Author Archives: gilliandaniels

Apr 11

Whimsy and Existential Dread in Swampland: “Alligator-a-Phobia in 3D!”

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Katherine Perry (foreground), Maurie Moore, Savannah Scott, Ernesto Garrido Gonzalez; Photo by Stratton McCrady.

Presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
A BU New Play Initiative production, produced by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre
Directed by Shamus
Written and Music Composed by Jay Eddy
Set Design by Ami Okazaki

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
April 6-16, 2023
Thurs. 7:30 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m.
To purchase, visit www.BostonPlaywrights.org
Boston Playwright’ Theatre on Facebook

Critique by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) A heart trembling with anxiety beats inside the slimy gullet of the workshop production of Alligator-a-Phobia in 3D!, a quirky, genre-jumping play with high energy musical interludes. In this dramedy, a naive, young couple moves to alligator-infested southern Florida swampland. Nature photojournalist Sweetness (the charming Katherine Perry) makes the change with enthusiasm. Happy (Leah Kreitz in a powerful performance), a poet who’s recently completed an MFA, slowly becomes frozen in fear by their predatory neighbors (the frenetic alligator ensemble of Kendall McShane, Maurie Moore, Ernesto Garrido Gonzalez, and Savannah Scott). Continue reading →

Apr 29

Contemplation, Charm, and Chickens in Gallo: A Fable in Music in One Act – Encore Performance

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Presented and Commissioned by Guerilla Opera
Music and Libretto by Ken Ueno
Directed by Sarah Meyers
Set Design by Julia Noulin‐Mérat 

Live Watch Party April 23, 2021 8pm EST 
Video on Demand April 24 – May 16, 2021 
Filmed from a live performance on May 23, 2014 in the Zack Box at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee
Tickets available until Sunday, May 16, 2021
Guerilla Opera on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) Have you heard the one about the chicken that crossed the road? Yes? What about the one regarding what came first, the chicken or the egg? Really? Okay. What about the one about Diogenes the Cynic who, when Plato called men “featherless bipeds,” plucked a chicken, brought it to Plato’s Academy, and shouted, “Behold! A man!” Because the last is a wonderful encapsulation of what Ken Ueno and Guerilla Opera have created.

The encore performance of Gallo: A Fable in Music in One Act uses animals to poke at mortal folly, to laugh at us and our flimsy hold on the order of the universe, at ontology, philosophy, and all the castles we build in culture that will one day fall into the sea. That particular anecdote is also a great definition of the show’s continued subversion of expectations, like the fact it takes place on a beach made entirely of Cheerios.  Continue reading →

Jan 28

Lying, Believing, and Hoping “Beyond A Winter’s Day”

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Presented by Liars & Believers and Moonbox Productions
Written by Rachel Wiese (To Bed To Bed & Vasalisa the Blessed) and Jesse Garlick (Malka and the Behema)
Directed by Jason Slavick
Costume Design by Kendra Bell
Featuring Music by Veronica Barron, Singer Mali, and Carols Odria
Video Editing by Sam Powell
Zoom Mastery by Cynthia Hu

January 15 – March 27, 2021
Facebook
Website

Review by Gillian Daniels

ZOOM – In winter, spring is a fairy tale. That sounds pretty ridiculous, what with empirical data suggesting, yes, the northern hemisphere will tilt once again toward the sun. If you, like me, are on the East Coast in January, though, it’s going to be a while, and what with the current horror of a plague ravaging the country, this winter is particularly bleak. The usual comforts of gathering indoors with friends and family are not as available to us as they have been in the past. So, why not unite with one another through the power of sharing stories? Continue reading →

Dec 15

“The Race” Plays with Interactivity and Corporate Dystopia

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Workshop Presented by The Wilbury Theatre Group
Written by Mark Binder
Directed by Brien Lang
Original Music by Nikita Zabinski
Stage Management by Shoshana Adler

December 4 & 6, 2020
Live on Zoom
Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

ZOOM — Have you ever had the wild urge to play a first-person shooter and hefting a gun that ends the lives of digital characters? No? What about being granted the power to give or take away their livelihood? With The Race, a piece workshopped earlier this month by The Wilbury Theatre Group, you’re given almost all the abilities of a faceless tribunal to do just that! It’s an engaging work of theater constructed to utilize Zoom. It’s also difficult, upsetting, and timely. Continue reading →

Nov 18

“Much Ado About Nothing”: A Warm, Self-Assured Pandemic Production

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Presented by Hub Theatre Company of Boston
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed and Adapted by Bryn Boice
Stage Managed by Madeline Hartrich and Kelsey Whipple
November 14 – 21, 2020
Boston, MA
YouTube
Pay-What-You-Can Tickets

Review by Gillian Daniels

YOUTUBE – The Hub Theatre Company of Boston is a fixture of our local theater scene. The shows I’ve watched from them over the years vary in content and theme, but going to one of their productions has always had a warm familiarity. To my delight, I found that director Bryn Boice’s online adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing for the pandemic age is no exception. This silly, sweet take on one of the Bard’s comedies is not just made for the moment but feels as if it’s made for the whole of the Boston theater community. Continue reading →

Aug 18

“Knoxville: Summer of 1915” and the Voyage of Nostalgia

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Soprano/Vocals by Sarah Moyer
Piano by Timothy Steele
Artistic Direction by Ryan Turner
Composed by Samuel Barber
Based on prose poem by James Agee

Emmanuel Music
15 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02116
YouTube

Review by Gillian Daniels

ZOOM — You are here and you are not here. You are waiting in your bedroom for your next Zoom meeting to start, you are in the shower taking fifteen minutes for yourself away from your kids, or you are putting on your mask, ready to head into work where you’re considered essential staff, but not essential enough for customers to remember to wear their masks when you take their order.

