Boston Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 10

BWW Review: CHRISTMAS ON URANUS: Gold Dust Orphans Launch Laughs In Space
by Nancy Grossman - December 09, 2019

Space, the final frontier, has finally been explored by Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans, and their little dog, too. Following the trail blazed by her predecessor, the late, beloved Rhoda the dog, Dolly the Mustache Pup has a featured spot in CHRISTMAS ON URANUS as one of the flying dogs of Plu...

BWW Review: DOLLY PARTON'S SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS CAROL: Bah, Humbug!
by Nancy Grossman - December 06, 2019

DOLLY PARTON'S SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS CAROL delivers on the simplicity of its message of faith, family, and love, especially during the holiday season, and is a reflection of the heritage and values of its namesake. On opening night, the acclaimed country singer-songwriter surprised and delighted ...

BWW Review: SLAM BOSTON at Open Theatre Project
by Andrew Child - December 04, 2019

In order to write about Open Theatre Project's 7th Annual Slam Boston (a series of home-grown 10 minute plays hosted at Boston Playwright's Theatre), one must first open up the discussion of the 'D' word. That's right, Boston. Let's talk about that 9-letter word that not only kills in Scrabble, but ...

BWW Review: THE WICKHAMS: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY: How The Downstairs Half Lives
by Nancy Grossman - December 04, 2019

Merrimack Repertory Theatre presents the second installment of what will become a trilogy co-written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, about the close-knit sisters from Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Paralleling the upstairs Christmas-time festivities featured in last year's MISS BENNET: CH...

BWW Review: AGATHA CHRISTIE'S MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS: Rogues on the Rails
by Nancy Grossman - November 26, 2019

Producing Artistic Director Emeritus Spiro Veloudos is in the director's chair for AGATHA CHRISTIE'S MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and stages Ken Ludwig's adaptation with distinct shadings of film noir and a who's who of Lyric Stage Company veterans (and a couple of newbies) on board to play the rogu...

BWW Review: RUTHLESS! THE MUSICAL: Spawn of Eve Harrington
by Nancy Grossman - November 23, 2019

What do you get when you mix aspects of GYPSY, THE BAD SEED, and ALL ABOUT EVE with a heavy dose of camp and a soupçon of soap opera? RUTHLESS! THE MUSICAL, an all-female homage to overly-ambitious child actors, sleazy agents, poison pen critics, and jealous understudies that is a star vehicle for a...

BWW Review: QUIXOTE NUEVO: Tilting At Balloons
by Nancy Grossman - November 22, 2019

A septuagenarian suffering from Alzheimer's may seem an unlikely hero, but in QUIXOTE NUEVO, playwright Octavio Solis' adaptation of Miguel Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE, a retired Mexican-American college professor fearlessly takes on the Border Patrol, aids migrants, and models the importance of resilien...

BWW Review: Arlekin Players' THE SEAGULL: A Long, Strange Trip
by Nancy Grossman - November 18, 2019

a?oeUnlike any THE SEAGULL you can ever imaginea?? sums up the Arlekin Players Theatre production of Anton Chekhov's classic. An original adaptation with script translation by Ryan McKittrick, Julia Smeliansky, and Laurence Senelick, and directed by Igor Golyak, it features imaginative staging and t...

BWW Review: COME FROM AWAY Soars at Boston's Opera House
by Jan Nargi - November 15, 2019

COME FROM AWAY, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical warming Boston audiences now through November 17, is just the uplifting human tonic we need during these difficult and divided times. Charming, witty, heart-breaking but ultimately inspiring, COME FROM AWAY is the remarkable story of the 9000 N...

BWW Review: TEMPEST RECONFIGURED at Fort Point Theatre Channel
by Andrew Child - November 15, 2019

In two recent reviews of The Magic Flute and Fences, I have bemoaned Boston theatres' lack of accommodation made for the marginalized communities they attempt to serve. In sharp contrast,Tempest Reconfigured, a project produced by Fort Point Theatre Channel, takes the storyline of Shakespeare's fina...

BWW Review: FELLOW TRAVELERS at Boston Lyric Opera
by Andrew Child - November 14, 2019

When I first saw Boston Lyric Opera's promotional images for Fellow Travelers, a new opera by Greg Pierce and Gregory Spears, in a production that premiered at Minnesota Opera, I was incredibly wary. Photos of conventionally attractive white men in their boxers clinging to each other in a fit of pas...

BWW Review: THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT Asks the Question: WWJD?
by Nancy Grossman - November 12, 2019

Hub Theatre Company of Boston concludes its seventh season with an ambitious undertaking, the time-bending, courtroom dramatic comedy, THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT by Pulitzer Prize winning and Tony Award nominated playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. Boston audiences will recognize his name from two...

