Presented by

August 6-9, 2026
Chelsea Theatre Works

Critique by Kitty Drexel

The show runs approximately 95 minutes with a 15-minute intermission. Venue opens 30 minutes before the show.

TLDR: It’s complicated. There’s good; there’s not great. Keep going.

CHELSEA, Mass. — Pitbull’s Party at the End was an ambitious project debuted by Fork & Shoe Theatre Co-op at Chelsea Theatre Works on Aug. 6. Unfortunately, it closed early due to COVID. We offer our sincere condolences to the cast and crew. Y’all deserve to feel proud of the work you’ve done. Successfully producing an independent show is a minor miracle in these dark times.  

Pitbull’s Party at the End’s summary on the Fork & Shoe website: It’s 2042 and a hurricane threatens to wipe Miami off the map. Meanwhile, Mr. Worldwide (Carlos Fruzzetti, charismatic and funny) is performing his last ever New Year’s Eve concert, the Phallic brothers (David Feit Mann, Scott Schaeffer, Eli Bondar) are planning the business deal of a lifetime, and an intergenerational Cuban-Jewish family (Paola Ferrer, David Kleinman, Sophia Yael Koevary, Audrey Molina) must bridge their differences to survive the apocalypse.

Pitbull’s Party suffers from too many storylines and too many messages carrying equal importance. This one 95-minute play is about the ethnic cleansing of multiple societies, our global climate disaster, Jewish Cuban culture, billionaires’ atrocities, intergenerational queer identity, anticapitalist philosophy, and the Grammy-winning American rapper, singer, songwriter, and “actor” Armando Christian Pérez, aka Mr. 305, aka Mr. Worldwide, aka Miami’s bald zaddy, Pitbull. Carrying that many subplots in one play requires careful threading. 

While it’s apparent that Playwright Talia Rodriguez does her darndest to weave her subplots together, many of those threads fizzle out. No one can say she lacks creativity; her imagination lives a robust life on the stage. Her ideas need better integration into one core message, and the script lacks infrastructure. For example, the Mangroves (Juan Jose Boschetti Muniz, Eva Luna Cirilo, and Daina August), a Greek Chorus-cum-Shakespearean faerie ensemble, are introduced as the soul of Miami, but then they disappear like a fever dream until they reappear apropos of nothing later in the play. Using them is a bold choice – bold choices are good! But bold choices deflate if they’re incongruent to the play’s other devices.  

In addition, Rodriguez’s scenes are too short for such weighted themes. Audiences need longer scenes to understand the plot and remember characters. Shorter scenes are for brief comedic or dramatic bits. And, because the scenes are so short, the low-lit scene changes feel too long. 

That’s a lot of mean, old lady criticism for a new play. While the play needs further developing, I counter my own critique with this: Sections of Pitbull’s Party worked exceptionally well. 

This play began with a song by Noam Micarelli played as voiceover. Micarelli’s song repeated often enough that some audience members sang along. It was a strong, emotional start that bonded the audience with the cast. It was a touching offering of catharsis. 

Pitbull did host a concert in this play. We sang and danced with him. We shook our bald caps if we had them. It was fun. So when a catastrophic event occurs during the concert, as they always do, we were energized to watch the drama unfold. 

The show’s props by Sid Jepsen and Eli Bondar were delightful. The puppets (including a clay golem) drew the audience in… To be honest, I expected the play to incorporate more such delectable silliness… And for Pitbull, the musician and the character, a bigger deal throughout. He’s in the title, but he appears in only a few short scenes. Audience members were in bald caps! After the cast and crew, Pitbull is the draw. Use him*. 

Most importantly, regardless of whatever was going on onstage, the cast was 100% in the world of the play. Comedy, drama, lip syncing, road trip, interpretive dance: They did not deviate in their mission to bring us to Miami 2042. They were locked in, and so was I… Until the next scene change disrupted the play’s energy.   

This show had a promising name, high hopes, earnest ideals, and a plucky cast. These were not enough to buoy it through its many splintered plot diversions. We couldn’t tell if it was a comedy or a drama, because it tried to be both simultaneously. Pitbull’s Party at the End, the script, has potential to be a uniquely hilarious experience. But like many new plays in their adolescence, these first performances are proof that this play requires further development. (Perhaps, say, as one of Fresh Ink’s development residency plays when it’s ready for another go.)

*With consent, of course. 

Grant and Hertzberg in “M.” Photo credit: Morganna Becker.

Presented by Exiled Theatre Company 
Written by James Wilkinson
Directed by Joe Juknievich
Starring: Julia Hertzberg, Sydney Grant, Tim Hoover and Peter Tone

July 31-Aug 9, 2026
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

Critique by Kitty Drexel

TLDR: M is a work in progress; the acting is top-notch.

BOSTON — M: Refractions from An Evil Act includes English and French dialogue. There are no subtitles. (My French is abysmal.) My impression is that we aren’t meant to understand the French dialogue in M. This helps us sympathize with M, the character… And hopefully anyone thrust into a hairy situation involving language skills they don’t possess. Including ourselves.

Playwright Wilkinson creates a comprehensive world within a David Lynchian hotel in which his characters eke out their fraught existence. He shows and tells its rules through consistent repetition. Then, à la Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, Wilkinson shows us what happens if characters don’t obey those rules: Characters collapse, disappear and reappear, alcohol is replaced with more alcohol… and the maid still comes to vacuum the guest room. 

Inside a Paris hotel room, M (Julia Hertzberg) finds herself questioning everything about her stay. She’s spent the night in Paris clubs and returns to a room that feels… wrong. Jolene (Sydney Grant), a hotel co-owner and housekeeper, comes to clean the room. M demands to speak to management. The Clerk (Peter Tone), a manager, receives M’s complaint. He stirs her unrest. When the Clerk goes to check a disturbance outside the hotel, M encounters Lone (Tim Hoover), an international man of mystery, before he disappears. Nothing is as it seems in this unnamed hotel with curiously few guests and only two employees. As the play summary from the Exiled Theatre site says, “Time loops, memory fractures, and the past begins to repeat itself. As identities blur and reality destabilizes, (M) must escape the hotel before she’s trapped by its history.”

