Tag Archives: Boston

Jan 25

First Time with Feeling: “The Great Pistachio”

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Production Art.

Presented by Yorick Ensemble
By Nicholas Cummings
Directed by Rachel Hall
Fight choreography by Sydney T Grant
Puppet consultant: Em Sheeran

January 23 – February 1, 2026 
Boston Center for the Arts
Plaza Black Box Theatre
539 Tremont St.
Boston, MA 02116
Online playbill

Critique by Kitty Drexel 

BOSTON — The Great Pistachio is an absurd gem of a play about nothing and everything that starts with the letter B: Brechtian, Beckett, burrow, beg, bunker, banjo, beige, brown, bureau of criminal apprehension, bruise, beets, Bertram, Boris, and Beatrice. To a lesser extent, it’s a play about things that start with the letters A and C: apocalypse and company policy. Yorick Ensemble brings this eccentric but thoughtful one-act play from the New York and Edinburgh Theatre Festivals to the Boston Center for the Arts for two weekends. If you survive Snowmageddon 2026, it’s worth carving a path to the South End to see it before it flits to another city.

Hold on to your butt, we’ve got a weird one. In a bunker at the end of the world, brothers Bertrand Brambles (John Brownlie) and Boris (Tim Lawton) are working on very important projects. Bertrand has written his magnum opus: a five-act, 272-page play free from worldly influence. Boris is determined to finally catch up on his newspaper reading; he won’t budge until he does. But! Boris might watch Bertrand’s play if Bertrand finds it a cast.  Continue reading →

Jan 20

The Invisible Work of Holding It Together in “Job”

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Credit: Benjamin Rose Photography

Presented by Speakeasy Stage Company
By Max Wolf Friedrich
Directed by Marianna Bassham

Jan 16 – Feb 7, 2026
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Helen Ganley

Approximate run time: 1 hour 20 minutes with no intermission.

This production contains strong language, gun use, and discussions of trauma, violence, and abuse. Distressing sounds are used and were ethically sourced. Strobing effects and red and green flashing lights are also used.

BOSTON — “Everyone needs therapy.” As a 24-year-old woman living in Boston, it’s a phrase you hear tossed around constantly. It might be invoked while unpacking a friend’s toxic ex, a coworker’s strained family dynamics, or a roommate’s own internal battles. The phrase carries an easy confidence that there is a place for these stories to go, a person trained to receive them, and a clean separation between the one who speaks and the one who listens.

Job unsettles that assumption. Its patient is a content moderator, professionally tasked with absorbing the internet’s most disturbing images so others don’t have to encounter them. If therapy depends on the idea that pain can be transferred without consequence, Job asks what happens when both people in the room are already doing that work for a living. What begins as a therapeutic exchange becomes a hall of mirrors, where emotional labor reflects endlessly back on itself. Continue reading →

Jan 14

A Dream Without a Plan Is Just A Wish: “The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar)”

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Yetunde Felix-Ukwu and Victoria Omoregie. Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography.

Presented by Company One, a co-production with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
By Nia Akilah Robinson
Directed by Mina Morita
Dramaturgy by Sonia Fernandez

Jan 9 – Jan 31, 2026
The Modern Theatre at Suffolk University
525 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Approximate run time: 1 hour 30 minutes with no intermission.
Seating is general admission.
This play includes strong language and the use of flashing lights.

BOSTON — For theatre folks, nothing puts current events into perspective like a play. America feels like it’s on fire, but it always has been. The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar), now running at Suffolk University’s Modern Theatre through Jan. 31, shows us how to find joy with our loved ones during our darkest moments; times and practices may change, but people do not; and, we may not get the closure we want, we get the closure we get. If you need a short break from the news to redirect your intentions, check out Company One’s Pay-What-You-Want tickets.  Continue reading →

Jan 10

Love with A Bitter Core: The BLO & BSO’s “Vanessa”

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Photo credit: Winslow Townson, courtesy of the BSO

Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with Boston Lyric Opera
Music by Samuel Barber 
Libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti
Conducted by Andris Nelsons
Staging coordination by Alexandra Dietrich
Tanglewood Festival Chorus: Betsy Burleigh, guest choral conductor
Boston Lyric Opera Chorus: Brett Hodgdon, chorus director

Boston Symphony Hall
Thursday, January 8, 2026 
Saturday, January 10, 2026
301 Massachusetts Avenue 
Boston, MA 02115
Online Playbill 

Sung in English with supertitles

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — This critique discusses the BLO & BSO concert production of Vanessa currently at Symphony Hall. As you read, please keep in mind several truths: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Board, the private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress to steward the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting, voted to dissolve on January 5 after 58 years of American public service. 

