Apr 13

Take A Friendly Plunge: “The Drowsy Chaperone”

Production photo. Photo by Mark. S. Howard.

Presented by The Lyric Stage Company of Boston
Music & Lyrics by Lisa Lambert & Greg Morrison
Book by Bob Martin & Don McKellar
Directed and choreographed by Larry Sousa
Music direction by Matthew Stern

April 5 – May 12, 2024
Lyric Stage Boston
140 Clarendon St, Boston, MA 02116

One hour and forty-five minutes with no intermission

Content advisory: Comedic sexuality and alcohol use.

Review by Sean French-Byrne

BOSTON, Mass. – Metanarrative is the word of the day in The Lyric Stage Company of Boston’s The Drowsy Chaperone. Opening in darkness and lingering in that moment of tension, as the voice of the Man in the Chair rises out of the darkness and muses about theater, from beginning to end The Drowsy Chaperone presents a sardonic yet compassionate love letter to the way that theater touches our lives. 

Buoyed from beginning to end by the charismatic performance of Paul Melendy as the Man in the Chair, this production evokes the experience of being taken by the hand and shown the pieces of a play that shine. It is imbued by that friend’s (occasionally morbid) fascination. Continue reading

Oct 03

The Grim, Hilarious Carnival of “Assassins”

John Hinkley (Jacob Thomas Less), Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Lisa Kate Joyce), Leon Czolgosz (Daniel Forest Sullivan), The Proprietor (Jackson Jirard), Sara Jane Moore (Shonna Cirone), and Samuel Byck (Phil Tayler) (Photo by Mark S. Howard)

Presented by The Lyric Stage Company of Boston
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Music Directed by Dan Rodriguez
Based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr.

Sept 15 – Oct 15, 2023
140 Clarendon Street
2nd Floor
Boston, MA 02116
Lyric Stage Company on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

BOSTON, Mass. – Of the Sondheim shows I’ve seen, this is the most, well, Sondheim. Assassins is wonderfully bleak and hilarious. 

Lyric Stage explores the legacies of the lonely, disenfranchised, entitled, and deranged individuals who tried to share their personal darkness with the rest of the world by trying (and sometimes succeeding) in killing American presidents. Audiences looking for a conventional theater experience will likely be disappointed. There’s no singular, central protagonist here. But why should there be in a show that joyfully hopscotches between eras?  Continue reading

Oct 03

Lyric Stage Company Shares Death of Spiro Veloudos, Producing Artistic Director Emeritus

Spiro Veloudos. (Courtesy Lyric Stage Company)

BOSTON, Mass. — The Boston theatre community mourns today. 

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston announced the death of Spiro Veloudos, the long-time producing artistic director of Lyric Stage Company of Boston and avid supporter of small and mid-sized theatres, on October 3, 2023. He was 71. 

His death was confirmed on Monday night, October 2, by his sister, Shelia Demetriadis of Richmond, VA.

An accessible-to-all, loving Boston Globe announcement and obituary by Don Aucoin for Spiro Veloudos is available on the Lyric Stage website. 

The Lyric Stage Company sent a note of remembrance, penned by current Producing Artistic Director Courtney O’Connor to its email list at 10:50 AM today. It links to the Aucoin article. 

Spiro Veloudos was the producing director at Lyric Stage Company through 2019. He directed more than 65 productions at the Lyric: Nicholas Nickleby, Avenue Q, Assassins, Souvenir, Death of A Salesman, Noises Off, Superior Donuts, and Into the Woods. He directed ten Sondheim shows over twenty seasons through his Sondheim initiative. 

Veloudos earned the Best Director IRNE and Elliot Norton Awards multiple times. He received the 2006 Elliott Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from Salem State College, and the StageSource Theatre Hero Award (2003). He was named Best Artistic Director by Boston Magazine in 1999.

A more personal obituary for Veloudos is on Honoring Memory

Mr. Veloudos, you were a force of good in Boston. You are missed. 

May Mr. Veloudos’ legacy be a blessing to our theatre community.

Boston, MA – 02/23/17 – Spiro Veloudos on the Lyric Stage (Lane Turner/Globe Staff) Reporter: (Don Aucoin) 

Jun 05

An Imaginative View from Above: “Rooted”

Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography.

