Tag Archives: Boston

Jul 17

Alarm Goes On, Alarm Goes Off: “Paranormal Activity” (play)

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Cuddles in “Paranormal Activity.” Photo by Matthew Murphy.

A Strictly Limited Pre-Broadway Engagement
Presented by ATG Entertainment
Written by Levi Holloway 
Directed by Felix Barrett
Based on the “Paranormal Activity” films, first written and directed by Oren Peli and brought to the screen by Blumhouse and Solana Films.
Featuring: Cher Álvarez, Travis A. Knight, Shannon Cochran, Andrea Syglowski, Bobby J Howlett.

Sat, Jul 11 – Thurs, July 30, 2026
Emerson Colonial Theatre
Boston, MA

Article by Kitty Drexel

TLDR: Lots of scary, suspenseful fun; excellent acting and stagecraft; Not for folks who dislike suspended tension or jump scares. This critique contains light spoilers. 

BOSTON — I don’t prefer horror movies. I might watch one at home with a friend and the sound off if I have a persistent interest. I feel the same about horror novels unless I know for certain that the dog lives and the female protagonist survives unraped with all her limbs.  

Horror theatre, on the other hand, is good ole’ safe, insane, enthusiastically consensual fun. I take comfort in knowing that, behind the scenes, a hardworking team of corporeal humans has planned for weeks the titillation of their audience. Their work allows us to wriggle ourselves into an adrenaline-spiked, scared (horny?) stupor. If there ever were a real danger, an omniscient stage manager would call “Hold” into the God mic and save us all from a cortisol overdose. If you enjoy such an experience, too, Paranormal Activity running at the Emerson Colonial Theatre is for you. It had thrills and chills aplenty. Its stagecraft is top-notch – Both worthy reasons to shell out for tickets. You will be frightened if you want to be.  Continue reading →

Jun 06

We Welcome Your Unique Perspective: “Eureka Day”

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The cast. Photography by Liza Voll.

Presented by The Huntington 
Written by Jonathan Spector 
Directed by Margot Bordelon

May 28 – June 28, 2026
The Huntington Theatre
264 Huntington Ave. 
Boston, MA 02115

Review by Kitty Drexel

“If my son can’t bring a peanut butter sandwich to school, then you can’t bring your unvaccinated child.”
 – Elizabeth Cleveland, vice president/planning director of The Martin Agency

BOSTON — Watching Eureka Day at The Huntington is like seeing British philosopher Philippa Foot’s Trolley Problem play out in real time. Foot’s moral dilemma positions the survival of many against the survival of one via violent train death. It’s Sophie’s choice but with trolleys. In the case of Spector’s play, this choice plays out within a private school’s code of operation.

Foot’s philosophical conundrum doesn’t take into account the individuals tied to the track, the engineer steering the trolley, nor the real-life violence represented by the trolley. The Trolley Problem, taken at face value, is relatively simple. Human beings are complicated. When you combine complications such as parenting culture, offensively open-minded liberalism, and antivaxxer pseudoscience with the Trolley Problem, you get the backbone of Eureka Day. Continue reading →

May 28

The Algorithm is Smarter than the Heart but Not the Stomach: “My Home on the Moon”

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Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography.

East Coast Premiere presented by Chuang Stage
By Minna Lee
Directed by cara hinh

May 23 – June 13, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts
Plaza Theatre

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Gentrification murders culture in the name of progress. Gentrification isn’t the same as healthy renovation of and fiscal investment in an historically underserved neighborhood (say, Dorchester and Chelsea, MA). Rather, gentrification steals political and fiscal autonomy from longtime residents and bestows it upon rich people. If you can pay the rent, you can remove the people who’ve lived in and loved in an area for generations without a second thought for where The Poors will go once they’re kicked out. 

Chuang Stage’s My Home on the Moon by Minna Lee packages the horrors of gentrification-in-the-name-of-progress with a heaping dose of aptly uncanny A.I. It is a timely science fiction morality tale cum fever dream told through bowls of pho and other Vietnamese dishes. Mai (strong but grouchy Belle Le) wants to feed people well. She’s ready to serve pho to her community at Pho Lan, her boss Lan’s (Christina R Chan, perky and resilient) restaurant. Continue reading →

May 07

“Something Rotten!” at Lyric Stage passes the smell test.

