Photo credit: Becca A. Lewis
Shut-in Gigi hasn’t had face to face contact with another human being in years. When a teleportation disaster leaves a soldier fused with her couch, Gigi is forced to diverge from her routine significantly. Time is quickly running out for the soldier but Gigi needs to figure out if he’s a friend, an enemy or something else entirely.
Continue reading
Project: Project
The Boy Scouts need to prepare for the big conference. The Boondock Skanks just won the big Roller Derby match and need to celebrate. But there’s only one house. What are they going to do?
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?, Project: Project‘s inaugural production, has been in the works since we first came together in November 2011. After one year of devising, improvising, writing and rewriting it is coming to fruition. Part improvised, part scripted, and all site-specific! We couldn’t be more proud to finally share with you this one-of-a-kind event, but first, you need the details!
and finally . . . HOW MUCH:
Tickets will be from $5-10! (You can’t beat that deal!)
To secure a reservation, Click here: http://tinyurl.com/ctjb338
Can’t wait to see you there! And bring your skates and badges!
Earn your badge in awesomeness!
Boston Playwright’s Theatre Facebook Page
Review by Kitty Drexel
(Boston) Loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Charlie Sussman (Ken Baltin) is turning 75 and his entire family has come to celebrate with him at his Connecticut beach house to celebrate in The Sussman Variations. His son Jonathan (Steven Barkhimer) has a paper on The Tempest to write that will put his career on the world map. His daughter Janey (Erin Cole) has a big secret to share with the family and is afraid that they won’t share her happiness. Deirdre (Laura Latreille) needs to practice for her international tour and attempts to keep the peace. Granddaughter Miranda (Lauren Thomas) is on house arrest until she writes her college essay. Margery (Cheryl McMahon), Charlie’s wife, wants to throw a party that will reunite the family despite their differences. Each family member suffers under the weight of familial expectations, frustrated with the conflict of whom they are and whom they supposed they should be. Continue reading
Photo credit: Curtain Call Theatre; L to R, Melinda Edge as Janet, Lance Wesley as Robert, and Sharon Petti as The Drowsy Chaperone
Book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, and music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison.
directed by Martha Sawyer
musical direction by Meri-Lee Mafera
choreography by Jennifer Walsh
presented by Curtain Call Theatre
182 Commercial Street, Braintree MA.
November 2 -10
Review by Gillian Daniels
(Braintree) The Drowsy Chaperone pulls a neat trick. In order to treat its audience to an old- fashioned musical comedy in a jaded age, it bookends the story with the alternately joyous and grim analysis of a musical fan. Richard Carey plays the asocial, contemporary fan in question, obsessed with the non-existent 1928 play of the title. His interest in the sunny musical and his running commentary turns the show-within a-show into a meditation on how a lonely man deals with sadness. Continue reading
Photo by Paul Lyden
presented by North Shore Music Theatre
Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows
Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser
Based on “The Idyll of Sarah Brown” and characters by Damon Runyon
Directed by Mark Martino
Choreographed by Michael Lichtefeld
Presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International www.mtishows.com
North Shore Music Theatre
Beverly, Ma
October 30th – November 11th, 2012
North Shore Music Theatre Facebook Page
October 30th – November 11th, 2012
(Beverly) It’s easy to know from the opening sequence whether a production of the musical Guys and Dolls is going to hit on all cylinders or fall flat. The intro and music is supposed to paint a picture of the vibrant and surprisingly ordered chaos of New York City in the roaring 20’s, or at least the New York City that ferments in the imagination of the show’s authors, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It’s a metropolis awash with crime, as an apple is filched from a vendor and a pocket gets picked within the first two minutes of stage time, but it’s genial and high-energy crime, so much so that even cops simply shake their heads at the crooks’ peccadillos. Continue reading
Photo credit: Longwood Opera; a touching moment on the balcony.
by Giacomo Rossini
Jeffrey Brody – musical director, J. Scott Brumit – stage director
presented by Longwood Opera
Fully staged, in English
Christ Episcopal Church
1132 Highland Ave.
Needham, MA
Friday, November 2, 8 PM and Sunday, November 4, 2:30 PM
Longwood Opera Facebook Page
Review by Kitty Drexel
(Needham)The Barber of Seville was made famous in popular culture by the Bugs Bunny cartoon, “The Rabbit of Seville,” in which Bugs violently shaves a reluctant Elmer Fudd. The beautiful music by Giacomo Rossini could charm the pants off of anyone with ears. It is the timeless warmth and wit of Rossini’s opera that would bring you to watch Longwood Opera’s production of Barber but it is the individual performances of the cast that would keep you in your seat. Continue reading
presented by The Lyric Stage Company
140 Clarendon Street
Boston, MA
October 19th – November 17th, 2012
Lyric Stage Company Facebook Page
Review by Craig Idlebrook
(Boston) Adapting a novel to the stage can be a wrenching exercise. Pages upon pages of description, of scene, of setting, of theme must be boiled down to dialogue and action that can stand alone. By all accounts, Chaim Potok’s novel The Chosen is considered a richly-layered and well-written story about the tension between Jewish communities, as told through the friendship of two young men who find themselves caught between the secular and religious communities at the dawn of Zionism. Unfortunately, he and co-writer Aaron Posner fail to adapt the novel to a script form, leaving in a narrator who breaks up the scenes and explains away the heartfelt tension between the characters, leaving us with a broken dialogue that tells an incomplete tale about the weight one must bear when one is called to carry the load of doing good. Continue reading
Photo credit: Gary Ng; A History of PEI.
