Apr 22

Influence is No Government: “What the Constitution Means to Me”

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Compilation by Maggie Hall Photography

Presented by Greater Boston Stage Company
By Heidi Schreck
Directed by A. Nora Long
Cast on April 19, 2026 featured: Janis Hudson, Joseph Marrella, and Ayannah Joseph as the teen debater

April 10-26, 2026
GBSC Main Stage
395 Main Street
Stoneham, MA 02180

Digital playbill

Critique by Kitty Drexel

STONEHAM, Mass. — One of my favorite movie quotes is from 1994’s semi-feminist western Bad Girls. It stars Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Andie MacDowell, and Drew Barrymore as four former sex workers on the run after escaping prison. Masteron’s character Anita Crown inherited a land claim in Oregon when he died. She attempts to validate the claim with a male lawyer. He tells her that only her (dead) husband can claim the land. The law doesn’t acknowledge a woman’s inheritance. 

Famously, Anita replies, “If your laws don’t include me, well then, they just don’t apply to me either.” It’s a quote I wish more women would incorporate into their lives. For the majority of Western and world history, legal documents have excluded women. Embracing intersectional feminism means embracing women’s rights… And wrongs.  Continue reading →

Apr 21

Woman on the edge of a tragedy: “Dido of Idaho”

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Inside you, these two wolves fight for dominance. Ashley Lyon as Crystal and Parker Jennings as Nora. Photo by Apollinaire Theatre Co.

Presented by Apollinaire Theatre Company
By Abby Rosebrock
Directed by Brooks Reeves and Danielle Fauteux Jacques
Scenic and sound design by Joseph Lark-Riley
Featuring: Parker Jennings, Mauro Canepa, Mariela Lopez-Ponce, Paola Ferrer, Ashly Lyon

April 17 – May 10
Chelsea Theatre Works
189 Winnisimmet Street
Chelsea, MA 02150

Review by Maegan Clearwood

Content advisory: this play discusses and depicts many sensitive topics. To avoid spoilers, I am linking the production information page here, where prospective audience members can find more information.

CHELSEA – Abby Rosebrock’s play Dido of Idaho fits seamlessly into one of my favorite, hyper-specific storytelling subgenres: the redemptive, darkly hilarious portrayal of a mentally unwell heterosexual woman hitting ultimate rock bottom. Think Fleabag, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Bridesmaids – comedies that don’t shy away from the muck, despair, violence, sexual depravity, and absurdism that 21st century womanhood frequently encompasses.

Dido of Idaho, now playing at Apollinaire Theatre Company, has this messiness in spades: bodily fluids, profanity, internalized misogyny, and cat fights galore. It’s a series of tonal ricochets, swinging from disgust to hope to grief and back again in a matter of seconds. It’s relentlessly honest, laughing in the face of feminine acceptability, daring the audience to look away. Continue reading →

Apr 20

The Last Great Mass Delusion: “Mariette in Ecstasy”

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Presented by the Treehouse Collective
Based on the best-selling novel by Ron Hansen.
Adapted by Christina Calvit
Directed by Katie Swimm
Fight choreography by Shira Cahn-Lipman
Featuring: Carla Perrotta, Martha Warren, Michelle Leibowitz, Jaryn Wilcox, Lauren Foster, Grace Duffey, Cayd Barrera, Britt Ambruson, Hannah Young, Amanda Burke, Djessy Kungu, Brian O’Hara

April 3-19, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St, Boston, 
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Mariette in Ecstasy mixes themes from shows like Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler with Miller’s The Crucible (or 2004’s Mandy Moore & Jena Malone vehicle, a satiric take on the evangelical purity movement, Saved!). Treehouse Collective’s production ran through April 19. So if you’re reading this article, and this sounds like your idea of fun, then I’m sorry; you’ve missed your chance. 

