Nov 30

Jingles in Her All the Way: “The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show”

Press photo by Jiji Lee.

Produced by BenDeLaCreme Presents
Co-created and co-written by BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon
Directed by BenDeLaCreme
Performed by BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon
Featuring: Mr. Babygirl, Ruby Mimosa, Scott Spraags, Jim Kent, Chloe Albin, Jace Gonzalez, and Gus Lanza as Hunky the Elf
TOUR DATES

November 28, 2023 @ 8PM
Boch Center
Wang Theatre
270 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116

Review by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Thanksgiving has passed. The Black Friday sales are over. Unread Giving Tuesday emails have been ceremoniously deleted. So you know what that means… Deck your halls and gird your loins, folx, it’s time for the first seasonal siege of the War on Christmas! 

Just kidding. Mostly.  

The 2023 December holidays are near and that means preparation for Hannukah, Advent, Yule, Christmas, the new moon, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s. While other theatre companies are rehearsing their annual A Christmas Carol for the family set, BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon are cinching their girdles for this year’s edition of The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show for queer adults (NETG recommended 17+) and their allies. Continue reading

Dec 29

You Don’t Have to Understand Your Queer Family to Love Your Queer Family: “The Rise and Fall of Holly Fudge”

Rehearsal for “The Rise and Fall of Holly Fudge.” Photo by Meghan Moore/Megpix

Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre
By Trista Baldwin
Directed by Courtney Sale
Cast: Kristian Espiritu, Karen MacDonald, Eliza Simpson, Milicent Wright

Now – January 4, 2022
Video on Demand via Mandolin.com
MRT Playbill 
MRT on Facebook

Age Recommendation: 14 and older. Some adult content/language.

Review by Kitty Drexel

Video-On-Demand — The copious productions of The Christmas Carol that come around every year are for mainstream Christmas celebrators. The Rise and Fall of Holly Fudge is a Christmas production for the rest of us. It’s intersectionality feminist. It passes the Bechdel Test. It’s under two hours, and you can drink rum-nog the entire time from your own home. Cheers! 

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house… Carol (New England darling Karen MacDonald) was stirring because her daughter Holly (Kristian Espiritu) was finally coming home to Brockton, Mass.! This year Holly is bringing her special friend Jordan (Eliza Martin Simpson). Worlds, politics, and identities collide when Holly reveals to Carol that Jordan is more than just her Jewish, progressive liberal friend from Portland.

Milicent Wright plays the online Zumba cueing, comestible baking, excellent listener and BFF neighbor Chris. I would take Zumba class with Chris/Millicent any day. She seems fun.  Continue reading

Feb 14

Deja Vu All Over Again: “I, Snowflake”

The cast; photo discovered on Anthem Theatre Co’s Facebook page.

Devised and presented by Anthem Theatre Company
Conceived, written and directed by Bryn Boice

Feb. 10 – 11, 2017
BU Dance Theatre
915 Commonwealth Ave
Boston, MA
Anthem on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

Trigger Warnings: Adult themes, gunshot sound effect, feminism

(Boston, MA) Bless you, Merriam-Webster. On January, 29, 2017 at 6:32PM, the hero in charge of the Dictionary’s Twitter account posted this lovely article on the slang origins of “snowflake.”  The article’s existence implies that the social movement currently applying this term to liberals are doing so incorrectly. Similarly Anthem Theatre Company strikes back at detractors with a timely, necessary production of I, Snowflake: A Post-election Reaction. Continue reading

Oct 29

Entertaining and Well-Done Whining: UNCLE VANYA

Photo credit: Apollinaire Theatre Company

by Anton Chekhov
directed by Daniella Fauteux Jacques
presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company

Chelsea Theatre Works
189 Winnisimmet Street
Chelsea, MA
October 10th – November 4th
Apollinaire Theatre Company Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Chelsea) I believe I once read that the sitcom Seinfeld didn’t last more than a season in Russia. Now I know why. Russia already had its Seinfeld; his name was Anton Chekhov, who writes brilliantly about all light and no heat. If you would like to chuckle and grimace about the painful foibles and imagined slights of the human condition, then you should catch the Apollinaire Theatre Company’s imaginative and spirited production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. But be warned, their lives might look painfully similar to your most dysfunctional family Thanksgivings. Continue reading