by Kilian Melloy
It’s hellishly hard to get Stephen King’s work to translate well from page to screen; you’d better be a Stanley Kubrick, a Bran DePalma, or a Mike Flanagan if you hope to create the same sense of dread and terror King imbues his novels and short stories, or a Frank Darabont or a Rob Reiner to capture some of the same emotional charge and general atmospherics.
Read more “Kilian Melloy Interviews Tom Coiner, Star of Merrimack Rep’s “Misery””
“Churchill” − Created and directed by David Payne. Presented by Emery Entertainment, Standford Calderwood Pavilion, 539 Tremont Street, through October 12.
by Michele Markarian
One-person shows are tricky in terms of verisimilitude – who is the person talking to? Why are they standing before us? Years ago, my grandmother, knowing I was fond of Emily Dickinson, took me to see “The Belle of Amherst” with Julie Harris. My twelve-year-old self didn’t buy the fact that Emily was willing to address a roomful of 650 strangers at Boston’s Colonial Theater for no apparent reason other than the fact that we were there. She even offered us cake when clearly there wasn’t enough to go around. It didn’t make for a credible suspension of disbelief.
Read more “Winston Churchill Comes to Life in “Churchill””
‘Hamilton’ — Book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Inspired by Ron Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton.” Directed by Thomas Kail. Choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler; Music Supervision and Orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire. Presented by Broadway in Boston at Citizens Opera House, Boston through Nov. 2.
By Shelley A. Sackett
How lucky are we that Lin-Manuel Miranda decided to pack Ron Chernow’s biography, “Alexander Hamilton,” when preparing his bag to take on his first vacation in seven years after the Broadway run of his smash hit, In the Heights. He plowed through the 800+ page book and was mesmerized by Hamilton, particularly his story as a poor immigrant rising to power.
“The moment my brain got a moment’s rest, Hamilton walked into it,” he told Ariana Huffington in an interview.
Read more “Don’t Throw Away Your Shot to See Broadway in Boston’s Spectacular ‘Hamilton’”
‘The Mountaintop’ – Written by Katori Hall. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Scenic Design by Ben Lieberman. Lighting Design by Brian Lilienthal. Sound Design by Joshua Jackson. Presented by the Front Porch Arts Collective at the Suffolk University Modern Theatre, 525 Tremont Street, Boston, through October 12, 2025
A powerful production of the play The Mountaintop is running at Suffolk’s Modern Theatre – a short Green Line ride away from the university (BU) where MLK earned a PhD in systematic theology in 1955, on the same campus where he delivered a speech entitled “The Future of Desegregation” at the Ford Hall Forum in 1963, and blocks away from the Boston Common, where he delivered a speech in 1965 and where a permanent monument honoring the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King was unveiled in 2023.
Read more “With Top-Notch Performances, Front Porch Arts Collective’s ‘The Mountaintop’ Soars”
‘Macbeth’– Written by William Shakespeare; Directed by Christopher V. Edwards; Featuring Brooke Hardman, Jade Guerra, Jesse Hinson, Jennie Israel, Brian Demar Jones, Claire Mitchell, Vince Nguyen, Amanda Esmie Reynolds, Omar Robinson, Chingwe Padraig Sullivan, Dennis Trainor Jr.; Scenic Design Danielle Ibrahim; Sound Design by Julian Crocamo; Lighting Design Elmera Martinez; Costume Design Marissa Wolf; Sound Design Mackenzie Adamick; Production Design Sue Rees; Audio Engineer Irene Wang; Fight Director Naomi Kim. Presented by Actors Shakespeare Project, Boston, MA, through October 26.
By C.J. Williams
Macbeth, as you know, is one of those plays that takes sanity and hope and puts them through a meat grinder. Once you’ve seen Macbeth, you’ve seen not only that blood will out, but that blood will douse, drench, and seep through skin into the deepest crevices of your heart, mind, and conscience. But what if you want to make it more disquieting? Perhaps this is what Director Christopher V. Edwards and the Actors’ Shakespeare Project team asked themselves as they planned this year’s production of the iconic play. How about staging the political and relational shenanigans during the Cold War?