The President and his Secretary of War (lol) illegally kidnapped the Venezuelan President and his wife for oil, and Instagram hits. 

A trained ICE mercenary murdered unarmed citizen Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota on January 7 when Good began driving her civilian vehicle away from an enforcement operation. 

These things are not normal. Life under these circumstances, whether you agree with the media’s portrayal of them or not, is not normal.

During these unprecedented times under fascism, the BLO and the BSO are commended for their elegant production of Barber and Menotti’s Vanessa, a 1958 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by two gay men, one an Italian immigrant. It was composed at a time when it was unthinkable (and frequently illegal) to be out, and Italians weren’t entirely white. Vanessa was a necessary distraction from the impending fall of democracy. Continue reading →

Dec 12

The bells are ringing out for Christmas day: “A Celtic Christmas” by A Taste of Ireland

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A Celtic Christmas cast photo by A Taste of Ireland.

Presented by Pace Live: A Taste of Ireland
Dancers on Dec. 11, 2025, 7 PM:
Principal Dancers – Brittany Pymm, Gavin Shevlin
Soloists – Cian Walsh
Understudies – Meagan Urbanek, Isaac Loxley
Ensemble members – Fiona Shanley, Natalie Wagner, Jess Miller, Catilin Ward, Colleen McCarthy, Hannah Cunniffe, Dillon D’Amore, Michael Roberson, Enda Keane, Ciaran Bagley
Band:
Megan McGinley – Fiddle
Joel Libed – Vocalist
Aaron O’Grady – Guitarist
Simon Lace – Guitarist/Banjo

Dec. 2-14, 2025
Boston Center for the Arts
Calderwood Pavilion
527 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Kitty Drexel

2 hours with one intermission

BOSTON — A Taste of Ireland presents a pepperminty-fresh holiday Irish dance concert, A Celtic Christmas, now at the Boston Center for the Arts. It’s a perfect treat for the avid dancer enthusiast and hobbyist alike. Tickets are available for this touring production’s Boston stop through Dec. 14.

Direct from its Off-Broadway season, A Taste of Ireland brings A Celtic Christmas to Boston for the first time. It features Irish dance competition champions and stars from Lord of the Dance and Riverdance. Frankly, the stamina, flexibility and athleticism of these dancers is remarkable. These performers dance for two hours with only the briefest of pauses for costume changes with a live band that meets them halfway. While the show’s loose plot relies heavily on hetero-normative gender roles to push its narrative, the dancers’ impressive skill is a heartbeat keeping the audience focused on the stage. Even if Irish dance isn’t your idea of fun, one can’t deny how impressive their artistic labor is.   Continue reading →

Nov 26

The Horrors Persist and So Do They: 8th Annual Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show

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Photo credit Santiago Felipe.

Presented by BenDeLaCreme
Created by BenDeLaCreme & Jinkx Monsoon
Written and directed by BenDeLaCreme 
With additional writing by Jinkx Monsoon
Choreographed by Chloe Albin
Original compositions by Major Scales
Lyrics by BenDeLaCreme, Jinkx Monsoon & Major Scales
Featuring: Chloe Albin, Isaiah Brooks, Jace Gonzalez, Jim Kent, Ruby Mimosa, Derrick Paris, and Gus Lanza as “Hunky the Elf”

November 22, 2025
Wang Theater
270 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116

Review by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — It’s nearly Thanksgiving, and the Winter Solstice is a little over a month away. You know what that means. It’s time to gird your chestnuts and deck your lover’s halls because Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme are touring their 8th annual Holiday Show across the U.S.! This year, they brought their strange, jolly, and unusual stage shenanigans to Boston’s Wang Theater stage in the most titillating way possible: through the horror anthology, The Gingerbread House of Horrors!  Continue reading →

Nov 23

Wrestling with empathy through documentary theatre: “SpaceBridge”

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The ensemble. Photo by Walter Wlodarczyk.

