Boston Theatre Marathon XXIII: Special Zoom Edition Anthology Boston Playwrights’ Theatre Edited by Kate Snodgrass, Artistic Director Smith & Kraus, Inc Softcover, 340 pages ISBN: 9781575259611 Copyright 2021 $20.00 Purchase the Anthology
Review by Kitty Drexel
BOSTON — Boston Theatre Marathon XXIII: Special Zoom Edition Anthology is the physical manifestation of the 23rd Annual Boston Theatre Marathon on Zoom. #BTMXXIIIelectricZOOMaloo
The Boston Theatre Marathon was live and in-person until COVID-19 struck the Earth like a biblical pestilence. Years 2020 and 2021 were over Zoom. This anthology puts the magic and the mystery of 2021’s plays in one book.
From the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre website: “For more than two decades, the Boston Theater Marathon has brought together playwrights, directors, and theatre companies in an effort to foster collaboration between artists and producers. Continue reading →
BOSTON — Rx Machina by Caity-Shea Violette is one of two plays about addiction currently running in Boston. It’s no coincidence. COVID-19 has decimated our mental health.
The modern human, when faced with a medical crisis and no affordable solutions, will turn to legal and illegal self-medicating. The CDC’s website says that the opioid epidemic is a public health crisis. The news, any channel, will confirm this statement. Continue reading →
Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company Written by Duncan MacMillan Directed by David R Gammons Dramaturgy by Rulas A Muñoz
Feb. 11 – March 5, 2022 Audio Description – February 19 at 8pm and February 20 at 3pm Open Captioning – March 3 at 2pm and 7:30pm South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA 527 Tremont St. Boston, MA 02116 SpeakEasy on Facebook
Critique by Kitty Drexel
CONTENT ADVISORY: This production contains depictions of addiction and self-harm, discussions of sexual assault, an extended strobe light sequence, herbal cigarette smoke, and loud noises.
BOSTON — A friend once told me, despite the burden mental illness can present, that the brain is trying to help. The myriad painful symptoms I and many others experience as effects of mental illness are the brain’s way of facilitating, even normalizing the abnormalities of life. Sometimes, I’d rather it not.
Just because the brain is trying to help, it doesn’t mean the brain is actually helping. It takes tremendous discipline to correct negative behaviors and toxic thoughts and to learn new ones. Failure is inevitable. If it takes a village to teach toxic patterns, it takes another village to reinforce positive ones.
SpeakEasy Stage’s People, Places & Things running at the BCA is about addiction, mental health, the theatre, and identity. Emma (Marianna Bassham in a performance that will blow your mind) is in denial. She abuses drugs to cope with her performing career, her family, and the life that happens in-between. She’s on so many drugs when she collapses on stage during a production of The Seagull, it’s a miracle she isn’t dead already. Continue reading →
Moving Forward: Too Soon to Talk About Post-Pandemic Life? Presented by The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, February 9, 2022 ONLINE — YOUTUBE RECORDING Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce on Facebook
Article by Afrikah Smith
ONLINE – With recent news of post-pandemic plans and mask mandates being lifted as early as April 2022 in California and New York, is it too soon to talk about a post-pandemic life in the Greater Boston area? With the trajectory of where we are heading, no. In fact, there is optimism that 2022 will be better.
Hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, GBCC President & CEO James Rooney moderated Moving Forward: Too Soon to Talk About Post-Pandemic Life?. Theone-hour panel featured guest speakers Dr. Kevin Churchwell, Dr. Anne Klibanski, and Dr. Kevin Tabb, from Boston’s leading healthcare institutions, on what we can possibly expect in the very near future. Continue reading →
The cast in The Huntington’s production of The Bluest Eye by Lydia R. Diamond; Photo by T Charles Erickson.
Presented by The Huntington Based on the American classic novel by Toni Morrison Written by Lydia R. Diamond Directed by Awoye Timpo Choreography by Kurt Douglas Music direction by David Freeman Coleman Original music by Justin Ellington Dramaturgy by Sandy Alexandre Intimacy direction by Ayshia Mackie-Stephenson
January 28 – March 13, 2022 Digital access available through March 27, 2022 ASL-INTERPRETED PERFORMANCE: Friday, February 11 at 8pm. OPEN CAPTIONED PERFORMANCE: Tuesday, February 15 at 7:30pm. AUDIO-DESCRIBED PERFORMANCE: Saturday, February 26 at 2pm Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA Boston, MA The Huntington on Facebook
The Bluest Eye plays in approximately one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.
Content warning: every kind of violence amidst a Black community
Critique by Kitty Drexel
“Coming together in a circle to tell a story is essential to our humanity. That’s what we’re inviting the community into with The Bluest Eye.” – Director Awoye Timpo
Boston, MA — The synopsis for The Bluest Eye would have a newcomer believe that the play is about unattainable, western i.e. colonialist beauty standards. It is, but The Bluest Eye is about much more.
