Tag Archives: Loeb Drama Center

Sep 05

Pushing the boundaries of genre and form: “Passengers”

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Photo by Alexandre Galliez.

Production by The 7 Fingers
Presented by American Repertory Theater
Co-produced by TOHU (Montréal, Canada) and ArtsEmerson (Boston, États-Unis)
Written, directed, and composed by Shana Carroll
Composition and music direction by Colin Gagné
Lyrics Colin Gagné, Shana Carroll
Lighting design by Eric Champoux
Projection design by Johnny Ranger
Featuring: Victor Crépin, Eduardo De Azevedo Grillo, Isabella Diaz, Marie-Christine Fournier, Téo Le Baut, Amanda Orozco, Michael Patterson, Basile Pucek, Santiago Rivera, Méliejade Tremblay-Bouchard

September 2 – 26, 2025
Tickets
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Review by Maegan Clearwood

This production contains haze and flashing lights. 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. –Since moving to Boston four years ago, I have been spoiled rotten by access to top-tier circus – from kitschy Halloween horrors with Boston Circus Guild’s Cirque of the Dead (now an annual tradition of mine) to a breathtaking showcase of talent from the instructors at Commonwealth Circus Center in Jamaica Plain. I am in awe of the twisty, bendy, flippy talent that’s on regular display here in my own backyard.  

Aside from this array of homegrown talent, Boston also has an ongoing love for Montreal circus troupe The 7 Fingers. The A.R.T. presented the ensemble’s spin on Pippin in 2012, and ArtsEmerson hosted Duel Reality last season, an irreverent twist on a Shakespearean classic. This fall, the troupe is back at The A.R.T. with its production of Passengers, which first premiered in Boston in 2019. Continue reading →

Jun 02

With A Side of Cheese: “Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York)”

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Sam Tutty and Christiani Pitts in Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).
Photo: Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall

Presented by American Repertory Theater
A Kiln Theatre Production
By Jim Barne and Kit Buchan
Directed and Choreographed by Tim Jackson
Music Direction by Jeffrey Campos
Featuring: Christiani Pitts, Sam Tutty 

May 20 – July 13, 2025
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Digital playbill 

This production contains haze, fog, and flashing lights. Recommended for ages 12+.
Run Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes, including one intermission

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York) hit Harvard Square just before Harvard’s various commencement ceremonies. It’s a politically charged time when Harvard has spent months fighting for its freedoms as an educational organization (among which, its freedom to receive federal funding as a contractor with the federal government). The Square is flooded with awed tourists collecting memories and memorabilia as their family members graduate from Harvard’s hallowed halls. Meanwhile, pissed off locals navigate around slow-paced bodies as we rush about our work-a-day lives. Coincidentally, it’s a dichotomy captured in Two Strangers. 

As in the musical playing at the Loeb Drama Center, the U.S. has a different reputation at home than it does outside of our country: The U.S. (and by extension Harvard University), depending on who you ask, is an untamed land of permissible behavior and flashy but great industrial innovations. The international community loves us or hates us depending on their income level and political leanings. Many of our citizens feel the same. 

So, it comes to no great surprise that main character Dougal (Sam Tutty) expects New York to resemble the city he’s seen in the movies: action adventures, “I’m walkin’ here,” tourist traps, and musical montages. Robin (Christiani Pitts) quickly corrects Dougal’s expectations. New York tourism is for people with money, she says. They are broke. It turns out, they are also broken on the inside. Oh hey – just like our transportation, judicial and political systems (etc.)! Welcome, new friend. Continue reading →

Feb 28

Dreams Are Not Prophecies: “The Odyssey”

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Alejandra Escalante, Kate Hamill, Nike Imoru, and Wayne T. Carr in The Odyssey.
Photo: Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall

Presented by American Repertory Theater 
Written and adapted by Kate Hamill
Based on the epic poem by Homer
Directed by Shana Cooper
Dramaturgy HERE

Digital Playbill HERE

Feb 11 – Mar 16, 2025
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge MA 02138

This production contains sex, violence (including the death of children and animals), and references to sexual assault, as well as fog, haze, strobe, and flashing lights. 
Recommended for ages 14+.

“As a feminist playwright, I believe deeply in creating female-driven narratives and reclaiming the classics for people of all backgrounds and genders. My Odyssey is narrated by the three female Fates, who literally haunt Odysseus as the spirits of the women of Troy; women drive the story. Not only warriors bear the cost of war, and it’s easy to lose the stories of how often women and children are the victims of brutal conflict around the world.”