Presented by The Lyric Stage Company
By Deborah Zoe Laufer
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Composer & sound design: Dewey Dellay
Featuring Karen MacDonald, Lisa Tucker, and Katherine Callaway

June 2 – 25, 2023
The Lyric Stage Company
140 Clarendon Street, 2nd Floor
Boston MA, 02116

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

BOSTON, Mass. — Rooted makes a breathless first impression. Walking into the theater at The Lyric Stage Company, perhaps for the first time since I’ve started attending theater post-lockdown, I literally gasped at the sight: part treehouse deck, part overgrown garden, all shrouded in dappled shade from the foundational tree’s outstretched limb.

The set, designed by Janie E. Howland, is as much a character in Deb Zoe Laufer’s play as its protagonist, Emery (Lisa Tucker). Emery has sequestered herself to her treehouse sanctuary for 12 years by the start of the play, with only two connections to the world below: her caregiver sister, Hazel (Karen MacDonald), and her unexpectedly popular YouTube channel showcasing her plant experiments. Her compassionate, charismatic way with plants inspires her online fans to form a literal cult around her beloved tree. Continue reading

Feb 28

Swing and a Miss: “The Great Leap”

Photo by Mark S Howard.

Presented by Lyric Stage Company of Boston
By Lauren Yee
Directed by Michael Hisamoto
Featuring Barlow Adamson, Jihan Haddad, Gary Thomas Ng, Tyler Simahk
Scenic Design: Baron E. Pugh
Costume Design: Seth Bodie
Lighting Designer: Michael Clark Wonson
Sound Design: Elizabeth Cahill

February 24 – March 19
140 Clarendon St
Boston MA 02116

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

BOSTON, MA — Sports are theatre: bodies are in motion, in the here-and-now of time and space, performing feats of incredible physical achievement, telling riveting stories about power and pathos. Staging sports-themed plays, therefore, offers inherent performative, spectacle-driven potential.

Unfortunately, the Lyric Stage’s production of Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap doesn’t quite tap into. For only having four characters, The Great Leap is a surprisingly busy play, which makes the flatness of the production particularly noticeable: the script is full of entangled plot lines and intersecting themes, often to its detriment. Continue reading

Jan 13

Somewhere Deep Inside, Love Is Hiding: “Preludes”

Photo by Mark S. Howard.

Presented by the Lyric Stage of Boston
Music, lyrics, book, and orchestrations by Dave Malloy 
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Music direction by Dan Rodriguez
Dramaturgy by Megan Jepsen, Marieska Luzada
Orchestra: Bethany Aiken, Mindy Cimini on keyboards

Jan. 6 – Feb. 5, 2023
Lyric Stage 
140 Clarendon Street
Boston, MA 02116

RUNNING TIME: APPROXIMATELY 2 HOURS AND 10 MINUTES, INCLUDING A 15-MINUTE INTERMISSION.

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON, Mass. — As a girl I was introduced to the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff via the 1996 Geoffrey Rush movie Shine about pianist David Helfgott. I remember thinking Rachmaninoff’s music was so wondrous that it would be worth going a little mad to play it so beautifully.

It is terrifically easy for innocent children to romanticize the mental health crisis of adults. I’m an adult now with two degrees in classical music, but I don’t entirely disagree with my teenage self. 

Preludes is Arcade Fire’s Win Butler (minus those pesky sexual assault allegations) meets contemporary musical theatre that arbitrarily skips between the centuries. It’s the story of poor, little rockstar composer Rach (Dan Prior) who suffers from debilitating writer’s block. Rach is seeing Dahl (Aimee Doherty), a hypnotherapist, to break his block and reach the great heights of success again. Rach shares his journey with his fiancee Natalya (Kayla Shimizu), opera singer Chaliapin (Anthony Pires Jr.), and assorted Russian intelligentsia (Will McGarrahan). Dan Rodriguez kicks ass as Rachmaninoff.   

I’m of two minds about Dave Malloy’s Preludes at the Lyric Stage: it’s whiny and navel-gazy; and, it directly attacks the artist’s universal conundrum of creating art that is both valuable and entertaining. The Lyric’s production does not negate itself by doing both simultaneously. 

This is what it is to be an artist. We desperately want to be hired but know that we may never reach our full potential. Every artists has that one brilliant friend who gave up because they couldn’t reconcile all that excruciating, costly, invisible work for lack of career recognition. 