BWW Review: New England Premiere of THE SMUGGLER: Of Immigrants and the American Dream
by Nancy Grossman - November 11, 2019

Ronán Noone is an Irish-American playwright, an immigrant, who writes about what he knows and what he has lived. In his most recent work, THE SMUGGLER, which won the Best Playwright award at the 1st Irish Festival of New York, 2019, he allocates much of that knowledge and experience to the protagoni...

BWW Review: FENCES at The Umbrella Stage Company
by Andrew Child - November 11, 2019

The Umbrella Stage Company has baptized their newly renovated blackbox with an appropriately bleak production of August Wilson's Fences. The play is the third installment in Wilson's American Century Cycle, for which he wrote 10 plays about the Black American experience, one play per decade in the t...

BWW Review: LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS Written By And Starring John Leguizamo
by Andrew Child - November 09, 2019

The crotchety, old ushers at Emerson's Colonial Theatre prepared for battle as the two night run of John Leguizamo's Tony Award winning Latin History for Morons descended upon their gilded palace. The bawdy irreverence of the piece with its marked disdain for the systemic white-washing of American h...

BWW Review: Isango Ensemble's THE MAGIC FLUTE, Presented by ArtsEmerson
by Andrew Child - November 07, 2019

ArtsEmerson continues its tradition of hosting world-class theatre pieces in Boston by presenting Isango Ensemble's production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. The troupe, comprised of 21 black South African musicians, alternates nebulously between delivering recitative, dancing ebulliently, and playing...

BWW Review: CORIOLANUS at Praxis Stage
by Andrew Child - November 03, 2019

Praxis Stage's Coriolanus is punk. It is metal. It is what too many theaters in Boston try to be and it succeeds in ways that should have the rest of the theatre community taking notes (or at least scrambling for tickets to their next production). Coriolanus is a late Shakespearean tragedy  that fol...

BWW Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG at Hanover Theatre In Worcester, MA
by Jan Nargi - November 02, 2019

It turns out that Halloween weekend is a great time to see THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG, the hilarious Tony Award-winning Broadway comedy that is a virtual bag full of tricks and treats. A madcap play-within-a-play that gives off a distinct a?oehaunted manora?? vibe, this murder mystery farce (ending it...

BWW Review: ROALD DAHL'S WILLY WONKA at Wheelock Family Theatre
by Andrew Child - November 02, 2019

Roald Dahl wrote books for the children of his time and it is a wonder that many of his creations have remained as popular and well-loved as they have decades after his death. Although James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, and The Twits can all trace thematic influence back to Dahl's invo...

BWW Review: ADMISSIONS: Biting Comedy Asks You to Check Your Privilege
by Nancy Grossman - November 01, 2019

It's probably just a coincidence, but two fine plays currently running at two award-winning regional theaters share an unusual commonality. Both focus on the issue of white privilege and the prevailing attitude that acknowledging its existence will end it. In THE THANKSGIVING PLAY at Lyric Stage Com...

BWW Review: THE BODYGUARD at North Shore Music Theatre
by David Tompkins - October 31, 2019

Last Night the BODYGUARD opened to a very warm audience reception at North Shore Music Theatre. The final offering of the 2019 regular musical season THE BODYGUARD is a new musical based on the smash hit 1992 film....

BWW Review: HAMLET at Gloucester Stage
by David Tompkins - October 30, 2019

A King, now a ghost, walks the night, to bring tidings to his son Hamlet, of his own murder 'most foul', at the hands of his brother Claudius who then becomes King. The Queen mother, Gertrude, then becomes the new King's wife. Next a counselor to the king, Polonius, is murdered by Hamlet when Hamlet...

BWW Review: THE THANKSGIVING PLAY: Pardon Our Political Correctness
by Nancy Grossman - October 29, 2019

Get in the mood for the rapidly approaching holiday season by going to the Lyric Stage Company of Boston's production of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY, a sharp and funny satire by Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse that holds a mirror up to reflect the craziness of political correctness on steroid...

BWW Review: SALTONSTALL'S TRIAL: THE SALEM WITCH TRIAL'S UNTOLD STORY at Larcom Theatre in Beverly
by Nancy Grossman - October 25, 2019

With the term a?oewitch hunta?? being bandied about ad nauseam in our national discourse, it seems an ideal moment to look back upon the actual witch hunt that occurred in Essex County, Massachusetts, at the end of the 17th century. SALTONSTALL'S TRIAL: THE SALEM WITH TRIAL'S UNTOLD STORY, a new pla...

BWW Review: CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND: Feel the Beat at Merrimack Repertory Theatre
by Nancy Grossman - October 23, 2019

Merrimack Repertory Theatre, in a co-production with Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago and City Theatre in Pittsburgh, presents Lauren Yee's CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND, a play that fuses history, family legacy, and rock concert to illustrate the power and importance of music. It focuses on a daughter's at...