Category Archives: Comedy

Sep 20

Jordan Needs a Xanax and a Snuggle: “Significant Other”

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Photo Credit: Justin Saglio; Penises at the Hen Party. Penis. Penis. Penis.

Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
By Joshua Harmon
Directed by Paul Daigneault

Sept. 9 – Oct. 8, 2016
Calderwood Pavilion
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
SpeakEasy on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Significant Other (SO) is Sondheim’s Company is the music were stripped, and Bobby was made both gay and genuinely likable. The percentage of justifiable choreography remains equal between the two shows. The set design is similarly simple. The scene transitions are more facile. All in all, based entirely on sympathetic characters alone, Significant Other is the more pleasant viewing choice. Whether this is true for you depends upon your own theatrical preferences. Continue reading →

Aug 01

The Kugel is Your Destiny: YOU’RE KILLING ME ALREADY!

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Presented by Theatre@First’s FirstWorks
by Andrea Aptecker
directed by Dave Policar

Thursday, July 28th, at 8pm
Unity Somerville
6 William Street
Somerville, MA 02144
T@F on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Somerville, MA) FirstWorks is Theatre@First’s initiative to support local playwrights as they write new plays. The intent of this program is to provide constructive feedback by experienced directors and actors to playwrights on a play submitted for this purpose. After a workshopping period, a staged reading is performed for the Theatre@First community at large. The most recent subject of the FirstWorks program is Andrea Aptecker’s You’re Killing Me Already! (YKMA!). Continue reading →

Jul 29

Everyone’s Invited to “The T Party”

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Playing through August 13, 2016. Photos by Paul Fox

Playing through August 13, 2016. Photos by Paul Fox

Presented by Company One
Written and Directed by Natsu Onoda Power (with contributions by Jade Sylvan)

July 15 – August 13, 2016
Nancy and Edward Roberts Studio Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
Company One on Facebook
Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston, MA) The T Party is colorful potpourri of a show: bright, engaging, and eclectic in design. The skit format gives a wide range of stories based under the LGBTQ (QUILTBAG?) umbrella usually, but not always, focused on gender. Natsu Onoda’s anecdotes come in a wide range, some as feel good as a ‘90’s prom in the style of Lisa Frank that opens the show. Others are  more awkward, like a Craigslist meet up between a cis male identified crossdresser and a trans Filipina escort. The scope is broad and looks to simultaneously create community and intimacy. Without focus on an individual narrative, the tone shifts between joy and sadness wildly, suddenly, as if the two emotions weren’t separate at all, but a continuum of the same experience. Continue reading →

Jul 18

Facing the Face: “Yellow Face”

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Presented by the Office of War Information (Bureau of Theatre)
­­­­By David Henry Hwang
Directed by Cliff Odle

July 14 – 31st
Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont Street, Boston
Office of War Information on Facebook

Review by Danielle Rosvally

(Boston, MA) The Office of War Information surely makes a splash with their maiden production in the BCA, Yellow Face.  This unreliable memoir explores the implications of race (specifically Asian-Americanness) in the late twentieth century; expertly smudging the lines between reality and fiction.  Continue reading →

Jun 14

The Emperor’s New Pseudoscience: BLINDERS

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Suck it Trump (via Tumblr)

Presented by Flat Earth Theatre
Written by Patrick Gabridge
Directed by Korinne T. Ritchey

June 10 – 25, 2016
Arsenal Center for the Arts
Watertown, MA
Flat Earth on Facebook
Chris and Alex 11!!!!11 on Tumblr

Review by Kitty Drexel

I’m not going to make this review about Orlando, FL. That would not help Flat Earth or the 50+ victims of terrorist action. I’ve put info about constructively helping at the bottom of this review. Now go actively spread love and dismantle hate when and where you see it.

