Nov 05

Rocking out on the precipice of hope: “1972”

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Gracie McGraw, Jackera Davis, and members of the cast in 1972. Photo: Nile Scott Studios

Presented by the American Repertory Theater 
Music and Lyrics by Chadwick Stokes
Book by Chadwick Stokes and Jessie Nelson
Created by Chadwick Stokes
Directed by Jessie Nelson

November 1 – December 6, 2026
Farkas Hall
12 Holyoke Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Critique by Maegan Clearwood

80 minutes with no intermission

1972 contains descriptions of domestic violence and abortions. This production contains loud music and flashing lights. Recommended for ages 14+.

TL;DR: 1972 rocks but, for a musical about abortion, is weighed down by men. 

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Not 24 hours after news of the breathtakingly anticipated Blue Wave, I had the privilege of hearing these words belted to the highest heavens by Khaila Wilcoxon:

“It’s your God-given right
It’s your goddamn decision,
Do with it as you like.”

Words that are explicitly, unapologetically about abortion; stripping the act of all taboo; celebrating the women who paved the way to universal, safe access through direct action.  Continue reading →

Nov 05

Where There is Hatred, Let Me Sow Love: “The Getaway Driver”

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Gibel & Warren; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Central Square Theater
A Rolling World Premiere with Trinity Rep and Northern Stage
By Deborah Salem Smith & Charlie Thurston
Directed by Curt Columbus
October 29 – November 22, 2026

Central Square Theater
Cambridge, MA 02139

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Run time: approximately 90 minutes, no intermission.

TL;DR: Docu-theatre play, The Getaway Driver, gives equal weight to the stories of Katherine Ann Power and Clare Schroeder. It’s a tear-jerker. 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Central Square presents The Getaway Driver now through Nov. 26 as part of a rolling world premier with Trinity Repertory Theatre and Northern Stage in VT. It is the latest docu-theatre drama by the co-writing duo, Deborah Salem Smith and Charlie Thurston. They previously wrote and produced with Trinity Rep another docu-drama, 2025’s Someone Will Remember Us, a play commemorating the experiences of immigrant and native Rhode Islanders’ experiences during the Iraq War.  Continue reading →

Nov 03

 Why Men Great Til They Gotta Be Great?: “The Sitayana (Or ‘How to Make an Exit’)”

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The ensemble. Photo by Ken Yotsukura.

Presented by Chuang Stage Theatre Company 
Written by Lavina Jadhwani
Directed by Tushar Mathew
Live Tabla Music by Om Hegde

October 14 – October 31, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts, Black Box Theatre

Critique by Kitty Drexel

65 minutes (plus or minus) with no intermission.

TL;DR: Regardless of your religion or culture: It doesn’t matter how strung his bow is. Dump him if he shoots it with everyone but you. 

BOSTON — Lavina Jadhwani’s feminist play The Sitayana reimagines the ancient Sanskrit epic poem The Ramayana from the perspective of Rama’s defamed but forgiving wife, Sita. Tushar Mathew’s production for Chuang Stage was a narrative ritual told through an ensemble of women. On a gorgeous stage decked in oranges, reds and yellows designed by Jayoung Hong and lit by designer Ashley Ting Yung, Sita’s story unfolded before us. It was wonderful: intersectional, feminist, sacred.  Continue reading →

Oct 29

I See a Red Door and I Want to Paint It Black: “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”

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Photo via MRT Facebook.

Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre
Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Directed by Jenny Lavery
Featuring: Brent Charles, Sarah Danko, Herman Gambhir, André Martin, Amber Quick, Ed Swidey

October 14-November 1, 2026
Merrimack Repertory Theatre
50 E Merrimack St
Lowell, MA 01852

Critique by Diana Lu

Run time: 120 minutes, with 15 minute intermission

LOWELL, Mass. — Jeffrey Hatcher’s 2008 adaptation is an interesting departure from the Robert Louis Stevenson novella. The basic premise remains largely the same: set in Victorian London, respected physician and researcher Henry Jekyll (André Martin) explores the duality of good and evil in human nature. Like the good old masculine scientist trope that he is, Dr. Jekyll experiments on himself and develops a potion that transforms him into his darker alter ego, Edward Hyde (all but Danko and Martin). Stripped of all conscience and apparently his medical degree, Mr. Hyde rampages through the streets of London at night, causing all sorts of ruckus for Dr. Jekyll and his neighbors. Continue reading →

