Boston Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 37

BWW Review: GOOD TELEVISION Channels Great Theater at Zeitgeist Stage Company
by Nancy Grossman - May 01, 2014

GOOD TELEVISION proves that live theater makes everything better, even reality television. First time playwright Rod McLachlan creates complex characters and focuses on their diverse motivations in this authentic take at Zeitgeist Stage Company. Artistic Director David J. Miller seamlessly directs a...

BWW Review: Boston Theater Top to Bottom
by Nancy Grossman - April 24, 2014

There's something beautifully poetic in juxtaposing two current offerings by small theater companies in Boston. Bad Habit Productions celebrates ambitious women in Caryl Churchill's TOP GIRLS at the Boston Center for the Arts, while Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans are light years removed from ...

BWW Review: OUR LADY: Savior in Kinky Boots
by Nancy Grossman - April 18, 2014

Solo performance piece written and performed by James Fluhr (Boston University CFA '11), OUR LADY was created as a response to hate and homophobia, as well as to reveal the author's own coming out story. It is a moving, riveting mixed media theatrical event playing as part of the Next Rep Black Box ...

BWW Review: Loyalties Tested in BECOMING CUBA at Huntington Theatre Company
by Nancy Grossman - April 15, 2014

Huntington Theatre Company playwright-in-residence Melinda Lopez collaborates with Director M. Bevin O'Gara to bring BECOMING CUBA to the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. Rich in historical content, the play is set in Havana in 1897 in the midst of the Cuban War of Independence...

BWW Review: World Premiere of THE UNBLEACHED AMERICAN at Stoneham Theatre
by Nancy Grossman - April 14, 2014

Stoneham Theatre presents the world premiere of Michael Aman's THE UNBLEACHED AMERICAN, a play about Ernest Hogan, the "father of ragtime." A long forgotten African American musical innovator, Hogan attained great success before tumbling into infamy. This important story imagines his relationship wi...

BWW Review: Whistler in the Dark Fades Out With FAR AWAY
by Nancy Grossman - April 08, 2014

Whistler in the Dark Theatre is calling it a day, but not before staging one final play that will challenge their audience. Concluding their season celebrating Caryl Churchill, the Whistlers are fading out with the dystopian fable FAR AWAY....

BWW Reviews: Beckett, Bananas, and Barkhimer Make REEL TO REEL Go Round
by Nancy Grossman - March 31, 2014

Fort Point Theatre Channel pairs Samuel Beckett's KRAPP'S LAST TAPE with THE ARCHIVES by local playwright Skylar Fox for an engaging double bill. Steven Barkhimer in the former and Sally Nutt, Allison Smith, and Karin Trachtenberg in the latter all give quality performances in two one-acts that refl...

BWW Reviews: Suddenly Absurdist in Imaginary Beasts's LOVERS' QUARRELS
by Alex Lonati - March 30, 2014

In Imaginary Beasts's mission statement, they refer to the art they create as adventurous, non-traditional, and for an eclectic public. I have seen few shows that adhere to their company's mission statement better than this one. This weekend, I attended Imaginary's Beasts's production of Lovers' Qua...

BWW Review: Jason Robert Brown Teaches Harvard a Thing or Two
by Nancy Grossman - March 28, 2014

Tony Award-winning composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown is the Blodgett Artist in Residence at the Harvard University Department of Music for the spring term and he gave the equivalent of a master class last night at Oberon. In a seventy-five minute performance, Brown served a buffet of delicious mo...

BWW Reviews: TALLEY'S FOLLY Past Its Prime
by Nancy Grossman - March 26, 2014

Merrimack Repertory Theatre cranks up the way back machine to transport the audience to Lebanon, Missouri, on July 4, 1944, in Lanford Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winner TALLEY'S FOLLY, but the play chugs along on fumes, despite the best efforts of all parties....

BWW Review: Huntington Theatre Company's THE SEAGULL: Artists at Work
by Nancy Grossman - March 24, 2014

Kate Burton, accomplished Chekhovian actress, plays onstage mother to her son Morgan Ritchie in the Huntington Theatre Company's production of THE SEAGULL, featuring an ensemble of local favorites and Broadway veterans. Director Maria Aitken leads a stellar team of designers to create magic at the B...

BWW Reviews: A Night of Contradictions at Central Square Theatre's BRUNDIBAR & BUT THE GIRAFFE
by Alex Lonati - March 23, 2014

There are few things that speak to the resilience and hopefulness of mankind more than the history of Brundibar, currently being performed at the Central Square Theatre. It is an opera for children (which is ambitious in itself), but it was created by Jewish artists and performed in the Terezin conc...

