‘Freestyle Love Supreme’ at Colonial a High Energy Comic Blast

March 21, 2022March 21, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Chris Sullivan, Wayne Brady, Anthony Veneziale, Aneesa Folds in Freestyle Love Supreme at the Emerson Colonial Theater. Photos by Joan Marcus. (Brady is not part of the cast for the Boston dates).

“Freestyle Love Supreme” – Conceived by Anthony Veneziale. Created by Thomas Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Anthony Veneziale. Directed by Thomas Kail. Presented by the Ambassador Theatre Group at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston St., Boston through April 2.

by Mike Hoban

What do you get when you cross improvisational comedy with hip-hop? Freestyle Love Supreme is what, and it’s a musical comedy blast. Boston is the second leg of the national tour of this unique entertainment experience, following a four-month return engagement to the Booth Theater on Broadway after the show won a special Tony Award last September. The concept of the show itself isn’t entirely new, as improvisational comedy groups have long incorporated long-form musicals into their shows, but the added degree of difficulty – fitting the improvised songs into a rhyming scheme in harmony with a beatbox – is nothing short of amazing.

Trinity Rep’s “Gem of the Ocean” Teaches Us to Do the Right Thing

March 18, 2022March 18, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Liz Morgan, Rose Weaver, Mauro Hantman & Christopher Lindsay in Trinity Rep’s “Gem of the Ocean” Photos by Mark Turek

by Tony Annicone

Trinity Rep takes us back to Pittsburgh in 1904 with their third show of the season, “Gem of the Ocean” by August Wilson. It’s the first of his 10 Play Cycle, each covering a decade of the 20th Century. Each story is set in the working-class neighborhood known as the Hill District, where Wilson himself was born. These plays take African Americans out of the reconstruction era of the Civil War South and into the modern era of early twentieth century. Mystical, mysterious (and very old) Aunt Ester discusses the newly found freedom from slavery and the “city of bones” that describes the brutal history of the slave trade. Ester also emphasizes the importance of honor and doing what is right, and wants to know what they are willing to die for now that they are free. An original song by Broken Chord, “Remember Me”, opens the show, and when the song is over, we hear a young man pounding on the door. It is Citizen Barlow, who has come to visit Aunt Ester. He wants to be forgiven for something in his past and needs and wants redemption. After receiving advice from Aunt Ester, Solly Two Kings (a former runner for the Underground Railroad, who is courting Ester,) and Eli, (a traveling salesman who is Ester’s care giver and confidant) they take him on a mystical trip to the City of Bones. Barlow wants to pursue a relationship with Black Mary but her brother, Caesar, a hard-headed cop, stands in the way of their relationship.

Central Square’s ‘Nerds’ Makes Strong Case for Why Representation Matters

March 16, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

James Ricardo Milord, Daniel Rios, Jr., Alison Yueming Qu, Kortney Adams, Lindsey McWhorter, and Karina Beleno Carney. Photos: Nile Scott Studios.

‘Young Nerds of Color’ – Arranged by Melinda Lopez; Directed by Dawn M. Simmons; Original Music Composed by Nona Hendryx; Set Design by Shelley Barish; Costume Design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt; Lighting Design by Andrea Sofia Sala; Presented by the Underground Railway Theatre at Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge through March 20.

by Mike Hoban

As a young boy growing up in the sixties, my only exposure to scientists was through Saturday afternoon science fiction movies on “Creature Double Feature”, which showed mostly cheesy black-and-white films like The Deadly Mantis and It Came From Outer Space. The scientists were – nearly without exception – older white men, except when the offering was Destroy All Monsters or some other campy romp from Japan. As I grew older and my tastes matured somewhat, depictions of scientists on film and TV were still mostly old white guys, although white women scientists began to appear occasionally onscreen. What audiences didn’t see were scientists that were people of color.

SpeakEasy’s ‘Once on This Island’ Is A Magical Tour of A Mystical Place

March 16, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Peli Naomi Woods, Kenny Lee, and the cast of SpeakEasy Stage’s **Once on This Island** (2022). Photos by Nile Scott Studios.

“Once On This Island.” Book and Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Music by Stephen Flaherty. Directed by Pascale Forestal. Music Direction by David Freeman Coleman; Choreography by Jazelynn Goudy; Scenic Design by Erik D. Diaz; Costume Design by Chelsea Kerl; Lighting Design by Aja M. Jackson; Sound Design by Andrew Duncan Will. Presented by Speakeasy Stage, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA through April 16.

by Shelley A. Sackett

‘Once On This Island’ is such a happy, toe-tapping, brightly colored musical, it’s easy to forget that its overarching tragic themes are Caribbean colonialism, racism, and slavery. Part ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (which didn’t end well for those star-crossed lovers, either), part Little Mermaid and part multi-cultural folk fable, the show explains the history of the Island Hispaniola and its eventual split into Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

An Exuberant, Optimistic “Once on This Island” at Speakeasy

March 15, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Peli Naomi Woods, Kenny Lee (both center), and the cast of SpeakEasy Stage’s **Once on This Island** (2022). Photos by Nile Scott Studios

by Michele Markarian

“Once On This Island”. Book and Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Music by Stephen Flaherty. Directed by Pascale Forestal. Presented by Speakeasy Stage, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA through April 16.