New plays are works in progress. With this understanding, I say that as much as Wilkerson develops his world, he underdevelops his characters and their relationship with the audience. Most importantly, Wilkinson doesn’t tell us why we should care about them. He does tell us that Jolene and her brother, the Clerk, own and run the hotel. He tells us that M and Lone know each other somehow. Yet we don’t know why we should care that all four are having a disastrously bad time together in the hotel or why we’re watching them navigate their horrors. 

Instead of telling us why we should care, Wilkinson relies too heavily on our innate empathy for our fellow humans, the characters and the actors on stage. Even villainous characters with unscrupulous moral standing can be liked by an audience if we see some of their charismatic or redeeming qualities. We don’t see many of those unless it’s through the actors’ intervention. The characters in M come so close to likeability; knowing more about them will push us into actually liking them. 

Speaking of whom, the actors performed incredibly well. If thinking optimistically, Wilkinson gives them freedom to establish their own interpretations and establish inter-character stakes. M is a surreal play. These actors make bold choices which bolster the show’s chaotic vibes. Grant and Tone even found moments within M for comedy. A twist of the lips here implied their French impatience with an American tourist; a lengthy pause there implied French intelligence facing up against American audacity. Their French accents were believable. (My French is abysmal.)

Hoover grants his character, Lone, a hefty dose of likeability. We see his fear for himself as he runs through the hotel, and eventually fear for M, and translate it as sympathy. If Lone worries for M, maybe we can, too. While it’s a little too late, it helps us consider M’s potential as a character who we want to survive. 

Meanwhile, we watch Hertzberg do her absolute utmost to carry this play as the title character. M is an off-putting woman – but who wouldn’t be when she’s terrified? Hertzberg delivers lines like she’s the one fighting for her life, not M. Then, when backed into a figurative and factual corner, her M turns the tables of sanity on her might-be antagonist. We’re surprised, but audiences generally are when a woman gets the upper hand over an assailant. Ask any female actor how audiences react when they do… 

Wilkinson’s program note says that M is based on a disastrous three-day weekend he spent in Paris. Hollywood’s version of Paris does not resemble actual Paris. I’d argue Wilkinson’s Paris comes closer to a realistic visit. (I’ve visited Paris twice: The first time was lovely; the second included a stay in a hostel that was sometimes… Unpleasant.) Because, while Paris is very pretty on the outside, the French still live there, and French-to-American culture shock is culturally shocking on the inside. 

For a play taking place in Paris, M feels very “Hotel California:” These questionable characters can leave their hotel room, but they are never, ever going home. 

Brooks Reeves (Robin Starveling), Michael Broadhurst* (Francis Flute), Paul Melendy* (Nick Bottom), Karen MacDonald* (Petra Quince), Alex Leondedis (Snug), and John Kuntz* (Snout). Photo Credit: Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Steven Maler
Choreography by John Lam
Featuring: De’Lon Grant, Nora Eschenheimer, Nick Cearley, Paul Melendy, Meghan Carey, Annika Burley, Jaime José Hernandez, Jack Greenberg

July 22 – August 9, 2026
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
Free on the Boston Common

Critique by Maegan Clearwood

BOSTON — I have been a Shakespeare on the Common groundling since moving to Boston four years ago. Summer after summer, I am drawn to the romanticism of outdoor theater: the quieting transformation from dawn to dusk, the unpredictable interference of the natural world, the crowd of Bostonians from so many walks of life, all gathered on the Commons for an evening of free art.

This year, with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s 30th-anniversary production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I was struck by how many elements the production team had to work against. There’s the weather, of course, but also the sky-high steel scaffolding that they erect each year, presumably to rig intricate lighting systems and build tall enough platforms so that far-away spectators can see (inadvertently causing some sight line issues if you are seated closer up front). The result has impressive engineering but is distinctly un-whimsical, so the team is faced with a challenge: how do we bring the lush, dreamy woods of Shakespeare’s romances to life against a backdrop of harsh, metal lines?

This year, CSC artistic director Steven Maler leaned into the industrial backdrop by translating the magical forest into a techno, 90’s-inspired nightclub dreamscape, featuring a multistory light-up heart (scenic design by Amy Rubin). It reminded me of CSC’s production of A Winter’s Tale from only two summers back, which went in a similarly psychedelic pastoral direction, so I’m curious to see other inspirations in future productions.

Novel or not, the nightclub setting is a playful departure from the unforgiving, hierarchical court of Athens, which opens the production in somber greyscale. The multistory scaffolding is used to full effect, with fairies and lovers frequently tumbling from one tier to the next. The standout set piece is a ball pit which, despite trapping the actors in the downstage-right corner for a frustratingly long time, serves as a veritable playground for silly performance choices. 

Sometimes, this silliness is played up at the expense of clear storytelling. This is particularly the case with the Rude Mechanicals, each of whom has an accent or quirk that overshadows their heartfelt, underdog artistic pursuits. Paul Melendy’s Bottom is particularly unfocused, taking a character who usually serves as the heart of the play and turning him into little more than a laughingstock who communicates through comedic bits.

The lovers, meanwhile, do a commendable job of keeping the production grounded in an emotional reality, despite the strangeness of their surroundings. Annika Burley and Meghan Carey as Helena and Hermia are particularly endearing: Their Act Three spat is a highlight, a feat of physical comedy that is driven from visceral heartbreak and desperation. 

