Tag Archives: April

May 08

Fear Not the Creative Mind: “The Women Who Mapped the Stars”

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Sarah Newhouse as Annie Jump Cannon, Christine Power as Antonia Maury, Becca A. Lewis as Williamina Fleming and Sarah Oakes Muirhead as Henrietta Swan Leavitt. (Courtesy A.R. Sinclair Photography)

Presented by The Nora Theatre Company
By Joyce Van Dyke
Directed by Jessica Ernst

April 19 – May 20, 2018
Central Square Theater
Cambridge, MA
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Review by Kitty Drexel

“Now, there was a time/ when they used to say,
that behind ev’ry great man/ there had to be a great woman.
But oh, in these times of change/ you know that it’s no longer true.
So we’re comin’ out of the kitchen/ ’cause there’s something we forgot to say to you.
We say, Sisters are doin’ it for themselves”
-The Eurythmics with Aretha Franklin, “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves”

(Cambridge, MA) It’s been a good few years for female scientists. Sally Ride came out posthumously in 2012. Hidden Figures rocked the box office in 2016/2017. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Goble/Johnson and the other human computers are finally receiving their due accolades. Women are entering STEM fields at increasing rates. Local company, Flat Earth Theatre produced Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky in March 2017. The Nora Theatre Company is playing The Women Who Mapped the Stars right now. There are many more successes, but it won’t be enough until women and other minorities receive the equal success as men. Continue reading →

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May 07

She Will Cut You: TOP GIRLS

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Sophia Ramos, Carmen M. Herlihy, Paula Plum, Kiara Pichardo, and Carmen Zilles; Photo: T. Charles Erickson,

Presented by Huntington Theatre Company
By Caryl Churchill
Directed by Liesl Tommy
Dramaturgy by Phaedra Michelle Scott
Original music & sound design by Broken Chord

April 20 – May, 2018
Huntington Theater
Avenue of the Arts
Boston, MA
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Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Congrats to the Huntington for finally get that permanent ramp set up.

Top Girls is a feminist play by Caryl Churchill. It has a good script. It’s a good play for women. It isn’t Caryl Churchill’s only feminist play. It isn’t the only feminist play for a cast of women. There are others out there waiting to be produced, and yet, the New England theatre community loves this show. So much so that it’s been produced three times in the Boston-area alone in the past four years. The Kilroy’s List was supposed to end the ad nauseum repeats.   Continue reading →

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May 03

As You Like It: “We that are true lovers run into strange capers”

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Presented by The Hyperion Shakespeare Company and Harvard Office for the Arts
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Nathaniel Brodsky

April 26-29, 2018
Agassiz Theatre
Cambridge, MA
HSC on Facebook

Review by Polly Goss

(Cambridge, MA) As You Like It is a long-time favorite of audiences despite its often lowly standing among critics. The play deliberately borders on the nonsensical, as Shakespeare takes us on a glorious gender swapping romp through the mystical forests of Arden. This latest production from Harvard’s Hyperion Shakespeare Company successfully captures the intensity of first loves and the youthful energy at the heart of the piece. Whilst the direction felt a bit haphazard in places, the talent of some of the cast members helped to carry the show and pay tribute to the richness of Shakespeare’s script. As You Like It is a good choice for a student production of Shakespeare, the obvious enthusiasm of the actors (and their friends in the audience) made this production a pleasure to watch. Continue reading →

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Apr 23

Mother’s Day Should be Plural: “Little Orphan Danny”

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Julie Foldesi (Band Member/Women) and Dan Finnerty (Book, Lyrics, Music/Danny)
Photo by Meghan Moore

Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre
Concept by Dan Finnerty and Sean Daniels
Book and Lyrics by Dan Finnerty
Music by Dan Finnerty and Dan Lipton

March 21 – April 15, 2018
Lowell, Massachusetts
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Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell, MA) As a father of an adopted child, I often wonder how I will guide my son through the emotional stages of thinking about his origin story. I picture many long, earnest, possibly tear-filled conversations that will be good for us to go through, but certainly not entertaining. In Little Orphan Danny, wiseass rock singer Dan Finnerty decided to tell his own story of adoption, and it’s indeed a tearjerker of a musical. My eyes were wet and my ribs were sore from laughing so hard. Continue reading →

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Apr 23

“Cabaret” : Red Lights & Secrets

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Aimee Doherty* Photographer: Tom Shoemaker

Presented by Moonbox Productions
Based on stories by Christopher Isherwood
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Music by John Kander
Book by John Masteroff
Directed by Rachel Bertone
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez

April 14th thru 29th, 2018
BCA Calderwood Pavilion
Wimberly Theater, Boston
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Review by Bishop C. Knight

(Boston, Massachusetts) I assume that unlike many in the audience at the Wimberly Theatre, I went to the Calderwood Pavilion knowing nothing substantial about Cabaret and naïvely expecting lots of eye-high rockette dance moves.  Seated with friends before the show, I opened up a program and encountered a quote by Christopher Isherwood, the British-American novelist who holds a principal place within my private imaginative world.  This quotation was from Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, upon which Cabaret is based, and it goes “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Someday, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.”   Continue reading →

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Apr 20

It’s a Great Cake. A Bride-Cake. Mine: “Old New Borrowed Blue”

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Celeste Godin as Havisham; photo by Nile Scott Shots.

