Tag Archives: Patrick Gabridge

Jul 02

What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting: “Mox Nox” & “GUTS”

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Moonbox Productions’ Boston New Works Festival (BNWF)
Presented by Moonbox Productions
June 26 – 29, 2025
Multiple Spaces at the Boston Center for the Arts.
539 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116 

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Last week, Moonbox Productions produced its Boston New Works Festival with seven original plays and musicals at the Boston Center of the Arts in the South End. It was the final weekend of Pride, the Supreme Court issued its final opinions before its summer recess*, the Bezos’ married in Venice, baseballers baseballed, and The Theater Offensive hosted another festival across the river in Cambridge. With the various and sundry events occurring across our city and the nation, I hope everyone attended events that brought them joy and a modicum of peace. 

This year’s BNWF featured fully realized productions and semi-staged readings from local playwrights, crew and actors. I attended two productions: Mox Nox by Patrick Gabridge and Guts by Rachel Greene. These are two vastly different plays in subject and creative temperament. Mox Nox is a finished work (if such things exist). Guts remains a play in progress. Both show Boston audiences what is possible and point to our collective future as a community.   Continue reading →

Aug 17

Women of Intellectual and Moral Worth: “A Light Under the Dome”

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Presented by Plays in Place and the National Parks of Boston
This play is the first of three plays commissioned by the National Parks of Boston as a part of the Suffrage in Black & White series.
Written by Patrick Gabridge
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Featuring: Thomika Marie Bridwell, Amanda Collins, Marge Dunn, Bridgette Hayes, Regine Vital, (U/S Aimmee Robinson).

SOLD OUT
August 12-15 2024
ASL Interpretation on Aug. 12 or Aug. 15
Massachusetts State House
24 Beacon St
Boston, MA 02133

Running time: Approximately 75 minutes

BOSTON — The run of A Light Under the Dome presented by Plays in Place ended on August 15. With any luck, the show’s sold-out run and enthusiastic audiences may convince Plays in Place, the National Parks Service, and the honorable Massachusetts Senate members to permit a second run. 

SUMMARY: It is the night of February 21, 1838, in Boston, Massachusetts. Exiled Southerner Angelina Grimke (Amanda Collins) becomes the first American woman to address a legislative body. Grimke uses her platform to argue vehemently for the abolition of slavery while asserting the full citizenship of American women. She is supported by her fellow abolitionists Maria Weston Chapman (Marge Dunn), Lydia Maria Child (Bridgette Hayes), Susan Paul (Thomika Marie Bridwell), and Julia Williams (Regine Vital).  Continue reading →

Sep 28

A Handy History of Mount Auburn Cemetery: A Book Review of “The Mount Auburn Plays”

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The Mount Auburn Plays
By Patrick Gabridge
Friends of Mount Auburn
2020
198 pgs
Paperback (color)
Digest (5.5 x 8.5 in / 140 x 216 mm)
ISBN: 978-0-9986982-4-3
$21.95
Purchase HERE

Mount Auburn Cemetary
580 Mount Auburn Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Virtual Book Launch with Playwright Patrick Gabridge
September 30 @ 6:00 pm
Registration is FREE!
(donation suggested)

Review by Kitty Drexel

Watertown, MA — This review is to support the Sept. 30 virtual book launch of The Mount Auburn Plays by Patrick Gabridge. I was gifted a copy of the book by Gabridge (with a fancy author’s signature. This means I can sell my copy for bazillions of bitcoins in approximately 30 years when it’s no longer in print). It’s good to be the Queen.

This book is a collection of Patrick Garbridge’s plays inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetary written during his 2018-2019 artist residency: The Nature Plays, The America Plays, and Moonlight Abolitionists. Before each play, there is a handy history of the play with casting, audience, and location information. Color production photos placed between. Continue reading →

Sep 16

Completely Natural, Incredibly Beautiful: “The America Plays”

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Amanda J Collins and Robert Najarian; photo by Corinne Elicone.

Presented by Mount Auburn Cemetery
By Patrick Gabridge, Mount Auburn Cemetary Artist-in-Residence 
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Music in All the Broken Pieces written, performed and recorded by Arshan Gailus

September 12, 2019 – September 22, 2019
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Cambridge, MA
MAC on Facebook 

Critique by Kitty Drexel

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The America Plays is a pleasant introduction to a select few of the curious residents interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery through theatre. These short plays in place preserve the lives of eight artists, politicians, and scientists while asking their audience to hike the cemetery grounds. It’s a charming way to meet some New England spirits and watch the grounds transition to their fall colors.  Continue reading →

Jun 10

Blood on the Snow: A journey back in time to Boston’s bloody beginnings

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The Cast of Blood on the Snow. Photo by Justin Saglio.

