★★★★☆ 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