Jan 25

Concert/World Premiere: “The Cat and the Moon”

Photo credit: Ellen Mandel; Kitty companions should be left at home.

Photo credit: Ellen Mandel; Kitty companions should be left at home.

Daniel Neer sings music by Ellen Mandel at the ”Pianos Plus Concert”

New songs to poems by Thomas Hardy, Seamus Heaney, WB Yeats, e.e. cummings, and others, including a World Premiere of Yeats’ sweet  “The Cat and the Moon.”

New Gallery Concerts
Thurs January 31 at 7 PM
The Community Music Center of Boston
34 Warren Avenue, Boston, MA 02116

Ellen Mandel Facebook Page
more information:  (617) 254-4133
http://www.newgalleryconcertseries.org/
Available on Amazon.com

Also on the program: Pianists, Sarah Bob, Marti Epstein, and John McDonald, performing music by Barish, Epstein, McDonald, and Woolf, and an exhibit of works by multi-media artist Chelsea Revelle. REVIEWS: Continue reading

Jan 24

The Bad Plus premiere of “On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring”

Photo: Cameron Wittig; not just handsome faces.

Photo: Cameron Wittig; The Bad Plus, not just handsome faces.

presented by World Music/CRASHarts

The Bad Plus
Performing the Boston premiere of On Sacred Ground: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring
Friday, February 15, 7:00 PM and at 9:30 PM

Institute of Contemporary Art
100 Northern Ave
Boston, 02210
General admission $35.00
World Music/CRASHarts Facebook Page
The Bad Plus Facebook Page

Rule-breaking, genre-bending and thoroughly entertaining, the charismatic jazz trio returns with its daring take on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, accompanied by a mind-blowing video mix by lighting designer Cristina Guadalupe and film director Noah Hutton.

Jan 24

“At the Mountaintop” Delivers Unexpected, Unwelcome Twist

Presented by Underground Railway Theater

Presented by Underground Railway Theater

Produced by Underground Railway Theater

By Katori Hall
directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian

January 10 – February 3, 2013
Central Square Theater
450 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Central Square Theater Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Cambridge) Sometimes, there’s a moment in a show that can make or break it. When that moment comes, the audience will divide accordingly. Maybe this turn is cheesy, too scary, or just a little off-kilter with the rest of the story. When it happens in At the Mountaintop, and the audience will know when it does, it redefines the sort of narrative being watched. The show starts out smart but softens into a peculiar if interesting mess.

Katori Hall’s two-man play concerns the late and well-loved Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Maurice Emmanuel Parent) and his conversations with a hotel maid, Camae (Kami Rushell Smith). Like A Picasso by Jeffrey Hatcher, performed by The Salem Theatre Company last year, Central Square Theater’s At the Mountaintop concerns two personalities bouncing off each other in a contained space. Also like A Picasso, one happens to be famous and respected while the other, an intrigued woman, has slipped
through the cracks of history. Continue reading

Jan 22

LO-FI LOWDOWN: A Double Bill of Epic Old-timey Proportions

LO-FI LOWDOWN
COMES TO OBERON FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY

Pictured: Tanya O’Debra Photo credit: Molly Peck

Pictured: Tanya O’Debra, her make-up is flawless. Photo credit: Molly Peck.

ACT ONE: JAZZ NOIR, BY BREMNER DUTHIE
ACT TWO: RADIO STAR, BY TANYA O’DEBRA
JANUARY 27TH @ 7PM

Lo-Fi Lowdown Facebook Page

 Cambridge, MA: The Boston premiere of Lo-Fi Lowdown, a double bill of epic old-timey proportions, comes to Oberon (2 Arrow Street Cambridge, MA) for one night only. This 1940’s themed cabaret/radio show plays on Sunday, January 27th at 7pm. Tickets ($18) are available at the door and online.

Act One: Jazz Noir, by Bremner Duthie
Bremner sings songs from the era of Film Noir. Songs from the dangerous night on the dark side of the street, like a burst of passion on a lazy afternoon, leaving violence in their wake.

Act Two: RADIO STAR, by Tanya O’Debra
Directed by Peter James Cook
Original Music by Andrew Mauriello
Boston native cum NYC comedienne Tanya O’Debra brings her award winning play, Radio Star, to Oberon for her first hometown show.

Jan 21

“Once” from Theater Communications Group

"Once" by Enda Walsh

“Once” by Enda Walsh

Once by Enda Walsh
Lyrics by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

Theater Communications Group (TCG)
January 2012
$13.95
520 Eighth Ave, 24th Floor
New York, New York 10018
www.tcg.org

This volume includes the book and lyrics but not the score. It includes a brief foreword by writer Enda Walsh about the workshop process in a church basement in Cambridge, MA.

The story revolves around an Irish man, “Guy,” who has almost given up on life, love and music. He is given new perspective by a passionate and sweet Czech woman, “Girl,” a single mother and music enthusiast. Together these unrequited lovers set on a course for life affirming change and success while renewing their faith in the power of creation and love. Continue reading

Jan 21

Good, Right, True: “Legend of Sleepy Hollow: An American Pantomime”

Imaginary Beasts 2013

Imaginary Beasts 2013; no horses were used in this production. They gave full consent.

presented by Imaginary Beasts: Winter Panto 2013
Part of the Emerging Theatre Company program

Conceived and written by Matthew Woods and the Ensemble

Directed by Matthew Woods
Choreography by Joey Pelletier and Kiki Samko

January 11 – February 2, 2013
Plaza Black Box Theatre
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
Imaginary Beasts Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston) The pantomime (panto) began its troubled youth as British entertainment based on the Elizabethan masque. It touched on classical subjects, included music and often borrowed from the Commedia dell’Arte style. These days, if one travels to jolly olde England during the Christmas and New Year’s season, one is confronted with vaudeville debauchery, bedazzled drag queens, slapstick and heaps of audience participation. It’s amazing that the US hasn’t already adopted the Panto and claimed it as our own invention. Enter Legend of Sleepy Hollow: An American Pantomime.

