Boston

FINDING NEW ABILITIES Cost of Living is full of surprises, and I don’t mean inflation or unexpected banking fees. Speakeasy Stage Company brings the Pulitzer-winning play from playwright Martyna Majok to Boston in an affecting and satisfying production directed by Alex Lonati that made an hour and three-quarters of intermission-free time fly by. Cost of…

KING HEDLEY II: A CROWNING PRODUCTION The Actors’ Shakespeare Project production of King Hedley II follows ASP’s acclaimed Seven Guitars of last season, once again bringing a work by August Wilson, sometimes known as America’s Shakespeare, to Boston audiences. Wonderfully directed by Summer L. Williams, the ninth play in Wilson’s American Century Cycle demands a…

CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED? The creative and absorbing world premiere of P. Carl’s Becoming a Man at A.R.T. brings the joys and challenges of gender transition for one person and those who love him. Based on playwright P. Carl’s memoir of the same name, this world premiere theatrical adaptation which opened last night is…

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE POWER Kimberly Belflower’s riveting John Proctor is the Villain, which had its world-premiere at Studio Theatre in D.C. in 2022, opened last night at The Huntington. It is a work of profound inspiration, and — with spot-on direction by Margot Bordelon  (…what the end will be for Roundabout) and a knockout nine-member…

SOLIDARITY FOREVER The workshop reading of Food Tank’s Little Peasants at The Burren Backroom, a venue known more for Irish, Bluegrass, Appalachian, Roots, Jazz, and Blues than theater, is all the more engrossing for being rough around the edges. With a tight script by Bernard Pollack, dramaturgy and production by Elena Morris, and the excellent…

A MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING   “When the curtain is down, and it’s three minutes before the show, what’re you wishing for?” playwright John Kolvenbach wondered as he wrote Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight. He kept asking that question and many others as director of what at first appears to be a one-man show (Jim…

A CASE FOR SEEING THIS PLAY Toward the end of A Case for the Existence of God (named Best Play of the 21–22 Season by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle), I tried to recall what I had learned in grad school about Aristotle and his theory of catharsis. Full disclosure: I had to look…

GOOD TROUBLE The Lyric Stage production of Trouble in Mind, directed by Dawn M. Simmons (co-producing artistic director, The Front Porch Arts Collective), is well worth seeing, if only for the wonderful Patrice Jean-Baptiste (recently memorable as Petruchio in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s Taming of the Shrew). Jean-Baptiste’s dry wit and emotional insight, as well as…

YOU’D BE A FOOL TO MISS THIS FEAST OF FUN The long-playing Midwinter Revels (founded as Christmas Revels in 1971) is a unique mix of professional performance, volunteer talent, and audience participation that has created a joyous community that comes together each holiday season to delight in forms of music and dance that span the…

THESE GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN Two young women, one from Korea, the other from the Philippines, encounter one another in a grocery story on Thanksgiving morning in a small midwestern American city in 1973. Luna (Jenna Agbayani), the talkative one, the outgoing one, invites Jane (Judy Song) up to her apartment. They are the…