Boston

THE COURT OF PUBLIC PREJUDICE Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation benefits from thoughtful acting and restrained staging More than six decades after Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird, its questions about racial injustice, moral responsibility, and respect remain painfully relevant. In Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation, director Loretta Greco brings those questions into sharp focus at The…

A BLOODY HILARIOUS DRACULA A stellar cast vamps it up and camps it up to breathe life into a horror classic about the undead Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, is a lovingly constructed farce that, per the script, is “very loosely based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.”…

WHAT’S BIGGER THAN THE FAMILY? Lyric Stage’s intimate production of Arthur Miller’s classic asks how far our responsibility extends beyond those we call our own Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is a haunting psychological American drama that takes place in 1947, capturing the postwar tension. The play is, first and foremost, a study of human…

BATTY AS HELL Excellent performances struggle against muddled storytelling and sound problems in this production of the cult musical The entire time I watched Bat Boy: The Musical at Umbrella Stage in Concord, I was trying to place it within what I know of the theatrical tradition. It’s like Pygmalion, I thought, as mom Meredith…

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS Strong performances and eerie stage effects cannot entirely clarify a mystery that depends on carefully controlled deception A terrific performance by Crystin Gilmore as the stern, Bible-thumping, yet guilt-ridden Mama, along with evocative special effects, makes Covenant, a Southern Gothic about the battle between good and evil, a riveting…

THE POLITICAL IS PERSONAL Purpose is an exciting and morally complex opening to the Huntington’s 2026-2027 season Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins‘ Purpose is an intriguing family drama that gives us a narrator with unconventional sexuality and social needs in the context of a prominent and deeply troubled family of origin. Omari K. Chancellor shines as Nazareth…

WHEN YOU’RE HOPING FOR A HARBOR A stirring in-the-round production finds hope, humor, and humanity in the strangers who became a community Director Kevin P. Hill’s production of Come From Away lands at North Shore Music Theatre as a timely reminder of human grace and community in the face of adversity. Irene Sankoff and David…

BARKING UP THE RIGHT TREE Taylor Mac and Matt Ray dig into history for a two-hour explosion of music, theater, and drag Taylor Mac does not do small. The MacArthur-winning playwright, performer, singer-songwriter and professional button-pusher returns to Boston with composer and longtime collaborator Matt Ray for Songs from Bark of Millions, a two-hour concert…

A MUSICAL WORTH ROOTING FOR Four likable friends chase Broadway dreams in this clever and thoroughly enjoyable production A clever script and engaging performances offer an impressive rendition of [title of show] at Chelsea Theatre Works. The 90-minute show, with music and lyrics by Jeff Bowen and book by Hunter Bell, tells the story of…

THE RHINOCEROSES ARE AMONG US; HERE COMES THE CRASH A.R.T.’s chillingly funny absurdist classic asks what happens when everyone else joins the herd Since its 1959 debut, Eugène Ionesco’s famed Rhinoceros has likely felt chillingly topical to every generation that has encountered it. Writing about American Repertory Theater’s new production from that angle may seem…

BEFORE SHE WAS MRS. DALLOWAY A beautifully written and well-performed prequel imagines the summer when Clarissa Perry begins choosing a life of her own Our first look at Dalloway: First Love is a magnificent thick-trunked tree full of nooks and crannies, gnarled and fissured with steadying footholds and reaching roots and seeking branches that dominates…

SOME ENCHANTMENT REQUIRED Thirty years on, Commonwealth Shakespeare still knows how to charm a crowd A lot is unknown about William Shakespeare, including the order and dates in which he wrote Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. What is clear, however, is that the two plays serve as mirrors to one another: in…

SHOPPING FOR LAUGHS Jonathan Tolins’ delicious one-man comedy turns retail therapy into theatrical therapy A special kind of theatre magic occurs when a comedic play can live in the perfect liminal landscape between outrageousness and being deeply grounded in reality and humanity. Hub Theatre Company’s one-man show Buyer and Cellar creates and occupies this terrain…

GREAT LOOKS, LITTLE GATSBY Too loud, too repetitive, and nowhere near the Jazz Age The touring production of The Great Gatsby, now at the Citizens Opera House in Boston, gives us Linda Cho‘s Tony Award-winning costumes and great sets by Paul Tate dePoo III, but neither the book by Kait Kerrigan nor the score by…

THE TIES THAT STRAIN A hurricane traps a family already under siege. S. Asher Gelman’s emotionally gripping new play, The Zionists: A Family Storm, now at Barrington Stage Company in Miami New Drama‘s world-premiere production, is full of the best kind of talk—talk that demands to be heard. Ruth (Joanna Glushak) and Mitchell (Adam Grupper),…