SPECTACULARLY CONFUSING You don't need me to tell you that J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has tapped into something deeply elemental for many people. Her stories about a young wizard an…
WOMEN ON THE VERGE Central Square Theater's lovely production of playwright David Auburn's (Proof) Summer, 1976 offers a story of two women who find an unexpected friendship at a tipping poi…
GUNNING FOR PUERTO RICO Stephen Sondheim chose an unlikely topic for his 1990 Assassins, a musical that portrays assassinating or attempting to assassinate a president is as American as popu…
THINGS THAT GO BOOM AND JUST RIGHT It's impossible to see a production of Jonathan Larson's Tick, Tick … Boom! without seeing it as a precursor to his Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent. …
GREEN SCALES AND SHAM I generally count on SpeakEasy Stage for stellar productions of innovative and ground-breaking plays and musicals. But that history, along with fine performances and ch…
CLOTHES MIGHT MAKE THE MAN, BUT NOT THIS SHOW Costumes were essential to the success of superstar Cher. She and her singing partner and husband Sonny Bono first burst on the music scene in t…
LOVE IN UNEXPECTED PLACES Two women, from quite different backgrounds, meet in Boston in 1968, a time and a place where ancient grudges and present-day conflicts seem sure to keep them apart…
MISERY LOVES COMPANY… AND A GOOD PLOT Karen MacDonald and Tom Coiner do a wonderful job of animating William Goldman's stage adaptation of Stephen King's intriguing, twisty novel by the sa…
OH HAPPY DAY! BRINGS A HAPPY DAY Playwright and actor Jordan E. Cooper's heart-breaking but joyously gospel-inflected New York premiere of Oh Happy Day! is an earned emotional treat. The sho…
TWO LONG HOURS WITH THE FORMER MAN OF THE HOUR There is no question that Churchill was a hero who played a major role in saving the world from Hitler's fascism (though perhaps not as big a r…
SOMETHING WICKED GOOD THIS WAY COMES You've probably seen one or more productions of William Shakespeare's Macbeth before, but you've likely never seen one like this Christopher V. Edwards-d…
STANDING UP FOR HUMANITY Here are my criteria for a good night of comedy: 1) It needs to be surprising. 2) It needs to make me think. 3) It needs to promote values that make us better human …
SIRENS, BELLS AND WHISTLES Conductor Andris Nelsons led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a richly anticipated program of Nocturnes by Claude Debussy and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No 4 in G. T…
A STRONG BREW OF CHARACTER AND STORY The Counter is the latest in a series of plays in greater Boston featuring a character who pours drinks. In recent months we've had Primary Trust, Two St…
LEGACY MEETS MORTALITY IN THE MOUNTAINTOP This superb production of Katori Hall's The Mountaintop, a surprise-filled two-hander depicting King's last night before his assassination, is not j…
STILL SCRAPPY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS It has been more than ten years since Hamilton's Off-Broadway premiere. Alexander Hamilton may have declared himself"like his country""young, scrappy, and…
MULTILINGUAL PRE-WEDDING JITTERS The sixth play in Mfoniso Udofia's nine-play Ufot Family Cycle brings us the adorable couple Ekong Ufot (Kadahj Bennett) and Lumanti Shrestha (Mahima Saigal)…
SLEUTHING FOR LAUGHS? YOU'LL FIND THEM HERE It's elementary! A clever script, thanks to the prolific and popular playwright Kate Hamill, and superb physical and verbal comedy, thanks to a gr…
STAR STRUCK Awe-inspiring lighting design (Eduardo M. Ramirez) and beautiful sound effects and music (Kai Bohlman with Violet Wang) elevate Lauren Gunderson's fictionalized biography of astr…
THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR Not every life-altering relationship is romantic. Sometimes it's a friend who helps us endure, who shapes us in ways that can last long after the friendship has e…
COMEDY IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS So much could have gone wrong in this production of playwright David Templeton's delightfully original and utterly unique Featherbaby, but in the able hands…
TAKE MY HUSBAND, PLEASE Marriage has long been fodder for male stand-up comics, but it has generally been women who have been the butt of the jokes. Actress, comic, and TV personality Joy Be…
ON THE RIGHT TRACK The 7 Fingers (Les 7 Doigts), a Montréal-based circus arts company, brings 90 spellbinding minutes of exhibitions of strength, flexibility, coordination, balance, courage…
THE LEFT BEHIND Frankly, I was in theater hell this Saturday afternoon. Two women on one side of me were whispering to one another throughout the first 10 minutes of the show; a man on the o…
A BEWITCHING WIZ Director Schele Williams's touring adaptation of The Wiz touches down in Boston like a technicolor cyclone and lifts its audience up with a storm of funk, gospel, and unapol…