The fairies bring the techno rave world to life with light-up capes, neon wigs, and fuzzy hats (costumes by Brooke Stanton and Rachel Padula-Shufelt). Nick Cearley is an energetic, at times menacing Puck, giggling to himself as he flits from one unsuspecting mortal to the next. Nora Eschenheimer stands out as a commanding Titania, whose bedazzled gown and hedonistic desires never take away from her otherworldly regality. Her fairy attendants are equally vibrant and pleasure-seeking, but their ensemble scenes would have benefitted from more ambitious techno choreography (John Lam). 

On our walk back to the train, my friends and I fell into a lively conversation about what it means to pull aesthetic inspiration from nightclub culture, which is indebted to queer, Black, and Latin roots. There were some hints at queerness in the forest, particularly with Puck, whose strappy silver costume nodded to kink subculture, but it’s otherwise lacking. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call the production culturally appropriative, there was a missed opportunity to run away to the woods and discover a fuller spectrum of joyous, neon-colored love.

Still, I count myself lucky to live in a city where Shakespeare on such a massive scale is offered free to the public, one midsummer after the next. 

Victor L. Shopov as Alex More in “Buyer and Cellar.” Photo credit: Hub Theatre Company.

Presented by Hub Theatre Company of Boston
Written by Jonathan Tolins
Directed by Daniel Bourque

July 18 – Aug. 1, 2026
Club Cafe

Critique by Diana Lu

BOSTON — Buyer and Cellar is a one-person one-act written by celebrated playwright and screenwriter Jonathan Tolins. The comedy begins with LA actor Alex More’s monologue about getting fired from his mascot position at Disneyland. Subsequently, he is propositioned by his former boss, who then recommends More for a unique, once-in-a-lifetime position as the sole customer service employee in Barbara Streisand’s basement mall under her mansion. Inspired by descriptions of Streisand’s home and basement mall in her memoirs, the play explores themes of consumerism, identity, isolation, celebrity and other fantasy, and power through More’s misadventures while trapped in the basement.

Presented by Hub Theatre in the intimate cabaret theater of Club Cafe, Victor L. Shopov carried the show with a spectacular performance that maintained consistent energy and humor throughout the 90-minute production. Shopov transitioned seamlessly between 6 or so characters, two of whom were Barbara Streisand. Shopov is one of those rare professionals who can pull off slapstick as well as vulnerable interpersonal exchanges, a range of characters,  and emotional depth. This show required the whole gamut, and it was a delight to watch his performance.

Daniel Bourque’s directorial decisions were also on point. The show used the whole theater space, not just the stage. One character appeared only at the bar, and projections were thrown against two walls behind the first row of tables. I also greatly appreciated Lauren Elias’s announcements at the beginning, which then transitioned into a character that started the show strong. All of this gave the performance more room to breathe and created an intimate, immersive experience, as if the audience were more in on the jokes. 

My only issue with direction is that often, especially at the beginning, Shopov’s transitions between characters were not always entirely clear. All of Shopov’s characters speak directly to the audience and not at each other. There isn’t really a physical demarcation between one character and another unless their physicalities are wildly different. While this wasn’t confusing enough to make the story illegible in a substantial way, using Eddy Izzard-style physical transitions between characters would have made the beginning cleaner.

Justin Lahue’s set and projection design made the show for me. The set evoked exactly the combination of standard American mall ennui and LA gothic horror that now lives in my head rent-free. The show really would not have been the same show without the projections’ visual storytelling. I felt that the images and iconography in the projections were the only parts of the show that hit the perfect tone of comic-grotesque that the play was going for. I thought the projections conveyed the ethos of the premise more so than even the script, which seemed to back off right when things got meaty and dark.

Overall, Hub Theater’s Buyer and Cellar was a delightful experience. It started a bit slow and didn’t deliver in disturbing depth, but it more than made up for it in charisma, charm, and grace.

Presented by The Company Theatre
Lyrics by Alanis Morissette
Music by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard
Book by Diablo Cody
Co-Directed by Zoe Bradford and Sally Ashton Forrest
Musical Direction by Robert McDonough

July 24-August 16, 2026
The Company Theatre
 30 Accord Park Dr.
Norwell, MA  02061

Review by Craig Idlebrook

NORWELL, Mass. — I had some misgivings as I sat down to watch the musical Jagged Little Pill at The Company Theatre in Norwell. Both the theater and the play were new to me, but I knew the source material for the show as well as I knew the feel of a slightly oversized flannel shirt.

Alanis Morissette’s album of the same name came out during my second year in college, and its raw, unapologetic songs gave many the permission to express their rage, joy, and grief in a way few other works of art had. Listeners were drawn in by Morissette’s unabashed honesty and anger, as she tried to make sense of adulthood after a youth spent as an almost-famous Canadian pop star. The songs themselves were so good because of their unpolished spontaneity (Morissette and songwriting partner Glen Ballard often wrote each song in under an hour). How would that translate onto the stage? Would the songs be reduced to a hodgepodge jukebox musical? Also, would the production take shortcuts with the script and end up in melodrama?

Ultimately, none of my concerns proved true.

Jagged Little Pill is the rare catalog musical that manages to align with the source music without being bound by it. Playwright Diablo Cody, known for movie scripts about the complicated choices women make, leans into the imperfection of the play’s characters. Cody creates a book that mirrors the music’s vibe of ripping apart life at the seams to get to something better, if scarier, underneath. She also treats the music with respect but not reverence, ensuring that each hit earns its moment on stage.

Jagged Little Pill centers around what at first feels like a familiar story of a WASP-ish upper middle-class family, the Healys, grappling with the cracks of their seemingly perfect life. However, as the play catches fire, we see their struggles are fueled by corrosive norms of gender and rape culture that act as a toxic background operating system working in the background. Each must choose how much to pull away from these norms, and what price they are willing to pay to be free.

Co-directors Zoe Bradford, Sally Ashton Forrest, and Robert McDonough deftly create space for the source material to shine with this production. They pull authentic moments and build momentum throughout the show, even within what can sometimes be a visually overly busy stage and a very large ensemble cast of early-career actors.

