The ensemble. Photo by Ken Yotsukura.

Presented by Chuang Stage Theatre Company 
Written by Lavina Jadhwani
Directed by Tushar Mathew
Live Tabla Music by Om Hegde

October 14 – October 31, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts, Black Box Theatre

Critique by Kitty Drexel

65 minutes (plus or minus) with no intermission.

TL;DR: Regardless of your religion or culture: It doesn’t matter how strung his bow is. Dump him if he shoots it with everyone but you. 

BOSTON — Lavina Jadhwani’s feminist play The Sitayana reimagines the ancient Sanskrit epic poem The Ramayana from the perspective of Rama’s defamed but forgiving wife, Sita. Tushar Mathew’s production for Chuang Stage was a narrative ritual told through an ensemble of women. On a gorgeous stage decked in oranges, reds and yellows designed by Jayoung Hong and lit by designer Ashley Ting Yung, Sita’s story unfolded before us. It was wonderful: intersectional, feminist, sacred. 

The Sitayana begins with Sita, avatar of the goddess Lakshmi, at the age of 16. She has sprung from the earth and eagerly awaits new adventures. Alas, she must wait until she is married to begin them. The hero Rama, avatar of the god Vishnu, earns marriage to Sita through a contest of strength by stringing the mighty bow of Lord Shiva (Westerners may recognize a similar show of strength from Homer’s The Odyssey). Rama was so strong, he broke the bow in half. Sita marries Rama and looks forward to a long, happy life with him and their many babies. Little did she know that her dreams were to be repeatedly thwarted by none other than Rama himself. 

The play continues with a brief but romantic wedding ceremony from Sita’s perspective. The set’s red and orange gauze curtains twinkled with tiny lights. Music from Om Hegde on the tabla added to the environment by replicating the sounds of the wedding pyre’s sacred flames. Only two years later, Rama and Sita are exiled to the forest… with Rama’s brother Lakshman (because Rama can’t ever be alone with Sita for some reason). Lakshman leaves his new wife, Sita’s sister Urmila, behind. (These men are weird.)

Then, Sita is abducted by Shurpanakha, the demon Ravana’s sister, who is still in love with Sita. This is the kidnapping that causes the war immortalized in The Ramayana. Rama fights a mighty battle to win Sita back. He has an opportunity to rescue Sita but doesn’t. Later, when the war is won, rather than express joy at recovering her, Rama accuses Sita of being “unfaithful” with Ravana, her kidnapper and possible rapist. How convenient for the victim-blaming gaslighter. 

By this point in The Sitayana, we began to feel like maybe Rama’s many feats are not actually for Sita’s benefit. Not when Rama’s so busy performing masculinity for other men… Playwright Jadhwani never uses “incel” in her play. She doesn’t have to. Egotistical, insecure male toxicity is recognizable across the centuries. What we now call incel culture was once called male heroics. In The Ramayana it’s Rama. There’s also Odysseus (Greek, not American), Thor, Sundiata Keita, Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad (blessings be upon him), and so on. So, in Jadhwani’s retelling, when Rama displays traits modern audiences associate with incel culture and toxic masculinity, we identify it with basement-dwelling podcasters who must pay women to appear in their videos.  

Photo by Ken Yotsukura.

Further, we can also deduce from Jadhwani’s script that some things are universal despite the passage of time: The ideal Woman can be a Goddess among women, but an insecure God among Men is just some guy. No amount of a woman’s self-pretzeling to become the ideal woman will convince that guy to be a better husband. If he wanted to, he would. 

That’s too much examination of perma-online bro culture and not enough discussion of this gorgeous production. Getting back to The Sitayana… 

Tushar Mathew’s production for Chuang Stage incorporated five avatars of Sita at various ages: Sita at 16 (Riya Ramaswamy), 18 (Audrey Seraphin), 20 (Vidisha Agarwalla), 32 (Ann Varghese) and 46 (Vijaya Sundaram). Under Mathew’s direction, the avatars danced through the production while playing demons, gods, and everyone inbetween. They were accompanied by Hegde’s musicianship on the tabla. 

