Speakeasy’s ‘Jaja’ Combines Comedy and Harsh Reality

May 14, 2025May 14, 2025 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

MaConnia Chesser (center) and the cast of *Jaja’s African Hair Braiding* at SpeakEasy.
Photos by Nile Scott Studios

‘Jaja’s African Hair Braiding’ – Written by Jocelyn Bioh; Directed by Summer L. Williams; Scenic Design by Janie E. Howland; Costume Design by Danielle Domingue Sumi; Lighting Design by Christopher Brusberg; Sound Design by Aubrey Dube. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company. At Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts. Through May 31.

By Mike Hoban

On its surface, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, now being presented by the Speakeasy Stage Company, is a bubbly slice of life comedy. Set in a women’s hair salon in Harlem that specializes in African hair braiding, the play offers a glimpse into the lives of a half-dozen West African women who work at the salon and their American customers. But bubbling just under the surface is a much weightier concern, one that has become increasingly relevant since the play debuted on Broadway in 2023 and has dominated recent headlines.

Daigneault Closes the Door on SpeakEasy Stewardship with Poignant and Timely ‘A Man of No Importance’

February 26, 2025March 2, 2025 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Cast of Speakeasy’s ‘A Man of No Importance’. Photos by Nile Scott Studios

‘A Man of No Importance’ – Based on the film, ‘A Man of No Importance’. Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens; Music by Stephen Flaherty; Book by Terrence McNally; Directed by Paul Daigneault. Choreographed by Ilyse Robbins. Music direction by Paul S. Katz. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company. At the Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, through March 22.

By Mike Hoban

For the final show of a thirty-plus year career as the founder & artistic director of Boston’s SpeakEasy Stage Company, it’s interesting to note that Paul Daigneault chose the small but quietly beautiful A Man of No Importance for his final production. Producer and/or director of over 160 productions and winner of multiple Eliot Norton and IRNE Awards, Daigneault is equally adept at drama and musicals, including the mind-blowing two-part The Inheritance in 2022 and a slew of terrific musicals, the most recent being the Eliot Norton Award-winning The Band’s Visit. So it should probably come as no surprise that his final selection straddles the two genres.

“Strange Loop” Dazzlingly Bucks and Challenges Norms

May 1, 2024May 5, 2024 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Kai Clifton (center) and cast of ‘*A Strange Loop’* in Speakeasy/Front Porch production

‘A Strange Loop’ — Book, Music and Lyrics by Michael R. Jackson. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Music Direction by David Freeman Coleman. Choreographed by Taavon Gamble. Co-produced by SpeakEasy Stage and Front Porch Arts Collective at the Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont Street, through May 25.

By Helen Ganley

Some days, escaping from your inner monologue feels impossible: apprehensions about upcoming appointments, embarrassment about a middle school memory, and tension about why a friend suddenly stopped speaking to you. Suddenly, it’s 3 AM, and you haven’t gotten a wink of sleep. The collaboration between Speakeasy Stage and Front Porch Arts Collective on A Strange Loop epitomizes this cognitive dissonance and the paths one must take to escape the labyrinths of one’s mind.

Speakeasy’s ‘Small Mouth Sounds’ Silently Sends Up Spirituality Industry

January 8, 2019January 22, 2019 Theater Mirror1 Comment

by Mike Hoban

Small Mouth Sounds – Written by Bess Wohl; Directed by M. Bevin O’Gara; Scenic Design by Cristina Todesco; Costume Design by Mary Lauve; Lighting Design by Annie Wiegand; Sound Design by Elizabeth Cahill. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company at The Roberts Studio Theatre in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston through February 2.

If you’ve ever been skeptical of the kind of spirituality-lite movements whose adherents sometimes mouth the words of the Dali Lama while still behaving with all of the empathy of a corporate raider, you’re going to love Small Mouth Sounds, now playing at SpeakEasy Stage. This very funny but deceptively poignant play by Bess Wohl lovingly skewers the spirituality industry while leaving the door open to the possibility that the universe may indeed work in mysterious ways – when we’re in enough pain to seek a better path.

BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY

September 15, 2018October 12, 2018 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

by Sheila Barth

Two-act, two-hour dark urban comedy by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company, through Oct. 13: Boston Center for the Arts, Roberts Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion,527 Tremont St., Boston.

We meet a menagerie of characters, colorfully depicted and recreated, in SpeakEasy Stage Company’s production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s two-act, two-hour 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning dark urban comedy, ”Between Riverside and Crazy”. The play is currently making its New England premiere through this Saturday, Oct. 13.

Read more “BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY”

SpeakEasy Stage’s ‘ALLEGIANCE’ A Musical Look at WWII Japanese Internment

May 3, 2018June 3, 2018 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

By Sheila Barth

During World War II, inhumanities and atrocities weren’t limited to Nazi Germany. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the US created its own black mark in history by rounding up more than 120,000 loyal Japanese-American citizens and placing them in internment camps.

Speakeasy’s ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ Is Simply Brilliant

March 8, 2018March 8, 2018 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

by Mike Hoban

Every Brilliant Thing – Written by Duncan MacMillan; Directed by Marianna Bassham; Scenic and Lighting Design by Eric Levenson; Sound Design by Lee Schuna; Costume Design by Amanda Ostrow Mason (costumes). Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston through March 31^st.

Every Brilliant Thing, now being given its Boston premiere by Speakeasy Stage Company, is brilliant alright, but much more so for its simplicity rather than as a work that presents BIG IDEAS. Performed by the (brilliant in her own right) Adrienne Krstansky, along with what seemed to be fully half of the audience, this seventy-minute piece is a sneakily moving comedy about that most mirthful of topics – suicidal depression.

Speakeasy’s ‘Shakespeare in Love’ An Absolute Charmer

January 18, 2018January 18, 2018 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

(Nile Hawver/Nile Scott Shots)

by Mike Hoban

‘Shakespeare in Love’ – Based on the screenplay by Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard; Adapted for the stage by Lee Hall; Directed by Scott Edmiston; Original Music/Music Direction/Sound Design by David Reiffel; Choreography/Movement by Judith Chaffee; Scenic Design by Jenna McFarland Lord; Costume Design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt; Lighting Design by Karen Perlow. Presented by Speakeasy Stage Company at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street in Boston through February 10

You don’t have to know and/or love Shakespeare to be utterly charmed by Shakespeare in Love, the stage adaptation of the Academy Award-winning film now being given a spirited New England premiere by Speakeasy Stage. In fact, since this is a comedy about young Will Shakespeare rather than one by William Shakespeare, the laughter comes a lot more spontaneously than when one needs to run the jokes through the Olde English Google translator of the mind. But whether you’re a Shakespearean scholar or only know his work from the “Gilligan’s Island” episode where Harold Hecuba stages Hamlet, this production is a comic delight.