While most every actor is strong on stage, the performances of Emma Keane and Dana Sullivan create “sit up in your seats” moments with this production. Keane infuses Jo Taylor, the cocksure girlfriend of Frankie Healy, with weariness and vulnerability, and her voice captures Morissette’s power but avoids any trace of mimicry. In contrast, Sullivan centers the play within the cage of the maddening passivity of her character, the matriarch Mary Jane “MJ” Healy, who hides the scars of her past until she no longer can. (It should be noted that Sullivan pulled off her character’s arc towards growth in the second act after the actress came out to check on someone who briefly fainted in the lobby during intermission on the day I saw the play.)

Also notable is Natalia Spear (Bella Fox), who chooses restraint and stillness in her performance to express her character’s confusion in the aftermath of a criminal act at a high school party. Spear’s ability to express quiet devastation makes it impossible to look away from the pain her character feels.

As with the source material, this is not a perfect production. Cody self-consciously gives us one too many problems to solve and not enough time to solve them, leaving a story arc about transracial adoption shortchanged. Also, the busyness of the stage sometimes requires a few characters to make some strange blocking choices. And it feels as if some of the male principals need a bit more work to fully inhabit their characters.

But like a favorite flannel that may have a cigarette burn or a missing button, these imperfections only make us value the theatrical experience all the more. As Jagged Little Pill reminds us, it’s better to risk being a bit rough around the edges than playing it safe and feeling nothing at all.

Front – Patrice Jean Baptiste and MaConnia Chesser. Cast in background. Photo by Ken Yotsukura

Presented by Company One Boston
By Miranda Austen ADEkoje
Directed by Summer L. Williams
Dramaturgy by Lizzy Cooper Davis

July 18 – Aug. 8, 2026
The Strand Theatre
Online Playbill 

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Seating is general admission. This performance runs approximately 2 hours, including one 10-minute intermission.

TLDR: New plays are imperfect. Production under duress signifies resilience, fortitude, and mastery of one’s art.

DORCHESTER, Mass. — A New Era is a teaching play. It teaches us about the trailblazing careers of historical freedom-fighting Black women who accomplished great feminist works in Boston. The C1 website for A New Era tells us that this play was originally commissioned and developed for the National Park Service by Plays in Place as part of its Suffrage in Black & White series. This means A New Era was first developed to communicate many facts to an audience via dialogue in a short amount of time. It shouldn’t be judged by the same standards as another historically-based play about women’s voices such as, say, The Crucible. They are different genres with the same medium.

Over the course of two hours, A New Era triumphs as a teaching play. I learned so many facts about these women and the necessity of their work that I left feeling overwhelmed with awe. And yet, we left the Strand Theatre knowing what these women accomplished but not who they were or how they related to each other. The play’s large-scale stakes aren sky high, but the characters’ interpersonal stakes aren’t immediately apparent. For the first two acts, the characters spouted facts. Facts aren’t character development. We finally learn the inner depths of two characters, St.Pierre Ruffin and Washington, in Act 3. An audience wants to know a play’s players much sooner. 

Here is A New Era’s summary of the actions and players from the C1 production website: “Journeying across a divided America, seven formidable women -Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (Patrice Jean-Baptiste, who acts so sincerely, and with such gravitas that I’d pay good money to watch her read the Yellow Pages), Florida Ruffin Ridley (Aliyah Harris), Anna Julie Cooper (Frances Domond), Isabel (Tolu Asade, a double-threat on the piano and on the stage), Victoria Earle Matthews (Aislinn Brophy), Fannie Barrier Williams (Regine Vital), Gertrude Sampson (MaConnia Chesser, who gives substance to a snobby secondary character), Margaret Murray Washington (Sydney Alicia Jackson) – gather right here in Boston for an unprecedented opportunity to birth a national movement. When freedom is fragile and Black Lives are at stake, can they get in formation, organize a unified coalition, and ensure a more just future? The year might be 1895, but the fight is still very much our own.

Which brings me back to my first point: A New Era is a modern teaching play. The Strand Theatre is not the best venue for this production. It wants to be performed in a museum as originally intended, preferably in the room where it all happened. Alas, that was not to be. (DOGE’s cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts is/was a travesty. The adult toddlers running the country need to pull up their big boy pants and try humanity for a change.) 

I mention this to inspire compassion in potential audience members. While the play has its flaws, Company One, Playwright ADEkoje, Director Williams, and their cast made art out of their tragedy. This shows resilience, ingenuity, and bravery. The creative team took a script meant for one venue and used their limited time and budget to transfer it to another. The cast molded the script to their purpose: The script told us that these women were using their time, money and lifeforce to fight for voting rights and against lynching. The actors painted their words with sympathy and passion to convey their personal feelings about their work. They were a Greek chorus, telling us what has happened, what may happen, and they show us how to feel about it. 

In addition to these feats, ADEkoje, Williams, and the creative team tie our nation’s past to its present. Boston remains a liberal haven for socially conservative, change-resistant working-class citizens within its racially divided neighborhoods. Act 2 asked a giddy audience to participate in the characters’ formation of the National Conference of Colored Women. (It was fun!) Music by artists such as Beyoncé, Lauren Hill, and Aretha Franklin pepper the production and transcend the spoken word. The rich, helpful dramaturgy by Lizzy Cooper Davis and articles by Kirsten Greenidge and Angela T Tate in the playbill filled in the historical blanks.

If we learn anything from A New Era, it’s that resilience, ingenuity, and bravery can take us farther than our foremothers ever imagined. C1 didn’t let perfect get in the way of good. Most new plays are in process for a long time before a playwright says, “enough.” A New Era fits into this category. It’s our privilege to watch this play develop into something sacred. 

(A big shout-out to the C1 lobby crew who were generous with their welcoming spirit without being pushy. Thank you for your kindness. This extroverted introvert greatly appreciates it.) 

Cuddles in “Paranormal Activity.” Photo by Matthew Murphy.