As previously stated, it was a beautiful production about the decades-long growth of one woman from childhood into adult autonomy. The ensemble members worked seamlessly to create Sita’s tale for us by incorporating dance, narration, and lyrical explanation of Hindu wedding practices. It was part theatre experience and part joyful celebration of life.

The Sitayana ends as it began: With Sita. We learn of her many abuses at the hands of her insecure, egotistical, unworthy husband Rama from her perspective. She was a curious girl, a dutiful wife who loved her emotionally absent husband, a stranger in a strange land, a devoted mother, and finally a woman who’d had enough of her husband’s bullshit. She compromised for decades until she tasted luxurious freedom in a home absent of men. Even when Rama promised to take her back one last time, Sita chose isolation because Rama could not compete with the peace she found without him. From my queer-as-heck seat in the audience, my immediate take away was this: Straight women love men. They want to marry them and have their many, many babies. If men want this too, then men have to hate women less, or women will walk away without looking back.

“Why men great ‘til they gotta be great?”
Lizzo, “Truth Hurts”

Photo via MRT Facebook.

Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre
Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Directed by Jenny Lavery
Featuring: Brent Charles, Sarah Danko, Herman Gambhir, André Martin, Amber Quick, Ed Swidey

October 14-November 1, 2026
Merrimack Repertory Theatre
50 E Merrimack St
Lowell, MA 01852

Critique by Diana Lu

Run time: 120 minutes, with 15 minute intermission

LOWELL, Mass. — Jeffrey Hatcher’s 2008 adaptation is an interesting departure from the Robert Louis Stevenson novella. The basic premise remains largely the same: set in Victorian London, respected physician and researcher Henry Jekyll (André Martin) explores the duality of good and evil in human nature. Like the good old masculine scientist trope that he is, Dr. Jekyll experiments on himself and develops a potion that transforms him into his darker alter ego, Edward Hyde (all but Danko and Martin). Stripped of all conscience and apparently his medical degree, Mr. Hyde rampages through the streets of London at night, causing all sorts of ruckus for Dr. Jekyll and his neighbors.

Unlike the original, Hatcher portrays several different Mr. Hydes, played by actors who double as other characters major and minor, representing the different shards of Jekyll’s Jungian shadow, and implying that all of us, even NPCs, contain multitudes. Hatcher also introduces a female love interest, Elizabeth (Sarah Danko) focusing on the destructive nature of self-denial, and less so on any homoerotic reads of the original. The result is a moody, liminal exploration of the nature of desire, darkness, suppression and connection. It feels more psychologically inquisitive and nuanced than the typical good vs evil conceit. I love when an adaptation thematically and artistically expands the original, like when a surprising cover completely reinterprets a song.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s staging of Hatcher’s Jekyll and Hyde effectively conveyed the essence of a dark, unsettling psychological drama in which identity is never quite understood and the boundary between self and other, shadow and light, is continually being negotiated. Michael Hoover’s scenic design transformed Merrimack’s intimate stage into an angsty charcoal set full of stairs and doors like an Escher drawing. Lighting designer Brian J. Lillenthal created the red door motif with foreboding red backlight that kept shifting doorframes, the way unstable memories or identities might.

Yao Chen’s inspired costume designs were my favorite production elements. Beautiful and colorful period pieces, they must have required considerable creative engineering, balancing historical elegance with the flexibility necessary for the actors’ impressive physical performances, including leaping the stairs and slow-motion fight scenes choreographed by Ansley Rizzo. The sequined red streaks across the abdomens of the actors portraying Hyde resemble licks of fire or open gashes. They are used narratively, revealed whenever the actors transform into Hyde. The red highlights of the costumes echoed the red doors of the set as thresholds between respectable exterior and dark hearts, heightening the visual coherence of the whole show.