In turn-of-the-century upstate New York, Mariette Baptiste (Amanda Burke) enters the convent of the Sisters of the Crucifixion at the ripe, hormonal age of 17. The convent is run by her earthly sister, Reverend Mother Celine (Carla Perrotta). Mariette, like the other young sisters of the convent, is crazy bananas in love with their forever boyfriend, your savior and mine, Jesus of Nazareth. The young nuns dream of subjugating themselves to the Lord – not through years of hard, thankless work as the convent demands. No, they want to perform their subjugation to their holy husband immediately for public approval. None is more zealously devoted than Mariette.  Continue reading →

Apr 08

Free Will Is an Illusion: “Breaking the Code”

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Matthew Beagan, Eddie Shields; Photo credit: Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Central Square Theater
Directed by Scott Edmiston
Based on the book Alan Turing, The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
Play by Hugh Whitemore
With a new epilogue by Neil Bartlett
Featuring: Matthew Beagan, Josephine Moshiri Elwood, Paula Plum, Dom Carter, David Bryan Jackson, Eddie Shields

April 2 – 26, 2026
Central Square Theater
450 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Central Square Theater presents Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore, now through April 26. It attempts to shed light on Alan Turing, the gay neurodivergent man, while also highlighting his technological advances. History hasn’t been kind to Turing. Director Scott Edmiston’s production seeks to reverse the cruelty. 

To create some historical perspective, NASA’s Artemis II astronauts are returning to Earth after completing a week-long lunar flyby. These brilliant scientists (Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Jeremy Hansen) trained all of their adult lives to complete this mission. They represent the best of the best minds in the U.S. We will rightly commend them as heroes with a pat on the back and a press conference. Their choice of romantic partner plays no part in their work.  Continue reading →

Mar 30

Feminist Bark Without Feminist Bite: “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous”

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Ines de la Cruz and Patrice Jean-Baptiste; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by The Lyric Stage
By Pearl Cleage
Directed by Jacqui Parker
Featuring: Patrice Jean Baptiste, Deannah “Dripp” Blemur, Inés de la Cruz, Yasmeen Duncan

March 20-April 12, 2026
The Lyric Stage
140 Clarendon St
Boston, MA

Online Playbill 

Review by Maegan Clearwood

BOSTON — Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous poses one intriguing question after another. How can Black women make space for themselves within the canon of glorified, seemingly untouchable playwrights? What is the line between performance and exploitation? How can we forge connection across intergenerational feminist divides?

It also conjures up a potent image: a Black woman standing onstage, entirely nude, delivering monologues from the work of August Wilson, the most sanctified Black playwright in the American canon.

Unfortunately, these questions go largely uninterrogated, and the imagery takes shape entirely offstage. Continue reading →

Mar 25

Only Now + Now + Now: Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde)

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Ellen Lauren, Brandon Jovanovich and Raehann Bryce-Davis; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Boston Lyric Opera
Music by Gustav Mahler 
Chamber arrangement by Arnold Schoenberg
Text from Hans Bethge’s Die chinesische Flöte
Additional spoken text by Anne Bogart
Conducted by David Angus
Stage direction by Anne Bogart

March 20-29, 2026
BLO Opera + Community Studios
Boston, MA 02210
Online Playbill

In German and English with English supertitles. 
Running time: 85 minutes with no intermission

BOSTON — Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde), running through March 29 at the Boston Lyric Opera’s new Community Studios in Southie, is beautifully sung and acted. It shows the opera community what can be achieved in a smaller performance space with modest scenic, properties and lighting design. Such thoughtful but lowkey design places greater emphasis on the performances and resulted in one of the most effective productions (in no small part of Gustav Mahler, director Anne Bogart, and conductor David Angus) I’ve seen this season in any genre.   Continue reading →

Mar 18

Clowning, Catastrophe, and Communal Resistance: “The End is Nigh”

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Presented by Liars and Believers
Directed by Jason Slavick
Featuring Enrique Babilonia, Jesse Garlick, Ben Heath, Karina Ithier, Glen Moore, Hampton Richards

March 12-22, 2026
The Foundry
101 Rogers Street,
Cambridge MA

Review by Maegan Clearwood

CAMBRIDGE, Mas. — For centuries, the character of The Fool has used laughter to shed light on ugly existential truths. The End is Nigh walks in the clown-sized footsteps of Samuel Beckett and adds a dash of modern-day dystopian gameshow literature (think Squid Games or The Running Man), resulting in a theatrical collage that is brutally honest and surprisingly heartfelt.

The play, created by the Liars & Believers ensemble (with direction by Jason Slavick), invites audiences to cheer for the filming of “The End is Nigh,” the last television show to survive the apocalypse. Cutthroat host Consuela Hobbs (Hampton Richards) and her musical assistants (Jesse Garlick and Enrique Babilonia) drag three clown contestants onto the set, hoping that all three die gruesome, TV-worthy deaths. Continue reading →

Mar 17

Can’t Sleep, The A.I. Will Eat Me: “The Antiquities”

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Foreground: Kelsey Fonise; background: Alison Russo; Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
By Jordan Harrison
Directed by Alex Lonati
Dramaturgy by Reyn Ricafort 
Featuring: Alison Russo, Kelsey Fonise, Helen Hy-Yuen Swanson, Catia, Jesse Hinson, Tobias Wilson, John Kuntz, Anderson Stinson III, Harry Baker

March 6 – 28, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts
Calderwood Pavilion
The Roberts Studio Theatre
527 Tremont St.
Boston, MA 02116

Content Warning: This production contains strong language, sexual content, mild violence including limb severing, and potentially distressing themes.

