Tag Archives: Club Oberon

Oct 16

Mischief and Devil’s Work: “Sweeney Todd” at Arrow Street Arts

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Davron Monroe and Joy Clark. Photo Credit: chelcymariephotography

Presented by Moonbox Productions
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler
From an Adaptation by Christopher Bond
Originally Directed on Broadway by Harold Prince
Directed by Ryan Mardesich
Choreography by Joy Clark
Music Directed by Dan Ryan
Fight choreography by Margaret Clark
Dramaturgy by Courtney Elkin Mohler

Oct. 13 – Nov. 5, 2023
Arrow Street Arts
2 Arrow Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Audio Described Performances:
Sunday, October 29 at 3:00 pm &
Saturday, November 4 at 8:00 pm
Post-Show Talkbacks:
Sunday, October 22 with Director Ryan Mardesich and Music Director Dan Ryan

Content Advisory: Murder, Cannibalism, Sexual Assault, Gunshots, Violence.

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Moonbox Productions welcomes audiences back to 2 Arrow Street with its inaugural production of Sondheim and Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Performances run now through Nov. 5 in Cambridge.

Arrow Street Arts resides in the renovated space of what was once the A.R.T.’s Club Oberon (RIP). Moonbox stripped the location of its dark aesthetic and replaced it with bright, white paint The better to showcase cast information, and Moonbox’s production partner, the New England Innocence Project.  Continue reading →

Sep 21

You Can Lie Down or Get Up and Play: An Interview with Taylor Mac on judy’s “24-Decade History of Popular Music: Film Screening & Discussion with Taylor Mac” event at Boston’s 2023 Raising Voices Festival

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Taylor Mac (Photo courtesy HBO Max)

Event: 24-Decade History of Popular Music: Film Screening & Discussion with Taylor Mac
Presented as part of the Raising Voices Festival: A Celebration of Music, Art, and the Power of Protest
Saturday, September 23, 2023 @ 7:30pm EDT
Old South Meeting House
Boston, MA

More about the Raising Voices Festival 
Presented by Revolutionary Spaces
September 23 & 24, 2023
Downtown Boston: Various Locations
Performance Schedule & Map 
Admission is free. 
Registration is highly encouraged.

About the documentary film Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music
Filmed on Saturday, October 8th, 2016 
@ St. Ann’s Warehouse
Brooklyn, NY 11202
Written and created by Taylor Mac 
Music direction by Matt Ray
Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman 
Costume designs by Machine Dazzle 
Makeup artistry by Anastasia Durasova
Produced by Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, Joel Stillerman, Linda Brumbach, Alisa Regas, Taylor Mac, and Mari Rivera
HBO Documentary Films in association with Content Superba, a Telling Pictures and Pomegranate Arts Production in association with Fifth Season and Nature’s Darlings
Streamed on HBO Max

Interview by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON, Mass. — Taylor Mac graciously met the New England Theatre Geek’s Queen Kitty for an interview on Wednesday afternoon to discuss judy’s HBO documentary Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music and the Raising Voices event 24-Decade History of Popular Music: Documentary & Discussion with Taylor Mac on Saturday, Sep 23, 2023, 7:30pm EDT. 

Mac regularly contributes to the Boston theatre-ecology. Mac’s stage play, Joy and Pandemic played at the Huntington in April of this year.  Mac’s 2012 essay “A Culture of Trust” was published in the 2022 publication of HowlRound Anthology: Essays and Conversations from the First Ten Years. Judy’s Hir was produced by Apollinaire Theatre in February 2020. (One of the last, lucky productions before the lockdown). And, of course, The Lily’s Revenge at Club Oberon (RIP) in 2012.

We thank Taylor Mac for their time and judy’s team for setting up the interview.

Mac was full of laughter. It was truly a pleasure to meet with judy. 

(The below interview is edited for grammar and clarity.)

//

Queen Kitty: Your Decade History of Popular Music History, you’ve described it as a radical fairy realness ritual.

