Updated 16:03, September the 16th, 2007
| MUSIC |
COMEDY |
OTHER |
| September Arts |
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| The English Channel Now through Sept. 15 C. Walsh Theatre at Suffolk University 55 Temple St., Boston MBTA: Blue Line to Bowdoin $15 to $30, 866-811-4111 www.theatermania.com Robert Brustein’s play, set in 1593, finds Shakespeare honing his sonnet- and play-writing chops in the Mermaid Tavern, while the plague makes everything FUBAR outside. With a supporting cast of characters that includes rival Christopher Marlowe and the Earl of Southampton, Big Bad Bill finds himself in a sexual, artistic and political mess. |
| 4:48 Psychosis Now through Sept. 22 Midway Studios 15 Channel Center St. Boston MBTA: Red Line to South Station $22, 617-737-8110 www.fortpointtheatrechannel.org The new Fort Point Theatre Channel company officially opens with this production of Sarah Kane’s plotless and characterless play, which takes its title from the time of night that most suicides take place. Completed shortly before Kane took her own life in 1999, The London Telegraph called the play, , “gripping . . . ripped not just from its author’s churning brain, but from the core of her being.” |
| Don Juan Giovanni and Figaro Now through Oct. 6 Loeb Drama Center 64 Brattle St., Cambridge MBTA: Red Line to Harvard $25 to $79, 617-547-8300 www.amrep.org The ART’s double-bill theatrical mash-up, performed together on one set, fuses Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” with Molière’s “Don Juan,” and then combines Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” with Beaumarchais’ original play. Toss in a drive-in movie, a cross-country road trip and the French Revolution, and you’ve got the theatrical equivalent of jambalaya. |
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Man of La Mancha Now through Oct. 13 The Lyric Stage Company of Boston 140 Clarendon St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $29 to $54, 617-585-5678 www.lyricstage.com Awaiting a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition in a dungeon, Miguel Cervantes and his servant, put on mock-trial by fellow prisoners, perform the tale of Don Quixote, a knight who does nutty things like mistake a windmill for a four-armed giant. (In his defense, windmills are inarguably giant-esque.) The 1965 Tony Award-winning musical has been revived numerous times on Broadway, and its central song, “The Impossible Dream,” has been recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Supremes. |
Shear Madness
Ongoing, Tuesdays-Sundays
Charles Playhouse
74 Warrenton St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$40, 617-426-5225
www.shearmadness.com
There’s been a murder in a hair salon and you, the audience, are needed
to help solve the crime. Lemme tell you somethin’, Mac: Death by blow
dryer and a comb ain’t pretty. The comedic whodunit, now in its 28th
year in Boston, holds the Guinness record as the longest running play
in the history of American theatre.
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Accidental Death of an Anarchist Now through Sept. 15 Studio Theatre at Northeastern University 360 Huntington Ave., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Northeastern $15, 617-373-4700 www.centerforthearts.neu.edu Nobel Prize-winner Dario Fo’s satirical play, based on real events surrounding a man thrown from the fourth story of a Milan police station in 1969, promises to expose issues of police corruption, brutality and the manipulation of information by the media. Wow, is there a more fitting way for an anarchist to go out? |
A Streetcar Named Desire
Now through Oct. 7
The Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal St., Watertown
617-923-8487
www.newrep.org
Perhaps no one will ever play the role of Stanley Kowalski better than
Marlon Brando (although Ned Flanders came close), but Tennessee
Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play remains a visceral touchstone of
live theatre, 60 years after its Broadway debut. A plain white T-shirt
has never been used to greater effect.
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Gypsy Now through Sept. 30 Stoneham Theatre 395 Main St., Stoneham $20 to $40, 781-279-2200 www.stonehamtheatre.org “Let Me Entertain You” and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” are but a few of the wham-bam songs in this famed Broadway musical by Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim. “Gypsy” is based on the memoirs of burlesque star Gypsy Lee Rose, and features Leigh Barrett in the role of the domineering stage mother, Mama Rose. |
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The Secret Love Life of Ophelia Now through Sept. 30 Boston Playwrights’ Theatre 949 Commonwealth Ave., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Pleasant Street $22 to $32, 866-811-4111 www.thenora.org Remember that time when Hamlet was all “Get thee to a nunnery!” to Ophelia? What can we say - some girls just like the existentially tortured dudes who ramble on about hawks and handsaws. The doomed love affair between Shakespeare’s second-most popular doomed couple is told “through the exchange of passionate and illicit letters” in the New England premiere of Steven Berkoff’s play. |
Zanna, Don’t!
