Apr 20

It’s a Great Cake. A Bride-Cake. Mine: “Old New Borrowed Blue”

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Celeste Godin as Havisham; photo by Nile Scott Shots.

Presented by MetroWest Opera
Conducted by Brendon Shapiro
Stage directed by Cassandra Lovering

Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night
Libretto by Jon Olon-Scrymgeour
Music by Dominick Argento

The Beautiful Bridegroom
Music and libretto by Dan Shore

April 19 – 21, 2018
Plaza Theatre
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
MetroWest on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Many an opera is devoted to women’s pre and post connubial anxieties. With all of the riches for women, one must ask where are the men?  In Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night Dickens’ spinster is an anti-heroine reliving a decades old tragedy. In The Beautiful Bridegroom, a Lady, her daughters and maid all wish for wedded bliss. If weddings are such fun, there should be operas from the giddy perspective of tenors in tuxes and basses in vestments. A person is supposed to like the person they marry. For all its progress, opera has further to go.   

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Apr 17

Real Hopes and Real Dreams: “The Rosenbergs (An Opera)”

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Church and Gibson; Kalman Zabarsky, Photographer

Presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
Score by Joachim Holbek
Libretto by Rhea Leman
Music direction by Cristi Catt
Stage direction by Dmitry Troyanovsky
Dramaturgy by Magda Romanska

April 12 – 22, 2018
BPT
Boston, MA
BPT on Facebook

April 27-29, 2018
Brandeis University
Spingold Theater
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were accused of delivering crucial information on the creation of the atomic bomb to the USSR in 1953. This case, considered one of the most infamous spy cases in US history, validated HUAC and contributed to the country-wide paranoia known as the Red Scare. Such attacks on communist affiliates is similar to the current presidential administration’s attacks on socialism. The Rosenbergs (An Opera) considers the couple accused of treasonous espionage. It proves that the American government and the people it claims to serve have changed very little in the last 65 years. Continue reading →

Apr 16

Still More to Learn from Our Past:”The Laramie Project”

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Presented by Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club
Written by Moisés Kaufman & the Members of the Tectonic Theater Project
Directed by Eli Schleicher ’18

April 11 – 13, 2018
Club Oberon
Cambridge, MA
HRDC on Facebook

Review by Diana Lu

(Cambridge, MA) The Laramie Project, by the Tectonic Theater Project, premiered in 2000. It is an amalgamation of over 200 interviews with the residents of Laramie, Wyoming, detailing the circumstances and consequences of the hate crime perpetrated against Matthew Shepard in 1998. Continue reading →

Apr 12

Donation Accounts Added to NETG!

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The New England Theatre Geek has new accounts with Patreon and Ko-Fi! If you’ve enjoyed reading the critiques, reviews and opinion editorials on the site, please donate. Your donations go towards paying our Blog Master Tech Wiz, and towards arts related expenses for the blog.

Our very first patron is Ken Raeburn. On behalf of the New England Theatre Geek staff, thank you Ken!

Best Wishes in Gratitude,
Kitty, Queen Geek

 

Apr 03

Pepsi Can’t Save You Now: “Somewhereville”

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Presented by ImprovBoston
Directed by David Thomas

March 9 – 30, 2018
40 Prospect Street in Central Square
Cambridge, MA
IB on Facebook

Review by Diana Lu

(Cambridge, MA) Halfway between improvised comedy and two-act play, Somewhereville tells the hilariously horrific tale of a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which the world has ended because of – audience suggestion? In its final installment, it was the Kardashians who were responsible for destroying civilization.  We learn in the three-character monologue opening that the “KKK-KK” has created an idiocracy-like hellscape via excess consumerism and social media over consumption. Continue reading →

Apr 02

“A Dead Man’s Diary”: A Sacred Love for Theatre

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Presented by Arlekin Players Theatre
Based on the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov
Original stage composition based on the novel written by Igor Golyak and Zhenya Brodskaya
English translation by Yana Minchenko
Composed by Jakov Jakoulov
Directed by Igor Golyak
Choreographed by Victor Plotnikov