Taylor Mac: Yes.

QK: It spans 24 decades with a 24-piece orchestra for 24 hours, singing 246 songs. What was your dramaturgical research process like? It’s just so much. It must have been so intense for you.

TM: It was a constant reminder that I’m not a historian. I’m not trying to be a historian, and I don’t want to be a historian. Part of the dramaturgy was to make sure that was clear to the audience. In all of the stage shows, in one form or another, that this was expressed to the audience. Continue reading →

Jun 04

Could be Better, Could be Worse: American Repertory Theater’s “1776”

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Presented by American Repertory Theater
Produced in association with Roundabout Theatre Company
Book by Peter Stone
Music and Lyrics by Sherman Edwards
Based on a Concept by Sherman Edwards
Directed by Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus
Music Direction by Ryan Cantwell
Choreography by Jeffrey L. Page
Music Supervision by David Chase
Orchestrations by John Clancy
Vocal Design by AnnMarie Milazzo
Dialect Coaching (NYC) by Dawn-Elin Fraser
Dialect Coaching (Cambridge) by Erika Bailey
Fight Direction by Thomas Schall

May 17 – July 24, 2022
Loeb Drama Center
Cambridge, MA
Run Time: 2 hours and 45 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission

The mask goes over your nose.

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Contemporary performances of Stone & Edwards’ 1776 are a response to Hamilton. The 1997 Broadway revival production at the Roundabout Theatre had an all white, all cis male cast (with Star Trek TNG’s Brent Spiner in the role of John Adams). American Repertory Theater tries something different with its 2022 production. It is largely successful thanks to the brave, button-pushing performances of its actors. 

1776 is the reproduction of the infamous congressional meetings that lead to the United States’ declaration of independence on July 4, 1776. John Adams (Crystal Lucas-Perry), Benjamin Franklin (Patrena Murray), and Thomas Jefferson (Elizabeth A. Davis) cajole the members of the Continental Congress into voting for American independence from British tyranny.  Continue reading →

Sep 18

The Artist She is Today: “Witches, Bitches and Divas”

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Presented by Club Oberon
Written, arranged and performed by Christina Pecce and Steve Bass

Sunday Sep 7th, 2019
Club Oberon
2 Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA
Oberon on Facebook

Review by Piyali Mukherjee

(Cambridge, MA) Christina Pecce’s show Witches, Bitches and Divas was presented as a crossover musical comedy and it delivered. Christina was accompanied on stage by her music director, Steve Bass, on the piano, George Darrah on the percussion instruments and Nick Franchese on the viola. Continue reading →

Jun 28

Tranquility isn’t Bliss: “Reagan Esther Myer”

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Photo taken by the Queen Geek; oh look, a room full of nightmares.

Presented by Rebecca Kopycinski
Mixing and video art by Michael Dewberry

June 27 – 30, 2019
Center for the Arts at the Armory
191 Highland Ave
Somerville, MA
Instagram It

Critique by Kitty Drexel

 “WARNING! You exhibit symptoms of a glitched ThotBot. An ULTRA Operative has been deployed to reboot your operating system. Avoid contact with other Bots until you have been successfully rebooted.”  – ThotBot.me, http://thotbot.me/glitch.html on 6/28/2019.

SOMERVILLE, Mass. — The ThotBot Implantation Center fliers are all over Camberville. An acquaintance assumed they were for a cult. No, they are for Reagan Esther Myer, a one-woman, multimedia, performance art concert about a dystopian future in which The Ultra leads through thought-control and nearly all human brains rely on tech to retain peace of mind. In these days of Texas concentration camps and selling your gold for cash, this science fiction drama isn’t at all far fetched.    Continue reading →

Mar 22

On A Dime: “Dragon Lady”

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Presented by by A.R.T. Breakout, part-one of the Dragon Cycle
Created and performed by Sara Porklob
Original music by Peter Irving
Band: Hot Damn Scandal
Directed by Andrew Russell

March 20 – April 6
Club Oberon
2 Arrow Street
Cambridge MA, 02138
A.R.T. on Facebook

Critique by Kitty Drexel

(Cambridge, MA) Dragon Lady is the courageous story of how potty-mouthed, gangsta grandma Maria Porkalob traveled from the Philippines to the US as told by her granddaughter Sara Porkalob.  This one woman show/dramatic cabaret is intensely passionate. The events of Maria’s stories might not be exactly true. What is true is the emotional veracity with which it is told.

