Karen MacDonald. My parents have that end table. Photo by Megpix/Meghan Moore
Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre By Allison Engel and Margaret Engel Based on the life and works of Erma Bombeck Directed by Terry Berliner Original music by Brett Macias Filmmaker: Kathy Wittman Featuring Karen MacDonald
Lowell, Mass. — Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End is a serviceable, inoffensive one-woman show about humorist Erma Bombeck. Folks who remember Bombeck will enjoy the show.
People who enjoy the work of Karen MacDonald will also enjoy the show. MacDonald is delightful. Thanks to her work with director Terry Berliner, MacDonald dominates the stage like she lives there.Continue reading →
Nerds! James Ricardo Milord, Daniel Rios, Jr., Alison Yueming Qu, Kortney Adams, and Lindsey McWhorter, and Karina Beleno Carney in “Young Nerds of Color”. Photo: Nile Scott Studios.
Presented by Underground Railway Theater The Brit d’Arbeloff Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Production Arranged by Melinda Lopez Directed by Dawn M. Simmons Original music by Nona Hendryx Dramaturgy by Des Bennett Featuring: Kortney Adams(she/her), Karina Beleno Carney (she/her), Lindsey McWhorter (she/her), James Ricardo Milord (he/him), Daniel Rios, Jr. (he/him), Alison Yueming Qu (she/they)
Please note: People of Color (POC) is a term used in Young Nerds of Color to describe people of Asian, Black, Native, Hispanic and Latino descent. It is not being used because white people are uncomfortable saying “Black.” They might also be that.
Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission.
Critique by Kitty Drexel
A Note from Noelani Kamelamela is below.
Cambridge, Mass. — My wonderful partner is scientist of color (a note from them below). An adult nerd of color, if you will. They work at MIT. Seeing MIT through their eyes, knowing their experiences made watching Young Nerds of Color easier to believe and harder to endure. Young Nerds of Color is fun! It’s also chock full of difficult truths. 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 →
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 →
A screen grab from “Addressless.” The cast discusses their options.
Presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Community partnered with Urban Pathways, Community Access Adapted from STEREO AKT‘s and Lifeboat Unit’s Hungarian production of Addressless. Created & directed by Martin Boross Written by Jonathan Payne Script consultants: Hope Beaver, Cassie Desalines, Shams DaBaron aka “Da Homeless Hero” Video editing by Matthew Russell Graphics & animation by Maiko Kikuchi Streaming technician: Keenan Hurley Featuring: Joey Auzenne, Hope Beaver, Shams DaBaron a.k.a. “Da Homeless Hero,” & Bianca Norwood
Thursday, January 13 – Sunday, February 13, 2022 Presented over Zoom Tickets Digital Program Rattlestick on Facebook
Content warnings:Addressless discusses at length issues faced by the unhoused community such addiction and sobriety, bigotry, sex trafficking, shame, government benefits programs, and other forms of abuse. This show can be intense. It may not be appropriate for children under 12.
Critique by Kitty Drexel
ZOOM — Addressless is heart-breakingly honest digital theatre. If you’re looking for something to take you out of the monotony of COVID-living, creators Boross and Payne have a solution for you. Their two-hour, interactive, roleplaying theatre game is a reminder that life’s struggles don’t end just because there’s a pandemic at your door.
This production begins like any other over Zoom: the host invites attendees in, we wait patiently for the show to start. Addressless is slightly different because it asks attendees to fill out a survey via a link in the chat. The survey asks participants personal questions about their identity, financial situation, and if they’ve ever been unhoused. Have you lived on the streets? For how long? 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 →
The cast getting down. Photo Credit: Nikolai Alexander
Presented by Moonbox Productions Written by Stew with collaborator Heidi Rodewald Orchestrations by Heidi Rodewald Directed by Arthur Gomez Music direction by Julius LaFlamme Choreography by Elmer Martinez Intimacy consulting by Olivia Dumain Band: Miles Ahlstrom, Hector Saint-Hilaire, Sahil Warsi
12/10/21 – 1/1/22 South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA Boston, MA Moonbox on Facebook
Critique by Kitty Drexel
BOSTON – I was today years old when I realized that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is an bacronym for LSD, the psychedelic drug made famous by Harvard Professor Timothy Leary. It took watching Moonbox Productions’ Passing Strange on Saturday afternoon to figure it out. Several hours and a weak tea later, I realized I was a total square.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 →
Presented by Arlekin Players’ (Zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab Conceived and directed by Igor Golyak Written by Nana Grinstein with Blair Cadden & Igor Golyak Scenography & Costume Design by Anna Fedorova Virtual Design by Daniel Cormino Sound Design by Viktor Semenov Produced by Sara Stackhouse Dramaturgy by Blair Cadden Featuring the Arlekin Acting Company
December 10, 2021 – January 23, 2023 Over the Arlekin (zero-G) virtual Theater Lab platform and Zoom Arlekin Players on Facebook Playbill
Review by Kitty Drexel
“It doesn’t feel virtual; it feels real.”
– Talkback moderator Inessa Rifkin, a founder of the Russian Jewish Community Foundation and a founder of the Russian School of Mathematics, after the December 13 performance of Witness.
ONLINE/Zoom — It’s almost Yule! Here’s a Christmas story: In May 1939, the MS St. Louis carried 937 passengers from Nazi-occupied Germany to Havana, Cuba. The Cuban government refused the ship. Its passengers remained onboard; the ship didn’t dock. Cuba had cancelled the immigration papers of the onboard immigrants without notifying them.
The United States refused the ship too. The US had space to put the passengers but our politicians let money and immigration law stop them from welcoming the passengers. We made a 1976 secular movie about it called “Voyage of the Damned” with Faye Dunaway. How American of us.
The Jewish passengers were finally allowed some succor when the ship returned to Europe that June. 254 of the passengers died in the Holocaust: 84 in Belgium; 84 in Holland, and 86 in France. There was no room at the inn or the stable with Mary and Joseph.
Witness by Arlenkin Players is about the fluffy talent show that the passengers held to boost morale. Local New Englanders who are also immigrants play passengers on the boat. It’s about the stark tragedy that our country, a nation that says it welcomes immigrants at its front door on the East Coast, decided that Jewish immigrants fleeing for their very lives should go elsewhere. Popup text boxes invite us to learn about who the passengers were and if they survived the ship. It’s about the multigenerational fight against anti-Semitism in the US. The Arlekin Acting Company portrays Jewish characters from across the decades.Continue reading →