17 March thru 1 April 2018
Emerson Paramount Center
Jackie Liebergott Black Box
Downtown Boston, Mass.
Arlequin Players on Facebook

Reviewed by Bishop C. Knight

(Emerson College) A Dead Man’s Diary was a drama performed in Russian, and patrons could request an earplug device that provided English voiceover during the production.  The play begins with our main character Sergei Maksudov writing a novel that is inspired by a dream of his native city and, upon completing this work, Maksudov shares his manuscript with various writers and critics.  One of his readers prompts Maksudov to adapt the book to a play, and thus commences Maksudov’s meanderings through the world of theatre ‒ a sphere where he is scorned by the director of the Moscow Art Theater, Stanislavsky.  At its core, Mikhail Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel examines a writer’s sacred love for theatre. Continue reading →

Mar 26

Punk, Communist Opera to Burn Your Daddy’s Ears: The Threepenny Opera

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The Threepenny Opera from Boston Lyric Opera on Vimeo.

Presented by Boston Lyric Opera
Music by Kurt Weill
Libretto by Bertolt Brecht
English translation by Michael Feingold
Original German text based on Elisabeth Hauptmann’s German Translation of John Gay’s
The Beggar’s Opera
Conducted by David Angus
Stage directed by James Darrah

March 16 – 25, 2018
Huntington Avenue Theatre
264 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA
BLO on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) 3Penny is not your Daddy’s stodgy traditional opera. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht were communist rabble rousers hell-bent on challenging the operatic form. They were freedom fighters rebelling against the Nazis through theatre. A stalwart Marxist, Brecht wanted to destroy opera’s association with the bourgeoisie. Weill believed opera could belong to the proletariat if given the opportunity. Both would have appreciated the BLO’s production of The Threepenny Opera. Opera purists would not.     Continue reading →

Mar 26

Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club presents “The Laramie Project”

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Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club Presents THE LARAMIE PROJECT at A.R.T.’s Club OBERON

 Cambridge, MA – Tickets are now on sale for Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s production of The Laramie Project. Performances will take place on Wednesday, April 11 and Thursday, April 12 at 7:30 PM, as well as Friday, April 13 at 3:00 PM and 8:00 PM. Performances are at the American Repertory Theater’s second stage, Club OBERON (2 Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA).

Tickets ($15-$35) may be purchased through the A.R.T. box office (64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA – (617) 547-8300), online (http://bit.ly/laramieatoberon), or at the door pending availability.

Facebook Event: http://bit.ly/laramie2018

About the Play – In 1998, Matthew Shepard was fatally injured and left for dead because he was gay. Following his death, the Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming to understand the town which came to be defined by two men’s crime. The Laramie Project retells the words of Laramie’s residents verbatim, and in their retelling, begins to uncover the prejudices, both loud and quiet, that boil over into violent hate crime.

Join the ensemble of actors as they embody these stories, bringing the Laramie of 1998 to the immersive Club OBERON. Join them as they ask – what does Laramie have left to tell us? Continue reading →

Mar 26

ANTIGONE: Death at the Parthenon

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Presented by Flat Earth Theatre
Original Tragedy by Sophocles
Adapted by Lewis Galantiere from the play by Jean Anouilh
Directed by Lindsay Eagle

ONE WEEK LEFT: March 26th @ 7:30pm; March 29th @ 8pm; March 30th @ 8pm; March 31st @ 8pm
The Black Box at the Mosesian Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St., Watertown, Massachusetts 02472
From the MBTA — take the Red Line to Central Square in Cambridge; then take the 70 or the 70A bus.
Flat Earth on Facebook

Review by Bishop C. Knight

(Watertown, MA) I could provide an enthusiastic review for every aspect of this play.  I will start with a nod to costuming. Continue reading →