-Adaptor Kate Hamill in “A Note from Kate Hamill” on the A.R.T. website

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Kate Hamill’s The Odyssey running at the American Repertory Theater reimagines its title character Odysseus if he were just a guy. In Homer’s epic poem and the adapted play, Odysseus makes terrible choices which he conveniently blames on the gods and mortal women if he doesn’t like the consequences. The Odyssey reminds us that myths provide moral guidance that modern entertainment does not; when we remove the fantastical from our myths, we’re left with stories about everyday people ignoring red flags and turning from society’s fundamental principles of dignity, loyalty and honesty. 

Public schools have been teaching Homer’s The Odyssey for decades. It’s been turned into movies and T.V. serials. It’s inspired numerous fanfictions. Margaret Atwood’s 2005 The Penelopiad was made into a play for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 2007. It’s a fast read that pays homage to Atwood’s novel and Homer’s antagonized heroine. There’s even a 1987 episode of the original DuckTales entitled “Home Sweet Homer” loosely based on Homer’s poem. There are oodles of opportunities to know The Odyssey without reading the original… Which can be tricky to read and absorb depending on the dry clunkiness of the translation. Fortunately, Hamill’s play is anything but.    Continue reading →

Sep 10

Parents Just Don’t Understand: “Romeo and Juliet”

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Rudy Pankow (Romeo) and Emilia Suárez (Juliet), credit: Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall.

Presented by American Repertory Theater
Play by William Shakespeare
Direction by Diane Paulus
Movement direction and choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Scenic design by Amy Rubin
Costume design by Emilio Sosa
Lighting design by Jen Schriever
Sound design by Daniel Lundberg
Original music by Alexandre Dai Castaing
Featuring: Terence Archie, Sharon Catherine Brown, Brandon Dial, Terrance Mann, Rudy Pankow, Clay Singer, Emilia Suárez, Nicole Villamil

August 31 – October 6
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge MA 02138
Tickets here

Article by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Shakespeare’s most ubiquitous tragic romance hinges on the duality between love and hate. In Director Diane Paulus’ program note, she expresses a desire to tip the scale toward love, but this A.R.T. production is most successful in its exploration of another duality: that of tradition and rebellion; the tension between one generation and the next. Continue reading →

Jun 14

Something Elegant and Threatening: “Gatsby: An American Myth”

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Presented by American Repertory Theater
Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett
Lyrics by Florence Welch
Book by Martyna Majok
Music Directed by Wiley DeWeese
Choreographed by Sonya Tayeh
Directed by Rachel Chavkin
Dramaturgy by Nissy Aya
Fight and Intimacy Direction by Rocío Mendez

July 23 – August 3, 2024
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

This production contains depictions of suicide, violence, loud noises, gunshot sounds, bright and flashing lights, fog, and haze. Recommended for ninth grade and up.

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Chavkin, Majok, and Welch’s Gatsby: An American Myth uplifts the plight of America’s laboring proletariat in ways F Scott Fitzgerald could never, would never imagine. It is a work of striking work of intersectional feminism that denudes the superficial morality of ultra-privileged one-percenters. It is sexy; it is rock n roll hot Jazz; it is a cautionary tale about the depravity of feral capitalism wrapped with a white bow.  

F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was first published in 1926. This critique discusses important plot points of the ART’s musical inspired by the novel. Anyone wishing to avoid spoilers is 98 years too late. 

Continue reading →

Feb 24

It’s not just about becoming a man; it’s about becoming a Good Man: “Becoming a Man”

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“Becoming a Man” at the A.R.T. Photo by Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall.

Presented by the American Repertory Theater
Written by P. Carl
Directed by Diane Paulus and P. Carl
Music & Sound Design by Paul James Prendergast
Video Design by Brittany Bland
Fight Direction by Ted Hewlett
Intimacy Coordination by Kayleigh Kane
Dramaturgy by Ryan McKittrick

Feb. 16 – March 10, 2024
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

The Digital Playbill

Run Time: 1 hour and 50 minutes with no intermission, including a 20-minute Act II discussion

Image by Mass Transgender Political Coalition

At this time of celebration for P. Carl, the LGBTQIA+ community mourns the murder of Nex Benedict. Benedict was a 16-year-old 2SLGBTQ+ child of Choctaw descent living on the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma. A vigil for Nex Benedict will be held tonight, February 24 at 6 PM at the Boston Commons Gazebo in Boston, MA.

MORE INFO and info on volunteering for the vigil

Review by Kitty Drexel, queer ally followed by a review by Noelani Kamelamela, trans community member

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Becoming a Man by P. Carl runs at the American Repertory Theater through March 10 at the Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square. It is based on the memoir of the same name also by P. Carl and can be purchased down the street from the Harvard Coop or your local independent bookseller. 

