KOKANDY UNLEASHES ITS HYDE A problematic musical gets a thrilling jolt of theatrical electricity from Kokandy’s powerhouse performers and audacious design Kokandy Productions’ remount of…
WHEN THE APOCALYPSE LOSES ITS MAGIC José Rivera’s surreal vision of a world coming apart demands theatrical daring that this earthbound revival rarely delivers What would you do if you li…
A TOWN LEARNS WHAT IT’S WORTH Darko Tresnjak’s blistering production watches Güllen purchase its way toward murder When the Burgomaster (mayor) of the Güllen rises in his most solemn c…
AN EASY PILL TO SWALLOW The opening production of TimeLine’s first full season in its gorgeous new home in Uptown, the world premiere of Jessica Huang’s The Birth of the Pill, gets off t…
A VERY GOOD YEAR Someone should carve a statue to this delightful performer If the world of cabaret ever got around to having someone carve its own equivalent of Mount Rushmore, the smiling …
YOU WILL BE WON OVER Cygnet delivers a moving, beautifully acted production with terrific voices Hooray for misunderstandings! Where would theatre be without them? And in Cygnet Theatre’s …
ROUGHING IT This new musical still has considerable work to do Carl Jung called the work individuation: integrating the selves we invent with the self that has to live in the world. Wild Chi…
NO MIRACLE HERE Moments of brilliance cannot make this uneven García Márquez adaptation cohere It has been raining for several days, and in a small house, a husband (Dan Cobbler) and wife …
SCRATCH IT Silverman’s Jacobean reworking is hilarious, dark, and exhilarating How does one determine if an adaptation is a success? Does it require rigorous fidelity to the source materia…
THE ELEPHANT IN THE MUSICAL Circus artistry and inventive puppetry soar where the musical itself falls short Water for Elephants, based on Sara Gruen’s bestselling novel, with a book by Ri…
HOT JAZZ, COOL COMMUNITY Eight bands, two days, and a lively crowd keep traditional jazz swinging in Medford Now in its fourth year, the Bay State Hot Jazz Festival brought eight traditional…
A LITTLE WHISKY, A LOT OF SPACE Daphne Roubini makes restraint the defining virtue of a quietly distinctive jazz album Start with the credits. Voice, two guitars, bass, tenor, trumpet. Nobod…
A studio recording and a live concert are two completely different experiences. In the studio, every part can be re-recorded and mixed to technical perfection. But something important often …
Walk into a symphony hall on the right evening, and you might find a full orchestra and choir performing not Beethoven or Mahler, but the score to a video game. The audience, many of them dr…
THE CASE AGAINST AN EASY OUT A darkly funny, anxiety-inducing thriller loses its footing in the final stretch In the skies over Texas, a pregnant young woman called Nessa faints on a plane e…
AN AMERICAN STORY GETS A NEW LIFE Lynn Nottage, John Legend, Whitney White, and Adrienne Warren take on a story that has been provoking America for nearly a century Some source material arri…
HOME IS WHERE THE FIRE STARTS Steep Theatre opens its new home with the U.S. premiere of Simon Stephens’ post-apocalyptic drama What use is hope after the world has ended? That question si…
A TREE GROWS ON 24TH STREET Mike Kenny’s lyrical world premiere makes magic Simplicity fused with memory is one of the foundations of poetry, and truth finds its most eloquent expression i…
A GLITCH IN THE FAMILY Brenda Barrie shines, but this AI drama does not compute A spare stage greets you as you walk into the Gillian Theatre for Matthew Libby’s Sisters, the opening play …
MAMET MAKES A PASS AT THE LADIES Three women turn Victorian propriety into a wicked game of lust, jealousy, and verbal warfare David Mamet is best known for plays populated by men who lie, b…
DONIZETTI’S BURIED TREASURE AND RUBBLE POP finds music worth hearing in a comedy better left buried Pacific Opera Project did not pull Il fortunato inganno (The Fortunate Deception) from a…
SOBERING THOUGHTS A funny, affecting recovery comedy that lingers too long on relapse Kicking off its 60th season, Marin Theatre presents the Bay Area premiere of The White Chip: A Sobering …
A HITLER HIT HITS OGUNQUIT Mel Brooks’s gloriously audacious musical remains impossible to kill Just as novelists love to write about writers and filmmakers love to make films about Hollyw…
A SEASON BEGINS IN THREES Three young musicians open the Music Guild season with Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, and Brahms The Music Guild opens its 82nd season on Monday, Sept. 14, with the Kuk…
A MOST ACCOMMODATING DISASTER Frisch’s comedy leaves no one comfortably outside the joke Gottlieb Biedermann tells his wife and his maid that even if he had three spare beds standing empty…