The New England Theatre Geek

Tag: Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

  • When kindness and representation aren’t enough: “Wonder: The Musical”

    Garrett McNally and Donovan Louis Bazemore in Wonder. Photo: Hawver and Hall

    Presented by American Repertory Theater
    Based on the novel “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio and the Lionsgate and Mandeville film Wonder
    Book by Sarah Ruhl
    Music and Lyrics by A Great Big World (Ian Axel and Chad King)
    Directed by Taibi Magar
    Scenic design by Matt Saunders
    Featuring: Melvin Abston, Kaylin Hedges, Alison Luff, Garrett McNally, Javier Muñoz, Nathan Salstone, Max Voehl 

    December 17th, 2025 – February 8th, 2026
    Tickets
    Loeb Drama Center
    64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
    Online playbill

    Review by Maegan Clearwood

    This production depicts bullying and contains fog, haze, strobe, and flashing lights. Recommended for ages 9+.

    CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — With the debut of Wonder: The Musical, the A.R.T. was simultaneously presented with a monumental opportunity and an obstacle. The source material, R.J. Palacio’s 2012 book of the same name, has been lauded as a groundbreaking story of empathy through its first-person portrayal of Auggie, a preteen boy with a facial difference. A Google search for reviews brings up words like “uplifting,” “heart-rending,” and “inspirational.” 

    These very terms that are used to praise the novel are, however, at the root of frequent critique from members of the disability* rights community. Stories about disability far too often rehash tired tropes, portraying disabled characters as “objects of inspiration or charity,” as Professor Ari D. Ne’eman noted in a Harvard School of Public Health panel about the musical, rather than complex people in their own right. These tropes point to the fact that such stories are about disabled people, but not by or for them. (Editor’s note: We in the disabled community call this Inspiration Porn, a term coined by comedian and activist Stella Young. Check out her 2014 TEDx Talk. )  (more…)

  • Yearning for Connection Across Memory: “Summer, 1976”

    Laura Latreille, Lee Mikeska Gardner; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

    Presented by Central Square Theater
    By David Auburn
    Directed by Paula Plum
    Featuring: Lee Mikeska Gardner, Laura Latreille

    November 6 – 30th, 2025
    Central Square Theater
    450 Massachusetts Avenue
    Cambridge, MA 02139

    Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

    CAMBRIDGE, Mass — Summer, 1976 is an intimate play. It is literally small, with a cast of two, a runtime of just 90 minutes, and a cozy little set that brings the actors practically nose-to-nose with the audience. But more interestingly, it is a story about yearning: two women stumble headfirst into an unexpected friendship, underestimating how hungry they are for deep, heart-opening vulnerability. They also underestimate how terrifying that kind of connection can be.

    David Auburn’s play transports us to Ohio during the American bicentennial. Offstage, the women’s liberation movement is in full swing. Onstage, at Central Square Theatre, we could be anywhere, anytime. The set (Kristin Loeffler) features two brightly colored dollhouse-like facades to indicate where different scenes take place, but nothing onstage screams 1970s, and the costumes (Sydney Hovasse) allude to a bit of hippy inspiration without throwing the audience back in time. (more…)

  • Magic in every corner: “The Fairy Tailor”

    Sarah Nolan and a friend.

    Presented by Puppet Showplace Theatre
    Created and performed by Sarah Nolen

    Sept. 27 – 28, 2025
    Brookline Puppet Showcase
    32 Station St.
    Brookline, MA 02445

    Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

    BROOKLINE, Mass. — The cozy stage at Puppet Showplace Theatre in Brookline is overflowing with trinkets and tools: sewing boxes and pincushions; an ironing board and dress form; satins, sequins, and silks. These every day, seemingly mundane objects are the source of resident artist Sarah Nolen’s magic as she transports us beyond her shop walls and into three fantastical fairy tale worlds.

    Nolen plays the titular tailor, who desperately needs the audience’s help as she frantically prepares for a visit from her biggest, scariest customer in The Fairy Tailor. To calm her frayed nerves, she tells stories, each with a quirky, interactive twist (and plenty of puns). (more…)

  • Pushing the boundaries of genre and form: “Passengers”

    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. (more…)

  • Queer pride through historical reimagining: “Bull in a China Shop”

    Karen Dervin as Dean Welsh and Linnea Lyerly as Woolley; Photo by Brian Higgins.

