The New England Theatre Geek

Tag: Matthew Zahnzinger

  • Don’t Tell Me the Odds: “Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka”

    Photo by Nile Scott.

    Presented by Wheelock Family Theatre
    Music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newly
    Adapted for the stage by Leslie Bricusse and Timothy Allen McDonald
    Based on the book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
    Directed by Emily Ranii
    Music directed by Nathan Urdangen 
    Choreographed by Russell Garrett

    Oct 25 – Nov. 17, 2019
    Boston University
    200 Riverway 
    Boston, MA 02215
    Wheelock on Facebook

    Critique by Kitty Drexel

    (Boston, MA) Wheelock Family Theatre’s production of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka (2004) should not be confused with the West End and Broadway production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2013). Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is currently touring in the US (now in Omaha!). Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka is not. Both incorporate elements from Dahl’s novel and the two Hollywood movies. They are similar but not the same.  

    Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka cannot compete with the novel or the movies. Fans of the other Wonka media should view this iteration as the children’s theatre it is and not compare it to its source materials. They will be disappointed. (more…)

  • Constant Good Affections: “The Clearing”

    Presented by Hub Theatre Company of Boston
    By Helen Edmundson
    Directed by Daniel Bourque
    Assistant direction and dramaturgy by Isabel Dollar
    Dialect coaching by Meredith Gosselin
    Fight direction by Samantha Richert

    April 5 – 20, 2019
    First Church in Boston
    66 Marlborough St
    Boston, MA
    Hub on Facebook

    Critique by Kitty Drexel

    (Boston, MA) The Clearing is about white on white ethnic cleansing. It is 1652 and Cromwell is rabid for Catholic land and English Royalist lives. His Parliament passed the Act for the Settlement of Ireland and sentenced them to lives in Connaught, deportation to Barbados, or to death. It wasn’t very pleasant for anyone except Cromwell’s cronies. Hub Theatre’s production isn’t a hopeful production (the colonizers win) but it tells a necessary story.  
    (more…)

  • “Twelfth Night” Thrums with Life

    L to R: Sarah Gazdowicz (OIivia), Charlotte Kinder (Viola); Photo Credit: Sharman Altshuler

    Presented by Moonbox Productions
    Written by William Shakespeare
    Directed by Allison Olivia Choat

    Nov 25 – Dec 29, 2018
    Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre
    539 Tremont Street
    Boston, MA 02116
    Moonbox Productions on Facebook

    Review by Gillian Daniels

    (Boston, MA) There are productions of Shakespeare that are focused on reciting the text rather than acting it out. I understand the temptation. Maybe it’s the rhythm, maybe it’s the Bard’s reputation as, well, THE BARD, but sometimes theater groups seem to engage with Shakespeare’s comedy as a text to worship rather than a story to tell, even with a comedy like Twelfth Night. I’m happy to say Moonbox Production not only engages with the high emotions, cartoonish confusion, and whacky consequences of the comical cross-dressing romance but celebrates the story and its jokes with delight. (more…)

  • First Do Harm: “Mrs. Packard”

    Photo credit: Marc J. Franklin; Mrs. Packard and inmates.

    Presented by Bridge Repertory Theatre & Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company
    Written by Emily Mann
    Directed by Emily Ranii

    March 15 – April 9, 2017
    Multicultural Arts Center
    East Cambridge, MA
    Bridge Rep on Facebook
    Playhouse Creatures on Facebook

    Review by Kitty Drexel

    Trigger Warnings: Torture, domestic abuse, nudity, implied horror, gaslighting

    “Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater,
    Had a wife and couldn’t keep her;
    He put her in a pumpkin shell,
    And there he kept her very well.”
    – Traditional nursery rhyme about “Peter” who couldn’t control his (allegedly sexually adventurous) wife so he killed her.  

    (East Cambridge, MA) The more things change; the more they stay the same. Mrs. Packard is about how a panel of straight, white men made uninformed decisions on a woman’s health without her consent. Sound familiar? It should. It’s 2017, and treating women with respect is still a revolutionary act. (more…)

  • Too Many Words: AMADEUS

    Moonbox Productions - AMADEUS (L-R) Matthew Zahnzinger - "Antonio Salieri", Cody Sloan - "Amadeus Mozart" Photographer: Earl Christie
    Moonbox Productions – AMADEUS, (L-R) Matthew Zahnzinger – “Antonio Salieri”, Cody Sloan – “Amadeus Mozart”
    Photographer: Earl Christie

    Presented by Moonbox Productions
    By Peter Shaffer
    Directed/choreographed by Allison Olivia Choat
    Music direction by Dan Rodriguez
    Period music consultation by Thomas Carroll