Presented by ArtsEmerson
Produced by Visual Echo & Irina Kruzhilina
Conceived and directed by Irina Kruzhilina
Written by Irina Kruzhilina and Clark Young
Cinematography by Aleksei Postnikov
Featuring Ellen Lauren, Alisa Shaverdova, Anastasia Skorobogach, Anna Skorobogach, Arina Skorobogach, Artem Skorobogach, Leon Ladia, Lily Borzenko, Mark Savin, Mars Markelov, Sasha Boikova, Sonia Tsatskina, Adele Nigrini, Alexis Edel, Drake Malave, Henry MacDowell, Isaac Stinson, Maisie Pickar, Nate Hatter, Sabine Gutenberg, Silas MacLean and Zora Graves

November 21 – 23, 2025
559 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111
Emerson Paramount Center
Tickets here 

Review by Maegan Clearwood

Recommended for ages 12+

BOSTON — If you’ve seen documentary theatre before, then nothing in SpaceBridge will surprise you: live movement is interspersed with statistics, news reports, and recorded interviews, split into chapters and stitched together with a framing device. The multimedia production elements are flashy and sophisticated, as one would expect from a piece spearheaded by Irina Kruzhilina, who, among other credits, co-founded the MFA program of the New School and is a resident artist at LaMaMa. 

But the true power of SpaceBridge comes from the storytellers themselves: 11 young Russian refugees, children of antiwar activists currently living in New York City shelters while seeking political asylum. With their eight American friends, they present the output of an intensive workshop program, telling story after story of fear, grief, compassion, and hope.  Continue reading →

Nov 23

Joy In the Act of Uplifting: “I AM”

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Photo By Steven Pisano.

Presented by Celebrity Series of Boston
Choreography & Direction – Camille A. Brown
Inspired by the television show Lovecraft Country (Episode: “I Am”)
Original Music by Deah Love Harriott, Juliette Jones, Jaylen Petinaud, Martine Mauro-Wade, Frédérique Gnaman, Monique Brooks Roberts
Additional Music by Busta Rhymes, Crystal Waters, Dru Hill, Lil Kim ft. Lil Cease, Method Man ft. Mary J. Blige, Sounds of Blackness, The Temptations
Performed by Camille A. Brown & Dancers
Company – Dorse Brown, Mikhail Calliste, Nya Cymone Carter, Courtney Cook, Brianna Dawkins, Eboni Edwards, Mykal Kilgore, Kai Irby, Alain ‘Hurrikane’ Lauture, Chaz Ryan, Courtney Ross, Curtis Thomas, Travon Williams
Musicians: Juliette Jones, Martine Mauro-Wade, Meech

November 14–15, 2025
Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Craig Idlebrook

BOSTON — A smile can be infectious, and a sorrow shared becomes lighter. 

You would think you couldn’t fill up a theater with the musical and theatrical embodiment of these two sentiments for over an hour, but you’d be wrong. Continue reading →

Nov 19

No Ghosts Need Apply: “A Sherlock Carol”

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The cast; Photo by Nile Hawer.

Presented by the Lyric Stage Boston
By Mark Shanahan
Directed by Ilyse Robbins

Nov. 14 – Dec. 21, 2025
140 Clarendon St
2nd floor
Boston, MA 02116
Online Playbill

Running Time: Two hours plus one 15-minute intermission.

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — A Sherlock Carol at Lyric Stage Boston is a Doyle and Dickens delight that mashes the beloved characters from both Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series in one gleeful package. This mashup is a needed departure from an overdone but beloved holiday tradition that will amuse Dickens fans, please Doyle fans, and introduce the children of both to classic literature in a new format. It runs through Dec. 21. Continue reading →

Nov 11

A Family Affair: KIM’S CONVENIENCE

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Ins Choi and Esther Chung in “Kim’s Convenience” (2025). Photo by Dahlia Katz

Adam Blanshay Productions presents the Soulpepper Theatre Company production in association with American Conservatory Theater
Presented by The Huntington
Written by Ins Choi
Director –  Weyni Mengesha
Cast –  Ins Choi, Kelly Seo, Esther Chung, Ryan Jinn, and Brandon McKnight
Set Design –  Joanna Yu
Costume Design – Ming Wong
Lighting Design –  Wen-Ling Liao
Video and Production Design – Nicole Eun-Ju Bell
Sound Design –  Fan Zhang

November 6–30, 2025
The Calderwood Pavilion
Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Craig Idlebrook

BOSTON — Some performers become known for and steeped in the same work for years. For a few unfortunate souls, often those only known for one thing, the work becomes a prison as well as a meal ticket, and you watch them grimly go through the motions of performance. For others, the work becomes like a family member the artist can nurture and watch grow; the work may cause them heartache at times, but they still can cradle it with love and find new wonder in it. I suspect playwright and actor Ins Choi’s feelings toward Kim’s Convenience, a play about an imperfect Korean-Canadian family, fall in the latter category, and that may be what makes his return to the stage in the play so poignant to watch.   Continue reading →