Central Square Theater 450 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 CST on Facebook
Critique by Kitty Drexel
ZOOM/Cambridge, MA — Central Square Theatre’s presentation of Fannie Lou Hamer: This Little Light was a hot and sticky mess. This event didn’t have technical difficulties; it had technical catastrophes. An evening that should have been about civil rights warrior Hamer was rife with distractions instead.
The audience was told at the beginning of the event that Dr. Young wouldn’t be able to perform for us that evening but that a recording of her performance would be played. While this was unfortunate, we could sympathize with Dr. Young. Her body is her instrument and instruments can be fickle. The Women’s Vote Centennial Panel would continue as scheduled. Continue reading →
August 13 & August 14 at at 8PM Starlight Square 84 Bishop Allen Drive Cambridge, MA 02139 Puppet Showplace on Facebook CST on Facebook
Review by Kitty Drexel
Cambridge, MA — Starlight Square is the brand, heckin’ new stage within Central Square intended for public performance, art and community brought to us by the Central Square Business Improvement District, Flagg Street Studio, and Boyes-Watson Architects. The performances are FREE thanks to their sponsors (although some dance classes are at a fee because teaching artists deserve to get paid). On Friday, August 14, we masked our faces and girded our loins to attend Sarah Nolan’s Judy Punches Back.Continue reading →
Produced by Irish Repertory Theatre
By Conor McPherson
Directed by Ciaran O’Reilly
Video Editor – Sarah Nichols
Sound Designer – M. Florian Staab
Assistant Director – Jeff Davolt
Production Assistant – Simon Geaney
YOUTUBE — Live theatre seems to be lingering in rebroadcast and livestream purgatory. On the one hand, this does increase accessibility in various directions, but on the other hand, quality varies. Irish Rep’s production of McPherson’s modern Irish classic The Weir is definitely on the higher end of the scale. Continue reading →
Produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons
Presented by Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston (AATAB)
By Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro
Directed by Mallika Chandaria
Stage Managed by Karin Naono
Originally streamed on Wednesday, July 15 at 7 PM EDT
AATAB on Facebook
Featuring: Roxanne Y. Morse, Kendra Jain, Lisa Yuen, Vijaya Sundaram, Emily Kuroda
Critique by Kitty Drexel
ZOOM/HowlRound — The characters in Incredibly Annoying Women by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro are unapologetic. These women take up space with their bodies and emotions like a cis man on the T at rush hour: legs sprawling to the left and right, arms resting on seat backs, backpack taking up a fourth seat. They aren’t inherently annoying but their unfounded entitlement is. Continue reading →
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA 10th Anniversary Ribbon Cutting: (L-R) BCA Chairman Philip W. Lovejoy, Huntington Trustees Gerald and Sherryl Cohen, Calderwood Charitable Foundation Trustee John Cornish, former Huntington chairman J. David Wimberly, (behind) Paul Grogan of The Boston Foundation, BCA Executive Director Veronique Le Melle, Huntington Chairman Carol G. Deane, (behind) former BRA member Harry Collings, former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Bank of America Massachusetts State President Robert Gallery, Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois, (behind) former Huntington president William P. McQuillan, Huntington President Mitchell J. Roberts, Nancy Roberts, Huntington Managing Director Michael Maso, photo: Paul Marotta
Article by Kitty Drexel
BOSTON — The July 9 press release said, “Huntington Theatre Company announces the election of 4 new board members and the promotion of two Huntington Advisors to Trustee level. The election took place during the Huntington’s year-end meeting of the Board of Trustees and Advisors on June 8, 2020.”
The headliner of the press release, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award winner, director of Huntington productions, and historically relevant badass Billy Porter is a new trustee of the Huntington. Porter and global businessman Professor George Yip are the only two people of color added to the Huntington’s snowflake white board leadership. Three of the six promotions are white women. The other is, of course, a rich, cis, white male.
While we congratulate all of the new board and trustee members, we can’t help but notice the Huntington’s hypocrisy. The theatre penned and posted a Black Lives Matter solidarity statement on its website. The election of four white people flies in the face of that solidarity statement. Continue reading →
ZOOM — Liars & Believers slices off bite sized pieces of the Scottish Play for serialized consumption! In a world that demands us to simultaneously be far apart while empathizing with each other’s difficulties, we revisit a cautionary tale of a man whose name has become synonymous with backstabbing cruelty. In serializing Macbeth, we watch a show that absorbs the changes and horrors of our contemporary headlines and sense of unease each passing week. Continue reading →
Grindr (And Other Concerns) Act 1: An Annotated Singthru A Comedic Chamber Opera Fundraiser for Marsha P. Johnson Institute
Directed by Ingrid Oslund Music by Marc Hoffeditz Libretto by MJ Halberstadt Featuring performers Brad Baron, Jonathan Harris, Wes Hunter, Adrian Jones, Craig Juricka, Sara Kerr, and James Lesu’i
June 26 – 27, 2020
Content warning: adult themes and sexual references
Review by Gillian Daniels
ZOOM — “Queerness is about so much more than who you’re sleeping with. It’s also about a sensibility, a sense of camp,” says director Ingrid Oslund.
