Tag Archives: Boston

Sep 02

Not the End of the Line for “T Plays V: Last Call”

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Winning play: “SL1 12:32am,” Greer Rooney and Kevin LaVelle, Photo by Meg Taintor

Presented by Mill 6 Collaborative
Artistic directed by John Edward O’Brien
Co-managing directors: Irene Daly, Antoine A. Gagnon

Aug. 21-31, 2013
The Boston Playwright’s Theatre
Boston, MA
Mill 6 Collaborative on Facebook

Written by : Lisa Burdick, Patrick Gabridge, Emily Kaye Lazzaro, Alexa Mavromatis, Bob Murphy, Rick Park

Plays directed by: Barlow Adamson, Matt Chapuran, Mikey DiLoreto, Lindsay Eagle, Kathy Maloney, Kim Anton Myatt

Actors: Jake Athyal, Irene Daly, Jillian C. Couillard, Kelley Estes, Kevin LaVelle, Lonnie McAdoo, Mal Malme, Janelle Mills, Bob Mussett,Jason Myatt, Greer Rooney, Forrest Walter, Stephanie Yackovetsky

Review by Kitty Drexel

My apologies to the cast and crew of T Plays. I had intended to get this review out several days ago. Life interceded and prevented me from doing ago. Please accept this as compensation.

(Boston) The MBTA has its own special kind of magic that transcends beyond the brilliance of a puppy’s smile or the tragedy of a dropped ice cream cone. It affects us all, pedestrian, car-driver and commuter alike. It’s a wonder that local transit hasn’t inspired more art in Boston. That is where Mill 6 Collaborative steps in. This theatre troupe brought us six 1-act plays all inspired by the MBTA in its many forms. The playwrights pick a bus or T line out of a hat, ride the last trip of the evening and write a short play based on their experiences. They hand the show over to their assigned directors and actors who then churn out theatre for an audience three days later. The audience then votes* for their favorite. The play that wins gets to brag and return for the next round in 2014.  Continue reading →

Aug 26

AUDITION FOR TRUE COLORS: Sept. 10, 2013, 6-9pm

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Are you interested in acting, writing, or performing? Want to use your art for activism, to make your school, community and world a better place? Audition for True Colors: Out Youth Theater!
 
Open auditions on Tuesday, September 10th from 6 – 9 PM.
Looking for youth ages 14-22 who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, or straight allies. Performers must have a flexible schedule & be available for:
  • Rehearsals & touring September 17 – December 19, 2013
  • Weekly rehearsals in Boston ­on Tuesdays & Thursdays 6-9:15pm
  • One week of mandatory rehearsal: September 30 – October 4, 2013
  • Touring to up to 10 locations (4 performances during school/work hours)
  • Ability to travel independently via Boston public transportation required

** Please contact us to sign up for an audition slot & for location information at The Theater Offensive: 617-661-1600 or truecolors_at_thetheateroffensive.org. The Theater Offensive is also on Facebook.

True Colors: Out Youth Theater Troupe is a group of up to 15 youth, ages 14 – 22 who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and straight allies. Through this program, youth work together to write a play based on personal experience, the experience of their peers, and LGBT youth issues, and then tour this play to schools, community organizations and state agencies throughout Massachusetts. Youth perform and participate in audience discussions after each show, using the arts as a means to educate about, and advocate for, the LGBT community and youth in particular.

Aug 26

Brown Box Theatre’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Drips with Humor, Actual Water

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Presented by Brown Box Theatre Project
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Kyler Taustin

Aug. 23 – Sept. 1, 2013
Children Wharf’s Park, outside the Boston Children’s Museum
Boston, MA
Brown Box Theatre Project on Facebook

Can’t attend these performances in Boston? You’re in luck! Following their Boston performances, the Brown Box cast and crew will pack up their set and continue their tour on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware.