Presented by The Bostonian Society
Written by Patrick Gabridge
Directed by Courtney O’Connor

June 1 – August 20, 2017
The Old State House
Boston, MA
Bostonians on Facebook

Review by Polly Goss

(Boston, MA) It is March 6, 1770, bloodshed, discontent and rebellion bubbles in the air. Four Bostonians lie dead on the streets outside the Council Chamber and British soldiers are held responsible. The people of Boston are sick of British rule, the soldiers and their taxes – they want them out. Inside Governor Hutchinson is faced with an impossible choice: defy his King, or defend his country? This site specific play takes the audience back in time to a forgotten night that helped shaped the course of, not only the city’s history, but the world’s. Blood on the Snow sold out at its world premiere last Spring and returns to The Old State House in Boston this summer. O’Connor’s naturalistic direction is spot on, allowing the audience to be unnoticed voyeurs alongside the table where history was made. 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 →

Nov 10

Meet Crazy is Still Cute: LAB RATS

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Photo credit: Nile Hawver/Nile Scott Shots

Photo credit: Nile Hawver/Nile Scott Shots

Presented by Brown Box Theatre Project
Written by Patrick Gabridge
Directed by Kyler Taustin

Boston, MA: Nov 6-8 & 13-15, 2015
Atlantic Wharf
290 Congress St
Ocean City, MD: November 20-23, 2015
Center for the Arts
502 94th Street
Brown Box on Facebook

Review by Kitty Drexel

(Boston, MA) Lab Rats is an adorable comedy about the drastic measures people will take to convince others of their relative normalcy. Some days it’s impossible to hold all the crazy in. Let she who hasn’t committed some social faux pas (like wailing like a blubbering infant on public transport) cast the first stone! For Mika and Jake, “some days” tend to be most days thanks to a barrage of paid-to-evaluate tests they take in order to make ends meet. Continue reading →

Dec 08

“Distant Neighbors” and Close Encounters

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Sheldon Brown (Adams) & Louise Hamill (Talia). Photo by E. Milanovich Photography

Presented by Fresh Ink Theatre
Written by Patrick Gabridge
Directed by Liz Fenstermaker

December 5 – 13, 2014
Boston Playwrights Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA
Fresh Ink on Facebook

Review by Gillian Daniels

Fresh Ink Theatre’s Distant Neighbors hits at the heart of what the best science fiction is about: people reacting to technological advancement.  If you read (or watch the film adaption of) Jurassic Park, you’re not just consuming entertainment to see how people create dinosaurs, but how people react to creating dinosaurs.  Similarly, the characters of Distant Neighbors react to a change in an intimate environment.  Here, however, the source of upheaval is the wing of an apparent spacecraft that comes crashing down into the backyards of Adams (Sheldon Brown), Talia (Louise Hamill), and Griffin (Daniel Boudreau), three neighbors who know nothing about each other.  It’s a wonderful starting point for a story about intimacy and paranoia, but I’m not sure it pans out well.

Continue reading →

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 →

Feb 06

“Fire On Earth” and at the Stake

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Photo by Rebecca Bradshaw, with James Fay, Bob Mussett and Omar Robinson

Photo by Rebecca Bradshaw, with James Fay, Bob Mussett and Omar Robinson

Presented by Fresh Ink Theatre

Written by Patrick Gabridge
Directed by Rebecca Bradshaw

The Factory Theatre
Boston, MA
February 1-16, 2013
Fresh Ink Theatre Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

WARNING: Scenes of torture.

(Boston) I’ve always been skeptical of the “martyr” concept but enjoy it when it’s depicted well.  A martyr trades one life for an immortal one, living beyond death through the ideas he championed in life.  He’s not always a hero and he doesn’t always come from a selfless place, but he sacrifices himself all the same.

In Patrick Gabridge’s Fire On Earth, William Tyndale (Bob Mussett) works to translate the Bible into English.  It’s 1524, King Henry VIII is contemplating divorce from his first wife, and the Catholic Church has a stranglehold on the Latin Bible.  The Church decides when it’s read, who’s able to understand it, and what it means to the largely illiterate English masses.  Religion isn’t personal, it’s a business.  Mussett’s Tyndale, with a blissful naïveté in his face, opts to preach with his new translation.  Sir Thomas More and the bishops are not pleased. Continue reading →