This could easily serve as the thesis for the zoom presentation of selected pieces from the comic opera-in-progress, Grindr (And Other Concerns). The show follows queer men Brandon, Riley, and Riley’s long-term, timid partner, Eugene, as they use and debate the merits of the titular hook-up app. Their odyssey includes such contemporary pratfalls as mysterious acronyms such as DDF (drug and disease free), sexually transmitted infections, and excitable adults obsessed with Disney. Continue reading →
ZOOM — Theatre created in corona-times is theatre that can be preserved for future generations. Those generations will look back on our work and express amazement at the simplicity of our tech and the universality of the human condition. Fancypants stage technology can embellish a performance, but it isn’t necessary when the foundational elements of a performance are of superior quality. Fort Point Theatre Channel’s Zoom reading of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night captures both the rigidity of Zoom’s limitations while highlighting the subtle creativity of Fort Point Theatre Channel’s artists. Continue reading →
June 16, 2020 – 17, 2020 at 8PM
Zoom Room opens at 7:45PM
June 18 – Rebroadcast at 3PM & 8PM How To Watch
Response by Kitty Drexel
ZOOM — White people don’t discuss whiteness. Not in pleasant company, not even in unpleasant company. Instead, we posit race relations as a BIPOC problem. We casually block useful dialogue with a whispered, “we’re all equal under the skin,” as if saying so aloud will invoke the parasitic race-demon living under our own flesh.
*Record Scratch* No. Racism is a white supremacy problem. There is no magical phrase to summon this demon at will. It is inside us, watching our every white move. All of our moves have roots in racism; there is no opt-out option. Like Rafiki said, Racism lives in you.
Creator Diana Oh looking fly AF
BIPOC are the recipients of the hate wrought by our inability to talk like adults about a rampant, insidious issue invading every aspect of 400 years of western society’s existence. Artist Diana Oh won’t put up with our piddling, cracker-ass excuses anymore. In their recent reading of their show Diana Oh’s My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre on Zoom, Oh delivered an unrelenting, personal attack on all the aspects of theatre’s cultural white supremacy that prevent BIPOC from participating in it as fully as white folx. Continue reading →
The New England Theatre Geek believes that BIPOC Lives will continue to matter when it’s no longer popular to mass media or convenient to white people.
As the weeks go by, we will share resources as we are made aware of them to them. StageSource has a brilliant anti-racism list. Check it out HERE.
Resources for Anti-Racist Action May-June 2020 – “This list was sourced from countless activists and information sharers. We thank you. It was created to support action and organizing for white-identified folks within the artEquity alumni network, so some resources speak specifically to white folks. However, EVERYONE is welcomed to utilize and share anything that is useful to your actions and organizing.” (quoted from the document)
Front Porch Collective Black Composer Minature Challenge presented by Castle of our Skins Friday June 19 @ 12:00 PM | via Instagram Live Composer Shannon Shea will be presenting the world premiere of “Hannah Elias II” performed by Castle of our Skins Executive & Artistic Director and violaist Ashleigh Gordon on the COOS Facebook and Instagram at noon. Part of their weekly 30-second Black Composer Miniature Challenge, be sure to tune in on time…or you might miss it!
Juneteenth: A Community Celebration presented by BAMS Fest & Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Friday June 19 @ 4:00 – 7:00 PM | via Facebook Live & YouTube Join BAMS Fest for the MFA’s annual (virtual) Juneteenth celebration to honor the contributions of Black creatives, scholars, and artists to the City of Boston. We have curated two amazing artists, Debo Ray and DJ Where’s Nasty to to celebrate all things Black and joyful.
Fresh Ink Theatre — Presents a digital reading of MAIDEN VOYAGE. Written by Cayenne Douglass. Directed by Liz Fenstermaker Available online, June 8 – 14, 2020. REGISTER to view the performance In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, we will be donating 50% of the proceeds from the reading through June 14th to two organizations:Violence in BostonandBlack and Pink. Thank you for joining us in supporting these organizations, and for championing new work by local writers during this time of social distancing!
Liars & Believers — Macbeth Trailer by Liars & BelieversAmid isolation, dislocation, and digital absorbtion… desire and ethic, madness and reason tear each other apart. This is Shakespeare’s classic tragedy – TODAY. Using social distance and the tools at hand, we’ve reimagined theatre in Pandemia! We’ve broken this 5-act tragedy into short weekly episodes.
Luminarium Dance — This week’s TEN4TEN performance takes viewers back to Luminarium’s 2014 feature production The Sleeprunner, which transformed the Multicultural Arts Center space into a dynamic dream world for a two-week sold-out run. Sensical to quirky, humorous to dark, come engage in a full night’s journey told through dance, with gorgeous costumes designed by Sueann Leung.
Newton Theatre Company — All About Eve, written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Thursday, June 25th at 8 PM. $10.00 Directed by Melissa Bernstein Log on at 7:45 PM for piano entertainment by local musician Neil Miller Register for the Performance
Puppet Showplace Theater — Puppet Showplace Theater is excited to announce a new grant and virtual summer residency program for Black puppeteers and artists working in the field of puppetry. Inquiries from interested applicants across the U.S. are welcome. The deadline to apply is June 27th. APPLY 5 selected artists will receive $1,000 grants to support the research and development of original puppetry projects during summer 2020. Puppet Showplace Theater will facilitate community-building among members of the grantee cohort and will create opportunities for artists to support and learn from each other while sharing works in progress. The residency will conclude with an invited virtual public sharing of the work or work-in-progress.
SpeakEasy Stage Company and the Front Porch Arts Collective — They invite you to join SpeakEasy for a panel called “2020: Black and Male in America – A Conversation Continued,” on Tuesday, June 16 at 5:00pm. The panel will be available to watch live on SpeakEasy’s Facebook page. The panel will include:
Kadahj Bennett (Winner of the Elliot Norton Award for Best Actor for his Performance as Moses in Pass Over)
Thaddeus Miles (Director of Community Services, MassHousing)
Maurice Emmanuel Parent (Executive Director, The Front Porch Arts Collective)
Dr. Emmett G. Price III (Professor of Worship, Church & Culture, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary)
Moderated by Gary Bailey (Assistant Dean of Community Engagement and Social Justice, Simmons College).
Presented by 