Review by Gillian Daniels

The last production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream I saw before Brown Box Theatre’s was The Donkey Show at the Oberon.  Where the Oberon’s version was a show infused with drugs, sex, the excesses of 1970’s disco culture, and go-go dancer boys with body glitter, Brown Box Theatre fills its show with the excesses of Elizabethan fairies and water basins liberally placed around its stage.  The long-running Donkey Show may be the toast of Cambridge, but Brown Box Theatre has captured a more vibrant energy in its traditional telling. Continue reading →

Aug 23

Punks That Rock, Plot that Panders: “Rooms, A Rock Romance”

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Photo Credit: Kevin Hadfield for Bad Habit Productions. Kicking ass/Taking names.

presented by Bad Habit Productions
music and lyrics by Paul Scott Goodman
book by Paul Scott Goodman and Miriam Gordon
directed by Daniel Morris
arrangements and orchestrations by Jesse Vargas

The production is in memory of Terri Meilus.

reviewed on August 22, 2013
August 10 – 25, 2013
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Boston, MA
Bad Habit on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston) Rooms: A Rock Romance is a contemporary rock musical dressed in vintage clothing. It has Folk, New Wave and Pop Rock influences. It sounds like the love child of John Cameron Mitchell and Jonathan Larson if Joni Mitchell was the surrogate and they all lived in Glasgow. It has a rich score well worth a listen. Continue reading →

Aug 20

Indian Sarod Master, Amjad Ali Khan: Sept. 15, 7:30PM

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Photo care of World Music/CRASHarts Press Center

WORLD MUSIC/CRASHarts presents INDIAN SAROD MASTER, AMJAD ALI KHAN
Sunday, September 15, 7:30pm, Berklee Performance Center
Amjad Ali Khan Website
Amjad Ali Khan Facebook
World Music/CRASHarts Facebook

BOSTON, MA — World Music/CRASHarts presents Amjad Ali Khan, from India, on Sunday, September 15, 7:30pm at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston. Tickets are 48, $42, $37 or $28, reserved seating. For tickets and information call World Music/CRASHarts at (617) 876-4275 or buy online at www.WorldMusic.org.

In a career spanning 50 years, Amjad Ali Khan has single-handedly elevated the sarod to one of the most popular instruments in the Northern Indian tradition. Trained by his father, the legendary Haafiz Ali Khan, Amjad Ali Khan is the sixth in an uninterrupted lineage of music masters. Joining him are his sons, Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan, who are already beloved as the next generation of masters on this ancient instrument. Two tabla virtuosi will add percussive richness to the ensemble sound.

In the West, the sitar has become better-known than the sarod, but in India both string instruments are held in the highest regard. The sarod is much smaller than the sitar and its sound has a lithe muscularity that is lean and clean, with less of the sitar’s prominent jangling of sympathetic strings. The sarod comes from the Afghan rubab, a folk instrument which still dominates Afghan music today. Amjad Ali Khan’s great great great grandfather, Mohammad Hashmi Khan Bangash brought the rubab to India about 200 years ago, and it was his descendants who gradually transformed the rubab into the sarod as it is known today. The name sarod comes from the Persian ‘sarood’ meaning ‘melody,’ alluding to its more melodic tone.

The sarod has four strings used for playing the melody, plus four drone and rhythm strings and 11 steel sympathetic strings. The strings are plucked with a small plectrum, which can be a hammer or a feather, and the fingerboard is covered with a smooth metal plate which makes it easy to slide from note to note. The range of colors that a player like Amjad Ali Khan can get out of the instrument is truly incredible, justifying the instrument¹s important role in classical Indian instrumental music.

For More Information:

About World Music/CRASHarts
World Music, a non-profit organization established in 1990, is New England¹s premier presenter of global culture, featuring music and dance from the far and near corners of the globe. In 2001, World Music launched CRASHarts as a division of World Music dedicated to presenting a contemporary performing arts series in greater Boston. World Music/CRASHarts strives to offer audiences an opportunity to share in many different cultural and artistic expressions and seeks to foster an atmosphere of discovery and exploration. The organization presents approximately 70 concerts and 15 educational programs per year. For more information, call (617) 876-4275 or visit www.WorldMusic.org.

World Music/CRASHarts is funded in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency which also receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Aug 14

Cowboys, Ninjas and Robots, Oh My!: THE VALENTINE TRILOGY

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Photo credit to Julie Fox; all super heroes should be required to sing.

