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 →

Nov 10

Oh, to be young, green, and safe to live from my truth: “Lizard Boy: A New Musical”

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From left: Chelsie Nectow, Keiji Ishiguri, Peter DiMaggio; photo courtesy of Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
Written and Composed by Justin Huertas
Directed by Lyndsay Allyn Cox
Music Direction by Violet Wang

October 25-November 23, 2025
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion
Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116

Run-time: 1 hour 30 minutes, no intermission

Critique by Diana Lu

BOSTON — It’s been ten years since Lizard Boy: A New Indie-Rock Musical premiered in Seattle, and SpeakEasy Stage Company has proven its Lizard BOY is a capable and self-assured MAN-phibian. Under the direction of Lyndsay Allyn Cox and the musical direction of Violet Wang, SpeakEasy’s invigorating revival allows the many strengths of the show’s impressive score and cast to shine, while also exposing its narrative limits.

Lizard Boy finds Trevor, a gay, green-skinned twenty-something, on the first anniversary of a painful breakup. While looking for love, he reveals this is the only night of the year he leaves the house—and the anniversary of the childhood dragon attack that turned his skin green. As the evening unfolds, he finds companionship, an archnemesis, a superpower, his soul truth, and maybe… the end of the world!  Continue reading →

Nov 02

Puppetry is an Empathy Machine: “The 4th Witch”

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The Little Girl and the Old Woman. Photo by Katie Doyle.

Presented by ArtsEmerson, 
A Manual Cinema Production
Concept & Direction by Drew Dir
Devised by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace & Julia Miller
Original Score & Sound Design by Ben Kauffman & Kyle Vegter
Puppet / Silhouette Design by Drew Dir
Mask Design: Julia Miller
Lighting Design: David Goodman‑Edberg
Costume / Wig Design: Sully Ratke
Musicians: Caroline Jesalva, Lia Kohl, Lucy Little, Alicia Walter 

October 30 – November 9, 2025
Emerson Paramount Center
Robert J. Orchard Stage
559 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111

Content: Recommended for Ages 12+ 

Duration: Approximately 65 minutes, no intermission

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Manual Cinema’s The 4th Witch shows its audience Shakespeare’s Macbeth from the perspective of a novice witch. Eastern Europe, WWII: Macbeth (Jeffrey Paschal) is a giant, faceless monster in a Nazi uniform and a gas mask. The French countryside is his battleground. A happy little girl’s (Sarah Fornace) life is changed forever as Macbeth’s fascist army tears through her home, destroying goodness at every turn. In her search for safety, the girl falls ill and barely escapes Macbeth’s soldiers with her life. An old woman (Julia Miller, Lizi Breit & Leah Casey), who is more than she seems, takes in the girl, nurses her back to health, and teaches her the ways of the forest. Her lessons include cooking, herbal remedies, and unlocking her potential witchcraft through the power of feminine rage.  Continue reading →

Oct 29

Straddle the Line in Discord and Rhyme: “The Wolves”

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The Wolves cast; photo via Facebook.

Presented by Hive Theatre Company
By Sarah DeLappe
Directed by Margaret McFadden

Oct. 17 – 19, 2025
BCA Plaza Black Box Theatre
539 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes with ONE intermission

Content Warning: The Wolves contains strong language, discussions of sexual content, and references to mental health struggles, eating disorders, and mentions of death and grief.

BOSTON — If William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies were adapted for a modern teenage girls’ soccer team, it would be The Wolves. In Golding’s novel, prepubescent boys are stranded on an island without adults. Unmitigated chaos ensues. In The Wolves, an indoor girls’ soccer team, also with negligible adult oversight, adapts much better to their ogled but unsupervised soccer practices. Earlier this month, we saw the Hive Theatre Company’s Wolves ensemble stretch, bully their peers, and embrace their challenges for the newest generation of theatre makers. 

The Wolves is a microcosm of the teenage girl’s experience navigating life’s big and small questions. Playwright Sarah DeLappe captures the demands of modern living in her script; her characters tackle topics like the historical evils of the Khmer Rouge amidst conversations about kissable boys. They stretch their lithe bodies before a home game while discussing the teen version of “having it all.” Through the lens of the pregame routine, DeLappe looks under the superficial facade of the cutesy teen stereotype to show us their personhood.  Continue reading →

Oct 19

As Mysterious As the Dark Side of the Moon: “The Ballad of Little Jo” 

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Presented by The Treehouse Collective
Music by Mike Reid
Lyrics by Sarah Schlesinger
Book by Sarah Schlesinger, Mike Reid, and John Dias
Directed by Katie Swimm
Music Directed by Jeff Kimball

Digital Playbill 

October 24 – November 2, 2025
The Plaza Theatre
The Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes with one intermission

BOSTON — The curious story of cattle ranching and mining pioneer Little Joe Monahan was brought to light when the trailblazer passed away in 1904. Monahan had lived and died as a successful male business owner in Idaho, Oregon, and northern New York. After his death, an unprofessional undertaker preparing Monahan for burial leaked to the Buffalo, NY, press that Monahan was born AFAB. His legacy reminds us that trans people have always existed despite some cis folks’ intentions to erase them.   

