I love the rituals that arise around the rhythms of the natural world, and there is probably no ritual more universally celebrated and mythologized than the winter solstice around Christmas! Now in its 55th season, REVELS has been resurrecting folk traditions from all over the globe to celebrate the return of light in the darkness. [...]
A toast to the season with a pair of Christmas Carols now onstage! The meaning of Christmas is nowhere more movingly expressed than in Charles Dickens' timeless fable about a man hardened to life but given a second chance to look back and open his heart to the love around him. Steven Maler's Commonwealth Shakespeare [...]
The Boston film critics have spoken! After an all-day meeting to vote the best movies and performances of the year, I share the announcement of our awards in the middle of an onslaught of horrifying news including the Brown University shooting, the Hanukkah massacre in Australia, and the violent murders of a beloved Hollywood giant [...]
Heading into the holidays, here are some stage and screen gems to see NOW! I discussed most of the following on THE CULTURE SHOW (89.7 GBH) with host Jared Bowen. Listen HERE! to our conversation which begins at 20:16 minutes in. (The beginning of our chat referenced the BLACK EYE I was sporting after running [...]
I'll start with "astonishing": FUN HOME presented by The Huntington is a production I will never forget. I have always liked this Tony Award-winning musical, but it revealed itself here in all of its humanity and power. This production of FUN HOME stars an astonishing young performer who brought the house down more than once [...]
NOW is the time when the most "important" movies of the season are released before the end of the year in order to qualify for Oscars. By "important" I mean big budgets, big stars, big filmmakers, big themes. I have been waiting for something really BIG. It didn't turn out to be Daniel Day-Lewis in [...]
Two quick reviews before HALLOWEEN-- both involving different kinds of -- Misery! MISERY was never so terrifying as what was conveyed in Stephen King's book about a writer's experience while being held captive by a rabid fan. His 1987 book became the 1990 horror thriller film starring the incomparable KATHY BATES who won the [...]
You have GOT to see this show: 300 PAINTINGS . Never has "bipolar disorder" or art seemed so accessible or fun! I am not being flip. This one-man show is built on the shoulders and psyche of an Australian stand up comic diagnosed with bipolar disorder who's made his way through the USA, Europe, the [...]
HAMILTON is back onstage presented by Broadway in Boston at Citizens Opera House-- and long may it wave. Lin-Manuel Miranda's masterwork whose book, music, and lyrics rapped us through the Revolutionary War with its multiracial, multi-ethnic cast, is the hip hop musical heard round the world. This stunning production is more potent, more relevant, and [...]
Am back up and running after my site crashed this week with PART IV of my take on shows now open this fall onstage in greater Boston-- again, arranged in order of how long they will run so you can plan your theater-going schedule! Dominic Carter as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Kiera Prusmack [...]