Presented by The Circuit Theatre Company
Directed by Skylar Fox

August 2 – 17, 2013
Roberts Studio Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
Circuit Theatre Co Facebook Page

Review by Noe Kamelamela

(Boston) There is no such thing as too much thought-provoking theatre.  Sadly, the Circuit Theatre Company’s season must come to an end this weekend.  Their current production of The Valentine Trilogy is a massive and ambitious theatre explosion that ends the summer with an epic bang.  San Valentino and the Melancholy Kid, The Curse of the Crying Heart and Valentine Victorious! are the titles of the three separate plays in which a hero is forged to defeat a great evil across space, time . . . and genre. Continue reading →

Jul 29

Of Two Minds: PSYCHO BEACH PARTY

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1077436_10151973249680101_1438822466_oPresented by Happy Medium Theatre Co. with Heart & Dagger Productions
by Charles Busch
Directed by Barbara DiGirolamo

July 25 – August 3, 2013
The Factory Theatre
Boston, MA
Happy Medium Theatre Co Facebook Page
Heart and Dagger Productions Facebook Page
Charles Busch Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

“Psycho Beach Party is an affectionate homage to the beach party movies of the ’60s and Gidget as well as a spoof of psychological suspense films.  By that I mean movies such as Hitchcock’s Marnie and Spellbound, or The Three Faces of Eve and The Snake Pit: films where someone has a deep-rooted neurosis and after five minutes of hypnosis a childhood trauma is revealed and the patient is well enough to buy a house in the suburbs and live happily after.  Oh, I love them all.”    – Charles Busch

(Boston) Adults of a certain age may recall Psycho Beach Party (2000) as a movie staring Buffy the Vampire Slayer heartthrob Nicholas Brendon as Star Cat. The movie also featured Lauren Ambrose as Chicklet and playwright Charles Busch as the sexy Captain Monica Stark (the movie was rewritten to give Mr. Busch a role as he had aged out of his original role as Chicklet). It is an homage to the swinging beach party movies of the 60’s and incorporates the quick and dirty psychology of an Hollywood-type gimmick to redeem the unladylike antics of a female lead. Alas, things have not changed too much for women in 50 years. Ladies still aren’t of conventional value to the public unless they can fill out a top and outwit a room full of boys. In that order. Continue reading →

Jul 26

It’s Like A Jungle . . . Sometimes: HOW WE GOT ON

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© Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo

Presented by Company One
by Idris Goodwin
Directed by Summer L. Williams

July 19-August 17
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA
Company One Facebook Page

Review by Noe Kamelamela

(Boston) Company One has spent over a decade in Boston bringing theater to bear on a list of problems, which is nearly as long as their list of awards.  Their latest is a vibrant production that lays down a phat beat for diversity.  The audience I sat in was the most visibly excited and diverse audience I’ve experienced all year, possibly due to one of its key topics:  hip-hop. Continue reading →

Jul 24

Ladies Pondering Lives, Fashion in “Love, Loss, and What I Wore”

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Presented by Hub Theatre Company of Boston
by Nora & Delia Ephron
based on the book by Ilene Beckerman
directed by Paula Plum

July 19 – August 3, 2013
The First Church in Boston
66 Marlborough Street
Boston, MA 02116
Hub Theatre Co of Boston Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Boston) Until recently, I scorned “chick lit” and “chick flicks,” resenting the idea that light, fluffy fare was meant for women alone.  I’ve begun to wonder, however, if the label has been stuck on books and films having to do with women because of how the material is approached or because it’s about women, period.  It’s an insulting, dismissive label and it would be a little too easy to slap it on Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Continue reading →

Jul 19

Strung Together with Friends and Family: THE SHAKESPEAREAN JAZZ SHOW

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Photo Credit: Tripp Clemens

Presented by ArtsEmerson
“Conceiver”, Director – Alex Ates
Composer, Musical Director: Patrick Greeley
Puppeteers – Christina Kuchan, Orrin Whalen
Created by Alex Ates & Patrick Greeley

The Shakespearean Jazz Show is a Boston-born project created by young artists from Emerson College and Berklee College of Music.

July 18 & 19, 2013 at 8pm
Paramount Center Mainstage
Boston, MA
ArtsEmerson Facebook Page
Berklee College of Music Facebook Page
The Nine Worthies band Tumblr

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston) There is so much potential for greatness in The Shakespearean Jazz Show that it’s truly tragic that it falls so far from its mark. Patrick Greeley writes some damn fine music; the Nine Worthies are a great band (I’m looking at you Jamila Dunham); the vocalists are quite sincere, the shadow puppets are very clever… But these separate elements do not make art on their own. They must be strung together. The talented members of Jazz Show did not make this happen. Continue reading →