A Strictly Limited Pre-Broadway Engagement
Presented by ATG Entertainment
Written by Levi Holloway 
Directed by Felix Barrett
Based on the “Paranormal Activity” films, first written and directed by Oren Peli and brought to the screen by Blumhouse and Solana Films.
Featuring: Cher Álvarez, Travis A. Knight, Shannon Cochran, Eva Kaminsky, Bobby J Howlett.

Sat, Jul 11 – Thurs, July 30, 2026
Emerson Colonial Theatre
Boston, MA

Article by Kitty Drexel

TLDR: Lots of scary, suspenseful fun; excellent acting and stagecraft; Not for folks who dislike suspended tension or jump scares. This critique contains light spoilers. 

BOSTON — I don’t prefer horror movies. I might watch one at home with a friend and the sound off if I have a persistent interest. I feel the same about horror novels unless I know for certain that the dog lives and the female protagonist survives unraped with all her limbs.  

Horror theatre, on the other hand, is good ole’ safe, insane, enthusiastically consensual fun. I take comfort in knowing that, behind the scenes, a hardworking team of corporeal humans has planned for weeks the titillation of their audience. Their work allows us to wriggle ourselves into an adrenaline-spiked, scared (horny?) stupor. If there ever were a real danger, an omniscient stage manager would call “Hold” into the God mic and save us all from a cortisol overdose. If you enjoy such an experience, too, Paranormal Activity running at the Emerson Colonial Theatre is for you. It had thrills and chills aplenty. Its stagecraft is top-notch – Both worthy reasons to shell out for tickets. You will be frightened if you want to be. 

I’m old enough to remember how popular media and its junkies buzzed about the shockingly new frights in The Blair Witch Project (1999). That movie used found footage to tell the tragic story of three thrill-seeking adult children lost in the woods. No movie had done that before. Even I, who was too freaked out and/or poor at the time to see it, was interested in knowing more about this cultural phenomenon. It was a fascinating time to wait until the weekend to watch popular movies that you rented in a store, watched, and then returned to the store after 3 or 7 days, depending on the movie’s rental period. I am old now. 

(Spoofing starts at 1:20)

The Blair Witch Project walked so the Paranormal Activity franchise could soar. The seven-movie franchise also uses spooktacular found footage to tell the stories of very nice, mostly white folks with no preservation instincts who move into the wrong home. In them, a white woman is haunted by a malevolent being (or, in the case of the spin-offs, malevolent individuals come together to abuse their majority white victims through homicidal community action). A man sets up recording equipment. Scary things happen.

Paranormal Activity also inspired a Wayans parody.

In the Boston stage play, Paranormal Activity goes back to its roots while also diversifying its casting. Lou (Cher Alvarez) and Jimmy (Travis A Knight), a nice, normal biracial couple, move into a charming, bi-level London flat (set design by Fly Davis). Back in Chicago, Lou experienced mental health disruptions: auditory hallucinations, time loss, sleepwalking. Their lives and their relationship suffered. They had the chance to move, and they took it.

Their move gives them a new start. Lou works for her office remotely over Zoom. Jimmy has a new job in London. Life is pretty good. The couple is in love. Jimmy’s religious Mom, Carolanne (Shannon Cochran, a loving menace as a Mom and an eerie menace later), needily FaceTimes them about potential grandchildren. They are content… Until Lou’s hallucinations begin again.

Jimmy tries to support Lou through her messy mental health journey. That is, he thinks he’s trying until literal, figurative alarm bells and a spooky presence force him to believe Lou’s every word. He’s finally ready to listen and accept his new reality: Ghosts are real. There is an afterlife. A spirit is haunting their apartment. Lou re-educates Jimmy in earnest.

The couple invites noted psychic Etheline Cotgrave (Eva Kaminsky, believably cool as a cucumber until she’s scared so witless that her fear fuels ours) to investigate their disturbances. She holds a seance, and we learn a spirit is haunting Lou and Jimmy’s apartment. Through creepy dialogue and a creepier soundscape by Gareth Fry, we also learn that the spirit is not playful. It is vengeful. Lou and Jimmy might not make it out of their adorable two-bedroom flat with a downstairs open plan alive. Bobby J Howlett kicks ass and takes lives in the ensemble. Holy cats, is Howlett scary as fuck.

If you’re looking for a scare, Paranormal Activity is spooky, check-behind-the-shower-curtain-before-you-pee scary funtimes. It was scary on Wednesday night because most patrons wanted to experience chills. We even dressed in our finest goth blacks for the occasion. So, when the tension ramped up and the jump scares began in earnest, we were pleased as Summerween blood punch for a communal taste, because the horror community is just that: a community. They’re in it for the togetherness of it all as much as they are the horror. Knowing this may help some folks stomach the experience. Lou and Jimmy are alone. Audience patrons have each other. Aw.

(At one point, a random audience member sneezed during a tense moment, and a whole section of us jumped and giggled like crazy. We were locked in. No one expected the sudden noise – not even the cast. It was awesome.)

This show scares its audience so well because its many elements seamlessly combine for its greatest effect. Gareth Fry’s soundscape creeps into a scene like a demon possessing a victim’s mind: eerie tones start low to slowly build tension; sharp noises cut across the stage to disrupt our comfort. Fry works with designers Chris Fisher (illusions), Anna Watson (lighting), and Luke Halls (video and projections) to terrorize our nervous systems. Fisher’s illusions were truly inspired; they had the entire audience gasping in shock and awe. Even knowing that we were in the theatre to be frightened, two patrons seated next to me left at intermission.

These nice people are fucked. “Paranormal Activity.” Photo by Matthew Murphy.

