Category Archives: Uncategorized

Jun 14

Like A Bird Made of Light: “Yerma”

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Nadine Malouf (Yerma). Photo Credit: T Charles Ericksonn© 

Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company
Adapted and translated by Melinda Lopez
Based on the play by Ferderico Garcia Lorca
Directed by Melia Bensussen
Original music by Mark Bennett
Choreography by Misha Shields
Fight direction and intimacy direction by Claire Warden & Ted Hewlett

May 31 – June 30, 2019
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Boston, MA
Huntington on Facebook

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Trigger warnings: sexual acts, hallucinations & mental illness

(Boston, MA) It is 2019 and the United States government is at war with its people. Laws that aim to control anyone with a uterus are rushing through courthouses at an unprecedented rate. They aren’t protecting life; they are punishing women for having sex. Cadavers have more agency than women. Meanwhile, the foster care services in these same states are overwhelmed with children that desperately need good homes. Saying that the Huntington’s production of Yerma is topical is an understatement. Yerma approaches childbirth not from an opposite standpoint but an adjacent one. The right to choose also means choosing to have a child. Continue reading →

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Jun 12

Tickets available for Theatre On Fire’s “An Oak Tree”

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Do not wait! Get Tickets Now!

“A play about theatre, a magic trick, a laugh and a vivid experience of grief, and it spoils you for a while for other plays.” – Caryl Churchill

Directed by A. Nora Long
June 13 – 22, 2019
Charlestown Working Theatre
Tickets available here now

 

Featuring
Michael Carr
as the Hypnotist

 

Two actors on stage
Only one has seen the script
The other one is new every night
And there is no rehearsal
What happens?

Thursday, June 13 @ 8pm: The incomparable Georgia Lyman
Friday, June 14 @ 8pm: The indefatigable Alex Simoes
Saturday, June 15 @ 4pm: The indefinable Noah Simes
Saturday, June 15 @ 8pm: The indubitable Kim Klasner

Thu, 6/20 @ 8pm: The Remarkable Cheryl Singleton
Fri, 6/21 @ 8pm: The Redoubtable Margarita Martinez
Sat, 6/22 @ 4pm: The Rexalicious John J King
Sat, 6/22 @ 8pm: The Revolutionary Margaret Ann Brady

 

Theatre on Fire presents An Oak Tree
June 13 – 22, 2019
Charlestown Working Theatre
442 Bunker Hill Street
Charlestown, MA 02129
TOF on Facebook

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Jun 12

ImprovBoston Presents “Terpsichore,” A Masterclass for all female-identifying individuals

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Sunday, June 23, 12 – 4pm
Registration: Tickets via ImprovBoston

ImprovBoston
Main Theater
40 Prospect St
Cambridge, MA 02139
IB on Facebook

“Terpsichore” is an improvised storytelling theatre piece in movement, dance, music, and spoken word. The format is simple enough and focuses on actors breaking the 4th wall to tell captivating tales supported by their cast who operate as one entity like a Greek chorus to support the action of the story. Through dance, movement, co-creation, and support, the cast weaves narratives that transport the audience to different times and places and blend fiction and non-fiction together in a heady phantasmagoria of sound, movement, and speech.

The workshop for this project itself is a crash course through decades worth of research, interdisciplinary study, and artistic exploration. During the 4 hour workshop, the performers will learn a shared vocabulary of group mind, movement, storytelling, dance, musicality, mime, and object work to create something truly awe-inspiring that will open up their creative centres and let them radiate as performers. The exercises involve mime, dance and movement, narration and storytelling, singing and vocal support, responsibly respectful contact improv, use of the environment and space, concrete and abstract deconstruction, points of inspiration and above all else support of fellow castmates and celebrating mistakes through repetition and support and elevating ideas until the whole piece becomes a matrix of unified thought.

“Terpsichore” is designed to break the mold of what improvised theatre is expected to be, even from within the improv community. It urges performers to stand outside of themselves and their perceived limitations and co-create something truly extraordinary using skills they didn’t even know they possessed before the process began.

FROM LINDSAY: This project is about providing advanced training specifically to benefit and encourage the next generation of female improvisers. With that goal, the cost to be a part of this unique and exciting opportunity is kept low.

REGISTRATION IS $20 AND IS OPEN TO ALL FEMALE IDENTIFYING PERFORMERS

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Lindsay Gonzales is a stand-up comedienne and improvisor lately of Chicago, Illinois. Continue reading →

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Jun 01

Base Anarchy: “The Shape of Things”

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Poster courtesy of Brad Costa Designs

Presented by the Glass Horse Project
By Neil Labute
Directed by Taylor K. Corbett

May 30 – June 1, 2019
Co+ Creative Center
137 Union St
New Bedford, MA

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Trigger warnings: gaslighting, manipulation, sexual content, domestic abuse, misandry

(New Bedford, MA) Neil Labute uses his plays to pit the lawfully evil against people so truthfully neutral that they lack personality.  The personalities always win. Meek characters are traumatized. This weekend the Glass Horse Project examines art, and the identity we tie to it in The Shape of Things. The audience might be disturbed by Labute’s play but they can’t say they weren’t entertained. Continue reading →

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May 23

We Will Be Free When We Are All Free: “We Live in Cairo”

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The cast of “We Live in Cairo.” Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva

Presented by the A.R.T.
Book, music, lyrics by Daniel Lazour and Patrick Lazour
Directed by Taibi Magar
Choreography by Samar Haddad King
Music directed by Madeline Smith

May 14 – June 23, 2019
Loeb Drama Center
Cambridge, MA
ART on Facebook

Critique by Kitty Drexel

(Cambridge, MA) There are a few things that must be established for a white audience to fully digest the A.R.T.’s production of We Live in Cairo.

