Author Archives: Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

Apr 27

Absurdism, Profundity, Religiosity: “Church”

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The cast. Photo by Jason Grow.

Presented by Lanes Coven Theater Company
By Young Jean Lee
Directed by Justin Genna
Featuring: Alex Highsmith, Lily Narbonne, Cheryl D. Singleton, Hannah Young

April 24 – May 10
American Legion Post 3
8 Washington Street
Gloucester, MA 01930

Review by Maegan Clearwood

GLOUCESTER, Mass. – Church opens in emptiness: a lone voice carries over the audiences’ heads from behind, a familiar diatribe about ego and earthly trivialities. The American Legion hall is dark, a lectern ironically unoccupied as the disembodied sermon goes on and on and on. But Church ends in light, sound, frenetic movement – a smorgasbord for the senses, worlds apart from the solemnity of its beginning. Continue reading →

Apr 21

Woman on the edge of a tragedy: “Dido of Idaho”

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Inside you, these two wolves fight for dominance. Ashley Lyon as Crystal and Parker Jennings as Nora. Photo by Apollinaire Theatre Co.

Presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company
By Abby Rosebrock
Directed by Brooks Reeves and Danielle Fauteux Jacques
Scenic and sound design by Joseph Lark-Riley
Featuring: Parker Jennings, Mauro Canepa, Mariela Lopez-Ponce, Paola Ferrer, Ashly Lyon

April 17 – May 10
Chelsea Theatre Works
189 Winnisimmet Street
Chelsea, MA 02150

Review by Maegan Clearwood

Content advisory: this play discusses and depicts many sensitive topics. To avoid spoilers, I am linking the production information page here, where prospective audience members can find more information.

CHELSEA – Abby Rosebrock’s play Dido of Idaho fits seamlessly into one of my favorite, hyper-specific storytelling subgenres: the redemptive, darkly hilarious portrayal of a mentally unwell heterosexual woman hitting ultimate rock bottom. Think Fleabag, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Bridesmaids – comedies that don’t shy away from the muck, despair, violence, sexual depravity, and absurdism that 21st century womanhood frequently encompasses.

Dido of Idaho, now playing at Apollinaire Theatre Company, has this messiness in spades: bodily fluids, profanity, internalized misogyny, and cat fights galore. It’s a series of tonal ricochets, swinging from disgust to hope to grief and back again in a matter of seconds. It’s relentlessly honest, laughing in the face of feminine acceptability, daring the audience to look away. Continue reading →

Mar 30

Feminist Bark Without Feminist Bite: “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous”

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Ines de la Cruz and Patrice Jean-Baptiste; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by The Lyric Stage
By Pearl Cleage
Directed by Jacqui Parker
Featuring: Patrice Jean Baptiste, Deannah “Dripp” Blemur, Inés de la Cruz, Yasmeen Duncan

March 20-April 12, 2026
The Lyric Stage
140 Clarendon St
Boston, MA

Online Playbill 

Review by Maegan Clearwood

BOSTON — Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous poses one intriguing question after another. How can Black women make space for themselves within the canon of glorified, seemingly untouchable playwrights? What is the line between performance and exploitation? How can we forge connection across intergenerational feminist divides?

It also conjures up a potent image: a Black woman standing onstage, entirely nude, delivering monologues from the work of August Wilson, the most sanctified Black playwright in the American canon.

Unfortunately, these questions go largely uninterrogated, and the imagery takes shape entirely offstage. 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 →

Dec 30

When kindness and representation aren’t enough: “Wonder: The Musical”

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Garrett McNally and Donovan Louis Bazemore in Wonder. Photo: Hawver and Hall

Presented by American Repertory Theater
Based on the novel “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio and the Lionsgate and Mandeville film Wonder
Book by Sarah Ruhl
Music and Lyrics by A Great Big World (Ian Axel and Chad King)
Directed by Taibi Magar
Scenic design by Matt Saunders
Featuring: Melvin Abston, Kaylin Hedges, Alison Luff, Garrett McNally, Javier Muñoz, Nathan Salstone, Max Voehl 

December 17th, 2025 – February 8th, 2026
Tickets
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Online playbill

Review by Maegan Clearwood

This production depicts bullying and contains fog, haze, strobe, and flashing lights. Recommended for ages 9+.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — With the debut of Wonder: The Musical, the A.R.T. was simultaneously presented with a monumental opportunity and an obstacle. The source material, R.J. Palacio’s 2012 book of the same name, has been lauded as a groundbreaking story of empathy through its first-person portrayal of Auggie, a preteen boy with a facial difference. A Google search for reviews brings up words like “uplifting,” “heart-rending,” and “inspirational.” 