    Presented by The Treehouse Collective
    By Bryna Turner
    Directed by Lisa Tierney
    Lighting design by Dan Clawson
    Set design by Britt Ambruson
    Featuring: Linnea Lyerly, Heidi White, Karen Dervin, Anneke Salvadori, Hannah Young, Lena Vani

    Abbott Memorial Theatre at Hovey Players
    9 Spring Street
    Waltham, MA 02451
    June 13 – 29, 2025

    Accessibility Note: There are a total of 13 steps to get downstairs to the theatre, with no elevator access.  

    Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

    WALTHAM – The most radical element of Bull in a China Shop is emblemized by its earliest visuals. Two women in early 20th century garb lounge on a bed together, tangled in each other’s arms. Everything is perfectly mundane: they discuss personal and professional dreams; they quarrel; they kiss. And they do explain their queerness to the audience. They simply exist in their historical moment, no excuses necessary.

    Bull in a China Shop by Bryna Turner isn’t a perfect play, but it fits neatly into The Treehouse Collective’s ethos. Their seasons largely feature contemporary works that give voice to ahead-of-their-time trailblazers (particularly women and queer folks, although I hope their team will add some more racial diversity to their season selection in the future) whose stories have otherwise been silenced by the patriarchal, heteronormative archival machine. (more…)

  • A harmonious masterpiece that’s worth the trek: “Topdog/Underdog”

    Presented by Lanes Coven Theater Company
    By Suzan-Lori Parks
    Directed by Kadeem Ali Harris
    Featuring Akilah A. Walker and Adrianna Mitchell

    Windhover Performing Arts Center
    257R Granite Street
    Rockport, MA 01966
    May 30 – June 15, 2025

    Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

    ROCKPORT, Mass. — Lanes Coven Theater Company sets up shop at Windhover Performing Arts Center, a picturesque campus of indoor and outdoor workspaces in Cape Ann, nestled away at the end of a trail of winding, seaside roads. The company’s current production of Topdog/Underdog is being staged in the Chapel, a tall, barn-like structure that reverberates from whatever elements are roiling outside, with just enough room for 50 or so intrepid audience members who are in on a secret: there’s some damn good theatre in the corners of New England if you’re willing to make the trek. (more…)

  • Bold, Brutalist Political Commentary: “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”

    In Photo: Melinda Lopez, Wesley Savick, Nael Nacer, Evan Taylor, Luz Lopez, Barlow Adamson, Photo by: Nile Scott Studios

    Presented by Central Square Theater
    By George Bernard Shaw
    Directed by Eric Tucker
    Featuring Barlow Adamson, Luz Lopez, Melinda Lopez, Nael Nacer, Wesley Savick, Evan Taylor

    Central Square Theater
    May 29 – June 22, 2025
    450 Massachusetts Avenue
    Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

    Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

    Cambridge, MA — If there is one theme that director Eric Tucker drives home with his take on George Bernard Shaw’s once-controversial drama, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, it is greed. Scenes of domestic heartbreak play out in a sleek, modern boardroom; children and parents bicker from either end of a lengthy conference table; and overhead, capitalism’s unfeeling gaze surveilles the characters in the form of frenetically changing stock market numbers.

    In theory, this modern approach should illuminate aspects of the play that feel trite by 21st century standards. The mere mention of Mrs. Warren’s profession (spoiler alert: she owns a brothel.) was controversial by late-Victorian standards, but the play’s truly radical nature lies in a question that remains just as pertinent today: Can genuine human connection survive when capitalism renders everything, even the most primal of relationships, merely transactional? (more…)

  • A Heartfelt Take on a Modern Classic: “The Light in the Piazza”

    The cast of The Light in the Piazza; directed by Loretta Greco; photo by Julieta Cervantes.

