being presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company of Boston. Set in San Francisco on the eve of President Kennedy's assassination, DOGFIGHT pits the inn...

BWW Review: The Hope in Love: Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater Presents GIRLFRIEND
by Kristen Morale - May 18, 2016

With a book by Todd Almond, with music and lyrics by Matthew Sweet (from the latter's album of the same name plus songs derived from Altered Beats and 100% Fun) and originally produced by Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, CA, Girlfriend is now directed by Christopher Ostrom as it comes to WHAT...

BWW Review: Another Country Heard From: Scandinavian Stage Debuts With I CALL MY BROTHERS
by Nancy Grossman - May 12, 2016

Producing Artistic Director and Founder of Israeli Stage, Guy Ben-Aharon helmed a staged reading of Swedish-Tunisian playwright/author Jonas Hassen Khemiri's I CALL MY BROTHERS last night in Nordic Hall at the Scandinavian Cultural Center in West Newton. The first-ever theatrical performance at SCC ...

BWW Review: Comedy Takes the Stand in Eventide's FORUM
by Kristen Morale - May 12, 2016

Everyone is familiar with the works of Stephen Sondheim, quite the musical genius himself: his contributions to everything from 'West Side Story' to 'Sweeney Todd' have really set him apart from others in the musical theater realm; his style is so eclectic, his music so beautiful, that any show whic...

BWW Review: ROOSEVELVIS: On the Road with Teddy and Elvis
by Nancy Grossman - May 11, 2016

ROOSEVELVIS is the latest production of the TEAM, a Brooklyn-based ensemble dedicated to making new work about the experience of living in America today. Fusing stage and screen, music and dance, humor and pathos, and gender bending portrayals, the show makes liberal use of film to chronicle a fanc...

BWW Review: Murder Mystery Classic LAURA at Stoneham Theatre
by Nancy Grossman - May 09, 2016

Recent IRNE Award-winner Sarah Gazdowicz directs LAURA with a steady hand, garnering especially strong performances from Alexander Cook as Detective Mark McPherson and Steven Barkhimer as Waldo Lydecker. Jasmine Rush coolly plays the title character, an attractive career woman whose portrait infatua...

BWW Review: FREUD'S LAST SESSION: Believe It Or Not
by Nancy Grossman - May 04, 2016

New Repertory Theatre closes its season with Mark St. Germain's FREUD'S LAST SESSION, an imagined meeting between Dr. Sigmund Freud and scholar/author C.S. Lewis. The pair skillfully debate the question of God's existence as England gears up for war with Nazi Germany. Jim Petosa deftly directs Joel ...

BWW Review: A GREAT WILDERNESS: Bring Your Moral Compass
by Nancy Grossman - May 03, 2016

Zeitgeist Stage Company presents the Boston area premiere of Samuel D. Hunter's A GREAT WILDERNESS, set in a gay conversion camp in Idaho. A gentle Christian counselor takes on one final camper before his retirement, but the boy wanders off into the woods, setting in motion a physical search for him...

BWW Review: Swapping Hats and Inducing Hilarity with CDG's THE 39 STEPS
by Kristen Morale - May 03, 2016

Loosely based on the 1915 novel written by John Buchan, later made into the 1935 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock and gradually turned into a staged comical farce in 2005 by Patrick Barlow, The 39 Steps is something quite wonderful to see when brought about by a gifted director and a very talented...

BWW Review: HOME OF THE BRAVE World Premiere at Merrimack Repertory Theatre
by Nancy Grossman - April 26, 2016

Step back from the craziness of the current election season and into the zaniness of a fictional farcical political campaign in Lila Rose Kaplan's HOME OF THE BRAVE. Sean Daniels directs an ensemble cast in this good old-fashioned comedy, featuring family values, a dollop of magic, and a potential n...

BWW Review: WE'RE GONNA DIE in New England Premiere
by Nancy Grossman - April 24, 2016

WE'RE GONNA DIE is a sweet and weird song cycle, the perfect vehicle for Company One Theatre and the engaging Obehi Janice, backed up by a four-piece band that kicks it on the stage of Oberon. Playwright Young Jean Lee takes us through a series of life lessons by telling stories about pain, loneline...