Presented by MetroWest Opera
Conducted by Brendon Shapiro
Stage directed by Cassandra Lovering

Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night
Libretto by Jon Olon-Scrymgeour
Music by Dominick Argento

The Beautiful Bridegroom
Music and libretto by Dan Shore

April 19 – 21, 2018
Plaza Theatre
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
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Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Many an opera is devoted to women’s pre and post connubial anxieties. With all of the riches for women, one must ask where are the men?  In Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night Dickens’ spinster is an anti-heroine reliving a decades old tragedy. In The Beautiful Bridegroom, a Lady, her daughters and maid all wish for wedded bliss. If weddings are such fun, there should be operas from the giddy perspective of tenors in tuxes and basses in vestments. A person is supposed to like the person they marry. For all its progress, opera has further to go.   

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Mar 26

ANTIGONE: Death at the Parthenon

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Presented by Flat Earth Theatre
Original Tragedy by Sophocles
Adapted by Lewis Galantiere from the play by Jean Anouilh
Directed by Lindsay Eagle

ONE WEEK LEFT: March 26th @ 7:30pm; March 29th @ 8pm; March 30th @ 8pm; March 31st @ 8pm
The Black Box at the Mosesian Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St., Watertown, Massachusetts 02472
From the MBTA — take the Red Line to Central Square in Cambridge; then take the 70 or the 70A bus.
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Review by Bishop C. Knight

(Watertown, MA) I could provide an enthusiastic review for every aspect of this play.  I will start with a nod to costuming. Continue reading →

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May 15

Captivating Recollections: “My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend”

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Photo by Meghan Moore

Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre
By Christian Duhamel and Edward Bell
Conceived and performed by Charissa Bertels
Directed by Sean Daniels

April 26 – May 21, 2017
Merrimack Repretory Theatre
Lowell, MA
MRT on Facebook

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell, MA) A one-person play is like a long blind date – you are stuck with a stranger for the evening, so you inwardly pray beforehand that you’ll like them. But when that one person is actress Charissa Bertels performing her passion project, My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend, you might find yourself cursing time for flying so fast through an entertaining evening. Continue reading →

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May 09

Squirrel for Your Thoughts: OTP’s “Fear Project”

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Presented by Open Theatre Project
Created by Lynda Backman, Molly Gilbert, Zahra A. Belyea, Sarah Jacobs, Rosie Mcinnes, Robin Abrahams, Hal Halper, J. Deschene, Lydia Jane Graeff, Athena-Gwendolyn Baptiste
Directed by Lynda Bachman and Molly Gilbert

April 28 – May 13, 2017
St. John’s Church
Jamaica Plain, MA
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Review by Kitty Drexel

(Jamaica Plain, MA) OTP’s Fear Project tells human stories of insecurity and fragility. It is comprised in two halves of short vignettes strung to make a unified narrative. They slowly reveal the interconnected fears of an estranged brother and sister struggling to maintain their family ties. They suffer their secrets alone even as they project the same fears. Continue reading →

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May 04

“Desire”: Revealing the Depths of Our Secrets

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Sam Terry, Eric McGowan, Margaret McFadden and Alexander Rankine in “The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin” by Beth Henley. Photo by Richard Hall/Silverline Images.

Presented by Zeitgeist Stage Company
Adapted from the short stories of Tennessee Williams
Written by Elizabeth Egloff, Marcus Gardely, Rebecca Gilman, David Grimm, John Guare and Beth Henley.
Directed by David Miller

April 28 – May 20, 2017
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
Zeitgeist on Facebook

Review by Polly Goss

(Boston, MA) Desire is a haunting collection of six short stories adapted into one act plays, performed by the talented Zeitgeist Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts. This ensemble performance casts a spell over the audience, as we watch a symphony of tortured souls battling with their secret desires. A couple of the plays’ attempt to modernize Williams’ fiction falls short, but overall the cast perform these conflicted characters with real empathy and vigour. Desire provides a fascinating insight into the creative process of a literary master and is well worth a watch. Continue reading →

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