Sept. 14 to Oct. 13
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$14 to $50, 617-933-8600
A 2003 nominee for Best Off-Broadway Musical, “Zanna, Don’t!” is a
musical fairy tale set in a world where gay is the norm. Zanna is “a
matchmaking teenager who turns relationships upside down and changes
the world forever when his friends Kate and Steve fall in love.” And
then the dude with the red fingerless fishnet gloves clicked his heels
together three times and said, “There’s no place like home.”
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The New England Fringe Festival Sept. 15 to Sept. 30 The Roxbury Center for Arts at Hibernian Hall 184 Dudley St., Roxbury MBTA: Orange Line to Roxbury Crossing $10, 617-849-6324 www.rcahh.org The first annual New England Fringe Festival has a little bit of everything for everyone: choreographed fisticuffs, “grown-up” storytelling by Laura Packer, improvised plays and a production of “Cannibal! The Musical.” Let’s hope there’s no audience participation in that last one. |
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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Sept. 20 to Oct. 20 BCA Plaza Theatre 539 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $22 to $42 (617) 728-4321 www.bostontheatreworks.com Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical comedy, set in ancient Rome, follows the slave Pseudolus as he tries to win his freedom by getting the virgin next door to fall in love with his master. Hijinks ensue, of course, those antiquated hijinks of Roman Empire proportions, the type that involve togas and coliseums and crossdressing. |
Irving Berlin’s I Love a Piano
September 21 to September 30
Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont Street, Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$25 to $65
(800) 233-3123
www.maj.org
Look at America through the perspective of composer Irving Berlin’s
songs in this new production. With over 60 songs -- including “Easter
Parade,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “God Bless America”
and “Puttin’ on the Ritz” -- you’ll be on a trip down Tin Pan Alley in
no time. Remember, always carry your money in your shoe when walking
down Tin Pan Alley.
| tick, tick…BOOM! Sept. 22 to Oct. 21 The Black Box Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts 321 Arsenal St., Watertown $10 to $35, 617-923-8487 www.newrep.org Before “Rent,” playwright Jonathan Larson created this autobiographical account of a 30-year-old waiter and aspiring composer struggling to survive in New York amidst escalating anxiety. It was originally produced as an Off-Off-Broadway rock monologue, which must be performed while wearing leather pants and a studded leather bracelet, lest the performer risk personal injury. |
| 365 Days/ 365 Plays Sept. 24 to Sept. 30 Throughout Cambridge Free www.centralsquaretheater.org Suzan-Lori Parks’ play cycle -- “some short, some sweet, all memorable” -- will be performed throughout the Squares of Cambridge at the end of September. The concept is pure guerrilla art, in a sense (imagine, a theatrical mutiny on random Cambridge street corners!) -- not that anything will seem different in Central Square, that great public stage of delusion. |
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American Twistory Sept. 27 to Nov. 4 Comcast Cabaret Theatre 75 Warrenton St., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Boylston $29.50 to $47.50, 857-366-8181 www.twisttix.com American history gets “twisted” in this multi-media production, and no, that doesn’t mean it downed a sixer of Smirnoff Ice while listening to Insane Clown Posse last night. “American Twistory” is a satirical look at US history that combines Broadway song and dance, Hollywood celebrity and Las Vegas razzmatazz. |
| October Theater |
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| ‘Don Juan in Hell’ Oct. 1 Boston University Theatre 264 Huntington Ave., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Symphony $25, 617-933-8600 www.bostontheatrescene.com The 100th anniversary of the birth of British actor Sir Rex Harrison (”My Fair Lady”) is celebrated with this production of George Bernard Shaw’s renowned dream sequence, a philosophical debate between the Devil and Don Juan. Philip Bosco, one of the most esteemed living actors of Shaw, stars. In no way do we endorse evil -- that said, our money’s on Beelzebub. (He was the head of his debate team in high school.) |
‘Sorry, Wrong Number’
Oct. 1 and 2
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
527 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$60, 617-933-8600
www.bostontheatrescene.com
Leigh Barrett, Kerry Dowling, and Kathy St. George headline this
special benefit concert event in which members of Boston’s musical
theater community perform songs from roles in which they would never be
cast. All proceeds benefit SpeakEasy Stage.
