Children’s Theater Critic with Alfred Molina:
Finally, one theater critic has the guts to tell children how bad they are at putting on plays.
(We at New England Theatre Geek strive to never belittle actors. We want you to make us cry (in the good way) and not the other way around.)
Joey C. Pelletier as Beethoven and Michael Underhill as CB. Credit: Happy Medium Theatre/Robyn Linden
Presented by Happy Medium Theatre Company
Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead
by Bert V. Royal
Directed by Lizette M. Morris
Unofficially based on the comic by Charles M. Schulz
The Factory Theater
Boston, MA
March 14 – March 30
Happy Medium Theatre Co Facebook Page
Review by Kitty Drexel
This play dramatizes adult themes such as sex, violence and drugs. It is not suitable for kids under 14, prudes or the extra-sensitive.
(Boston) Hating someone for being gay makes as much sense as hating someone because they are 8 feet tall. Yet, in Dog Sees God (and much of the world), the peanut gallery unjustly hates Beethoven/Schroeder (Joey C. Pelletier) for just that. Beethoven is bullied mercilessly. They hate him because he is different, because that is easier than confronting what the real impetus behind their hate is. Inspired by the true stories of gay teenagers who were literally bullied to death by their peers and academic staff, Dog See God examines the consequences of absentminded hate speech and action. It points a finger of blame at the kids who bully and at the adults who watch. Continue reading
The lovely ladies of Lysistrata refusing to get sexy. Photo Credit: Theatre@First.
Presented by Theatre@First
Written by Aristophanes
Directed by John Deschene
Choreographed by Alex Nemiroski
Unity Somerville
6 William Street
Somerville, MA
Theatre@First Facebook Page
Review by Gillan Daniels
(Somerville) Comedies, especially those that depend on references contemporary to when they’re written, don’t often age well. Plays survive on the universal quality of their themes, like mortality, revenge, and hope, most of which belong to the sphere of drama. For a long shelf life, they must be built on ideas that resonate down the ages. It certainly says something about the nature of humor that Lysistrata, produced in 411 B.C.E. and one of Aristophanes few surviving plays, continues to be well remembered and celebrated for its bawdiness. Continue reading
Photo borrowed from the lovely Ms. Moura’s Facebook Page
World Music/CRASHarts presents, in collaboration with the Mass Cultural Council
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Berklee Performance Center
Boston, MA
World Music/CRASHarts Facebook Page
Ana Moura Facebook Page
Review by Kitty Drexel
(Boston by way of Portugal) While a large percentage of Bostonians were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day (a made up holiday to celebrate something that never happened) there was a smaller part of Boston reaping the benefits of Portuguese culture. The concert given by Ana Moura and her exquisite band (Portuguese guitar player Angelo Freire plays with incomparable skill. His performance was virtuosic.) on Saturday, March 16 was as near perfect as fate can make it. She performed traditional Fado, Portuguese folk, and jazz standard from her 2012 CD, Desfado. Continue reading
With David Lutheran and Brendan Mulhern. Photo credit: Argos Productions.
Presented by Argos Productions
by William Orem
Boston Playwrights Production
949 Commonwealth Ave
Boston, MA
March 15th – March 30th, 2013
Argos Productions Facebook Page
Review by Craig Idlebrook
(Boston) Purgatory can be the hardest thing on a man, the play The Seabirds seems to suggest. It also can be very difficult on an audience. And that’s what makes a new script so deliciously maddening to watch take shape.
There are so many good elements to this play, which revolves around a Union lighthouse keeper, Laben Shadfield (David Lutheran), and a Confederate deserter, Mickey Leance (Brendan Mulhern) who are forced to share a spit of rock on the sea. Great central characters, winning snatches of dialogue and nuanced touches of historical accuracy help immerse the audience into a time when the nation was tearing itself in two. Continue reading
Keona Welch (“Beneatha Younger”) and Corey Allen (“George Murchison”) in the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Lorraine Hansberry’s A RAISIN IN THE SUN. Mar. 8 – Apr. 7, 2013 at Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. photo: T. Charles Erickson
Presented by Huntington Theatre Company
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Directed by Liesl Tommy
March 8-April 7
BU Theatre
Boston, MA
Huntington Theatre Company Facebook Page
Review by Noelani Kamelamela
(Boston) Theatre with an African American focus owes its considerable roots to Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, which debuted on Broadway in 1959. The Younger family’s struggle against external limitations has been the inspiration behind the musical Raisin (1973) as well as the play Clybourne Park (now at Speakeasy Stage Co, running through March 30th) to name a few. The racial oppression that existed then hid behind God and country, and now decades after the gains of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s has the power to still do so, to hold prisoner hard-working men and women and to frame that incarceration as well deserved. The Huntington’s current production is definitely not a re-staging of their 1995 show, and makes a bold statement about resistance to the status quo and the courage it takes to insist on fair treatment in any era. Continue reading
Moonbox Productions presents
William Finn and James Lapine’s
Hilarious, Engaging and Uplifting Musical
A NEW BRAIN
Directed by Allison Choat
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez
March 15 – April 6, 2013
BCA Plaza Theatre
530 Tremont Street
Boston, MA
Moonbox Production’s Facebook Page
Approximate Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes with no intermission. Continue reading
Presented by Heart & Dagger Productions
Audience members were invited to share their secret fantasies. They did. A lot.
The Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Ave
Boston, MA 02215
Friday, March 1st @ 8pm – Saturday, March 9th @ 8pm
Heart & Dagger Productions Facebook Page
It should go without saying that with such a title that this production is not safe for children and prudish adults. It may lead an audience member to expect live-action porn. This was not the case. The production did not contain explicit acts of carnal engagement but the stagings were otherwise immediately revealing to all but the most innocent of eyes and ears. Continue reading
The Little Sisters getting jiggy.
Presented by LynnArts After Hours
by Dan Goggin
Directed by Kevin Cirone
Choreographed by Nicole Spirito
Music directed by Mario Cruz,
LynnArts
Rantoul Black Box Theatre
25 Exchange Street
Lynn, MA 01901
March 7th – March 23rd, 2013
Lynn Arts After Hours Facebook Page
Review by Craig Idlebrook
(Lynn) Traditional nuns make such easy targets for comedy, dressed so imposingly and yet looking so much like penguins. Dan Goggin, the creator of the Nunsense series, makes comedic scriptwriting look easy when nuns get involved; his scripts read like a group of friends began to one-up each other over drinks to devise funny scenes about nuns. If nuns are funny, the script seems to say, then nuns at a leper colony are funnier. If leperous nuns are funny, then nuns getting high are even funnier. And if nuns getting high don’t give you a case of the guffaws, then nothing beats a bunch of dead nuns in the freezer. Continue reading
Presented by The Boston Conservatory Theater Ensemble
Directed by Michael Susko; Music Directed by Steven Ladd Jones
The Boston Conservatory Theater
31 Hemenway St. in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood
March 7—10, 2013
Boston Conservatory Facebook Page
Review by Nicola McEldowney (reviewed 3/8/2013)
(Boston) Occasionally, a performance comes along that reminds you what a certain genre is all about – be that genre Greek tragedy, or Renaissance lute songs, or shadow puppetry. For me, the Boston Conservatory’s Thoroughly Modern Millie is one of these performances. Helmed by director Michael Susko and music director Steven Ladd Jones, this production encapsulates the heart and soul of American musical theatre at its most energized, polished and professional. All the more remarkable, it is performed by students. Continue reading