That stated, their designs would have limited power over us if actors Alvarez and Knight weren’t thoroughly believable as Lou and Jimmy. Alvarez and Knight take us down a stark rabbit hole of fear and human frailty. These characters were convinced that they wouldn’t live through their haunting. We believed them, too. Even Eva Kaminsky as Etheline Cotgrave, maybe/maybe not con artist, didn’t hit as hard when she realized she was over her head. It made for a fun evening, but I worry for the actors. I hope their union contract covers therapy.

As mentioned above, I don’t normally enjoy horror. I make exceptions for the theatre. Paranormal Activity isn’t a show I’d see more than once, because franchises are intentionally formulaic. That’s not my prference. Maybe you’ll feel different. Tell your friends about it if you do. Tell them Paranormal Activity achieves Broadway-level production value in a Boston venue. It’s a well-built, superbly-acted show.

And I warn patrons to choose wisely. Despite knowing we were in the theatre to be frightened, two patrons seated on my left bailed at intermission. I get that. People don’t expect to be frightened by a play. They expect All My Sons or Noises Off. You know, pleasant theatre that makes you think a little before lunch.

Babes, this is not your Daddy’s pre-Broadway tryout play. It’s your Momma’s spiritualist, revenge horrorshow, and she wants her humeat freshly tenderized before it’s thoroughly, irreversibly cooked. Have fun!

Photo via Happenstance Theater.

Presented by Puppet Showplace Theater
Devised by Happenstance Theater
Artistic co-direction by Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell
Featuring Gwen Grastorf, Mark Jaster, Sabrina Mandell, Sarah Olmsted, and Thomas and Alex Vernon

June 22-23, 2026
Puppet Showplace Theater
32 Station St, Brookline MA 02445

Critique by Maegan Clearwood

BROOKLINE, Mass. – Medieval Europe places quite low on my time travel wish list, but there is nothing like the magic of theatre to reshape one’s imaginings of a time and place. Happenstance Theater’s Death and the Fool: A Tarot-Inspired Medieval Folly sweeps audiences away from the 21st century and into a 15th century dreamland – all the simple, sweet joys of welcoming the harvest, set against a soundscape of old-timey string instruments, no boils or bubonic plagues in sight.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Death is a central figure in this world, and its presence haunts the otherwise worry-free Fool. Characters regularly drop dead at the mere sight of the cloaked, scythe-wielding figure, and the play doesn’t shy away from the grotesque, often absurd, parts of this inevitable cycle. One of the most entrancing vignettes, in fact, follows the decomposition of three bodies, from rotting flesh to rebirth, told simply through physical movement and sound effects.

Even in these unflinching moments, however, Death and the Fool manages to stay lighthearted and inviting. Death, the Fool eventually learns, is inevitable, so why not make merry and dance our way to the end?

The Fool’s journey from fear to acceptance is punctuated by vignettes: music and dance interludes, a slapstick encounter with a bumbling doctor, and a visitation from a two-headed oracle, to name a few memorable moments. Even the sillier vignettes are understated and delicate. The Happenstance ensemble understands that a knowing smile, simple gesture, or well-placed drumbeat can communicate an entire story to an audience.

At times, the piece flickers with Monty Python-esque buffoonery, but it never stays in those brasher places for long. Mostly, it feels like the headspace between a lullaby and a dream, sometimes skimming the surface of strange, dark fears but always returning to quieter, comfortable rest.

Notably, Death and the Fool invites a bit of modernity into this peaceful reverie midway through the piece, during the Oracle’s visit. The audience was asked to pose questions to the Oracle, performed by two actors connected at the head and bedecked in harvest-inspired cloaks. This is one of a handful of audience interaction moments in the play, all of which are refreshingly low-stakes and entirely voluntary. One spectator asked about the outcome of the world cup; another about the hopeful demise of a certain fascist powerhead. The modern-day questions fractured the sense of escapism I had been basking in up until that point but were also a reminder of the concerns (trivial and existential) that link humanity across time and place – an unexpected but ultimately welcome wrench in the well-oiled production’s machine.

This stop at Puppet Showcase Theater is the middle of the Maryland-based company’s New England tour, so anyone who wants to catch this piece can find them next in Vermont or Maine. Hopefully, they will swing back to Boston with another whimsical little creation in the near future.

Presented by

Jun 13, 2026 – Jun 28, 2026
Emerson Paramount Center
Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre
559 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111
Online playbill

Learn more about the Ufot Family Cycle’s plays HERE.

Critique by Kitty Drexel

TLDR: In Old Age avoids unnecessary trauma, is a GD delight.

BOSTON — In Old Age runs in Boston while parts of the U.S. commemorate the Juneteenth National Independence Day. Fortunately, Massachusetts recognizes this day. Should you find yourself free, In Old Age is a great way to reflect on Juneteenth and to support excellent Black theatre celebrating the African diaspora. We’re privileged to have this opportunity when places like Florida and Texas are determined to erase the fullness of the U.S.’s history. 

In Old Age is the penultimate piece of Mfoniso Udofia’s nine-play Ufot Family Cycle. In it, we find Abasiama Ufot (Ebony Marshall-Oliver, unlocking even more depths of a character Boston has come to love over the past year), living in the house where she raised her children (The Grove), unlocked her deceased husband’s trauma (Run Boy Run), and sacrificed her dreams. Her house is falling apart. Abasiama is determined to meet the challenge of rebuilding. She faces it, as she has many challenges across the Ufot Family Cycle: face-on with thoughtful resilience. 

Abasiama is prepared to rebuild alone, many years after her husband’s death… Until she hears an unexpected knock at her door. She opens the door to meet Azell Abernathy (Marvin Bell with indefatigable optimism), a church-going carpenter and handyman hired over the phone by Abasiama’s daughter Toyima (Lifted). Abasiama and Azell form an unexpected friendship over wood samples, spiritual practices, and stories shared. Abasiama realizes she is finally free from her family’s many expectations. Azell learns that a person’s silence doesn’t equal agreement. Together, they correct their life’s mistakes, find new friendship, and forge a new path. 