| ‘The Kentucky Cycle’ Oct. 6 through Nov. 17 Plaza Black Box Theatre at the BCA 539 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $35, 617-759-8836 www.zeitgeiststage.com Nine plays are presented in two parts in this epic Pulitzer Prize-winning saga. Two hundred years in the lives of eastern Kentucky’s settlers are traced, specifically “three families whose lust for land perpetuates an unforgiving cycle of primal betrayal and revenge.” Who knew the battle for KFC was so storied? |
| ‘Brendan’ Oct. 12 through Nov. 17 Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA 527 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $15 to $50, 617-266-0800 www.huntingtontheatre.org ‘Brendan’ is Ronan Noone’s other BCA play this season. The first one is the one we interviewed Campbell Scott for on page 12. What? You’re not reading the interviews? Read it, please, and then report back to this page. Anyway, in this play, Brendan is an Irish immigrant living in Boston who has to overcome several obstacles for American citizenship. The main obstacle, of course, is that Boston is such an unfriendly town for the Irish. Just joshing. |
| ‘Tartuffe’ Oct. 12 through Oct. 27 Boston University Theatre 264 Huntington Ave., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Symphony $7, 617-933-8600 www.bostontheatrescene.com Molière’s classic comedy, in which “an unscrupulous impostor dons a pious façade and aims to exploit the family of an affluent, yet naïve, merchant,” gets relocated to Hurricane Katrina-devastated New Orleans in this staging directed by David Gram. |
| ‘The Veiled Monologues’ Oct. 16 through Oct. 21 Zero Arrow Theatre 2 Arrow St., Cambridge MBTA: Red Line to Harvard Square $25 to $52, 617-547-8300 www.amrep.org Inspired by her participation in Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues,” actress/director Adelheid Roosen spoke with Muslim women living in the Netherlands to ask them similar questions about their sexuality. The resulting monologues, performed in English by three Turkish actresses of Muslim decent, offer insight into the lives of women raised in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Somalia, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. |
| ‘Sow and Weep’ Oct. 17 through Oct. 21 CFA TheatreLab 855 Comm. Ave., Boston MBTA: Green Line to BU West Free, 617-353-3390 www.bu.edu/cfa Nitzan Halperin’s play offers “an intimate look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of two families, one from each side of the battle line.” The profound production is the BU School of Theatre’s official entry in this year’s Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. |
| ‘The Devil’s Teacup’ Oct. 18 through Oct. 28 Playwrights’ Theatre at Boston University 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston MBTA: Green Line to Pleasant Street $10 to $20, 866-811-4111 www.bostonplaywrights.org In this “funny and serious look at prodigal sons,” NYC denizen Max Fletcher returns to his small Arkansas hometown to deal with a funeral and the sale of his family’s saloon, the Devil’s Teacup. By the way, the sequels, “The Devil’s Toaster Cozy” and “The Devil’s Frilly Apron,” can’t hold a candle to the original. |
‘Macbeth’
Oct. 18 through Nov. 11
Studio 102 at Boston University
855 Comm. Ave., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to BU West
$30 to $43, 866-811-4111
www.actorsshakespeareproject.org
An all-female cast takes on Shakespeare’s great tragedy of power, guilt
and madness (wait, aren’t they all about power, guilt and madness?).
Macbeth and the stain-obsessed Lady Macbeth do the scheming, and some
heads roll. The lesson of this one is to always take the prophecies of
witches with a grain of salt.