Simultaneously, your mind is thinking about your family road trips to Iowa, the raucous laughter of your friends in eighth grade, and traveling, once, to Paris. It’s been months since you’ve seen your family all in one place. You’re in your body, living through a strange time and a terrifying plague, simultaneously overwhelmed and bored while sitting in your room for the ninth hour in a row, feeling the spray from the showerhead, or sitting as far as you can from other masked people on the T, some of whom let their masks sit beneath their nostrils because, apparently, the smell of the train is that important. But you’re also encapsulated in your memories.

You are inside a refuge of the mind, the kind Knoxville: Summer of 1915 invokes with Sarah Moyer’s voice and the parred down instrumentation of Timothy Steele. Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is performed as part of a series called Summer Sessions from Emmanuel Music. Continue reading →

Aug 04

“Macbeth” Gets Bloody Good: Part II

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Presented by Liars & Believers
Directed by Jason Slavick
Original Music and Sound Design by Jay Mobley
Additional Video by Sam Powell

June 18, 2020 – Present (Weekly)
View – https://www.liarsandbelievers.com/show/pandemicplay/
LAB on Facebook, Twitter

Review by Gillian Daniels

ZOOM – When we last left our antiheroes, Macbeth (Jesse Garlick) found his ambitions for the throne awoken by three, soothsayer witches (all played by Rebecca Lehrhoff in different registers and Instagram filters) and Lady Macbeth (Rachel Wiese) decided to do whatever was in her power to climb the hegemonic ladder and stomp on every person who got in their way as bloodily as possible. Betrayal has yet to visit ruin and mental anguish on their lives. Continue reading →

Jul 05

“Grindr” (An Operatic Ode to Absent Queer Community During Pandemic)

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Grindr (And Other Concerns) Act 1: An Annotated Singthru
A Comedic Chamber Opera
Fundraiser for Marsha P. Johnson Institute

Directed by Ingrid Oslund
Music by Marc Hoffeditz
Libretto by MJ Halberstadt
Featuring performers Brad Baron, Jonathan Harris, Wes Hunter, Adrian Jones, Craig Juricka, Sara Kerr, and James Lesu’i

June 26 – 27, 2020

Content warning: adult themes and sexual references

Review by Gillian Daniels

ZOOM — “Queerness is about so much more than who you’re sleeping with. It’s also about a sensibility, a sense of camp,” says director Ingrid Oslund.

This could easily serve as the thesis for the zoom presentation of selected pieces from the comic opera-in-progress, Grindr (And Other Concerns). The show follows queer men Brandon, Riley, and Riley’s long-term, timid partner, Eugene, as they use and debate the merits of the titular hook-up app. Their odyssey includes such contemporary pratfalls as mysterious acronyms such as DDF (drug and disease free), sexually transmitted infections, and excitable adults obsessed with Disney. Continue reading →

Nov 20

Art and Capitalist Consumption and “Room&Board&Opera”

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Presented by Boston Opera Collaborative
Music by Jonathan Bailey Holland
Libretto for “The Battle of Bull Run Always Makes Me Cry” and “Naomi in the Living Room” by Jonathan Bailey Holland
Libretto for “Always” by Jon Jory
Music Director & Pianist for “Always” by Patricia Au
Stage Director for “Always” by Ingrid Oslund
Music Director & Pianist for “The Battle of Bull Run Always Makes Me Cry” and “Naomi in the Living Room” by Jean Anderson Collier

November 7, 2019
Room&Board
375 Newbury Street, 
Boston, MA 02115
Room&Board&Opera

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) Room & Board is a US-chain of upscale furniture stores that started in Minnesota about three decades ago. The particular one I went to on Newbury Street has a showroom that has been utilized in a number of Boston-based events, so maybe it’s not so surprising that a theater company would see an opportunity to bring art into an unlikely space. Boston Opera Collaborative has pushed forward with this unexpected, incongruously hilarious venue, setting three, ten-minute comic operas in this space for what was a one-night only event and a unique moment in my time as a theater critic. Continue reading →

Oct 24

“My Fascination with Creepy Ladies” and a Complete Replication of Poe

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Foreground, front to back: Siobhan Carroll, Luz Lopez, Elena Toppo.
Background, front to back: C. Padraig Sullivan, Christine Power, Jessica Golden

Presented by Anthem Theatre Company
A Collection of Horrors by Edgar Allan Poe
Conceived and Directed by Bryn Boice
Featuring Anthem company members Michael Poignand, Johnny Kinsman, Siobhan Carroll, Olivia Z. Cote, Sarah Gazdowicz, Jessica Golden, Katie Grindeland, Luz Lopez, Jessica Scout Malone, Eric McGowan, Christine Power, C. Padraig Sullivan, and Elena Toppo.
Designed by Bridget K. Doyle and Theona White

October 17 – November 3, 2019
South End / BCA Plaza Theatres
Plaza Black Box Theatre
539 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116
Event on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) Berenice, Annie, Ligeia, Rowena, Annabel Lee, Morella, Lenore, and so many others– an archetype with many names collapsed into a single, waifish woman with hair that hangs loose over her shoulders and a hint of otherworldliness. Meanwhile, the heroes and narrators of these stories are boiled down into the figure of a melancholic, bow-tied, possibly opium-addled narrator.

The woman in question is always on the verge of death, or has already died, but in the wake of that death, she is somehow made more beautiful, powerful, and entrancing. In Anthem Theatre Company’s My Fascination with Creepy Ladies, these characters are now four, leering, dancing, and laughing Creepy Ladies that haunt eight, terrorized, pale, bow-tied Poes. Continue reading →