Continue reading →

Sep 25

“Borrowed Cash” and Their Stolen Songs

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Presented by Harvard’s American Repertory Theater
Written by Daniel Jenkins and Melissa van der Schyff
Directed by Gina Rattan

Sept. 13 – Sept. 23, 2018
OBERON – American Repertory Theater
2 Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
ART on Facebook

Review by Bishop C. Knight

(Cambridge, MA) Borrowed Cash was a band headlined by the two ex-lovers Ann Marie and Harper, who were Brits parading as hillbilly Southerners. Between the ex-spouses, Ann Marie provided the most twanging, crooning Americana songs center stage with eyes closed.  Harper spent most of his time supplying the main keyboard riffs, singing backup harmonies, and blowing a harmonica.  Harper is actually NYC-born actor Daniel H. Jenkins, and Ann Marie the Canadian actress Melissa van der Schyff. Neither are British or Southern, but both did a great job of playing bitter British bandmates who suffered a nasty divorce. Continue reading →

Apr 16

Still More to Learn from Our Past:”The Laramie Project”

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Presented by Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club
Written by Moisés Kaufman & the Members of the Tectonic Theater Project
Directed by Eli Schleicher ’18

April 11 – 13, 2018
Club Oberon
Cambridge, MA
HRDC on Facebook

Review by Diana Lu

(Cambridge, MA) The Laramie Project, by the Tectonic Theater Project, premiered in 2000. It is an amalgamation of over 200 interviews with the residents of Laramie, Wyoming, detailing the circumstances and consequences of the hate crime perpetrated against Matthew Shepard in 1998. Continue reading →

Aug 28

Shoulder Shrug, Head Tilt: “Burn All Night”

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Krystina Alabado (Holly), Lincoln Clauss (Bobby), Perry Sherman (Will), and Ken Clark (Zak) shut out the world in Burn All Night. Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva.

Presented by the American Repertory Theatre
Book and lyrics by Andy Mientus
Music by Van Hughes, Nicholas LaGrasta, Brett Moses
Directed by Jenny Koons
Choreographed by Sam Pinkleton
Music supervision & vocal arrangements by Cian McCarthy

Aug. 18 – Sept. 8, 2017
Club Oberon
Cambridge, MA
ART on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Cambridge, MA) At first glance, Burn All Night is pretty impressive. It has a fancy pedigree in director Koons and creator Mientus. Teen Commandments wrote the score. For those who enjoy pop, they’re on Spotify and worth a listen. Choreographer Sam Pinkleton also worked on Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. The production was not as impressive as its credits. Continue reading →

Mar 02

5 Handfuls of Butt: “A Ride On the Irish Cream”

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Presented by Oberon
Written/Created/Co-composed/Lyrics by Erin Markey
Directed by Jordan Fein
Co-composed & Musical Directed by Emily Bate
Co-composed by Kenny Mellman 
Choreographed by Chloe Kernaghan 

Feb. 28 – March 4, 2017
Club Oberon
Arrow St
Cambridge, MA
Oberon on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Cambridge, MA) There is something exquisitely beautiful about a conventionally attractive woman being unconventionally, relentlessly, fearlessly strange in society’s general direction into perpetuity. It is a breathtaking thing. Erin Markey isn’t Jennifer Lawrence cutesy, “normal” weird. Markey and her merry band of revelers are Disco Pigs, Bellatrix LeStrange, mutated Alice in Wonderland kinds of weird. Their rock musical A Ride on the Irish Cream is gloriously odd.  Continue reading →