Pecola Breedlove (Hadar Busia-Singleton) has come to stay with Claudia (Brittany-Laurelle) and Freida (Alexandria King). We learn through Claudia’s narration all about the Breedloves. Mrs. Breedlove (McKenzie Frye, who tears the roof off in her role) and Mr. Cholly Breedlove (Greg Alverez Reid) are scarred from growing up in the Midwest.
Through an examination of their stories, we come to understand Pecola and why she dreams of having blue eyes. Ramona Lisa Alexander, Brian D. Coats and Lindsley Howard round out the cast. The cast is excellent together and individually in their own right. Continue reading →
BOSTON — Theatreworks Hartford streamed a version of Mr. Parent in March 2021. The Lyric’s live, in-person production is a different beast from TheatreWorks Hartford. While both versions tell the same story, the current production of Mr. Parent at The Lyric evolved for the stage.
Maurice Emmanuel Parent is compassionate, generous, kind, and funny as Hell in Mr. Parent. The play’s story begins in New York City. Parent is a wide-eyed theatre professional seeking his fortune on Broadway and beyond when his agent sends him to Boston to audition for Angels in America. He gets the gig.
A miserable union salary and 2006 Boston rent prices force Parent to find a second job. He becomes a cluster substitute teacher in a Boston public school. His cluster-job was a clusterfuck of joys and frustrations. Continue reading →
December 21, 2021 to March 19, 2022. December 2021 – March 2022 Open Daily 10 am – 9 pm SoWa Power Station 550 Harrison Ave Boston, MA Info for Boston Attendees
Review by Kitty Drexel
BOSTON — I tried not to have expectations entering Imagine Van Gogh.
Without intending to, I expected Imagine Van Gogh to be like Yayoi Kusama’s “Love Is Calling” which ran at the ICA. Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms is immersive and kaleidoscopic. Imagine Van Gogh is also immersive. Van Gogh’s paintings are magnified and set to the music of classical artists Saint-Saëns, Mozart, Bach, Delibes and Satie. It makes Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings accessible to an audience that can pay the ticket price.Continue reading →
Presented by The Huntington Produced in association with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Pasadena Playhouse Written by Mike Lew Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel
Assistant direction and movement coordination by Ashleigh King Choreography by Jennifer Weber Fight choreography by Robb Hunter
Content warning: Disabled people exist everywhere 24/7. If this play “expands your world,” you should know that’s ableist, and it’s really not about you.
BOSTON — This one time, in the Before Times, I was taking an ashtanga-style yoga class, and a random woman told me I was “inspirational.” I was dripping in sweat after having performed 60-minutes of intermediate poses with only one arm, and a brunette Karen in Athleta and Lululemon compression wear decided it was super important to tell me that I inspired her. She didn’t say what I inspired her to do, just that I was “inspirational.”
I wish I could say that I told the Karing Karen she inspired me to vomit a little in my mouth, but I was too shocked to say much of anything. I picked up my mat, and I skedaddled out of the studio to fume inspirationally in peace.
This horse can’t even do yoga.
I live with brachial plexus palsy, a permanent paralysis of my left arm from my shoulder through my fingers. (Coincidentally, it’s also the sexiest of the palsies.) Sometimes complete strangers find my ability to do completely normal, everyday things Inspirational. Showing up to yoga is difficult for everyone, Karen.
Abled people have a nasty habit of deriving inspiration from the inabilities of disabled people. We aren’t inspirational just because you find relief from not being disabled. Your inability to see us as people with lives is a You problem. As Buck says in Teenage Dick now at The Huntington, “Please don’t involve me.”Continue reading →
Photo by Stratton McCrady: Matthew Swain, Julien Tornelli, Fady Demian.
Presented byBoston Playwrights’ Theatre Written By Ally Sass Directed by Erica Terpening-Romeo A BU New Play initiative production Produced by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre
BOSTON — Incels and Other Myths invites the audience into the world of massive multiplayer online gaming and the Lord of the Flies corners of the internet, where misogyny has even less consequences than in the physical world. Elaine (Allison Blaize), a mythology teacher at an all-girls high school, and her precocious but awkward son Avery (Aidan Close) play the historical fantasy game, “Oracle.” In “Oracle,” they try on highly gendered, performative personas and encounter friends and monsters that help them get in touch with integral parts of themselves they couldn’t face in real life.Continue reading →
Produced by Work Light Productions
Book, music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson Directed by Evan Ensign Based on the original staging by Michael Greif Choreography by Marlies Yearby Music Supervision and Additional Arrangements by Tim Weil
BOSTON — RENT 25th Anniversary Farewell Tour “Farewell Season of Love” at the Shubert Theater is Rent. You will love it or hate it based on your preferences for the dated rock musical.
My lovely wife and I had a fun time. We like the show. The people sitting immediately behind us had a better time. They said they’d seen it every time it came through New England. That’s a lot of Rent.
Rent is now a period piece. It was first performed on Broadway in 1996; I was a sophomore in high school. Bill Clinton had taken office for his first term that January. Continue reading →