Audiences don’t often get to see artists complaining. As in the rest of life, artists can complain and still feel truly grateful for our discipline and talents. We bitch to our therapist, pick ourselves up again and get back to our art. In Preludes, Rach doesn’t get back to it because he can’t. Artists are people too.  

Audiences will recognize Dave Malloy from his biggest success Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. Preludes is a great departure from Great Comet. For one thing, it’s mercifully shorter. For another, it has more than the one melody played over and over and over. 

Malloy’s original compositions in Preludes have tight, exposed vocals. Sometimes the vocals are a capella. He incorporates techno elements on two keyboards. Malloy requires vocals to sing lines independent of the techno music. 

The Preludes cast meets Malloys demands and conquers them. Whatever one might think of the script or the music, the cast does a great job. Kayla Shimizu has both an expressive legit voice and impressive, cathartic-sounding mix. Anthony Pires Jr. bounds across the stage as Chaliapin. Will McGarrahan wears many hats while wearing the same shirt. Aimee Doherty charms as Dahl. 

Dan Prior rides waves of Rach’s mental health to the big breakdown in Act 2 like a professional surfer. Prior and director O’Connor paced both acts uncannily well to preserve Prior’s energy and the audience’s patience. By the time Rach is ready to tell his Big Tale, we’re ready to hear it. 

Music director Dan Rodriguez is the soft-focus star of Preludes. He plays piano center stage, rarely looks up from the keyboard and utters few words over the course of the two-hour production. He hovers omniscient, observant, seen and unseen. 

The actors drift around Rodriguez weaving Malloy’s story, but it’s Rodriguez who does the impossible work of interpreting Rachmaninoff’s genius and then threading Malloy’s compositions under and through. Then Malloy asks his music director to conduct from the stage. And then Malloy asks him to sing.  

Rodriguez is a known, beloved music director in Boston. Rodriguez has the trust of his cast, his unseen orchestra, and the audience. We believe his Rachmaninoff and in his skill at the piano. This may be his most challenging role to date, and he meets it with aplomb. He takes a risk coming in front of the curtain. It pays off.

Photo by Mark S. Howard.

The “Who’s Who in Preludes” playbill article adds a thoughtful touch to the playgoing experience. It puts nine faces to nine famous name drops in the show and gives the audience something to consider during the intermission. (Such as how Tolstoy maintained such an exact yet plush eyebrow to mustache hair ratio). We’re introduced to how each knows Rachmaninoff and why they are important to Preludes. More dramaturgy is HERE.

For those of you who know what it is to have spoken with the muses and be abandoned by them, it is no small thing to have experienced their presence. Attempting to call them back is painful, embarrassing, and painfully embarassing. Malloy’s work represents his experiences. It isn’t universal. Be kind. 

People want/need art but don’t want to pay artists a living wage. Preludes asks an audience to see an artist as a person, an imperfect, breakable person with more flaws than genius or friends. We ask a lot of our artists. Preludes asks us to give a little more than money and time. 

Nov 18

Safe But Not Sorry*: “The Play That Goes Wrong”

Photo by Mark. S. Howard.

Presented by Lyric Stage Company of Boston 
By Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields
Directed by Fred Sullivan, Jr.
Stunt Coordinator/Fight Captain: Michael Liebhauser
Scenic Design by Peter Colao
Run Crew: Hazel Peters, Talene Pogherian
Featuring Kelby T. Akin, Alexa Cadete, Nora Eschenheimer, Dan Garcia,
Mitch Kiliulis, Michael Liebhauser, Marc Alexander Pierre, and Dan Whelton. Understudies: Margaret Clark, Patrick French, and Matt C. Ryan.

November 11 – December 18, 2022
Lyric Stage Co.
140 Clarendon St
Boston, MA 02116

Approximately two hours, including one intermission.
This production uses strobe lighting and fog effects. There is one live simulated gunshot in Act 2.

