Tag Archives: Appalachia

Feb 18

You Don’t Have to Apologize for Existing: “John Proctor is the Villain”

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Left to right: Brianna Martinez, Jules Talbot, Victoria Omoregie, Haley Wong in John Proctor is the Villain; directed by Margot Bordelon; photo by T. Charles Erickson

Presented by The Huntington
By Kimberly Belflower
Directed by Margot Bordelon
Dramaturgy by Lauren Halvorsen
Choreography by Victoria L Awkward 
Fight and Intimacy Direction by Jessica Scout Malone
Voice and dialect coaching by Christine Hamel

February 8 – March 10, 2024
The Huntington @ Calderwood/BCA
527 Tremont St. 
Boston, MA 02116

Review by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON, Mass. — It’s simple: believe girls. Believe women. Believe femme non-binary persons. Believe gender-expansive people who don’t fit your idea of how a person should look. Believe our stories. We don’t want fame. We want due process.  

The Huntington’s John Proctor is the Villain running through March 10 at the BCA is an age-old story of victim blaming and abuser protection.  Four teen girls (Brianna Martinez, Victoria Omoregie, Jules Talbot, and Haley Wong) are coming of age in post-#MeToo Appalachia. The four best friends and their bro classmates (Maanav Aryan Goyal, Benjamin Izaak) are taught by the school’s coolest homeroom teacher, Mr. Smith (Japhet Balaban), and new counselor Ms. Gallagher (Olivia Hebert).  Continue reading →

Dec 19

Appalachian Comedy and Backwoods Humor in “Sand Mountain”

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Presented by The Hub Theatre Company of Boston
By Romulus Linney
Directed by Daniel Bourque

December 13-21, 2013
First Church Boston
66 Marlborough St
Boston, MA
Hub Theatre Co on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston) Romulus Linney’s Appalachian play is a strange, Frankenstein’d animal of a comedy.  It combines two stories about marriage and society on Sand Mountain, an Alabama sandstone plateau.  The first half, Sand Mountain Matchmaking, is about the unlucky love life of the widow Rebecca Tull (Lauren Elias) as she searches for an appropriate suitor.  Act II, Why The Lord Come to Sand Mountain, is a twistier story featuring Jesus (Robert Orzalli) and Saint Peter (Yoni Bronstein) as they spend a night with a backwoods family.  Both acts combine to create a folksy, down-home play, one a little too saccharine to feel credible but fun none-the-less. Continue reading →