Read more “ASP’s ‘Macbeth’ is Imaginative, Disquieting”
300 Paintings, Created and performed by Sam Kissajukian; Produced by Sally Horchow and Matt Ross in association with Octopus Theatricals; Presented by American Repertory Theater at Farkas Hall in Cambridge, MA through October 25, 2025.
by Julie-Anne Whitney
Aussie comedian Sam Kissajukian didn’t know anything about art when he quit stand-up comedy four years ago. During his 10-year career, he toured throughout Australia, Europe, the UK, and the USA. Despite his success, he confessed, “I just did whatever the audiences wanted me to do, and I hated it. I hated myself.” For him, comedy had become performative and superficial – “It made me feel invisible inside.” After abandoning his comedy career, Kissajukian devoted himself to painting. What he didn’t know at the time was that he had been living with bipolar disorder, and he was about to enter into a brutal six-month manic episode that would completely sever him from reality.
Boston theaters have long served as a testing ground for new musicals headed to Broadway. Recent major works like Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (2015), The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (2011), and Waitress (2015)all premiered at the American Repertory Theater in Harvard Square in recent years before becoming sensations on the Great White Way. It’s a tradition that reaches as far back as 1943 (Oklahoma!) if not even earlier, and endures as recently as 2018 (Moulin Rouge! The Musical! and Jagged Little Pill both lit up Boston area stages that year).
Read more “Kilian Melloy Talks with Liz Callaway About Her Career and SpeakEasy’s Upcoming New Musical Showcase, “Boston Bound””
The Mountaintop – Written by Katori Hall. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Presented by The Front Porch Arts Collective in collaboration with Suffolk University at Modern Theatre, 525 Washington St., Boston, through October 12.
By Shelley A. Sackett
Playwright Katori Hall couldn’t have asked for a better production of his Olivier Award-winning play, The Mountaintop, than the one it is receiving at the Modern Theater at Suffolk University. Under Maurice Emmanuel Parent’s pitch-perfect direction, its two stars, Dominic Carter and Kiera Prusmack, deliver impeccable performances as civil rights and social justice leader, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Camae, a motel employee. Ben Lieberson’s set is straightforward and literal, a classic 1960s era, no frills, wood-paneled motel room.
Read more “‘The Mountaintop’ Is A Gripping Rendering of MLK’s Last Night”
‘The Ceremony’ — Written by Mfoniso Udofia. Directed by Kevin R. Free. Presented by CHUANG Stage at Boston University’s Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre, 820 Commonwealth Ave., Boston through October 5.
By Shelley A. Sackett
Playwright Mfoniso Udofia’s nine-play Ufot Family Cycle follows the various members of the Nigerian Ufot family across three generations, starting with the brutal Nigerian Civil War (also known as the Biafran War) of 1967-1970. With the world premiere of The Ceremony, the sixth in the series, Udofia brings the family firmly into the present (2023) with all its contemporary social mores and cultural pressures.
Read more “‘The Ceremony’ Revisits and Rewrites the Ufot Legacy”
You might know comedian Chris Grace from his role on Superstore or his appearances on Broad City, Pen15, and other TV shows. But beyond the screen, he’s a busy standup comedian with such a packed itinerary that, he tells Theater Mirror, he hasn’t been home since July… and he won’t be back until just before Thanksgiving.
One of Grace’s most recent stops was the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he created new material nonstop — a show every day, he says, for each day he was there. Now he’s getting ready to come to Boston, bringing his solo show Sardines (a comedy about death) to the Huntington Theatre for a six-week run, Sept. 30 – Nov. 16. (Find out more at https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/whats-on/sardines/ .)
Read more “Kilian Melloy Talks with Chris Grace About His Upcoming Solo Show, “Sardines” at the Huntington”