Oct 28

Lucy, you got some splainin’ to do: “Blackhollow: A Gothic Tale of Possession”

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Presented by Greater Boston Stage Company
By Weylin Symes
Directed by Weylin Symes and Daniel Begin
Featuring Anna Slate and Charlotte Gray (understudy)
Online Playbill 

Oct. 23 – Nov. 8, 2026
GBSC Main Stage
Stoneham, MA 02180

90 minutes with no intermission.

Trigger warnings: Body horror, medical misogyny, surgical gore, spooky basements.

Article by Kitty Drexel

STONEHAM, Mass. — Blackhollow: A Gothic Tale of Possession is horror. It depicts the torture of women. Its male characters call it “science,” but it’s historical torture with lab coats. In this gothic horror, adult men prey upon women and girls because they can. These male scientists see their victims as lab rats. Please, please respect your limits when buying a ticket.    

After witnessing her father commit her mother’s violent murder at the breakfast table, Lucy Cull (Anna Slate) is given employment in a 19th-century English criminal asylum. She is 11. Life working at the asylum forces Lucy to grow up quickly. Between the male doctors preying upon naive young women for sport or her malicious coworkers’ undeserved violence, Lucy must rely on her wits to survive.  Continue reading →

Oct 22

Joyfully Exploding Fixed Categories: Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors

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Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project 
By Gordon Greenberg & Steve Rosen
Directed by Christopher V. Edwards
Featuring: Thalia Gerloff, Doug Lockwood, Paul Melendy, Nicholas Papayoanou, Bobbie Steinbach

October 9 to November 1, 2026
The Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Run time: 100 minutes, no intermission

Critique by Diana Lu

WATERTOWN, Mass. — The 1995 Mel Brooks film Dracula: Dead and Loving It was a childhood favorite of mine, so Greenberg and Rosen had big shoes to fill. I’m happy to report that Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors exceeded even my most petulant-nostalgic expectations. It is witty and fresh. It is feminist and gay. Watching it gave me a sense of safety, clarity, and expansion, and I wondered how much more theatre could challenge us to, as the playbill put it, “be dangerous and alive.”

A sharp and hilarious sendup of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale, Dracula ACOT begins with fussy and faint hearted (i.e. stereotypically Victorian) real estate broker, Jonathan Harker (Paul Melendy),  traveling to Transylvania to close a lucrative deal and enhance his career prospects before wedding his childhood sweetheart—who is waaaaaay out of his league. In Dracula’s castle, Harker’s photo of fiancée Lucy Westfeldt (Thalia Gerloff), a feminist firebrand with an extremely attractive neck, immediately becomes the vampire’s obsession. This leads our orientalist trope villain to infiltrate England to seek her out, leaving a trail of death, disease, madness, and queerness in his quest to sate his lust, bloodlust, and dopamine receptors. Continue reading →

Oct 19

With the Only Good Hand He Possesses: “To Kill a Mockingbird”

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Karl Kenzler, Karen Killeen; photo by Liza Voll.

Presented by The Huntington
By Aaron Sorkin
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Harper Lee  
Directed by Huntington Artistic Director Loretta Greco 
Music and vocals by Ashley Frith

October 8 – November 8, 2026
The Huntington Theatre
264 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115

TL;DR: The “TKAM” play is different from the novel. The Huntington’s production is great! Hire disabled actors to play disabled characters. 

Content Advisories: Explicit racial slurs, theatrical haze, and sound of a gunshot. This link for more→.

Run Time: Schedule 3 and a half hours from arrival to exit.

BOSTON — Apropos of nothing, let’s dig in.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is playing at the Huntington Theatre in Boston. In it, three children tell the story of Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson and a township’s failure of justice for a Black man. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution guarantees due process, not justice. 

The Huntington’s summary of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is HERE. 