The form has been simplified and adapted for the small stage by Imaginary Beasts and contains the same wacky charm as its British cousin and more of the brash sassiness expected from the fringe theatre scene. We’re treated to country line dancing, Rocky references, and an extra hairy Fairy Godfather (Mikey DiLoreto) who speaks in rhyme and verse but not to a multimedia spectacular. The charm is in the ensemble’s work and it is served with campy flair. Continue reading

Jan 20

Lithgow Survives a Train-wreck: THE MAGISTRATE

John Lithgow (Aeneas Posket) and Dandies. Photo by Johan Persson

John Lithgow (Aeneas Posket) and Dandies. Photo by Johan Persson

Simulcast at the Coolidge Corner Theatre
Presented by the National Theatre in London

by Arthur Wing Pinero
directed by Timothy Sheader
lyrics by Richard Stilgoe
music by Richard Sisson
choreography by Liam Steel

Brookline, MA
January 17th and February 3rd, 2013

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Brookline) I defy you to dislike John Lithgow on stage or film. The veteran actor has had one of the most vibrant careers in film, staring in everything from the campy 80’s classic the Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension to the bloody television show Dexter. While Lithgow has amazing acting chops, much of his allure is that he appears to thoroughly enjoy himself in every role, showing the same joy as a child might upon getting his first role in a school production. His joy for acting can sometimes get in the way of his more miserable roles, but it’s impossible not to enjoy watching; his character may be dying of Alzheimer’s in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but Lithgow still seems to be having the time of his life doing so.

It is Lithgow’s ability to have fun while acting that is the only fun thing worth watching in the Simulcast production of The Magistrate, beamed from the National Theatre in London. This unfunny comedy is a testament that a play can be terrible even though it’s English and based on an antique script. John Lithgow is Posket, the judge in question, an honest man who marries into a family that harbors one little secret that will upend their sense of decency. His wife, Agatha (Nancy Carroll), lied about her age when they first met, and her lie shaved five years off the age of her son from a previous marriage, as well. Everyone thinks the youth, Cis (Joshua McGuire), is a precocious 14-year old, including himself, but he actually is a normal and randy young adult. Hilarity is supposed to ensue as this secret is in danger of being revealed, but hilarity doesn’t. Continue reading

Jan 20

Wistful Grief: SHAKESPEARE’S WILL

 

Seana McKenna as Anne Hathaway. Photo by Meghan Moore

Seana McKenna as Anne Hathaway. Photo by Meghan Moore

by Vern Thiessen
Directed by Miles Potter
Composed by Marc Desormeaux

presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre

50 E. Merrimack Street
Lowell, Massachusetts 01852
January 10th – February 3rd, 2012
Merrimack Repertory Theatre Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell) William Shakespeare may have done more than any writer of his time to examine both internal and external human drama, but he ducked the fight when it came to his own family; so goes the premise of Shakespeare’s Will, the taut and layered production now playing at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre. The Bard may get the headlines in the play’s title, but it is his absence that is the singular event that shapes the life of his wife, Anne Hathaway, who is the only character in this beautifully lonely one-woman play. Through the brave performance of Seanna McKenna, we are reminded that even in the shadow of greatness the drama of everyday is enough to create volumes of literature. Continue reading

Jan 16

“Other Desert Cities”: Facades Collide With Reality

Photo caption: Anne Gottlieb and Christopher M. Smith in a scene from SpeakEasy Stage's production of Other DesertCities, running January 11 through February 9 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. Tickets at speakeasystage.com or 617.933.8600. Photo by Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo

Photo caption: Anne Gottlieb and Christopher M. Smith, Photo by Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo

By Jon Robin Baitz
Directed by Scott Edmiston

Presented by Speakeasy Stage Company
January 11 – February 9
Wimberly Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
Speakeasy Stage Co Facebook Page

Review by Becca Kidwell

(Boston) At a time when nostalgia for the eighties is heightening (neon, rubber bracelets, leg warmers,
cut off tees), Jon Robin Baitz reminds us that our recent past was neither as lavish or simple
as we would like to contain it. As the last of the Reaganite politicians cling desperately to
the “grand old party,” gen-xers (like myself) try to find meaning out of a part of seeming trivial
history. Baitz sends a thermobaric weapon to the Wyeth household in the form of Brooke Wyeth, played by Anne Gottlieb. Continue reading

Jan 15

Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Feb. 9, 8PM

Ladysmith Black MambazoPhoto: Luis Leal

Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Photo: Luis Leal

presented by World Music/CRASHarts

From South Africa

Saturday, February 9, 8:00 PM ONLY
Sanders Theatre
45 Quincy St
Cambridge, 02138
Ladysmith Black Mambazo Facebook Page

With the power of gospel and the precision of Broadway, Ladysmith Black Mambazo is the undisputed king of mbube, South African a cappella singing. The group came together in the early 1960s and continues to thrill audiences around the world with its strong, proud melodies, harmonized in layers of call and response.