This new path does not start at Abasiama or Azell’s lowest point. Rather, they are doing okay: Abasiama’s home is falling apart in dramatic pieces, but her life and mind are not. Azell is self-employed and an expert carpenter with strong connections in his field. Both are functional, stable people who come to realize that they can make different choices than they’re currently making. In Old Age shows us how, through their connection with each other, the two choose happiness.   

In Old Age is pleasant; we love and respect its characters (in no small part because of the good work of Marshall-Oliver and Bell) for their ownership of their mistakes and willingness to make amends. Playwright Udofia and Director Simmons don’t require us to wade through their pain to find the upside to her characters’ trauma. We don’t need to see the trauma to believe the characters are traumatized. The actors have clearly worked on it in rehearsals with Simmons beforehand. We can see it in the choices they make onstage: line delivery and body positioning. Instead, like Her Portmanteau, Kufre n’ Quay, and The Ceremony, In Old Age has given its characters time to process their intergenerational trauma offstage. It’s like a Greek tragedy in that respect. 

Instead, the drama is situational. Azell reminds Abasiama of her late husband, Disciple, and vice versa. She works through her pain to find Azell the man, despite his similarities to Disciple. Azell does the same. This play asks Abasiama and Azell to reach through their similar but differing pains to find community together. The world needs more stories about finding and sharing community right now. We are a nation divided when we could be working together to make our communities stronger. 

The set by Jeffrey Peterson, lighting by Eduardo Ramirez, and sound by Arshan Gailus bring such life to Abasiama’s home that it becomes a third character. Pieces fall to communicate its displeasure with Abasiama’s decisions. Cherry and yellow gels wash the stage to indicate the house’s happiness. Boards creak, and birds sing to emphasize the house’s moods. 

For these reasons, In Old Age would make an excellent 30-minute, Thursday night T.V. miniseries. Picture it: Abasiama, a kind, stubborn woman with an expansive imagination and Michelin-level cooking skills, has Azell, an aging yet handsome carpenter with strong arms and a joyful disposition, thrust upon her by Toyima, Abasiama’s daughter. They become begrudging friends with no romantic chemistry who, over 12 episodes, fix up Abasiama’s home despite their miscommunication mishaps. Someone pitch it to Hollywood, quick! Until then, In Old Age runs at the Emerson Paramount Center through June 28. Tickets are selling out. Get them while you can! 

Video recaps.

The “Black Swan” gala or the “Phantom” gala? We may never know. Photo Credit: Hawver and Hall.

Presented by American Repertory Theater
Based on the Searchlight Pictures Film “Black Swan,” with story by Andres Heinz
Book by Jen Silverman
Music, Lyrics, and Orchestrations by Dave Malloy
Directed and Choreographed by Sonya Tayeh

May 26 – July 12, 2026
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Content Warnings: This production depicts characters experiencing mental health crises and physical violence/body horror. It contains intense strobe, flashing lights, haze, fog, and loud noises. They are frickin’ cool as heck. The lighting, sound, and illusion design departments know how to throw a creepy party. 

Recommended for ages 16+.

Critique by Kitty Drexel

TLDR: Dance = good. Everything else = iffy.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The A.R.T.’s Black Swan is based on the award-winning 2010 Darren Aronofsky film of the same name. It should be noted that the musical is not a strict remake of the film, and the musical makes several swift departures. Patrons can appreciate the musical without intimately knowing its source material. I found a rewatch of the film helpful before attending, as it gave me context for the musical’s more abstract psychological moments. It also reminded me when to expect a potential scare, because I’m an inappropriate giggler. Depending on one’s personal preferences, it may be better to watch the film later. 

If you don’t want to watch the movie, you can get by on reading the Wikipedia summary. Writing of which, this article contains spoilers. You have been warned. 

A.R.T. brought Director and Choreographer Sonya Tayeh back after choreographing Gatsby for Black Swan. She, Jen Silverman, book, and Dave Malloy, music & lyrics, adapted Aronofsky’s film into something similar but different. It’s like a cousin of the movie instead of a sibling. As a critic who believes that a cover/adaptation/remix/etc. should say something new, not just regurgitate the original, I believe their adaptation succeeds… With some caveats. 

But first, a summary. Black Swan reimagines the film of the same name for the large stage. In it, a New York City ballet corps is preparing a new, unconventional production of Swan Lake. Famed choreographer LeRoy (Amber Iman, who is not only an arresting warrior in her role; she also has flawless skin. If you have the right seats, you can see for yourself. Do not touch the Broadway star.) brings a contemporary spin to a classical ballet when the original choreographer drops out. To the consternation of the corps director Jacques (Thom Sesma) and the previously cast, fading star Beth (Tory Trowbridge), LeRoy reauditions every dancer. 

LeRoy requires strength and depth from her prima ballerina in her version of Swan Lake. Rising stars Lily (Jada Simone Clark) and shrinking but hopeful violet, Nina (Melanie Moore), find themselves fighting for LeRoy’s attention. 

Nina’s infantilizing mother Barbara (Mehry Eslamina, giving Carrie’s Mother a run for her money) has pushed Nina physically and mentally for an opportunity like this since childhood. Nina believes she has the skill necessary to play the role of a lifetime, but she’s beginning to question whether the things she sees and hears are real. She’ll either dig deep within herself to meet the moment, or she’ll crumble under the pressure. 

Jen Silverman’s book delves deeper into the characters of Black Swan than the movie could. Dave Malloy’s music samples Tchaikovsky’s 1875 score in new music unlike anything we’ve heard from him before. In addition to these surprises, Black Swan also includes queer coming-of-age themes and faces some hard truths about working as a professional artist: disordered eating, body negativity, burnout, and poverty.  

Just as Black Swan the movie was about The Ballet. Black Swan the musical has ballet in it, but its choreography leans heavily into contemporary and modern dance styles. Patrons depending upon ballet for their enjoyment may be disappointed. As previously mentioned, the creators had the opportunity to make something new and they did. 

