May 03

As You Like It: “We that are true lovers run into strange capers”

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Presented by The Hyperion Shakespeare Company and Harvard Office for the Arts
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Nathaniel Brodsky

April 26-29, 2018
Agassiz Theatre
Cambridge, MA
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Review by Polly Goss

(Cambridge, MA) As You Like It is a long-time favorite of audiences despite its often lowly standing among critics. The play deliberately borders on the nonsensical, as Shakespeare takes us on a glorious gender swapping romp through the mystical forests of Arden. This latest production from Harvard’s Hyperion Shakespeare Company successfully captures the intensity of first loves and the youthful energy at the heart of the piece. Whilst the direction felt a bit haphazard in places, the talent of some of the cast members helped to carry the show and pay tribute to the richness of Shakespeare’s script. As You Like It is a good choice for a student production of Shakespeare, the obvious enthusiasm of the actors (and their friends in the audience) made this production a pleasure to watch. Continue reading →

Apr 23

Mother’s Day Should be Plural: “Little Orphan Danny”

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Julie Foldesi (Band Member/Women) and Dan Finnerty (Book, Lyrics, Music/Danny)
Photo by Meghan Moore

Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre
Concept by Dan Finnerty and Sean Daniels
Book and Lyrics by Dan Finnerty
Music by Dan Finnerty and Dan Lipton

March 21 – April 15, 2018
Lowell, Massachusetts
MRT on Facebook

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Lowell, MA) As a father of an adopted child, I often wonder how I will guide my son through the emotional stages of thinking about his origin story. I picture many long, earnest, possibly tear-filled conversations that will be good for us to go through, but certainly not entertaining. In Little Orphan Danny, wiseass rock singer Dan Finnerty decided to tell his own story of adoption, and it’s indeed a tearjerker of a musical. My eyes were wet and my ribs were sore from laughing so hard. Continue reading →

Apr 23

“Cabaret” : Red Lights & Secrets

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Aimee Doherty* Photographer: Tom Shoemaker

Presented by Moonbox Productions
Based on stories by Christopher Isherwood
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Music by John Kander
Book by John Masteroff
Directed by Rachel Bertone
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez

April 14th thru 29th, 2018
BCA Calderwood Pavilion
Wimberly Theater, Boston
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Review by Bishop C. Knight

(Boston, Massachusetts) I assume that unlike many in the audience at the Wimberly Theatre, I went to the Calderwood Pavilion knowing nothing substantial about Cabaret and naïvely expecting lots of eye-high rockette dance moves.  Seated with friends before the show, I opened up a program and encountered a quote by Christopher Isherwood, the British-American novelist who holds a principal place within my private imaginative world.  This quotation was from Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, upon which Cabaret is based, and it goes “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Someday, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.”   Continue reading →

Apr 20

It’s a Great Cake. A Bride-Cake. Mine: “Old New Borrowed Blue”

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Celeste Godin as Havisham; photo by Nile Scott Shots.

Presented by MetroWest Opera
Conducted by Brendon Shapiro
Stage directed by Cassandra Lovering

Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night
Libretto by Jon Olon-Scrymgeour
Music by Dominick Argento

The Beautiful Bridegroom
Music and libretto by Dan Shore

April 19 – 21, 2018
Plaza Theatre
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
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Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Many an opera is devoted to women’s pre and post connubial anxieties. With all of the riches for women, one must ask where are the men?  In Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night Dickens’ spinster is an anti-heroine reliving a decades old tragedy. In The Beautiful Bridegroom, a Lady, her daughters and maid all wish for wedded bliss. If weddings are such fun, there should be operas from the giddy perspective of tenors in tuxes and basses in vestments. A person is supposed to like the person they marry. For all its progress, opera has further to go.   

Continue reading →

Apr 17

Real Hopes and Real Dreams: “The Rosenbergs (An Opera)”

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Church and Gibson; Kalman Zabarsky, Photographer

Presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
Score by Joachim Holbek
Libretto by Rhea Leman
Music direction by Cristi Catt
Stage direction by Dmitry Troyanovsky
Dramaturgy by Magda Romanska

April 12 – 22, 2018
BPT
Boston, MA
BPT on Facebook

April 27-29, 2018
Brandeis University
Spingold Theater
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were accused of delivering crucial information on the creation of the atomic bomb to the USSR in 1953. This case, considered one of the most infamous spy cases in US history, validated HUAC and contributed to the country-wide paranoia known as the Red Scare. Such attacks on communist affiliates is similar to the current presidential administration’s attacks on socialism. The Rosenbergs (An Opera) considers the couple accused of treasonous espionage. It proves that the American government and the people it claims to serve have changed very little in the last 65 years. Continue reading →

Apr 16

Still More to Learn from Our Past:”The Laramie Project”

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Presented by Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club
Written by Moisés Kaufman & the Members of the Tectonic Theater Project
Directed by Eli Schleicher ’18

April 11 – 13, 2018
Club Oberon
Cambridge, MA
HRDC on Facebook

Review by Diana Lu

(Cambridge, MA) The Laramie Project, by the Tectonic Theater Project, premiered in 2000. It is an amalgamation of over 200 interviews with the residents of Laramie, Wyoming, detailing the circumstances and consequences of the hate crime perpetrated against Matthew Shepard in 1998. Continue reading →

Apr 12

Donation Accounts Added to NETG!

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The New England Theatre Geek has new accounts with Patreon and Ko-Fi! If you’ve enjoyed reading the critiques, reviews and opinion editorials on the site, please donate. Your donations go towards paying our Blog Master Tech Wiz, and towards arts related expenses for the blog.

Our very first patron is Ken Raeburn. On behalf of the New England Theatre Geek staff, thank you Ken!

Best Wishes in Gratitude,
Kitty, Queen Geek

 

Apr 03

Pepsi Can’t Save You Now: “Somewhereville”

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Presented by ImprovBoston
Directed by David Thomas

March 9 – 30, 2018
40 Prospect Street in Central Square
Cambridge, MA
IB on Facebook

Review by Diana Lu

(Cambridge, MA) Halfway between improvised comedy and two-act play, Somewhereville tells the hilariously horrific tale of a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which the world has ended because of – audience suggestion? In its final installment, it was the Kardashians who were responsible for destroying civilization.  We learn in the three-character monologue opening that the “KKK-KK” has created an idiocracy-like hellscape via excess consumerism and social media over consumption. Continue reading →

Apr 02

“A Dead Man’s Diary”: A Sacred Love for Theatre

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Presented by Arlekin Players Theatre
Based on the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov
Original stage composition based on the novel written by Igor Golyak and Zhenya Brodskaya
English translation by Yana Minchenko
Composed by Jakov Jakoulov
Directed by Igor Golyak
Choreographed by Victor Plotnikov

17 March thru 1 April 2018
Emerson Paramount Center
Jackie Liebergott Black Box
Downtown Boston, Mass.
Arlequin Players on Facebook

Reviewed by Bishop C. Knight

(Emerson College) A Dead Man’s Diary was a drama performed in Russian, and patrons could request an earplug device that provided English voiceover during the production.  The play begins with our main character Sergei Maksudov writing a novel that is inspired by a dream of his native city and, upon completing this work, Maksudov shares his manuscript with various writers and critics.  One of his readers prompts Maksudov to adapt the book to a play, and thus commences Maksudov’s meanderings through the world of theatre ‒ a sphere where he is scorned by the director of the Moscow Art Theater, Stanislavsky.  At its core, Mikhail Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel examines a writer’s sacred love for theatre. Continue reading →