    Presented by The Huntington
    Book by Craig Lucas
    Music and lyrics by Adam Guettel
    Based on the novel by Elizabeth Spencer
    Directed by Loretta Greco
    Music direction by Andrea Grody
    Scenic design by Andrew Boyce
    Lighting design by Christopher Akerlind
    Costume design by Alex Jaeger
    Featuring Emily Skinner, Sarah-Anne Martinez, Joshua Grosso, William Michals,
    Rebecca Pitcher, Alexander Ross, Rebekah Rae Robles

    May 9 – June 15, 2025
    The Huntington Theatre
    264 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115

    Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

    BOSTON – When The Light in the Piazza premiered on Broadway two decades ago, it was lauded as a quaint but refreshing return to style, and Adam Guettel’s delicate, almost operatic score became an instant classic. Compared to contemporary 2000s box-office smashes like Spamalot and Avenue Q, this intimate love story favors pathos over spectacle, sincerity over irony – on the surface, it’s as old school as a 21st Century musical can get.

    Classic as it may look and sound, however, The Light in the Piazza is a weird little musical. It examines the idea of love through a myriad of refractions: passion, to be sure, but also power, possessiveness, and loss. It frequently shatters the fourth wall and its own idyllic veneer. At times, it is disarmingly funny; at others, profoundly sad. (more…)

  • A Cosmic Meditation on Hope: “Utopian Hotline”

    Theater Mitu; Utopian Hotline.

    Presented by ArtsEmerson & Museum of Science
    Conceived and developed by Theater Mitu
    Produced in association with Octopus Theatricals
    In partnership with SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, Arizona State University’s Interplanetary Initiative, and Brooklyn Independent Middle School
    Directed by Ruben Polendo
    Featuring Kayla Asbell, Denis Butkus, Michael Littig, Monica Sanborn

    May 01, 2025 – May 18, 2025
    Museum of Science, Planetarium
    1 Museum of Science Driveway, Boston, MA 02114

    Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

    BOSTON — Theater Mitu squeezes a myriad of existential questions into its 45-minute Boston planetarium experience, Utopian Hotline: Is utopia possible? Do we exist alongside an infinite number of parallel universes? Is there life beyond our tiny speck of a planet? Is time linear, a social construct, or flat circle? What is the point of love and art when our lives are so cosmically insignificant?

    Theater Mitu never fully grapples with any of these questions. Instead, it gently poses them, invites the audience to meditate on our internal responses, and lets them drift away into the ephemerality of human memory.

    This experience parallels the NASA Voyager mission that inspired the piece. In 1977, scientists launched a golden record into space, offering a sonic glimpse into the human experience for whomever might discover them. There is no surety of these messages being heard again, but the act of creating them is an exercise in hope for our little green planet. (more…)

  • A Springtime Treat for the Senses and Soul: “Crowns”

    Cast photo by Chelcy Garrett.

    Presented by Moonbox Productions
    Community Partner: Rosie’s Place
    By Regina Taylor
    Adapted from the book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry
    Directed by Regine Vital
    Associate Directed by Davron Monroe
    Music Directed by David Coleman
    Music Accompaniment by David Freeman Coleman (keyboard) and Brandon Mayes (drums)
    Costume Design by E Rosser
    Set Design by Baron E. Pugh
    Featuring: Cortlandt Barret, Janelle Grace, Kaedon Gray, Lovely Hoffman, Mirrorajah, Cheryl D. Singleton, Mildred E. Walker

    April 11th – May 4th
    Arrow Street Arts
    2 Arrow St., Cambridge, MA 02138.
    Tickets here

    Article by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

    CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — After a long, dark winter, Crowns is a musical manifestation of springtime, bursting with color, decadence, and jubilation. Regina Taylor’s musical is adapted from Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry’s photography/oral history book of the same name, and it’s been a staple of the American regional theatre scene for over two decades. Although this musical celebration of African American womanhood is in many ways timeless, Moonbox Production’s staging, directed by Regine Vital, is impeccably here-and-now, coming across as a breath of sweet, fresh air in this dire political moment.

    Crowns is largely structured like a church worship service, but it is bookended by Yoruban ritual. The first sounds we hear come from Man/Elegba’s (the only male character, played by Kaedon Gray) staff during the processional prologue, a heartbeat that echoes through the play and draws a clear connection between Black church culture and African tradition. Crowns proceeds with a scant narrative: Yolanda (Mirrorajah), a young, hardened teen, is sent from Brooklyn to the South after her brother is killed. There, her grandmother (Mildred E. Walker) welcomes her into a community of Church Ladies, who regale Yolanda with stories about their most sacred, royal accessory: hats. (more…)

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