These very terms that are used to praise the novel are, however, at the root of frequent critique from members of the disability* rights community. Stories about disability far too often rehash tired tropes, portraying disabled characters as “objects of inspiration or charity,” as Professor Ari D. Ne’eman noted in a Harvard School of Public Health panel about the musical, rather than complex people in their own right. These tropes point to the fact that such stories are about disabled people, but not by or for them. (Editor’s note: We in the disabled community call this Inspiration Porn, a term coined by comedian and activist Stella Young. Check out her 2014 TEDx Talk. )  Continue reading →

Nov 23

Wrestling with empathy through documentary theatre: “SpaceBridge”

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The ensemble. Photo by Walter Wlodarczyk.

Presented by ArtsEmerson
Produced by Visual Echo & Irina Kruzhilina
Conceived and directed by Irina Kruzhilina
Written by Irina Kruzhilina and Clark Young
Cinematography by Aleksei Postnikov
Featuring Ellen Lauren, Alisa Shaverdova, Anastasia Skorobogach, Anna Skorobogach, Arina Skorobogach, Artem Skorobogach, Leon Ladia, Lily Borzenko, Mark Savin, Mars Markelov, Sasha Boikova, Sonia Tsatskina, Adele Nigrini, Alexis Edel, Drake Malave, Henry MacDowell, Isaac Stinson, Maisie Pickar, Nate Hatter, Sabine Gutenberg, Silas MacLean and Zora Graves

November 21 – 23, 2025
559 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111
Emerson Paramount Center
Tickets here 

Review by Maegan Clearwood

Recommended for ages 12+

BOSTON — If you’ve seen documentary theatre before, then nothing in SpaceBridge will surprise you: live movement is interspersed with statistics, news reports, and recorded interviews, split into chapters and stitched together with a framing device. The multimedia production elements are flashy and sophisticated, as one would expect from a piece spearheaded by Irina Kruzhilina, who, among other credits, co-founded the MFA program of the New School and is a resident artist at LaMaMa. 

But the true power of SpaceBridge comes from the storytellers themselves: 11 young Russian refugees, children of antiwar activists currently living in New York City shelters while seeking political asylum. With their eight American friends, they present the output of an intensive workshop program, telling story after story of fear, grief, compassion, and hope.  Continue reading →

Nov 10

Yearning for Connection Across Memory: “Summer, 1976”

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Laura Latreille, Lee Mikeska Gardner; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Central Square Theater
By David Auburn
Directed by Paula Plum
Featuring: Lee Mikeska Gardner, Laura Latreille

November 6 – 30th, 2025
Central Square Theater
450 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

CAMBRIDGE, Mass — Summer, 1976 is an intimate play. It is literally small, with a cast of two, a runtime of just 90 minutes, and a cozy little set that brings the actors practically nose-to-nose with the audience. But more interestingly, it is a story about yearning: two women stumble headfirst into an unexpected friendship, underestimating how hungry they are for deep, heart-opening vulnerability. They also underestimate how terrifying that kind of connection can be.

David Auburn’s play transports us to Ohio during the American bicentennial. Offstage, the women’s liberation movement is in full swing. Onstage, at Central Square Theatre, we could be anywhere, anytime. The set (Kristin Loeffler) features two brightly colored dollhouse-like facades to indicate where different scenes take place, but nothing onstage screams 1970s, and the costumes (Sydney Hovasse) allude to a bit of hippy inspiration without throwing the audience back in time. Continue reading →

Oct 01

Magic in every corner: “The Fairy Tailor”

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Sarah Nolan and a friend.