Script adapted by Don Harron
Score by Norman Campbell
Directed by Jane Staab
presented by Wheelock Family Theatre
200 The Riverway
Boston, MA
October 19th – November 18th, 2012
Wheelock Family Theatre Facebook Page
Review by Craig Idlebrook
The Anne of Green Gables franchise is prone to schmaltz. Any literary series that is adored by pre-teen girls, misty-eyed elderly women and Japanese soap opera anime fans can’t help but spin off some over-the-top theater. Few productions can find that young-at-heart sweet spot captured so perfectly by the series’ original creator L.M Montgomery. Anne, the orphan girl who shakes up Prince Edward
Island with her sentimental and vibrant perspective, is the tragic optimist in all of us. Wheelock Family Theatre’s production of the musical Anne of Green Gables largely succeeds in capturing the sweet spirit of the original tale with a strong cast that commits to looking at the world through the unjaded prism of youth. Continue reading
Photo: Paul Marotta; with Tom Nelis and Grant MacDermott.
by Christopher Shinn
directed by Michael Wilson
presented by Huntington Theatre Company
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
South Boston
October 12 – November 10
Huntington Theatre Company Facebook Page
Review by Kitty Drexel
(South Boston) John, Jr. (Grant MacDermott) is a college student who has pissed off the Muslim Student Association of his University in the name of free speech. He was incredibly insensitive at a privately hosted but publicly monitored “naked’ party thrown by a fellow college student. He firmly believes that he is entitled to behave in an offensive manner because he is an American citizen. Unlike many kids in his situation, he cannot just let his act of emotional terrorism blow over; he is the son of Presidential nominee John, Sr. (Tom Nelis). Amidst the tumult of election night, Jr. comes to the slow realization that his action affects more than just his immediate circle of friends and family. It has the potential to affect the entire nation. Continue reading
Photo Credit: Ryan Kelly Coil; Nothing like a mid-morning snack.
presented by ImprovBoston
Writer/Lyricist/Director: Don Schuerman
Composer/Music Direction: Steve Gilbane
Choreography by Sejal Patel
ImprovBoston
40 Prospect St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
October 24 – 31, 8pm and 10pm shows
ImprovBoston Facebook Page
Review by Gillian Daniels
(Cambridge) ImprovBoston’s 28 Days Latte begins with a toilet-cleaning scene that will stir unpleasant memories in most people who have seen the dark side of the food service industry. Brandishing a plunger, Brendan Mulhern makes sure to let the audience know what sort of splattering they’re in for. Even before a zombie plague hits the dwellers of the Cambridge coffee shop, GoreFest X lives up to its name with audience-splashing internal fluids.
Watching the improv musical come together is an impressive feat, but ImprovBoston has had a great deal of practice marrying songs to blood-soaked jokes. The 10th Annual Halloween Horrorshow knows just the formula to layer the scatological humor for the broadest laughs. Depicting disemboweled homeless and the awkwardness of end of the world sex, 28 Days Latte revels in its tastelessness and hopes the audience is there for the mindlessly juvenile ride. It does just what it says on the tin.
Beyond “zombie apocalypse,” the show doesn’t have much in the way of plot. This is fine. ImprovBoston veterans like Patrick French, Megan Golermann, Alex LeBaron, Ben Scurria, Kara Gelormini, and Julie Devito are given plenty of breathing room to bounce off one another. Together, they build scenes that reference all facets of nerd horror culture, from the Manic Pixie Dream Girl charm of Zooey Deschanel to the almost comically grim comics of Frank Miller. The show isn’t particularly tight but the jokes
are.
As I watched, fake blood drying on my temple, I didn’t compare it to the zombie-virus episode of the television show, Community, or the hit film, Shaun of the Dead (2004). Zombies have been hot for more than a few years at this point. Instead, I thought of last year’s performance, GoreFest 9: MASSacre General Hospital, similar in packaging to 28 Days Latte but more tragic in tone. With a clinic as its backdrop, it was a looser, gloomier yarn. The stakes are high in both shows, though, even if 28 Days Latte is flippant in tone despite (or because of) the end of the world. If you feel your holiday is lacking in pretend fluids, I suggest grabbing a raincoat and seeing ImprovBoston’s Halloween offering before this year’s GoreFest is complete.