Review by Kitty Drexel

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” — G. K. Chesterton

BOSTON, Mass — Chesterton was a Christian philosopher who argued, with this statement, that most things are done by novices who do those things imperfectly. This Chesterton saying goes along with the Voltaire-attributed aphorism, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” 

Neither Chesterton nor Voltaire was responsible for a cast of accident-prone actors or an elaborate set determined by fate to destroy itself on opening night. Not even Voltaire, the paragon of eighteenth-century French amateur and society theatre, could have imagined The Play That Goes Wrong.  Continue reading

Sep 27

From the Back to the Middle and Round Again: “Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine”

Lyndsay Allyn Cox as Undine. Photo by Mark S Howard.

Presented by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston
Written by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Dawn M. Simmons
Intimacy consultant: Ted Hewlett
COVID-19 safety officer: Emily Collins
Online Playbill

Sept. 16 – Oct. 9, 2022
140 Clarendon St
2nd Floor
Boston, MA 02116

Approximately 2 hours, including one 15-minute intermission.

Review by Kitty Drexel

“In literary criticism, the term fabulation was popularized by Robert Scholes, in his book The Fabulators, to describe the large and growing class of mostly 20th century novels that are in a style similar to magical realism, and do not fit into the traditional categories of realism or romance.”

BOSTON — An undine (or Ondine) is a mythological water elemental out of the European tradition. The Swiss alchemist Paracelsus wrote of a nymph who became human out of love for a mortal man. Without love, she has no soul and cannot live on land. Undine must take care for she will die if her lover is unfaithful. 

An undine stands as a modern metaphor for the woman who cannot let go of love. Her relationship is over, her lover moved on, but the undine will not move on. There’s the possibility of a happy ending though – Undine can go home if she kills her boyfriend before he cheats

Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine puts Undine (Lyndsay Allyn Cox) at the top of her game. She has everything: a wildly successful boutique PR firm in Manhattan, a handsome husband Hervé (Jaime José Hernández) with a fancy accent to match his l’accent aigu, a devoted assistant (Brittani Jenese McBride), a full bank account, a bougie accountant (Barlow Adamson), and more social currency than Wendy Williams. Or, she does until Hervé disappears with his clothing and every last penny she has. And, she’s reluctantly pregnant.  Continue reading

Jun 11

Believe Victims, Listen to Black Women: “The Light” at the Lyric Stage

Photo by Mark S Howard; Dominic Carter and Yewande Odetoyinbo.

Presented by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston
By Loy A. Webb
Directed by Jacqui Parker
Intimacy direction by Ted Hewlett
COVID safety officer: Emily Collins
Music credit: “Natural High” from the EP “After Hours,” Allyssa Jones feat. Apollo Payton
Featuring: Dominic Carter and Yewande Odetoyinbo

June 3-June 26, 2022
Lyric Stage Company of Boston
140 Clarendon St
Boston, MA 02116
The Playbill 
70 minutes with no intermission

Review by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — The Light at Lyric State of Boston demands its audience believe victims, to listen to them. Trust their stories; lead with compassion. 

In a 2020 article by the American Psychological Association, “Black Women Often Ignored by Social Justice Movements,” lead researcher Stewart Coles said “Black women are often overlooked in people’s conversations about racism and sexism even though they face a unique combination of both of these forms of discrimination simultaneously.” Continue reading

May 05

The Politics of Punching Down: “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”

Jennifer Ellis, Robert St. Laurence*, Kate Klika, Phil Tayler, Jared Troilo*, Lori L’Italien, Aimee Doherty*, Todd McNeel, Jr., Leigh Barrett*. Photo by Mark S. Howard.

Presented by The Lyric Stage Company of Boston
Music and Lyrics by Steven Lutvak
Book and Lyrics by Robert L. Freedman
Directed by Spiro Veloudos
Music Direction by Matthew Stern
Choreography by Larry Sousa

April 15 – May 22, 2022
Lyric Stage Company
40 Clarendon St
Boston, MA
Tickets

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

BOSTON, Mass. — Laughter is never neutral. Whiteness is never neutral. A comedy of manners might stake the claim that farce is some great, humanizing equalizer, but humor is inherently directional: someone is always doing the laughing, and something, or someone, is always being laughed at.

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, which won the Tony in 2014 for Best Musical, is vague about its directionality. Ostensibly, we’re laughing at the hypocritical mores of upper crust Edwardian England, but we’re just as often prompted to laugh at, for example, effeminate men, hyper-feminine women, or the “exotic” peoples suffering under the thumb of colonialism offstage. Continue reading