| ‘1984’ Oct. 19 and 20 Blackman Theatre at Northeastern University 360 Huntington Ave., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Northeastern $20, 617-373-4700 www.centerforthearts.neu.edu The Actors’ Gang presents a world premiere adaptation of George Orwell’s great dystopian novel. Michael Gene Sullivan adapted the story for the stage, which depicts a totalitarian society subjected to the insidious surveillance of the government, as well as the relentless playing of Van Halen’s “Top Jimmy.” For those of you who didn’t get that one, “Top Jimmy” was a song on the Van Halen album called “1984.” |
| ‘Dying City’ Oct. 19 through Nov. 11 The Lyric Stage Company of Boston 140 Clarendon St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $25 to $50, 617-585-5678 www.lyricstage.com Variety called this Off-Broadway hit “an achingly compassionate new play.” When an Afghan war widow is unexpectedly visited by her dead husband’s twin brother, they explore their loss, confront past secrets and admit the truth about the tragedy that connects them. |
Photo: David Allen
‘Sweeney Todd’
Oct. 23 through Nov. 4
The Colonial Theatre
106 Boylston St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Boylston
$40 to $88.50, 617-931-2787
www.broadwayacrossamerica.com
Before Tim Burton and Johnny Depp unleash their version of this classic
revenge tale on moviegoers in December, catch the celebrated Sondheim
musical on stage. The titular demon barber has a helluva way with a
straight razor, but then, he’s a demon barber so you’d expect
confidence with a blade, no?
| ‘A House With No Walls’ Oct. 24 through Nov. 18 The Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts 321 Arsenal St., Watertown $35 to $55, 617-923-8487 www.newrep.org In this play, George Washington’s presidential home is besieged by debate and emotion when two opposing African-American politicos weigh in on how to honor both American liberty and the memory of the nine slaves who lived in the eight-by-eight foot square quarters on site. |
| ‘Marilyn: Forever Blonde’ Oct. 25 through Nov. 11 Stoneham Theatre 395 Main St., Stoneham $20 to $40, 781-279-2200 www.stonehamtheatre.org Sunny Thompson plays Marilyn Monroe, posing for what would be her final photo session before her death. The play, conceived by award-winning producer/writer Greg Thompson, uses Monroe’s own words “to tell the witty, titillating, scandalous and heartbreaking story of a desperate woman lost in a world of Hollywood make-believe.” Sounds like one-of-a-kind! |
| ‘Oedipus in Palm Springs’ Oct. 25 through Oct. 28 Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA 527 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $20 to $48, 617-933-8600 www.bostontheatrescene.com Sophocles’ play gets the Sapphic treatment in this Queer Theater adaptation. “Lesbian couples at a Palm Springs resort test the boundaries with drunken encounters…and explore the messy realities of long term relationships, commitment, marriage, passion and motherhood.” Oedipus is gonna really wish he had those eyes back now when he hears about this. |
| ‘Top Girls’ Oct. 25 through Oct. 27 Semel Theater at Emerson 10 Boylston Place, Boston MBTA: Green Line to Boylston $14, 617-824-8369 www.emerson.edu/emersonstage This performance marks the 25th anniversary of Caryl Churchill’s Obie Award-winning play which asks the question, “What price success?” That question is “asked and answered in a number of ways by, of and about women through the ages.” Still, we’re guessing success costs about $29.98. |
‘The Bluest Eye’
Oct. 26 through Nov 17
Plaza Theatre at the BCA
539 Tremont St., Boston
MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay
$18 to $30, 617-933-8600
www.companyone.org
Toni Morrison’s novel about a black girl’s coming of age in the
racially turbulent 1940s is adapted for the stage in this production
directed Summer L. Williams.
| ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Oct. 26 through Nov. 25 Wheelock Family Theatre 200 The Riverway, Boston MBTA: Green Line to Fenway $15 to $23, 617-879-2300 www.wheelock.edu/wft Harper Lee’s classic novel may be set in a rural Alabama town in the 1930s, but it remains relevant today. Her examination of racial tensions still rings true, hundreds of miles from where it was set. The Wheelock Family Theatre follows up its initial 1993 adaptation with this latest production. |
| ‘Donnie Darko’ Oct. 27 through Nov. 18 Zero Arrow Theatre 2 Arrow St., Cambridge MBTA: Red Line to Harvard $25 to $52, 617-547-8300 www.amrep.org In the Unlikely Stage Adaptation Department, Richard Kelly’s 2001 cult film about a teenager who violates the laws of the time-space continuum is brought to life on the ART’s Zero Arrow Theatre stage. Fans of six-foot tall rabbits take notice. |
‘This Is So Not About the Simpsons’
Oct. 27 and 28
Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center
333 Nahanton St., Newton Center
MBTA: Green Line to Newton Center, then #52 bus
$24 to $30, 617-965-5226
www.lsjcc.org
Comedian Harry Shearer, best known for his roles in “This Is Spinal
Tap” and “The Simpsons,” and his wife, musician Judith Owen, “take on
the culture and politics of the country in their entertaining new show.”