(Watertown, MA) The “scientific” discovery of two identical snowflakes has sparked a fad for naturally identical things. Shortly after the snowflake discovery, Chris (Matt Arnold) and Alex (Justus Perry), two exactly alike, human carbon copies are found. They are men who share one experience in two bodies. They are not twins. The US goes bonkers for their celebrity. Their rapid popularity makes Bieber Fever tame in comparison. Try as one might, they are impossible to avoid. They run for President in a campaign too popular to fail. Continue reading →

Jun 07

More Fun Than Interviewing Pigeons: “The Birds and the Bees”

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Presented by Sleeping Weazel
Written by Kate Snodgrass (Bark), Adara Meyers (Birds), Charlotte Meehan (Beesus)
Directed by Melia Bensussen (Bark & Beesus), Shana Gozansky (Birds)

June 2 – 11, 2016
Plaza Black Box Theater
539 Tremont St
Boston, MA
Sleeping Weazel on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) The Birds and the Bees: A Festival of New Plays is good albeit strange theatre. Play #1, The Last Bark is the most concrete of the three plays that make up this production. Birds is post post-modern theatre. Beesus & Ballustrada is even more abstract than Birds. The performances are compelling. The scripts are perplexing. Continue reading →

Jun 06

Beyond the Bard: “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)”

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Photo back to front: Victoria George, Lily Odekirk, Marta Rainer* AEA*

Presented by Wellesley Repertory Theatre
Written by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Directed by Nora Hussey

May 26 – June 26
Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre
Wellesley, MA
WRT on Facebook

Review by Danielle Rosvally

(Wellesley, MA) Having just recently completed my own Doctorate in Shakespeare, I can relate deeply to the struggles of Constance Ledbelly, the heroine of Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).  To those who spend any amount of time studying Shakespeare’s works, the bard’s characters become constant companions; roommates, lovers, friends; nearly corporeal in their presence in our lives.  They haunt us; whispering echoes of themselves on loop day and night; and sometimes (if we are very lucky) revealing secrets of themselves only to us.  These secrets we prize at a worth beyond compare for they are the true goal of such study. Continue reading →

May 31

La Donna è divertente!

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Looking fierce.

La Donna Improvvisata
Presented by ImprovBoston
Starring, improvised by Lisa Flanagan
Musical accompaniment by Mike Descouteaux

May 29, 2016 @11pm
Improv Boston
Cambridge, MA
La Donna on Facebook

Review by Noelani Kamelamela

(Cambridge, MA) Musical improv is a special permutation of improvisational comedy.   I think it appeals to people who both love comedy and have a lot of experience in listening to different genres of music.  I’ve certainly been subjected to short form musical improv in which the creation of mostly unrelated individual song-scenes  felt much longer than the allotted two minutes.  Stringing short song-scenes together into a long form musical improv set can be challenging even for mid-sized groups to tackle.  Musical abilities and frequently a pianist are required.  One supporting piece that can be useful is the addition of a premise.  In “La Donna Improvvisata,” Lisa Flanagan did a unique send-up of opera tropes entirely with the help of one accompanist on keyboard. Continue reading →

May 12

Absurd Political Escapism: HOME OF THE BRAVE

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Photo by Meghan Moore

Photo by Meghan Moore

Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre
Written by Lila Rose Kaplan
Directed by Sean Daniels
Featuring Karen MacDonald

April 20 – May 15, 2016
50 East Merrimack Street
Lowell, MA
MRT on Facebook

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell, MA) Finally, a political play that is as absurd and as over-the-top as the 2016 presidential election! Um, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Continue reading →

May 11

More Meth-Girl, Less Romance Could Have Saved Apocalyptic Doom of “End of the World”

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Photo credit: Drew Linehan Jacobs

Photo credit: Drew Linehan Jacobs

Presented by Boston Actors Theater
By Elizabeth DuPré
Directed by Drew Jacobs

May 6-21, 2016
Rehearsal Hall A at the Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
Boston Actors Theater on Facebook

Review by Travis Manni

(Boston, MA) As a manager at a movie theatre, I see quite a lot of mediocre movies come and go rather quickly. I always feel a special type of sympathetic pity for the rom-coms that just don’t do the business studios had expected, and I have to say I felt a similar way after going to see the Boston Actors Theater premiere production of End of the World. Continue reading →