Becoming a Man is about P. Carl’s (Petey Gibson) transition into his full self and the impact it has on his entire world. Carl comes out to his parents (Christopher Liam Moore and Susan Rome) while caring for their aging bodies. He confides in his best friend Nathan (Cody Sloan) during necessary sanity breaks away from the city. Carl celebrates his gender euphoria with swimming lessons with Eddie (Justiin Davis).  Continue reading →

Sep 15

How mortal Gods can be: “The Half-God of Rainfall”

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This trailer is so cool!
Presented by American Repertory Theater
A co-production with the New York Theatre Workshop
By Inua Ellams
Directed by Taibi Magar
Movement Direction by Orlando Pabotoy
Orisha Movement Consulting/Choreography by Beatrice Capote
Intimacy Direction by Ann James
Voice & Dialect Direction by Dawn-Elin Fraser
Dramaturgy by Iyvon E.
Projection design by Tal Yarden
Physical therapy by Artistic Athlete Health Collective

Sept. 8 – 24, 2023
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA

This production contains haze, fog, flashing lights, and loud sounds, and stages sexual and physical violence. A.R.T. recommends it for ninth grade and up.

Review by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The American Repertory Theater presents Inua Ellams’ The Half-God of Rainfall at the Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square through Sept. 24. Directed by Taibi Magar, it tackles human concerns of identity, immortality, and generational trauma through the marriage of Greek and Yoruba storytelling and NBA basketball. 

The Half-God of Rainfall is about Demi (Mister Fitzgerald), a half-Nigerian/half-Greek son of serial abuser, Zeus King of the Greek Gods. Demi reconciles his holy parentage as he achieves fame and fortune as an NBA player. His journey takes him from rural Nigeria, across the United States, to Mount Olympus.  Continue reading →

Mar 05

Politically Stale Content v. Beautiful Production Work: “The Wife of Willesden”

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Marcus Adolphy, Clare Perkins, George Eggay, Andrew Frame, and the company of “The Wife of Willesden.” Photo: Marc Brenner

A Kiln Theatre Production presented by the American Repertory Theater
Adapted by Zadie Smith, adapted from Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath”
Direction by Indhu Rubasingham
Composition and sound design by Ben and Max Ringham
Movement Direction by Imogen Knight
Fight Direction by Kev McCurdy
Voice & Dialect Coaching by Hazel Holder

February 25 – March 17
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tickets and Info

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

Cambridge, MA –Loud, rebellious female characters from classic literature are juicy fodder for feminist reclamation, and understandably so. For women and folks of marginalized gender identities, it’s rare to see ourselves reflected as complex human beings in historical texts, even if most of these surviving texts are by dead white men. Shakespeare, for instance, likely didn’t have radical feminist intentions when he wrote Taming of the Shrew. But, Kate’s story is reshaped and retold again and again and again, problematic parts and all, if only to prove to the world that yes, women like her always existed.

The Wife of Willesden, a Kiln Theatre Production currently running at the A.R.T., strives to continue in this tradition, reexamining with the titular character from Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath” (a tale from The Canterbury Tales) through a 21st century lens. The text was adapted (or translated, which I would argue is more accurate) by novelist Zadie Smith, with raucous, ensemble-driven direction by Indhu Rubasingham. Continue reading →

Dec 16

Fear Is the Mind Killer: “Life of Pi” at A.R.T.

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Presented by American Repertory Theater
Based on the novel by Yann Martel
Adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti
Directed by Max Webster
Scenic and Costume Design by Tim Hatley
Puppetry and Movement Direction by Finn Caldwell
Puppet Design by Nick Barnes by Finn Caldwell
Video Design by Andrzej Goulding
Lighting Design by Tim Lutkin
Sound Design by Carolyn Downing
Original Music by Andrew T. Mackay
Dramaturgy by Jack Bradley

Dec. 6, 2022 – Jan. 29, 2023
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

“I must not fear. 
Fear is the mind-killer. 
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. 
I will face my fear. 
I will permit it to pass over me and through me. 
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. 
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. 
Only I will remain.”
– The Bene Gesserit’s “Litany Against Fear” from Dune by Frank Herbert

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Life of Pi at American Repertory is for fans who loved the novel and the movie. It’s for people who loved the movie, too. Life of Pi may also appeal to people who don’t regularly attend the theatre but enjoy a spectacle epic. 

Life of Pi the stage adaptation is not for children. The movie was rated PG, but the theatrical version is PG-13 at least. Puppets are no longer an indication of child-friendly content. Life of Pi’s puppets can be graceful and inspire wonder – yes – they also rightly invoke fear.  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 →