After 20+ years of viewing, reviewing, and championing live theater in Los Angeles, I am always happy to go back for a taste of how
★★★☆☆ A curious mixture of kiddie show, domestic melodrama, mythology pageant and PSA, Learning How to Read By Moonlight presents, collage-like, incidents and dreams in
★★★★☆ Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA. The down-home vibe of The Spitfire Grill may be just the tonic you crave for our troubled times. It
★★☆☆☆ Merrimack Repertory Theater, Lowell, MA. The Cambodian genocide perpetrated by Khmer Rouge constitutes man’s inhumanity to man at its nadir, and has already inspired
★★★☆☆ Teatro Chelsea at Chelsea Theatre Works. This alleged “new play” by Alejandro Rodriguez actually wrenches, uncredited, Federico García Lorca’s last and greatest work, The
★★★★☆ Mosesian Center for the Arts, Watertown. Maurice Emmanuel Parent’s modern-dress take for Actors Shakespeare Project locates fairyland in the ‘70s disco-ball, glam-rock era, which
★★★★☆ Arrow St. Arts, Cambridge. A notable coffee table book of 2000 celebrated the history and role of haberdashery among African-American women with stunning B&W
★★☆☆☆ Huntington Stage Co., Boston, MA. French stage comedy, particularly the classical variety, has always been a tough sell to Americans. Raised on a century’s
★★★★★ Emerson Colonial, Boston, MA. Can a musical be thoughtful, emotionally gutting, and wildly entertaining all at once? Parade is all those things and more.
★★★★☆ SpeakEasy Stage, Boston, MA. For his swan song after 33 years at SpeakEasy Stage, founder Paul Daigneault has chosen a honey of a musical,
★★☆☆☆ Theatre UnCorked at BCA Plaza Theatre, Boston, MA. Handsome but inert staging of James Goldman’s problematic play about the original family feud of 1183
★★★☆☆ Lil Chuck at the Charles Playhouse, Boston, MA. Part improv show, part frat/sorority rave, and part genuine attempt at classical acting, this long-running (since
★★★★☆ Chuang Stage, Boston, MA. The title of Zoë Kim’s world-premiere memories of a Dickensian upbringing, Korean-style, is the catchall phrase by which her mother
★★☆☆☆ Greater Boston Stage Company, Stoneham, MA. A typical New Year’s Eve in Europe doesn’t feature Ryan Seacrest, Anderson Cooper or even Guy Lombardo. Our
★★★★☆ North Shore Music Theater, Beverly, MA. Esteem for Peter Stone and Maury Yeston’s impressionistic treatment of the legendary 1912 disaster has only grown since
★★★★☆ SpeakEasy Stage, Boston, MA. Playwright Steven Drukman has a gift for writing people of different classes – the intelligentsia, and everyday working folk –
★★☆☆☆ The Sullivan Rep, This new outfit out of Newton, MA asserts the admirable goal of quality work on a local scale, with an emphasis
★★★☆☆ Umbrella Stage Company, Concord, MA. Did anyone really need a stage version of Paddy Chayefsky’s Network? A good question, one first asked when Lee
★★★☆☆ SpeakEasy Stage, Boston, MA. The tropical setting concocted by set designer Erik D. Diaz and lighting designer Amanda E. Fallon is so seductively wrought,
★★★☆☆ Central Square Theater, Cambridge. Three gifted women are having a ball playing all the roles in a British multigenre take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s
The SpeakEasy Stage Company production of Admissions is first-class all the way. I was accompanied by a highly theatre-wise friend on her first visit to Boston,
Dan Whelton, Erica Spyres, Paula Plum, Steven Barkhimer (l. to r.). Photo by Nile Hawver. The old gray Martha ain’t what she used to be.
If you have ever written a poem, drawn a sketch, built a bookcase, knitted baby booties, put together a costume for Halloween, or had a
The best reason to see “Trainspotting,” Harry Gibson’s Irvine Welsh adaptation now running at the Elephant Stages, is lead actor Justin Zachary, who invests junkie
Jon Robin Baitz’s “The Paris Letter” is one of the most thoughtful, as well as one of the most moving, works from this distinguished American
Little links these two world premiere plays for me, except that I saw them on consecutive nights and each is inspired by, and celebrates, a
I’ve tried for days to figure out how to headline this item, and nothing quite felt right: “I Saw Mike Bartlett’s Cock”? “Cock Is Tasty”?