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The cast; photo by @nilescottstudios

Presented by Lyric Stage
Music and Lyrics by Wayne Kirkpatrick & Karey Kirkpatrick
Book by Karey Kirkpatrick & John O’Farrell
Directed by Ilana Ransom Toeplitz
Music Directed by Katya Stanislavskaya
Choreographed by Christopher Shin
Dramaturgy by Bindi Kang
Intimacy direction by Samantha Richert

May 1 – June 7, 2026
Lyric Stage Theatre
140 Clarendon Street
Boston, MA 02116

Runtime: 2 hours and 25 minutes including intermission.

Review by Helen Ganley

BOSTON — Something Rotten! The name itself is pithy—the vague and anachronistic “something” paired with “rotten,” a word associated with withered fruit and moldy bread. Accompanying this duo is, inexplicably, an exclamation point, leading to a questionable feeling of excitement after such a combination. Continue reading →

May 05

Sweeping Visuals Despite a Flawed Text: “Swept Away”

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Peter DiMaggio & ensemble. Photo: Nile Scott Studios

Presented by Speakeasy Stage
Music and lyrics by The Avett Brothers
Book by John Logan
Directed by Jeremy Johnson
Choreographed by Ilyse Robbins
Music directed by Paul S. Katz
Scenic Design by Janie E. Howland
Lighting by Karen Perlow
Featuring: Christopher Chew, Max Connor, Peter DiMaggio, Bishop Levesque

April 24 – May 23, 2026
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont Street, Boston, 02116

Review by Maegan Clearwood

BOSTON — Swept Away is ambitious in theme and scope: it calls for sweeping, spectacular design choices, attempting to explore existential ideas about guilt, grief, death, and despair. Speakeasy Stage, like the Broadway premiere two years ago, takes a fittingly larger-than-life approach to the visuals and performances. Unfortunately (again, like the Broadway premiere), Speakeasy can’t overcome the musical’s dramaturgical flaws.

Swept Away is a jukebox musical, featuring indie-folk-Americana-pop-rock songs by The Avett Brothers. It features many hallmark jukebox musical flaws: musical numbers that feel shoehorned in rather than plot-driven; a thematically uneven throughline; inconsistent character arcs. John Logan’s book crams songs into a story inspired by a real 1884 shipwreck of The Mignonette. It’s a grisly tale, an exploration of the spirit’s ability (or lack thereof) to survive in the face of abject horror, but the script is too bogged down by cliches to uncover any novel truths about the human condition. Continue reading →

Apr 20

The Last Great Mass Delusion: “Mariette in Ecstasy”

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Presented by the Treehouse Collective
Based on the best-selling novel by Ron Hansen.
Adapted by Christina Calvit
Directed by Katie Swimm
Fight choreography by Shira Cahn-Lipman
Featuring: Carla Perrotta, Martha Warren, Michelle Leibowitz, Jaryn Wilcox, Lauren Foster, Grace Duffey, Cayd Barrera, Britt Ambruson, Hannah Young, Amanda Burke, Djessy Kungu, Brian O’Hara

April 3-19, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St, Boston, 
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Mariette in Ecstasy mixes themes from shows like Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler with Miller’s The Crucible (or 2004’s Mandy Moore & Jena Malone vehicle, a satiric take on the evangelical purity movement, Saved!). Treehouse Collective’s production ran through April 19. So if you’re reading this article, and this sounds like your idea of fun, then I’m sorry; you’ve missed your chance. 

In turn-of-the-century upstate New York, Mariette Baptiste (Amanda Burke) enters the convent of the Sisters of the Crucifixion at the ripe, hormonal age of 17. The convent is run by her earthly sister, Reverend Mother Celine (Carla Perrotta). Mariette, like the other young sisters of the convent, is crazy bananas in love with their forever boyfriend, your savior and mine, Jesus of Nazareth. The young nuns dream of subjugating themselves to the Lord – not through years of hard, thankless work as the convent demands. No, they want to perform their subjugation to their holy husband immediately for public approval. None is more zealously devoted than Mariette.  Continue reading →

Mar 30

Feminist Bark Without Feminist Bite: “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous”

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Ines de la Cruz and Patrice Jean-Baptiste; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by The Lyric Stage
By Pearl Cleage
Directed by Jacqui Parker
Featuring: Patrice Jean Baptiste, Deannah “Dripp” Blemur, Inés de la Cruz, Yasmeen Duncan

March 20-April 12, 2026
The Lyric Stage
140 Clarendon St
Boston, MA

Online Playbill 

Review by Maegan Clearwood

BOSTON — Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous poses one intriguing question after another. How can Black women make space for themselves within the canon of glorified, seemingly untouchable playwrights? What is the line between performance and exploitation? How can we forge connection across intergenerational feminist divides?