    Nov. 25 – Dec. 17, 2016
    Plaza Theatre
    Boston Center for the Arts
    Boston, MA
    Moonbox on Facebook

    Review by Kitty Drexel

    (Boston, MA) Moonbox’s Amadeus is a delightful tragedy. Tragic because Mozart dies. Also tragic because playwright Shaffer likes to hear his own words spoken aloud. It’s made a delight by the elegant, classically lined staging by Choat, and the performances from the cast.   (more…)

  • Two Reviewers, One Play: ARCADIA

    The Cast of ARCADIA. Photo: A.R. Sinclair Photography
    The Cast of ARCADIA. Photo: A.R. Sinclair Photography

    Presented by Central Square Theater & and the Nora Theatre Company
    Written by Tom Stoppard
    Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner

    Current-May 15, 2016
    Central Square Theater
    Central Square, Cambridge, MA
    Central Square/Nora Theatre on Facebook

    Noe and I attended this performance together. We were impacted differently so we both wrote reviews. One follows after the other below.  (more…)

  • Can’t Get No Satisfaction: THE SINGULARITY

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    Presented by Science Fiction Theatre Company
    By Crystal Jackson
    Directed by Cait Robinson

    Sept. 19 – Oct. 5, 2014
    The Factory Theater
    Boston, MA
    SF Theatre Co on Facebook

    Review by Kitty Drexel

    (Boston, MA) The moral of The Singularity is that if women don’t have access to the safe, affordable health care, they’ll do what they must to get it unaffordably and unsafely.  For example, if access to safe abortions is severely limited or denied outright that doesn’t mean that women won’t have abortions. It means that more women will die having unsafe, illegal abortions*. Playwright Crystal Jackson attacks the opposite of safe abortion in this comedy presented by Science Fiction Theatre Co. (more…)

  • The Future is the Present and It’s Dystopian: READER

    Photo found on the Flat Earth Facebook page.
    Photo found on the Flat Earth Facebook page.

    Presented by Flat Earth Theatre
    By Ariel Dorfman
    Directed by Jake Scaltreto

    June 13 – 21, 2014
    Arsenal Center for the Arts
    Watertown, MA
    Flat Earth on Facebook

    Trigger Warning: Some light cursing, conservative politics, implied torture

    Review by Kitty Drexel

    (Watertown) If dystopian science fiction is any indication, our future is bleak. In the future, rich people are very rich and the poor are very poor. The politicians are corrupted,  we have no global resources, and the ecosystem has gone to pot. The good news is that there is always an hero to save us… eventually. The future sounds a lot like the present.

    Not unlike Terry Gilliam’s 1985 film Brazil, Dorfman’s Reader is a story within a story set in a future where all potentially unpleasant emotional elements of life have been stripped away. Violence and sexiness are routinely scrubbed from all media sources. The government occupies all spaces. There is no true freedom of expression. Daniel (the handsome Robin Gabrielli) is a suave yet dirty government censor who discovers that the most recent novel to cross his desk parallels his own life. In this novel, Daniel is Don Alfonso an unscrupulous censor working on film scripts. He is rightly paranoid and begins a short-lived journey towards redemption. (more…)

  • Music to Rock a Revolution: “Rock ‘n’ Roll”

    Photo credit: The Longwood Players; the cast does not headbang in this production.

     

    Presented by The Longwood Players
    By Tom Stoppard
    Directed by Kaitlyn Chantry

    Cambridge YMCA Theater
    820 Mass. Ave.
    Central Square, Cambridge MA
    November 9 – 17
    Longwood Players Facebook Page

    Review by Kitty Drexel

    (Cambridge) If you enjoy rock legends such as The Doors, The Velvet Underground, or Pink Floyd (Sid Barrett) with a dollop of political science philosophy, Rock ‘n’ Roll is for you. If not, I suggest skipping this heady production by The Longwood Players. There is a lot to value here but the cerebral participation necessary to enjoy Tom Stoppard’s work may overwhelm the audience goer expecting a lighter devotional to Rock. (more…)

  • Haunting Echoes of Brilliance: FLOYD COLLINS

    Phil Tayler as Floyd Collins, photo by Sharman Altshuler

    Floyd Collins, Music and Lyrics by Adam Guettal, Book and Additional Lyrics by Tina Landau, Moonbox Productions, Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 4/5/12-4/15/12, http://www.moonboxproductions.org/.

    Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

    (Boston, MA) There are many ways to be trapped. For some thrill-seekers, the risk of death and the short life it might bring is a better alternative than dying incrementally in quiet desperation.   (more…)

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