★★☆☆☆ “I recommend biting off more than you can chew” is one Alanis Morissette lyric that the team behind Jagged Little Pill appears to have taken far too literally. When the musical—clobbered together from Morissette’s catalogue of hits—premiered at Cambridge’s American Repertory Theater last spring, I wrote in my review that it […]
A JOURNEY OF ENGAGEMENT: DAVID BYRNE READIES AMERICAN UTOPIA FOR BOSTON, THEN BROADWAY
How did it feel walking in the doors of the Colonial and seeing this incredible building for the first time? It’s a very amazing looking place. As I was saying to some of the theater people, I bet there are people that come to see a show here just to be in this place. […]
A GODDESS IN OUR MIDST: FAYE DUNAWAY IN TEA AT FIVE
★★★☆☆ In the spirit of total transparency, it must be said that I would pay money to sit and watch Faye Dunaway do just about anything. Or, for that matter, absolutely nothing. My love for her runs deep. So it was very much with that same sense of adoration and awe that I […]
DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME, QUEENS: THE CHER SHOW OPENS ON BROADWAY
★★★★☆ By now, we should all know to never underestimate Cher. The same can easily be said for The Cher Show, the relentlessly entertaining and blindingly infectious new musical that opened Monday evening at The Neil Simon Theatre. But while The Cher Show charts the ups and downs…and ups and downs…and […]
A VASTLY IMPROVED WAITRESS RETURNS TO BOSTON
★★★★☆ In my review of the 2015 world premiere of Waitress at the American Repertory Theater, I wrote that the show lacked depth and emotional texture and that there was nothing beyond the show’s light and airy meringue. While I do promise to avoid bad pie puns this time around, I am […]
A PHANTASTIC RETURN: LOVE NEVER DIES AT THE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE
★★★★☆ “Why can’t the past just die?” pleads Christina Daaé near the end of The Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s eternally unstoppable megahit. If only she knew how especially potent that plea would be 10 years later. That’s where Love Never Dies picks up—a decade after an angry mob descended […]
FROM ‘UNADAPTABLE’ TO SPECTACULAR
Eliott Purcell readies The Curious Incident for SpeakEasy Stage The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time isn’t just one of the biggest nonmusical Broadway hits in recent memory, but rather of the last decade. Running for almost 800 performances and winning five Tony Awards, The Curious Incident is the longest-running Broadway play […]
COME TO THE FUN HOME
Fun Home’s incredible journey & a change of major for actress Abby Corrigan By the time that Fun Home opened on Broadway in 2015, the Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron musical had been—in some form or another—in gestation and steadily picking up steam for over six years. Longer, of course, if you take into […]
WANG’S FAST FOOD, SOMERVILLE
Squeezed between a pizza joint and a bar, the place looks like your typical Chinese takeout spot from the outside.
KRISTIN CHENOWETH: 10 QUESTIONS
On her crossover success, touring, the role that got away, and what Broadway classic she has her eye on.