BWW Review: UNSAFE: What's Your Terror Level?
by Nancy Grossman - April 22, 2016

Boston Public Works presents Jim Dalglish's UNSAFE - a psychological thriller, a look at one family's attempt to live a normal life after the devastating losses of 9-11. Are we far enough removed from the event to be able to see it as fodder for drama? The play is powerful, relentless, and unsettlin...

BWW Review: THE WILD PARTY: RSVP Now!
by Nancy Grossman - April 20, 2016

THE WILD PARTY is exactly what it says it is, and Moonbox Productions invites you to be a voyeur for the Michael John Lachiusa version of Joseph Moncure March's 1928 risque narrative poem, directed and choreographed by Rachel Bertone. Katie Anne Clark and Todd Yard anchor a crazy-good, talented ense...

BWW Review: MR. BURNS...Static Electricity
by Nancy Grossman - April 14, 2016

MR. BURNS, A POST-ELECTRIC PLAY defends the thesis that storytelling and making theater may be of great value in times of crisis, but goes awry with its repetitious retelling of an episode of THE SIMPSONS. Director A. Nora Long, a creative design team, and strong acting performances are not enough t...

BWW Review: THREESOME at Apollinaire Theatre Company Pulls No Punches
by Nancy Grossman - April 11, 2016

THREESOME blends the personal and the political, as well as comedy and drama, in a powerful and provocative multi-layered story. Artistic Director Danielle Fauteux Jacques pulls no punches and spurs her trio of actors (Alison Meirowitz McCarthy, Mauro Canepa, Geoff Van Wyck) to bravely deliver raw p...

BWW Review: Let the Youth Be Told in APA's New Hit SOCIAL SECURITY
by Kristen Morale - April 11, 2016

There are quite a few advantages of getting old, despite what many people may believe: the well-worn worries of youth are whisked away in the leveled way more mature people live their lives, self-dictated rules and personal boundaries are set as people come into their own and emotions are at bay as ...

BWW Review: Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA at Central Square Theatre
by Justin J Sacramone - April 10, 2016

Presidential candidates are not the only ones taking to the debate stage these days. In Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, characters stand and challenge each other, far more diplomatically than our friends running for higher office, on a long list of mathematical, scientific, and philosophical theories. Chara...

BWW Review: CAN YOU FORGIVE HER? World Premiere at Huntington Theatre Company
by Nancy Grossman - April 09, 2016

Gina Gionfriddo and Peter DuBois team up once again to present the world premiere of her latest play, CAN YOU FORGIVE HER? The playwright's trademark dark humor is on display and performed to a high standard by a stellar cast of five....

BWW Review: The Stories Sisters Shall Tell in CCTC's LITTLE WOMEN: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL
by Kristen Morale - April 07, 2016

Cape Cod Theatre Company's production of Little Women: The Broadway Musical is really something special. As I couldn't give you a visceral explanation of what it made me feel, this is a story who's truest depth and exquisiteness - its true emotion - is to be found once the journey is complete, and e...

BWW Review: SWEET CHARITY: Good for Your Heart and Soul
by Nancy Grossman - April 05, 2016

Director/choreographer Ilyse Robbins pays homage to Bob Fosse, but puts her artistic stamp on the 1966 Tony Award-winning musical. You will love Vanessa Dunleavy as the hopeful dance-hall hostess looking for love in all the wrong places. Stoneham Theatre veterans and newcomers comprise a stellar ens...

BWW Review: THE SOUND OF MUSIC Breathes New Life Into the Hills
by Nancy Grossman - April 04, 2016

The National Touring Production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien, breathes new life into the venerable hills and introduces a star-in-the-making. Vivacious and talented Kerstin Anderson captivates us from the opening strains of the title song, and her pass...

BWW Review: BLACKBERRY WINTER: Spring is Sure to Follow
by Nancy Grossman - March 31, 2016

New Repertory Theatre participates in the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere of Steve Yockey's BLACKBERRY WINTER, a thoughtful, poignant take on one woman's coming to terms with her mother's diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease. Director Bridget Kathleen O'Leary and Adrianne Krstansky brin...