Oct 03

Lyric Stage Company Shares Death of Spiro Veloudos, Producing Artistic Director Emeritus

Spiro Veloudos. (Courtesy Lyric Stage Company)

BOSTON, Mass. — The Boston theatre community mourns today. 

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston announced the death of Spiro Veloudos, the long-time producing artistic director of Lyric Stage Company of Boston and avid supporter of small and mid-sized theatres, on October 3, 2023. He was 71. 

His death was confirmed on Monday night, October 2, by his sister, Shelia Demetriadis of Richmond, VA.

An accessible-to-all, loving Boston Globe announcement and obituary by Don Aucoin for Spiro Veloudos is available on the Lyric Stage website. 

The Lyric Stage Company sent a note of remembrance, penned by current Producing Artistic Director Courtney O’Connor to its email list at 10:50 AM today. It links to the Aucoin article. 

Spiro Veloudos was the producing director at Lyric Stage Company through 2019. He directed more than 65 productions at the Lyric: Nicholas Nickleby, Avenue Q, Assassins, Souvenir, Death of A Salesman, Noises Off, Superior Donuts, and Into the Woods. He directed ten Sondheim shows over twenty seasons through his Sondheim initiative. 

Veloudos earned the Best Director IRNE and Elliot Norton Awards multiple times. He received the 2006 Elliott Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, the Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from Salem State College, and the StageSource Theatre Hero Award (2003). He was named Best Artistic Director by Boston Magazine in 1999.

A more personal obituary for Veloudos is on Honoring Memory

Mr. Veloudos, you were a force of good in Boston. You are missed. 

May Mr. Veloudos’ legacy be a blessing to our theatre community.

Boston, MA – 02/23/17 – Spiro Veloudos on the Lyric Stage (Lane Turner/Globe Staff) Reporter: (Don Aucoin) 

Aug 28

MIT Musical Theatre Guild Presents: AVENUE Q

Music and Lyrics by Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez
Book by Jeff Whitty

Directed by Geoff Hegg ’17
Music directed by Matt Putnam ’09
Puppet mastery by Elisa Boles ’18
Assistant puppet mastery by Mandy Fike ’19

Kresge Little Theatre
48 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139

September 1, 2, 7-9, & 14-16, 2017 at 8 PM, and September 3, 2017 at 2 PM
Tickets are:
$6 – MIT and Wellesley students
$10 – MIT faculty, staff, and community; all other students; seniors and children
$15 – General public
Reserve tickets online.
Discounts available for groups of 10 or more people.

Winner of the Tony “Triple Crown” for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book, Avenue Q is part flesh, part felt and packed with heart.

The laugh-out-loud musical tells the timeless story of a recent college grad named Princeton, who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way out on Avenue Q. He soon discovers that, although the residents seem nice, it’s clear that this is not your ordinary neighborhood. Together, Princeton and his new-found friends struggle to find jobs, dates and their ever-elusive purpose in life.

Filled with gut-busting humor and a delightfully catchy score, not to mention puppets, Avenue Q is a truly unique show that has quickly become a favorite for audiences everywhere. Although the show addresses humorous adult issues, it is similar to a beloved children’s show; a place where puppets are friends, Monsters are good and life lessons are learned.

Production Staff and Cast

Queen’s Note:
We elected a thin-skinned Nazi to the office of the President who is turning our “democracy” into a fascist, totalitarian oligarchy dominated by the 1%. Trump is a monster. His policies, when he names them, are destructive. His narcissistic behavior is more so.

Congressional “negotiators” released a spending bill that saves the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for Humanities, and National Public Radio until September at which time, the President and his impotent cronies may still cut arts funding. It is ever important to remain vigilant. And, for the love of all that’s sacred, keep creating. If you need help, ask for it. Our existence is our resistance. May the force be with you. – KD

TCG has a list of things you can do to help.

 

Jan 09

Son of a Biscuit: HAND TO GOD

It starts so innocently. It always does. Eliot Purcell and Josephine Elwood; Photo by Glenn Perry Photography

Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
Written by Robert Askins
Directed by David R. Gammons
Puppetry direction by Roxanna Myhrum
Fight direction by Ted Hewlett

Jan. 6 – Feb. 4, 2017
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
527 Tremont St
Boston, MA
SpeakEasy on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

Trigger warning: Devil references, supernatural activity, gore, violence, implied sex with a minor, graphic puppetry

(Boston, MA) Horror gets nastier when it employs kid’s toys. Personally speaking, dolls are the worst, but cinematic history has proved that puppets can be just as creepy. They can be really, super, frickin’ creepy. SpeakEasy’s Hand to God has a puppet. Like the previously referenced horror movies, it gets creepy and weird. Like, Evil Dead chainsaw hand meets Avenue Q levels of weird. It’s awesome.   Continue reading

Mar 10

A Very Bardy Soap Opera: BREAKING THE SHAKESPEARE CODE

Photo by Paul Cantillon, LIDEC Photo

Presented by Vagabond Theatre Group
by John Minigan
Directed by James Peter Sotis

March 6th – 15, 2014
The Factory Theatre

791 Tremont Street
Boston, MA
Vagabond Theatre Company on Facebook

Review by Danielle Rosvally

(Boston) I went into this show knowing one thing: given the subject matter and my background, I was either going to hate it or love it.  There would be no in between.

I was mostly right.  I hated some things, and loved others.  Let’s go through these items one line at a time, shall we?

Let’s start with the writing: Minigan is definitely writing for Boston.  Much like it’s hard to imagine Avenue Q played anywhere but New York, I have a hard time imaging that audiences in other parts of the country would connect to this show in the same way as Bostonians.  This is doubly odd given that the show premiered at the Orlando Shakespeare Festival and continued on to the Utah Shakespeare Festival where, presumably, it did well enough that it’s back in Boston now.  The dialogue is expertly put together, and it held me in a way that most contemporary pieces don’t (…and not just because it had a passing relationship with my man Will).  My one fault with the piece was this: I left wondering “why?”  Why did I just see this?  Why did we go on this journey?  What was beneath this tale?  I felt like the story was too profound not to have a readily discernable crux; but I just couldn’t understand what that crux was. Continue reading

May 19

Just Shy of Hilarious: AVENUE Q

John Ambrosino & Phil Tayler; photo credit: Mark S. Howard

Avenue Q, music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, book by Jeff Whitty, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 5/11/12- 6/24/12,  EXTENDED to 7/1/12, https://lyricstage.com/main_stage/avenue_q/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) Comedy is a game of milliseconds.  The difference between a good laugh and a belly laugh is all in the timing.  If you don’t land the gag just right, the joke can fall flat.  Lyric Stage’s production of Avenue Q is very funny, but it could have been crack-a-rib hilarious.

The script and song are the closest you can come to a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.  Take the earnestness of Sesame Street, mash it with the slacker sensibilities of Friends and the crowd can’t help but laugh.  Continue reading

May 10

Geeks Nerds and Artists Episode 6: Spiro Veloudos

photo credit: Lyric Stage of Boston

Episode 6: Geeks, Nerds & Artists Podcast: Spiro Veloudos, Artistic Director of Lyric Stage Company of Boston and director of current production of Avenue Q

http://www.lyricstage.com/

Avenue Q: May 11-June 24, 2012 (it is selling out presently)

Spiro Veloudos is the Producing Artistic Director of The Lyric Stage Company. and has been honored with numerous awards and honors including The Elliot Norton Award and The Independent Reviews of New England (IRNE) Award. He has been personally honored with the 2006 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, Stage Source’s 2002 Theatre Hero Award and was cited as the city’s Best Artistic Director by Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston program in 1999. Continue reading