| `High School Musical’ Oct. 31 through Nov. 4 Wang Theatre 270 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Boylston $15 to $68, 800-447-7400 In this touring stage version based on the Emmy Award-winning Disney Channel movie, “a popular high school basketball star and a shy, academically gifted newcomer discover they share a secret passion for singing.” Only Disney could dream up a world in which high school students’ secret passion is singing. |
| November Arts |
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| ‘Out of the Box: Twisted Tales’ Nov. 2 and 3 Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA 527 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $25, 617-933-8600 www.bostontheatrescene.com “Provocative satire collides with sexy moves” in this drag-king extravaganza staged by All the Kings Men. Something tells us these guys may have a secret passion for singing, too. |
| ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Nov. 9 through Nov. 17 Cutler Majestic Theatre 219 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Boylston $14 to $21, 800-233-3123 www.emerson.edu/emersonstage Melia Bensussen’s production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy concerning lovers and fairies and asses, oh my! Reason #34 why actors shouldn’t go into the woods: someone always gets turned into a donkey. |
| ‘Streamers’ Nov. 9 through Dec. 9 Boston University Theatre 264 Huntington Ave., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Symphony $15 to $65, 617-266-0800 www.huntingtontheatre.org David Rabe’s powerful play focuses on four young soldiers who watch on from Virginia in 1965 as conflict in Vietnam intensifies. Rabe, whose screenplay credits include “The Firm” and “Casualties of War,” hones in as “tensions rise over race, sexuality, and class, culminating in an explosive act that changes them forever.” |
| ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ Nov. 16 to Dec. 15 Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA 527 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $14 to $54, 617-933-8600 www.bostontheatrescene.com A Victorian theater troupe attempts to stage a rendition of Dickens’ unfinished novel in this Tony Award-winning musical. If only those Victorian theater troupes weren’t so obsessed with unfinished works, perhaps they would have had greater success. |
| ‘This Wonderful Life’ Nov. 23 through Dec. 22 The Lyric Stage Company of Boston 140 Clarendon St., Boston MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay $25 to $50, 617-585-5678 www.lyricstage.com Neil Casey shoulders over 20 roles, including George Bailey, Clarence the Angel and Old Man Potter in this one-man re-imagining of Frank Capra’s 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life.” This Casey fella, he got something to prove? |
| ‘White Christmas’ Nov. 23 through Dec. 23 Wang Theatre 270 Tremont St., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Boylston $22 to $150, 800-447-7400 www.citicenter.org Irving Berlin’s holiday classic, based on the 1954 movie musical, “tells the story of two showbiz buddies putting on a show in a picturesque Vermont inn, and finding their perfect mates in the bargain.” Berlin’s fondness for Vermont ski bunnies is rather transparent in this show. |
| ‘Copenhagen’ Nov. 24 through Dec. 23 Loeb Drama Center 64 Brattle St., Cambridge MBTA: Red Line to Harvard $25 to $79, 617-547-8300 www.amrep.org No kids, it’s not just the capital of Denmark: Copenhagen is also the place where German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his Danish counterpart Niels Bohr, divided by war and entangled in the race toward the atom bomb, met for a much-talked-about conversation. Michael Frayn’s play imagines what might have taken place. |
| ‘Mamma Mia!’ Nov. 27 to Dec. 16 The Colonial Theatre 106 Boylston St., Boston MBTA: Green Line to Boylston $40 to $88.50, 617-931-2787 www.broadwayacrossamerica.com ABBA’s greatest hits are incorporated into this tale of a love child’s search for her absent father. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll think, “God, don’t I just love ‘Dancing Queen’?” |
| ‘Miracle on 34th St.’ Nov. 29 to Dec. 23 Stoneham Theatre 395 Main St., Stoneham $20 to $40, 781-279-2200 www.stonehamtheatre.org Kris Kringle, Santa Claus himself, lands himself a job as a Macy’s store Santa in New York City, where he sets out to help a little girl believe in the magic of Christmas. Yum…the psychotic delusion does go well with the eggnog! |