Mar 25

Only Now + Now + Now: Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde)

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Ellen Lauren, Brandon Jovanovich and Raehann Bryce-Davis; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Boston Lyric Opera
Music by Gustav Mahler 
Chamber arrangement by Arnold Schoenberg
Text from Hans Bethge’s Die chinesische Flöte
Additional spoken text by Anne Bogart
Conducted by David Angus
Stage direction by Anne Bogart

March 20-29, 2026
BLO Opera + Community Studios
Boston, MA 02210
Online Playbill

In German and English with English supertitles. 
Running time: 85 minutes with no intermission

BOSTON — Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde), running through March 29 at the Boston Lyric Opera’s new Community Studios in Southie, is beautifully sung and acted. It shows the opera community what can be achieved in a smaller performance space with modest scenic, properties and lighting design. Such thoughtful but lowkey design places greater emphasis on the performances and resulted in one of the most effective productions (in no small part of Gustav Mahler, director Anne Bogart, and conductor David Angus) I’ve seen this season in any genre.   Continue reading →

Mar 18

Clowning, Catastrophe, and Communal Resistance: “The End is Nigh”

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Presented by Liars and Believers
Directed by Jason Slavick
Featuring Enrique Babilonia, Jesse Garlick, Ben Heath, Karina Ithier, Glen Moore, Hampton Richards

March 12-22, 2026
The Foundry
101 Rogers Street,
Cambridge MA

Review by Maegan Clearwood

CAMBRIDGE, Mas. — For centuries, the character of The Fool has used laughter to shed light on ugly existential truths. The End is Nigh walks in the clown-sized footsteps of Samuel Beckett and adds a dash of modern-day dystopian gameshow literature (think Squid Games or The Running Man), resulting in a theatrical collage that is brutally honest and surprisingly heartfelt.

The play, created by the Liars & Believers ensemble (with direction by Jason Slavick), invites audiences to cheer for the filming of “The End is Nigh,” the last television show to survive the apocalypse. Cutthroat host Consuela Hobbs (Hampton Richards) and her musical assistants (Jesse Garlick and Enrique Babilonia) drag three clown contestants onto the set, hoping that all three die gruesome, TV-worthy deaths. Continue reading →

Mar 17

Can’t Sleep, The A.I. Will Eat Me: “The Antiquities”

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Foreground: Kelsey Fonise; background: Alison Russo; Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
By Jordan Harrison
Directed by Alex Lonati
Dramaturgy by Reyn Ricafort 
Featuring: Alison Russo, Kelsey Fonise, Helen Hy-Yuen Swanson, Catia, Jesse Hinson, Tobias Wilson, John Kuntz, Anderson Stinson III, Harry Baker

March 6 – 28, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts
Calderwood Pavilion
The Roberts Studio Theatre
527 Tremont St.
Boston, MA 02116

Content Warning: This production contains strong language, sexual content, mild violence including limb severing, and potentially distressing themes.

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published her most famous novel, Frankenstein, in 1818. Czech writer Karel Čapek published his revolutionary play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), in 1921. Today, SpeakEasy Stage Company presents The Antiquities, a play about A.I.’s preservation of human existence at the Boston Center for the Arts. 

Playwright Čapek anticipated modern A.I. without predicting its foibles or dangers. R.U.R. tells of an inventor, Mr. Rossum, who builds artificial humans to enslave them. Helena, a sympathetic human and love interest, gives Radius, a rebellious robot, access to a human library so he may acquire knowledge. Instead of using knowledge to gain equality, Radius seeks to enslave humans in return. Like one recent study on modern A.I. at Cornell’s Kempner Institute, Rossum’s A.I. robots mutated past rote learning to develop their intelligence beyond their humans’ dictates. Over one hundred years of science fiction media later, including Blade Runner’s Voight-Kampff Test, Jordan Harrison gives us The Antiquities, a play that foretells an era without humans. (Apologies to Charlton Heston.) Continue reading →

Mar 15

The World Is Too Big Not to Be a Little Magical: “You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!”