Presented by Puppet Showplace Theatre
Created and performed by Sarah Nolen

Sept. 27 – 28, 2025
Brookline Puppet Showcase
32 Station St.
Brookline, MA 02445

Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

BROOKLINE, Mass. — The cozy stage at Puppet Showplace Theatre in Brookline is overflowing with trinkets and tools: sewing boxes and pincushions; an ironing board and dress form; satins, sequins, and silks. These every day, seemingly mundane objects are the source of resident artist Sarah Nolen’s magic as she transports us beyond her shop walls and into three fantastical fairy tale worlds.

Nolen plays the titular tailor, who desperately needs the audience’s help as she frantically prepares for a visit from her biggest, scariest customer in The Fairy Tailor. To calm her frayed nerves, she tells stories, each with a quirky, interactive twist (and plenty of puns). Continue reading →

Sep 05

Pushing the boundaries of genre and form: “Passengers”

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Photo by Alexandre Galliez.

Production by The 7 Fingers
Presented by American Repertory Theater
Co-produced by TOHU (Montréal, Canada) and ArtsEmerson (Boston, États-Unis)
Written, directed, and composed by Shana Carroll
Composition and music direction by Colin Gagné
Lyrics Colin Gagné, Shana Carroll
Lighting design by Eric Champoux
Projection design by Johnny Ranger
Featuring: Victor Crépin, Eduardo De Azevedo Grillo, Isabella Diaz, Marie-Christine Fournier, Téo Le Baut, Amanda Orozco, Michael Patterson, Basile Pucek, Santiago Rivera, Méliejade Tremblay-Bouchard

September 2 – 26, 2025
Tickets
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Review by Maegan Clearwood

This production contains haze and flashing lights. 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. –Since moving to Boston four years ago, I have been spoiled rotten by access to top-tier circus – from kitschy Halloween horrors with Boston Circus Guild’s Cirque of the Dead (now an annual tradition of mine) to a breathtaking showcase of talent from the instructors at Commonwealth Circus Center in Jamaica Plain. I am in awe of the twisty, bendy, flippy talent that’s on regular display here in my own backyard.  

Aside from this array of homegrown talent, Boston also has an ongoing love for Montreal circus troupe The 7 Fingers. The A.R.T. presented the ensemble’s spin on Pippin in 2012, and ArtsEmerson hosted Duel Reality last season, an irreverent twist on a Shakespearean classic. This fall, the troupe is back at The A.R.T. with its production of Passengers, which first premiered in Boston in 2019. Continue reading →

Jun 17

Queer pride through historical reimagining: “Bull in a China Shop”

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Karen Dervin as Dean Welsh and Linnea Lyerly as Woolley; Photo by Brian Higgins.

Presented by The Treehouse Collective
By Bryna Turner
Directed by Lisa Tierney
Lighting design by Dan Clawson
Set design by Britt Ambruson
Featuring: Linnea Lyerly, Heidi White, Karen Dervin, Anneke Salvadori, Hannah Young, Lena Vani

Abbott Memorial Theatre at Hovey Players
9 Spring Street
Waltham, MA 02451
June 13 – 29, 2025

Accessibility Note: There are a total of 13 steps to get downstairs to the theatre, with no elevator access.  

Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

WALTHAM – The most radical element of Bull in a China Shop is emblemized by its earliest visuals. Two women in early 20th century garb lounge on a bed together, tangled in each other’s arms. Everything is perfectly mundane: they discuss personal and professional dreams; they quarrel; they kiss. And they do explain their queerness to the audience. They simply exist in their historical moment, no excuses necessary.

Bull in a China Shop by Bryna Turner isn’t a perfect play, but it fits neatly into The Treehouse Collective’s ethos. Their seasons largely feature contemporary works that give voice to ahead-of-their-time trailblazers (particularly women and queer folks, although I hope their team will add some more racial diversity to their season selection in the future) whose stories have otherwise been silenced by the patriarchal, heteronormative archival machine. Continue reading →