There is a lot we don’t know about Little Joe Monahan. Much has been lost to time or otherwise sensationalized by early journalists. Monahan was first memorialized in the 1981 play Little Joe Monaghan by Barbara Lebow. A 1993 movie of the same name starring Heather Graham, Sir Ian McKellen, and Rene Auberjonois further romanticized Joe’s story (and borrowed heavily from Lebow’s play). The Treehouse Collective presents another romanticized adaptation, The Ballad of Little Jo, through Nov. 2 at the Boston Center for the Arts. Continue reading →

Oct 16

Ale, and well met: “Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-sided Tavern”

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Presented by Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-sided Tavern
Digital Playbill

October 3 – October 5, 2025
The Boch Center Shubert Theatre
265 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

Runtime: 2 hours 30 minutes with a 15-minute intermission

Review by Helen Ganley

BOSTON — In 1974, a global phenomenon began.

Well, that’s not exactly true. In 1974, Original Dungeons & Dragons was released as a small box set containing three playable classes, four races, and only a handful of monsters. It even assumed you owned two other, unrelated games in order to play it. With just a thousand copies printed, it was far from the cultural movement it would one day become.

For decades, D&D was synonymous with the epitome of nerdom. But with the rise of streamers, the accessibility of the fifth (and most recent) edition, and online play across countless platforms, Dungeons & Dragons has transformed into a genuine cultural phenomenon. Continue reading →

Oct 14

To Laugh Without the Heavy Phantom of Despair: “Mother Mary”

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Forseth and Alvarez; Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
by KJ Moran Velz
Directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue
Digital Playbill 

October 9-26, 2025
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
Content transparency: Mother Mary contains scenes of sexual intimacy and references to abortion. For more: https://www.bostonplaywrights.org/ct/mother-mary

This critique contains light spoilers. 

BOSTON — Mary, known then by her Hebrew name Miriam, Mother of Yeshua, was a Jewish woman of color knocked up with a baby she didn’t want and set to marry a man she didn’t know (Biblically or platonically) in the Ancient Middle East. We’re told Yusuf married her anyway. Then they immigrated to Jerusalem, where Miriam delivered her son in a barn surrounded by pooping farm animals. If you replace Jerusalem with Southie and the donkey with a taxi, you get a summary of Mother Mary. Sort of. 

This summary borrows from the play’s summary on the BPT website. Mother Mary is based loosely on the Biblical myth of Mary, Jesus, and Joseph. Taxi driver Jo Cruz (Adriana Alvarez) knows the streets of 1968’s Southie like the back of her hand, but no road map can prepare her for meeting Mary O’Sullivan (Tara Forseth), a Catholic school teacher with a boyfriend and a very strict mother. Despite rising tensions between their Puerto Rican and Irish communities, Jo and Mary find themselves in an unexpectedly close friendship…or is it something more? But their growing connection takes a turn when Mary asks Jo to take her on a risky road trip during a snowstorm from which there’s no going back.  Continue reading →

Oct 13

Between the Diet Coke Button and the Nuclear Codes: ASP’s “Macbeth”

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Omar Robinson (center) with Brian Demar Jones, Dennis Trainor Jr., Claire Mitchell, and Brooke Hardman (2025). Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Christopher V. Edwards
Digital Playbill

Oct. 2-26, 2025
The Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Content Warning: This production employs the use of water-based haze, stage cigarettes, flashing lights, strobe effects, and gunshots. 

RUN TIME: Approx. two hours and twenty-five minutes, including one intermission.

Warning: This critique includes light production spoilers. 

WATERTOWN, Mass — It’s been a busy quarter season for Macbeth performances: Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s Stage2 student players performed Mackers in May; Cambridge’s Dream Role Players performed it in Longfellow Park last August; Boston Lyric Opera performed it at Emerson Colonial Theatre last weekend. Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production is at the Mosesian Center for the Arts in a vastly nontraditional production through October 26.  

ASP’s Artistic Director Edwards interprets Macbeth as a 1960s psychological and physical nightmare horrorscape in which fascistic tyranny, state-sanctioned drug abuse, bipartisan gaslighting and lies are de facto political tactics. In this version (as in our current White House), the psychological horrors outweigh the physical violence. Set in the U.S. immediately after the Cold War, title character Macbeth (Omar Robinson, unhinged and unbothered), Banquo (Jesse Hinson), Macduff (Brian Demar Jones), Ross (Jennie Israel), Malcolm (Chingwe Padraig Sullivan), Fleance (Vince Nguyen) and King Duncan (Dennis Trainor) are celebrating a battle win despite their personal tragendies. Amidst their revels, three psychological terrorists/witches (Jade Guerra, Amanda Esmie, Claire Mitchell) indoctrinate Lady Macbeth (Brooke Hardman) and Lord Macbeth into regicide through mind control manipulation and hallucinogenic drugs.    Continue reading →

Oct 08

Using His Powers for Good: “300 Paintings”

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Sam Kissajukian in performance of 300 Paintings. Credit: Evgenia Eliseeva

Presented by American Repertory Theater
Written and Performed by Sam Kissajukian
Produced by Sally Horchow and Matt Ross in association with Octopus Theatricals

Now – Oct. 25, 2025
Farkas Hall
12 Holyoke Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission

Critique by Diana Lu

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Watching 300 Paintings feels a bit like being dropped straight into the mind of Sam Kissajukian, mid-manic episode—but with comfy seats, visual aids, and killer comedic timing. For 80 minutes straight, the comedian-turned-painter commands the stage with no script; his first 300 paintings flash on the black screen behind him. The result is a hilarious, high-energy, and surprisingly insightful comedic monologue that explores the fine line between genius and madness, connection and isolation, and what gets assigned as worthy in this late-stage capitalist world of unprecedented wealth disparity—a world obsessed with packaging everything, including ourselves, into “brands,” “content,” “product.” 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 →