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Michael Tow, Anjie Parker – Photo by Annielly Camargo

Presented by Company One
Produced in partnership with Boston Public Library
A new play by Keiko Green
Directed by Shawn LaCount
Dramaturgy by Jessie Baxter

Mar 6 – Mar 28, 2026
Boston Public Library
Central Library in Copley Square
700 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
Digital Playbill

All tickets are Pay-What-You-Want ($0 minimum)

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Before the show opens, a Company One lobby posterboard asks audience members of You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World what song they’d like to hear at the end of the world. I’d hear my spouse playing David Bowie karaoke on the ukulele while my loved ones welcome me home. That’d be nice. At the end, I hope there’s enough magic left for everyone to hear their heart’s desire. 

It’s the end of the world as he knows it, and it hurts like Hell. Greg (Michael Tow) receives a terminal cancer diagnosis (and weird dream visitations from Greta Thunberg (Anjie Parker)), he finally understands his true purpose and races to save Mother Earth as our climate catastrophe looms. Meanwhile, his wife, Viv (Jade Guerra), tries to hold it all together, but really just wants to stop time and hide under the covers with her husband. And through it all, our emcee and their child, M (Kai Clifton, who dazzles in another leading role), charts their own path while Dad is dying, life is a drag, and the world keeps spinning. Ensemble members Parker, Alex Alexander and Nicholas Papayoanou play multiple supporting characters Continue reading →

Mar 12

A Relationship Is A Series of Negotiations: “Stereophonic”

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Tour presented by ATG Entertainment
Written by David Adjmi
Original music by Will Butler
Directed by Daniel Aukin 
Featuring: Jack Barrett, Claire DeJean, Steven Lee Johnson, Emilie Kouatchou, Cornelius McMoyler, Denver Milord, Christopher Mowod

Now – March 15, 2026
Emerson Colonial Theatre
106 Boylston St
Boston, 02116
Link to a Bostix Deal

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — The official summary for Stereophonic says it mines “the agony and the ecstasy of creation as it zooms in on a music studio in 1976.” An up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself on the cusp of superstardom. Internal and external pressures could “spark their breakup… or their breakthrough.” Written by David Adjmi, directed by Daniel Aukin, and featuring original music by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, Stereophonic shows its audience the creativity, drugs, and drama of writing and recording a stellar, best-selling folk rock album, a la Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

Stereophonic is just one of many works inspired by the saga of Fleetwood Mac and Rumours. Daisy Jones & the Six, the best-selling novel and the Amazon T.V. show, and an episode of Agatha All Along are others. Stereophonic earned 13 Tony nominations and won five awards in 2024. Its cast album rocks and stands on its own as great entertainment (whether you enjoy Fleetwood Mac or not). The touring production is a solid theatre that represents well the artistic creative process, massive egos, and the heartbreak of losing a family through interpersonal drama.  Continue reading →

Mar 11

There Were Always Bad Things Happening in Navestead: “Like Flies”

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Photo by Noli French – French’s Fotos

Presented by Portland Stage
By Maggie Kearnan
Directed by Sally Wood
Featuring: Cynthia Barnett, DeAnna S. Wright, Catherine Buxton, Luz Lopez, Carina Higgins, Jordan Hurley, Kelly Chick

March 4 – March 22, 2026
Wed, Mar 04, 7:30pm* 
Sat, Mar 14, 8:00pm*
Thu, Mar 19, 2:00pm*
(*On sale 12pm until show time, day of show, in person only)
Portland Stage theater
25A Forest Ave 
Portland, ME 04101

Article by Kitty Drexel

RUN TIME approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission.

PORTLAND, ME — Playwright Maggie Kearnan made a splash at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre in Nov. 2024 with her political satire, How to Not Save the World with Mr. Bezos. If you enjoyed that as much as we did, you’ll be tickled pink to know her latest creation, Like Flies, is playing at Maine’s quaint Portland Stage through March 22. Even better, it features a cast heavy with local actors. 

In the fictional town of Navestead (a place not dissimilar to historical Portland, ME), a new midwife has moved in down the road from the morgue. Edna (Cynthia Barnett) has come because she’d heard tell of mothers dying in childbirth. Edna’s move has upset the locals, including the resident midwife, Meg (DeAnna S Wright). After she saves a pregnant mother and her unborn baby, Edna and Meg form a courteous tag team. The women now come to them both for healing.  Continue reading →

Mar 02

We Didn’t Start the Fire. The Princess Did. Because She’s Petty: “The Fiery Mountain and Its Princess”

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Photo via Puppet Showplace website. Puppet by Li Chuan- tsain.