The BBC has a comprehensive examination of Harper Lee’s novel with illustrations HERE. 

For those wondering, this adaptation of the novel differs in several important ways. First, the story is told through three narrators: child and adult Scout (Karen Killeen), her brother Jem (Benjamin Izaak), and their new friend Dill (Andrew Stevens), instead of one, Scout. The play occurs over one summer instead of the book’s multiple seasons. We don’t see Miss Maudie’s house burn down or the destruction of the mad dog. Boo Radley (a solemn Jesse Hinson) remains, but his interactions with the children are reduced.     Continue reading →

Oct 13

A Quest for Laughs and a Holy Grail: “Spamalot”

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(L-R) Claire Kennard, Lindsay Lee Alhady, Major Attaway, Delaney Benson, and Meridien Terrell in the North American Tour of SPAMALOT. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

Presented by Boch Center Wang Theatre
Book and Lyrics by Eric Idle
Music by John Du Prez & Eric Idle
Directed & Choreographed by Josh Rhodes
Music Directed by Jonathan W. Gorst

October 8 – 11, 2026
Boch Center Wang Theatre
270 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116

Runtime: 2 hours and 20 minutes, including intermission.

Review by Helen Ganley

BOSTON — Arthurian Legend – a literary colossus within British history. The lore encompasses the trials, feats, and follies of King Arthur and his knights within the kingdom of Camelot. These narratives bestow their readers with messages of honor and chivalry. Spamalot, based around these foundational mythologies… Does not … (in the best way!) Spamalot, or as it’s properly titled and subtitled, Monty Python’s Spamalot; A musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” takes inspiration from an already vaudevillian and slapstick movie and cranks the silliness up tenfold in the way only theater can. Although the main quest is reminiscent of the original fables, King Arthur and his knights seek the holy grail, the show’s series of vignettes shows the team encountering outrageous and nonsensical barriers. Continue reading →

Oct 13

Ups and Downs: “Bat Boy: The Musical”

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Photo of cast by Jim Sabitus.

Presented by the Umbrella Stage Company 
Story and Book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming 
Music and Lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe
Directed by Jeremy Johnson
Music directed by Jeff Kimball
Choreography by Sara Andreas

September 25 – November 8, 2026
Umbrella Arts
40 Stow St.
Concord, MA 01742

Online playbill

Approximate run-time: 1h 55m, 15m intermission

Critique by Diana Lu

CONCORD, Mass. — Bat Boy: the Musical has the dubious yet rarefied honor of being the worst show I’ve ever seen. This is not altogether bad publicity: it’s managed to stay rent-free in my brain all week. I fully expect to think about this show at least once a month for the rest of my life. Perhaps not my Roman Empire, but certainly my Portuguese, or Dutch East Indies Empire.

Inspired by an infamous 1992 tabloid, this 1997 off-Broadway musical tells the story of a half-human, half-bat child found in a cave. The bat boy (Johnny Shea) is taken in by a village veterinarian’s kindly wife (Amy Barker), who teaches him manners, BBC English, and how to give and receive love. The fanatically religious townsfolk alternately revile and accept the Bat Boy, whose primary conflict is wrestling with his deadly vampiric nature. Mayhem and hilarity ensue. Continue reading →

Oct 06

A Young Hero’s Journey: “Dig Down Deep: A Cave Adventure”

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Photo via www.cactusheadpuppets.com/touring-shows

Presented by Puppet Showplace Theater
By CactusHead Puppets
Featuring John Regan and Megan Regan

November 11, 14, & 15, 2026
32 Station Street
Brookline, MA 02445

Review by Maegan Clearwood

BROOKLINE – As artists and arts institutions struggle to secure funding more than ever, Puppet Showplace Theater offers a critically important program: The Incubator for New Work, which provides time, space, and feedback for puppeteers to tinker with new projects.

I was lucky enough to see one of these burgeoning creations, a preview performance of Dig Down Deep: A Cave Adventure by CactusHead Puppets. It was a particularly unique opportunity to see a work-in-progress, because the most valuable feedback in the room came from the children in the front rows. Continue reading →