As the current president of the LA Drama Critics Circle, I am so proud of our slate of 2011 recipients. I really think we came
December 1, 2010 to November 30, 2011, actually. That’s our qualifying year. I’m very happy with this list, very proud that local attractions predominate in
I was more excited than most when I learned CTG had programmed these two plays to run simultaneously, because I knew what y’all were in
After 20+ years of viewing, reviewing, and championing live theater in Los Angeles, I am always happy to go back for a taste of how
★★★☆☆ A curious mixture of kiddie show, domestic melodrama, mythology pageant and PSA, Learning How to Read By Moonlight presents, collage-like, incidents and dreams in
★★★★☆ Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA. The down-home vibe of The Spitfire Grill may be just the tonic you crave for our troubled times. It
★★☆☆☆ Merrimack Repertory Theater, Lowell, MA. The Cambodian genocide perpetrated by Khmer Rouge constitutes man’s inhumanity to man at its nadir, and has already inspired
★★★☆☆ Teatro Chelsea at Chelsea Theatre Works. This alleged “new play” by Alejandro Rodriguez actually wrenches, uncredited, Federico García Lorca’s last and greatest work, The
★★★★☆ Mosesian Center for the Arts, Watertown. Maurice Emmanuel Parent’s modern-dress take for Actors Shakespeare Project locates fairyland in the ‘70s disco-ball, glam-rock era, which
★★★★☆ Arrow St. Arts, Cambridge. A notable coffee table book of 2000 celebrated the history and role of haberdashery among African-American women with stunning B&W
★★☆☆☆ Huntington Stage Co., Boston, MA. French stage comedy, particularly the classical variety, has always been a tough sell to Americans. Raised on a century’s
★★★★★ Emerson Colonial, Boston, MA. Can a musical be thoughtful, emotionally gutting, and wildly entertaining all at once? Parade is all those things and more.
★★★★☆ SpeakEasy Stage, Boston, MA. For his swan song after 33 years at SpeakEasy Stage, founder Paul Daigneault has chosen a honey of a musical,
★★☆☆☆ Theatre UnCorked at BCA Plaza Theatre, Boston, MA. Handsome but inert staging of James Goldman’s problematic play about the original family feud of 1183
★★★☆☆ Lil Chuck at the Charles Playhouse, Boston, MA. Part improv show, part frat/sorority rave, and part genuine attempt at classical acting, this long-running (since
★★★★☆ Chuang Stage, Boston, MA. The title of Zoë Kim’s world-premiere memories of a Dickensian upbringing, Korean-style, is the catchall phrase by which her mother
★★☆☆☆ Greater Boston Stage Company, Stoneham, MA. A typical New Year’s Eve in Europe doesn’t feature Ryan Seacrest, Anderson Cooper or even Guy Lombardo. Our
★★★★☆ North Shore Music Theater, Beverly, MA. Esteem for Peter Stone and Maury Yeston’s impressionistic treatment of the legendary 1912 disaster has only grown since
★★★★☆ SpeakEasy Stage, Boston, MA. Playwright Steven Drukman has a gift for writing people of different classes – the intelligentsia, and everyday working folk –
★★☆☆☆ The Sullivan Rep, This new outfit out of Newton, MA asserts the admirable goal of quality work on a local scale, with an emphasis
★★★☆☆ Umbrella Stage Company, Concord, MA. Did anyone really need a stage version of Paddy Chayefsky’s Network? A good question, one first asked when Lee
★★★☆☆ SpeakEasy Stage, Boston, MA. The tropical setting concocted by set designer Erik D. Diaz and lighting designer Amanda E. Fallon is so seductively wrought,
★★★☆☆ Central Square Theater, Cambridge. Three gifted women are having a ball playing all the roles in a British multigenre take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s
The SpeakEasy Stage Company production of Admissions is first-class all the way. I was accompanied by a highly theatre-wise friend on her first visit to Boston,
Dan Whelton, Erica Spyres, Paula Plum, Steven Barkhimer (l. to r.). Photo by Nile Hawver. The old gray Martha ain’t what she used to be.
If you have ever written a poem, drawn a sketch, built a bookcase, knitted baby booties, put together a costume for Halloween, or had a
The best reason to see “Trainspotting,” Harry Gibson’s Irvine Welsh adaptation now running at the Elephant Stages, is lead actor Justin Zachary, who invests junkie
Jon Robin Baitz’s “The Paris Letter” is one of the most thoughtful, as well as one of the most moving, works from this distinguished American
Little links these two world premiere plays for me, except that I saw them on consecutive nights and each is inspired by, and celebrates, a
I’ve tried for days to figure out how to headline this item, and nothing quite felt right: “I Saw Mike Bartlett’s Cock”? “Cock Is Tasty”?
As the current president of the LA Drama Critics Circle, I am so proud of our slate of 2011 recipients. I really think we came
December 1, 2010 to November 30, 2011, actually. That’s our qualifying year. I’m very happy with this list, very proud that local attractions predominate in
I was more excited than most when I learned CTG had programmed these two plays to run simultaneously, because I knew what y’all were in
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