The Broadway comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, written by Christopher Durang and directed by Jessica Stone (based on the original Broadway direction of Nicholas Martin) is a fun modern romp peppered with Chekhov references and further seasoned with tomfoolery and nostalgia. Two siblings, Vanya (Martin Moran) and the adopted Sonia (Marcia DeBonis), […]
Boston University is loaded with student-run theater groups, and while attending BU I became familiar with plenty of them. I’ve also seen theater productions at Boston College, MIT, Wellesley, Emerson, Harvard, etc. I need not enumerate the number of community theatre groups in and around Boston that I have patronized, and even acted with. Among […]
The title was the first thing that caught my eye. If you browse the program notes of New Repertory Theatre’s latest production, Muckrakers, written by Zayd Dohrn, directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary, you’ll find many references to contemporary whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. We are prepped to think this show will be about […]
It’s hard to be an artistic pessimist in Boston. Sure, theater attendance can be a tenuous issue; sure, it’s easy to overlook a seemingly small cultural hub like Beantown. I don’t want to downplay the serious challenges the theatre community faces in light of higher audience distractability and greater pressure to procure profits. But the theatrical […]
The Oberon was transformed. For this production of Taylor Mac’s The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, music by Ellen Maddow, directed by Christopher Annas-Lee, the Oberon’s main stage was the top of a T formed with an alleyway cutting through the sea of audience tables. A path circled around the two audience clumps. The […]
Welcome to Arroyo’s, written by Kristoffer Diaz and directed by Jen Diamond, presented at Club Oberon this past summer. Arroyo’s is a mash-up play and hip-hop show, exploring the roots of this music genre in the context of the lives of certain NYC denizens. Alejandro Arroyo (Dario Sanchez) and his sister Molly (Juani Feliz) have […]
Dystopia is all the rage these days, as any of the recent hits in YA fiction/blockbuster film adaptations will indicate (The Hunger Games; Ender’s Game; The Giver, etc.). The Boston fringe theatre scene is no exception, and companies can choose to either stage new works (e.g. Flat Earth Theatre’s What Once We Felt) or give […]
Urinetown may be one of my favorite, yet under-appreciated musicals. You will rarely see a company attempt this parody of life and theatre (blame it on the piss-poor title). So, when I saw that Burlington Players was performing this laugh-a-minute musical, I had to show up. Unfortunately, they did not. Except for a few stunning […]