Once on This Island” isn’t exactly a light show. Class barriers, racial prejudice, and unrequited love are three of its main themes. Throw in the capriciousness of the gods, whose conflicting forces can’t always be controlled, and you can be sure that tragedy will counter good fortune. But what follows the rollicking first number, “We Dance”, is an hour and a half of engaging storytelling and musical entertainment.

Lyric Stage’s Superb ‘The Book of Will’ Takes Us Back to the Time of the Bard

March 8, 2022March 8, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

*Cast of ‘The Book of Will’ at Lyric Stage*

“The Book of Will.” Written by Lauren Gunderson. Directed by Courtney O’Connor. Scenic Design by Janie E. Howland; Costume Design by Elisabetta Polito; Lighting Design by Christopher Brushberg; Sound Design by Elizabeth Cahill. Produced by The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 140 Clarendon St., Boston through March 27.

By Shelley A. Sackett

Ever wonder about the immediate aftermath of Shakespeare’s death, how his plays were preserved in an era when plays were not considered to be important works of literature, plots were largely constructed by the actors and written out in a ‘fair copy’ for their records by the company scribes, and new plays were churned out at an incredibly fast rate to provide the companies with enough material to keep performing new shows all the time?

Well, wonder no more.

GBSC’s ‘Incident’ Is a Pleasant Trip Down Memory Lane

March 6, 2022March 9, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Cast of ‘Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help’ at Greater Boston Stage

“Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.” Written by Katie Forgette. Directed by Weylin Symes. Set Design by Shelley Barish; Lighting Design by Chris Fournier; Costume Design by Deirdre Gerrard; Sound Design by Dewey Dellay. Produced by Greater Boston Stage Company, 395 Main St, Stoneham, MA through March 20.

By Shelley A. Sackett

‘Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help’ will strike a particular chord among those of us whose wallets now hold Medicare and AARP cards. Written by Seattle-based playwright, Katie Forgette, it is a loving trip down her personal memory lane. She was raised Catholic and attended parochial school for 12 years. Her father was a hard working cab driver; her mother had many jobs, in addition to birthing ten children and caring for her own disabled mother. The family wasn’t poor, but only because her parents sacrificed personal goals and worked as hard as they could to be financially comfortable.

A.R.T.s ‘Ocean Filibuster’ Drowns in Good Intentions

March 4, 2022March 6, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Photos by Maggie HallJennifer Kidwell in A.R.T.s ‘Ocean Filibuster’. Photos by Maggie Hall

by Mike Hoban

Created by PearlDamour; Text by Lisa D’Amour; Music by Sxip Shirey; Directed by Katie Pearl; Scenic Design by Jian Jung; Music Direction by Sxip Shirey; Costume Design by Olivera Gajic; Lighting Design by Thomas Dunn; Sound Design by Germán Martínez; Projection Design by Tal Yarden. Presented by the American Repertory Theater and commissioned and developed through a collaboration with the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Through March 13 at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St. Cambridge, with a digital version available to stream March 9 – 27

Climate change is clearly the greatest threat to the continued existence of the planet as we know it – potentially impending nuclear war with Russia notwithstanding – but as we saw at the latest United Nations climate change summit in Glasgow this past fall, the folks in charge don’t seem all that willing to do anything about it. Despite the grandstanding from heads of state to phase-out coal power and subsidies for fossil fuels, nothing was codified, so it looks like we’ll just burn for another decade or two, until the megastorms and rising seas finally do us in.

MRT’s ‘Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End’ a Delightful Breath of Fresh Air

March 3, 2022 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Karen MacDonald as Erma Bombeck in MRT’s ‘Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End’

“Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End.” Written by Allison Engel and Margaret Engel. Directed by Terry Berliner; Scenic Design by Daniel Zimmerman; Costume Design by Teresa Snider; Lighting Design by Joel Shier; Sound Design by Scott Stauffer; Original Music Composed by Brett Marcias. Produced by Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA through March 13.

by Shelley A. Sackett

Karen MacDonald is nothing short of spectacular in the one-woman show, ‘Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End,’ now playing at Merrimack Repertory Theatre through March 13. For 80 intermission-less minutes, she doesn’t just play Erma Bombeck; she IS Erma Bombeck, from her impeccable timing to the subtlest gesture and most delicate modulation. Don’t let this one slip away without seeing it. It is a balm of enormous power during these dark tundra days.