Continue reading →

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May 22

An Alternate Tyranny and Timeline in Handel’s “Silla”

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Presented by The Cambridge Chamber Ensemble
Music by G.F. Handel
Libretto by Giacomo Rossi
Music Directed by Juliet Cunningham
Stage Directed by Ingrid Oslund
Produced/Executive Direction/Translation by Martha Birnbaum
Rossana Chung, violin
Rob Bethel, violincello
Lisa Putukian, oboe
Juliet Cunningham, harpsichord
May 17 – May 19, 2019
Warehouse IX
Somerville, MA
The Cambridge Chamber Ensemble on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Somerville, MA) Roselin Osser as Silla has the wild eyes, swagger, and exquisite cheekbones of a villain as he dominates the stage. In this alternate version of 2019, the Roman Republic is alive and well and Silla, after a successful military campaign, announces that he plans to rule as Perpetual Dictator of Rome. The reporters are horrified. Silla’s wife, Metella (the hilarious Theresa Egan) grits her teeth and stands by her man. As Silla begins to openly lust after other women and jail his political enemies, however, Melania–I mean, Metella, yes, begins to wonder just how much her loyalty to a tyrant husband is worth. Continue reading →

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May 03

To Love is to Be Rebellious: “Indecent”

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Presented by Huntington Theatre Company in a co-production with Center Theatre Group
By Paula Vogel
Directed by Rebecca Taichman
Choreography by David Dorfman
Fight direction by Rick Sordelet
Compositions by Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva

April 26 – May 25, 2019
Huntington Avenue Theatre
Avenue of the Arts
Boston, MA
Huntington on Facebook

Critique by Kitty Drexel

“Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.” – Dorothy Parker

(Boston, MA) God is a terrible excuse to hurt another person. Yet, religion has been used since time immemorial to justify slavery, mass murder, and other cruelties. Paula Vogel’s Indecent is testimony to the historical squashing of nonheterosexual relationships for the greater good. It is reprehensibly incomprehensible that our love is still considered so immoral that heterosexual society vainly dooms LGBTQ+ individuals to irreparable harm in God’s name. Religion didn’t fail the LGBTQ+ community. Humanity failed.   Continue reading →

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May 03

“/peh-LO-tah/” a futbol framed freedom suite

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Presented by ArtsEmerson
Created by Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project
Performed by The Living Word Project
Choreography by Stacey Printz
Composed by Tommy Shepherd
Directed by Michael John Garcés

May 1 – 5, 2019
Emerson Paramount Center
Boston, MA
ArtsEmerson on Facebook

Review by Noe Kamelamela

(Boston, MA) Arts Emerson is presenting what could be the last five performances of /peh-LO-tah/ in its current incarnation this week.  After years of performances, the exploration of futbol and America which fuses dance, spoken word, song, and projected video into a semi-cohesive whole ends its tour.  A Black American Man tells his life story through his love affairs with the game. His expanding awareness of the world fills the space as he tells his tale. Soccer fans may also engage with spoken word and musical interludes featuring other ensemble members. Continue reading →

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Apr 18

Drinking with Aristotle in “Ipsa Dixit”

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Presented by Original Gravity Concert Series
Music & Libretto by Kate Soper
Performed by Equilibrium
Soprano: Stephanie Lamprea,
Violin & Acting Music Director: Nicole Parks
Flute: Orlando Cela
Percussion: Mike Williams

April 12th at 7:30pm
Inner Space
17 Station Street
Brookline, MA, 02445
Original Gravity on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Brookline, MA) Ipsa Dixit is Art with a capital, “AH,” an often playful and highly erudite experiment with language and music chiefly meant for people who are already into That Kind of Thing. As a whole, it doesn’t have a clear entrypoint for laymen. This is, at least partially, about the meaning of words vs. the intent of the isolated mind that created them, ie. the vast chasm between expressing something verbally and the isolated brain meat where that verbiage was formed. So yes, it certainly falls into the category of My Thing, with its mosaic of words excerpted from the works of Aristotle, Sophocles, Freud, and Lydia Davis, among others. The music layered on top of these various texts construct an impressionistic portrait of what that language feels like. If you have ever found yourself hungry for a tense drama about a diagrammed sentence, this show is for you. During its two intermissions, there were people who bounced so solidly off the text, they ended up bouncing themselves. Otherwise, others stuck it out for the impressive oddity of Soper’s work as well as the free drinks provided by participating breweries. Continue reading →

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