BWW Review: Bridge Rep's HELLO AGAIN Seduces
by Nancy Grossman - March 17, 2014

Leave your inhibitions at the door and fasten your seat belt for a musical theater experience that simmers, smolders, and titillates. Bridge Rep gets up close and personal with Michael John LaChiusa's HELLO AGAIN in an immersive, cabaret-style production. Emerson College alum Michael Bello directs a...

BWW Review: TONGUE OF A BIRD Doesn't Fly
by Nancy Grossman - March 15, 2014

Ellen Mclaughlin's TONGUE OF A BIRD is the first show in New Repertory Theatre's inaugural Next Rep Black Box Festival. No one can dispute the intimacy of the venue, or the up-close-and-personal flavor of the production, directed by Emily Ranii and featuring an all-female cast. This band of sisters ...

BWW Review: FLASHDANCE: More Flicker Than Flame
by Nancy Grossman - March 14, 2014

FLASHDANCE - THE MUSICAL delivers on its promise of electrifying dance, but its story is forgettable and fails to inspire....

BWW Review: BULLY DANCE Looks for the Light
by Nancy Grossman - March 11, 2014

Playwright David Valdes Greenwood offers a requiem to explore the randomness of violence, the collateral damage suffered by the community, and the road to reclaiming one's humanity. BULLY DANCE illuminates its unpleasant theme with thoughtful writing, respectful performances, and unexpected beauty....

BWW Review: Music, Murder, and Mystery in SOMETHING'S AFOOT
by Nancy Grossman - March 04, 2014

An homage to Agatha Christie, SOMETHING'S AFOOT rolls along merrily in the hands of a cast of Stoneham Theatre favorites....

BWW Review: New England Premiere of Annie Baker's THE FLICK at Company One Theatre
by Nancy Grossman - March 03, 2014

Annie Baker takes live theater to the movies in THE FLICK, set in a rundown, second-run Worcester movie house. The audience gets to be like a fly on the wall as the ushers sweep up the detritus and muddle through their existential struggles between shows. Not much happens, but everything changes ove...

BWW Review: Baryshnikov Has All the Right Moves
by Nancy Grossman - February 27, 2014

Fusing theater, dance, music, and video, ArtsEmerson's MAN IN A CASE is an unusual entertainment, something that has to be seen to be appreciated. At the least, it is an example of thinking outside of the box and an opportunity to see one of the world's greatest dancers onstage; at best, it is an op...

BWW Review: Actors' Shakespeare Project's THE CHERRY ORCHARD Bears Fruit
by Nancy Grossman - February 24, 2014

Actors' Shakespeare Project mounts a lighter, accessible version of Anton Chekhov's final play in Founder's Hall at The Dane Estate at Pine Manor College in Brookline. Performing in the round in this stately, dramatic setting, the actors inhabit space and time in a way that allows their characters t...

BWW Review: Lyric Stage's SALESMAN Merits Attention
by Nancy Grossman - February 22, 2014

Arthur Miller's DEATH OF A SALESMAN is sixty-five years old, but unlikely to face the same fate as its tragic protagonist Willy Loman. With Janie E. Howland's marvelously evocative set, Gail Astrid Buckley's period-appropriate costumes, Karen Perlow's lighting effects, and Dewey Dellay's brilliant o...

BWW Review: World Premiere Musical WITNESS UGANDA at American Repertory Theater
by Nancy Grossman - February 19, 2014

WITNESS UGANDA explores the American impulse to change the world. It is an electrifying production that combines stellar design elements, breathtaking choreography, and an ensemble of energetic young artists committed to telling their story. Artistic Director Diane Paulus again shows her flair for g...

BWW Review: Moonbox Productions Steps Up in Class With COMPANY
by Nancy Grossman - February 17, 2014

Moonbox Productions moves upstairs to the Roberts Studio Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts for a large scale musical with Stephen Sondheim's COMPANY. Exploring friendship, love, commitment, and marriage through the eyes of a 35-year old bachelor, the vignettes resonate, but the songs really ...

BWW Review: ABSENCE Offers Inside View of Dementia
by Nancy Grossman - February 13, 2014

Boston Playwrights' Theatre season concludes with Peter M. Floyd's ABSENCE, a witty and poignant exploration of a 76-year old woman's decline and the impact on her family relationships. Understudy Kippy Goldfarb stepped in and stepped up on the opening weekend for ailing Joanna Merlin and knocked it...

BWW Reviews: Fifth 'Winter Ayckbourn' at Zeitgeist Stage Company
by Nancy Grossman - February 11, 2014

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH, prolific British playwright Alan Ayckbourn's opus #75, is a dark comedy satire and a cautionary tale which serves as a chilling reminder of recent events in our own country. Director David J. Miller's cast of four men and four women form a cohesive ensemble and find the humor in...