Presented by Galapagos Puppets
Puppeteering by Madeleine Beresford & Margaret Moody
Music performed by Jimmy Zhao and Iris Zhao
Bu Dai Xi puppets made by Li Chuan- tsain of I Wan Jan Troupe, Taiwan 
Script by Li Tien-lu of I Wan Jan

February 14–17, 2026
Puppet Showplace Theater
32 Station Street 
Brookline, MA 02445

Running time: approximately 60 minutes, no intermission

Article by Diana Lu

BROOKLINE, Mass. – The Fiery Mountain and Its Princess: A Monkey King Tale, presented by Galapagos Puppets, is a rare experience of cultural legacy as a living, breathing, and playful entity. The show, performed in the traditional Taiwanese puppetry style “bu dai xi”, combined masterful yet slapstick hand puppetry, improvised riffing off of Classical Chinese music in a fantasical and famous story told in the intimate, child-friendly environment of Brookline’s Puppet Showplace Theater. Watching it, you realize that culture isn’t about artifacts painstakingly preserved. It is a relational and embodied experience to be enjoyed, connected with, and paid forward. Continue reading →

Feb 27

The Woolf of Washington Street: “The Things Around Us”

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Presented by ArtsEmerson
Composed, Written, & Performed by: Ahamefule J. Oluo 
Produced by Roya Amirsoleymani
Lighting Design Lily McLeodmed by Ahamefule J. Oluo

Robert J. Orchard Stage
Emerson Paramount Center
559 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111
February 20-22, 2026

Runtime: 90 minutes, no intermission

Article by Diana Lu

BOSTON – There are theater experiences that entertain you for a couple of hours and then fade pleasantly into memory. And then there are performances that quietly rearrange your understanding of what art can do, what intimacy means. 

The Things Around Us, written and performed by Ahamefule J. Oluo, accomplishes something rare in contemporary solo performance. It creates profound intimacy without confession. The connection between artist and audience forged over the course of the evening does not arise from autobiographical revelation or narrative excavation, but from structure itself.  Continue reading →

Feb 23

It Starts with An Earthquake, Birds & Snakes, An Aeroplane: “The Bald Soprano” & “The Lesson”

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Photo by Ben Rose Photography.

Presented by Hub Theatre Company of Boston 
Written by Eugène Ionesco
Directed by Bryn Boice
Intimacy Choreography by Lauren Cook

February 21 – March 8 2026
BCA Plaza Black Box Theatre
539 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

2 hours with ONE 15-minute intermission
Suitable for 13+

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Theatre of the Absurd plays are why normies make fun of us. These plays are, by definition, intentionally bizarre. If you enjoy works by Beckett, Jean Genet, Pinter, etc., you’ll enjoy Hub Theatre Company’s production of Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano and The Lesson, currently at the BCA. Even if you don’t but do want to support well-assembled fringe theatre, it’s worth your while to check out Hub’s current offering.  Continue reading →

Feb 16

Here There Be Dragonnes: “The Moderate”

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Celeste Oliva and Nael Nacer in The Moderate. Photo: Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Central Square Theater
A Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Production
By Ken Urban
Directed by Jared Mezzocchi

February 5 – March 1, 2026
Central Square Theater
450 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

Strobe and flashing lighting effects are used in this production.

Using the Motion Picture Association rating system, this production lands between R and NC-17 ratings for sexual content, violence, and mature themes including political terrorism and child abuse. 

Article by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Let’s begin with the end. In an interview with Playwright Ken Urban and Director and Multimedia Designer Jared Mezzocchi, I asked the duo what they hoped audiences would take away from their production of The Moderate (now playing at Central Square Theater). Urban said the play is a human story about a man struggling with his past. In doing so, he helps someone in the present. This is possible through Frank’s interactions online

Mezzocchi said he hopes audiences consider how their own internet use could be harmful and instead take a moment to reflect and look within themselves to find hope. 

Hold on to Mezzocchi’s message of hope. You’ll need it.  Continue reading →