I argue that Sonya Tayeh’s electric modern dance choreography matches the beauty of ballet, albeit in a different direction. Her choreography is highly demanding of her cast, and they more than meet her demands while showing us the toll it takes. We see them use resistance bands and wear recovery shoes between rehearsals. They are incredibly strong – athletic to an Olympian degree – but maintain their human fragility.

[In 2007, I lived on a pond in York, England that had two massive black swans and their bebby cygnets for a year. Black swans are gorgeous but territorial. Their necks are like pythons attached to a muscular round body with wings of pure violence, and wee little orange legs underneath for paddling. Tayeh’s choreography captures the swan’s grace on water and ferocious, whipcord strength. She leaves out their toddling land feetsies.]

Simultaneously, the dancers express grace, flexibility, and poise in their performances while also singing and slinging lines. Their ab muscles must be insane. They communicate more with their bodies during a warm-up exercise across the stage than most folks ever do with their mouths… For two and a half hours. Ballet or not, that’s impressive as Hell. 

At the other end of the spectrum, not quite an afterthought but not nearly as central as the production’s dance, are the book, lyrics, and music. Black Swan contains visual, musical, and thematic similarities to ALW’s Phantom of the Opera while also insisting an individuality all its own. From their curly haired, dancing and singing lead to their melodramatic depictions of high classical artforms, both musicals approach mental illness (real and gaslit) from the perspective of the artist. Amber Iman enters as LeRoy looking like Madame Giry on steroids. The casts must hurry through rehearsals to perform a new production. Our lovers have a romantic tête-à-tête on a rooftop. Our Black Swan heroine even has a starry-eyed moment with her god-like mentor on a pillar (Sesma in a codpiece by costume designer Shiona Turini that makes him look like Gene Simmons from KISS). 

To give credit to Phantom and its creators, this theatrical powerhouse doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a sensational crowd-pleaser. I stand firmly behind the notion that ALW’s Phantom, while being histrionic fluff, retains high value in people’s hearts and in the marketplace. There is much public good in creating and selling histrionic fluff for entertainment’s sake. Joy is rebellion in action.  

Black Swan tries too hard to be serious art we should take seriously for severity’s sake, and to be a chilling melodrama. A mad scene with a chilling surgical prosthetic shocked the audience when it was revealed only to be followed up with a tottering toy soldier dance sequence. The audience’s Ohs at the prosthetic were quickly followed up with giggles. From me. I giggled. A lot. The production is peppered with such inconsistent mood breakers.

Also, there’s a club scene featuring dancers dancing outside of, inside of and on bar tops. No one dances outside of a club unless directed to. That’s Hollywood nonsense. We wait until we’re inside and have ordered drinks to be assholes. You know, like sophisticated adults.   

The cast. Photo Credit: Hawver and Hall.

Black Swan might have leaned heavily into the surreal beauty and discomforting body horror that a NYC (or Boston) Ballet dancer faces every day. Instead, the musical’s creators give us milquetoast reenactments from the movie: Nina pulls a single feather from her back. The nail trimming scene is brief and works only because of the actors (Moore and Eslamina) put a lot of trust in each other and their prop. These moments happen and we forget about them immediately because the horror is secondary to the scene and not the reason for the scene. 

Pick one: melodrama or psychological horror. Lean into it and milk that choice for all its worth. The audience doesn’t need genre switching whiplash.  

Re: The Film’s Lesbionic Elements – Nina and Lily get a fully hinged, poetically interpreted love ballet which, if ever filmed for posterity, I’m going to tell my pre-pubescent nieces is how queer ladies have sex*. But. The love ballet lacks the intensity between noted straight actors Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in the film. A much shorter, simpler duet between the white and black swans (Moore and Ida Saki, if Lady Gaga were to swan through Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass) in Act II contains more sexual chemistry and urgency. Sometimes professional fanfiction improves the original. Sometimes you’re disappointed. Do with this information what you will. 

Apropos of nothing, it should be mentioned that there is the potential for patrons to find the depiction of Lily, an earthy, independent Black woman, smacking of racism. Especially when Nina is depicted as a meek, white woman needing protection from the world. For hundreds of years, white folks have been propagandizing Black women as lascivious first and human never. Those same folks depict white women as helpless against the sexuality of Black people. 

Silverman has done excellent work at developing Lily into a complex character with depth. I fully believe the creators cast Clark because she was the best person for the role. Clark gives Lily gravitas and humor. She and Melanie Moore dance as if from a dream. It’s wondrous to watch them and then realize these dancers have been dancing for weeks and still have a full weekend of shows to perform. Holy cats. 

And, some folks may still perceive this casting choice as racist in these the days of fourth-wave, intersectional feminism. Clark and Moore do a kick-ass job of playing cis women originally written by men, later developed by Silverman who, based on their plays and novels (highly recommend), knows a thing or three about the Patriarchy’s treatment of queer people. And better theoretical feminists than I have examined characterizations of the hypersexual, rebellious Black woman archetype in the media.  And many things can be true at the same time. I’m not arguing for production updates. I’m asking patrons to consider the work of artists while examining the role society plays in the treatment of all femmes, especially women and nonbinary folks of color. If equity were simple… We still wouldn’t have it, but we’d have a shorter timeline. 

The creators had an opportunity to deliver new, exaggerated psychological and body horrors but didn’t. The show already has content warnings. You might as well take full advantage of them and give us a show worth warning about. Give blood designer Lillis Meeh a challenge they can sink their teeth into. Heh. New York audiences, if the musical makes it to Broadway, will adjust to the horrors. 

Unless the creators’ intent was to make Black Swan family-friendly. One can’t make Black Swan family-friendly without neutering it. There is too much talent involved in this musical to neuter it. At least, in theory.   

*It’s a thing of beauty. Everyone gets their cookies**, if you know what I mean.

** I mean orgasms.