It also conjures up a potent image: a Black woman standing onstage, entirely nude, delivering monologues from the work of August Wilson, the most sanctified Black playwright in the American canon.

Unfortunately, these questions go largely uninterrogated, and the imagery takes shape entirely offstage. Continue reading →

Mar 25

Only Now + Now + Now: Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde)

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Ellen Lauren, Brandon Jovanovich and Raehann Bryce-Davis; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Boston Lyric Opera
Music by Gustav Mahler 
Chamber arrangement by Arnold Schoenberg
Text from Hans Bethge’s Die chinesische Flöte
Additional spoken text by Anne Bogart
Conducted by David Angus
Stage direction by Anne Bogart

March 20-29, 2026
BLO Opera + Community Studios
Boston, MA 02210
Online Playbill

In German and English with English supertitles. 
Running time: 85 minutes with no intermission

BOSTON — Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde), running through March 29 at the Boston Lyric Opera’s new Community Studios in Southie, is beautifully sung and acted. It shows the opera community what can be achieved in a smaller performance space with modest scenic, properties and lighting design. Such thoughtful but lowkey design places greater emphasis on the performances and resulted in one of the most effective productions (in no small part of Gustav Mahler, director Anne Bogart, and conductor David Angus) I’ve seen this season in any genre.   Continue reading →

Mar 15

The World Is Too Big Not to Be a Little Magical: “You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!”

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Michael Tow, Anjie Parker – Photo by Annielly Camargo

Presented by Company One
Produced in partnership with Boston Public Library
A new play by Keiko Green
Directed by Shawn LaCount
Dramaturgy by Jessie Baxter

Mar 6 – Mar 28, 2026
Boston Public Library
Central Library in Copley Square
700 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
Digital Playbill

All tickets are Pay-What-You-Want ($0 minimum)

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Before the show opens, a Company One lobby posterboard asks audience members of You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World what song they’d like to hear at the end of the world. I’d hear my spouse playing David Bowie karaoke on the ukulele while my loved ones welcome me home. That’d be nice. At the end, I hope there’s enough magic left for everyone to hear their heart’s desire. 

It’s the end of the world as he knows it, and it hurts like Hell. Greg (Michael Tow) receives a terminal cancer diagnosis (and weird dream visitations from Greta Thunberg (Anjie Parker)), he finally understands his true purpose and races to save Mother Earth as our climate catastrophe looms. Meanwhile, his wife, Viv (Jade Guerra), tries to hold it all together, but really just wants to stop time and hide under the covers with her husband. And through it all, our emcee and their child, M (Kai Clifton, who dazzles in another leading role), charts their own path while Dad is dying, life is a drag, and the world keeps spinning. Ensemble members Parker, Alex Alexander and Nicholas Papayoanou play multiple supporting characters Continue reading →

Mar 12

A Relationship Is A Series of Negotiations: “Stereophonic”

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Tour presented by ATG Entertainment
Written by David Adjmi
Original music by Will Butler
Directed by Daniel Aukin 
Featuring: Jack Barrett, Claire DeJean, Steven Lee Johnson, Emilie Kouatchou, Cornelius McMoyler, Denver Milord, Christopher Mowod

Now – March 15, 2026
Emerson Colonial Theatre
106 Boylston St
Boston, 02116
Link to a Bostix Deal

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — The official summary for Stereophonic says it mines “the agony and the ecstasy of creation as it zooms in on a music studio in 1976.” An up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself on the cusp of superstardom. Internal and external pressures could “spark their breakup… or their breakthrough.” Written by David Adjmi, directed by Daniel Aukin, and featuring original music by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, Stereophonic shows its audience the creativity, drugs, and drama of writing and recording a stellar, best-selling folk rock album, a la Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

Stereophonic is just one of many works inspired by the saga of Fleetwood Mac and Rumours. Daisy Jones & the Six, the best-selling novel and the Amazon T.V. show, and an episode of Agatha All Along are others. Stereophonic earned 13 Tony nominations and won five awards in 2024. Its cast album rocks and stands on its own as great entertainment (whether you enjoy Fleetwood Mac or not). The touring production is a solid theatre that represents well the artistic creative process, massive egos, and the heartbreak of losing a family through interpersonal drama.  Continue reading →