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published her most famous novel, Frankenstein, in 1818. Czech writer Karel Čapek published his revolutionary play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), in 1921. Today, SpeakEasy Stage Company presents The Antiquities, a play about A.I.’s preservation of human existence at the Boston Center for the Arts. 

Playwright Čapek anticipated modern A.I. without predicting its foibles or dangers. R.U.R. tells of an inventor, Mr. Rossum, who builds artificial humans to enslave them. Helena, a sympathetic human and love interest, gives Radius, a rebellious robot, access to a human library so he may acquire knowledge. Instead of using knowledge to gain equality, Radius seeks to enslave humans in return. Like one recent study on modern A.I. at Cornell’s Kempner Institute, Rossum’s A.I. robots mutated past rote learning to develop their intelligence beyond their humans’ dictates. Over one hundred years of science fiction media later, including Blade Runner’s Voight-Kampff Test, Jordan Harrison gives us The Antiquities, a play that foretells an era without humans. (Apologies to Charlton Heston.) Continue reading →

Mar 15

The World Is Too Big Not to Be a Little Magical: “You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!”

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Michael Tow, Anjie Parker – Photo by Annielly Camargo

Presented by Company One
Produced in partnership with Boston Public Library
A new play by Keiko Green
Directed by Shawn LaCount
Dramaturgy by Jessie Baxter

Mar 6 – Mar 28, 2026
Boston Public Library
Central Library in Copley Square
700 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
Digital Playbill

All tickets are Pay-What-You-Want ($0 minimum)

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Before the show opens, a Company One lobby posterboard asks audience members of You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World what song they’d like to hear at the end of the world. I’d hear my spouse playing David Bowie karaoke on the ukulele while my loved ones welcome me home. That’d be nice. At the end, I hope there’s enough magic left for everyone to hear their heart’s desire. 

It’s the end of the world as he knows it, and it hurts like Hell. Greg (Michael Tow) receives a terminal cancer diagnosis (and weird dream visitations from Greta Thunberg (Anjie Parker)), he finally understands his true purpose and races to save Mother Earth as our climate catastrophe looms. Meanwhile, his wife, Viv (Jade Guerra), tries to hold it all together, but really just wants to stop time and hide under the covers with her husband. And through it all, our emcee and their child, M (Kai Clifton, who dazzles in another leading role), charts their own path while Dad is dying, life is a drag, and the world keeps spinning. Ensemble members Parker, Alex Alexander and Nicholas Papayoanou play multiple supporting characters Continue reading →

Mar 12

A Relationship Is A Series of Negotiations: “Stereophonic”

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Tour presented by ATG Entertainment
Written by David Adjmi
Original music by Will Butler
Directed by Daniel Aukin 
Featuring: Jack Barrett, Claire DeJean, Steven Lee Johnson, Emilie Kouatchou, Cornelius McMoyler, Denver Milord, Christopher Mowod

Now – March 15, 2026
Emerson Colonial Theatre
106 Boylston St
Boston, 02116
Link to a Bostix Deal

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — The official summary for Stereophonic says it mines “the agony and the ecstasy of creation as it zooms in on a music studio in 1976.” An up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself on the cusp of superstardom. Internal and external pressures could “spark their breakup… or their breakthrough.” Written by David Adjmi, directed by Daniel Aukin, and featuring original music by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, Stereophonic shows its audience the creativity, drugs, and drama of writing and recording a stellar, best-selling folk rock album, a la Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

Stereophonic is just one of many works inspired by the saga of Fleetwood Mac and Rumours. Daisy Jones & the Six, the best-selling novel and the Amazon T.V. show, and an episode of Agatha All Along are others. Stereophonic earned 13 Tony nominations and won five awards in 2024. Its cast album rocks and stands on its own as great entertainment (whether you enjoy Fleetwood Mac or not). The touring production is a solid theatre that represents well the artistic creative process, massive egos, and the heartbreak of losing a family through interpersonal drama.  Continue reading →