I often felt that the physicality of the performers carried the show while the actual acting out of the script was sometimes too loud or melodramatic. There was a lot of screaming and breaking down sobbing that might be more suited to a larger theater. I felt that emotional turmoil at a ten but expressed at a two would have been more aligned with the Victorian setting and the stage.

I was particularly impressed by Brent Charles and Herman Gambhir. Charles’s physicality, facial expressions, and acrobatics often made me audibly gasp. Gambhir, who portrayed the main Hyde, grounded both evil and tender moments with subtle expressivity. I also loved Amber Quick as a Hyde, as well as her range of side characters. It is a great way to incorporate more women into the show. I greatly appreciated director Jenny Lavery’s choice to give Quick the most sexually violent  lines and blocking of the Hyde-Elizabeth scenes. Hatcher’s script uses violence against women as shorthand for moral corruption in his antagonists. This would be more triggering in the hands of a less sensitive director, but Lavery mitigates the impact with grace.

What I find most compelling about Hatcher’s adaptation is its complexity as a meditation on the psyche. Mr. Hyde is not merely the based splinter of an otherwise pure and good Dr. Jekyll. Hatcher gradually reveals Jekyll’s lust, Hyde’s tenderness, Elizabeth’s unconditional loyalty. What results is a gestalt, almost fractal philosophy of mind—even our shadows have shadows. And what is revealed by each character in turn is a fundamental desire for surrender, connection, and being fully seen. This framework fundamentally inverts the intent of the original. What Hatcher damns is not each character’s deepest human hungers, but the social order that forbids their expression.

Presented by

Oct. 23 – Nov. 8, 2026
GBSC Main Stage
Stoneham, MA 02180

90 minutes with no intermission.

Trigger warnings: Body horror, medical misogyny, surgical gore, spooky basements.

Article by Kitty Drexel

STONEHAM, Mass. — Blackhollow: A Gothic Tale of Possession is horror. It depicts the torture of women. Its male characters call it “science,” but it’s historical torture with lab coats. In this gothic horror, adult men prey upon women and girls because they can. These male scientists see their victims as lab rats. Please, please respect your limits when buying a ticket.    

After witnessing her father commit her mother’s violent murder at the breakfast table, Lucy Cull (Anna Slate) is given employment in a 19th-century English criminal asylum. She is 11. Life working at the asylum forces Lucy to grow up quickly. Between the male doctors preying upon naive young women for sport or her malicious coworkers’ undeserved violence, Lucy must rely on her wits to survive. 

Eight years after she arrives, Lucy Cull has risen through the ranks and become a respected member of the staff. She is so respected that the new Superintendent, Ashburne (Slate, again), picks Lucy as his assistant. Together, he tells her, they will revolutionize the medical field with his secret experiments. Lucy complies under duress. She becomes an unwilling participant in blood transfusions with an impassive asylum patient, Ida Ripley. 

During the transfusions, Ashburne injects Lucy with a narcotic that gives her disturbing visions. The visions don’t stop when the experiment stops. Lovecraftian leviathans interrupt Lucy’s work and threaten her sanity. As the experiments continue, Lucy also discovers a psychic link with Ida. It is a link that will either save them both or destroy the asylum one syringe at a time.     

As the audience filters into the theatre, we are introduced to the world of Blackhollow through Katy Monthei’s deceptively simplistic scenic design. Upon closer inspection, the ward’s white walls are grey and blue where the floor meets the wall. Mold grows up the sides of the room like the decay growing into the asylum from its basement surgery rooms. The ceiling has mysterious brown water stains. They could be from years of rain damage, or it could be something more nefarious. The work of Cory Whittemore, lighting design, and David Remedios, sound design, further creepify the world of Blackhollow with eerie overhead lamps and mysterious bumps in the asylum’s ancient basement.

Anna Slate (in a dress out of Jane Eyre by Deirdre Gerrard, costume designer) delivers a tour-de-force performance as Lucy Cull and a bevy of other quirky and pernicious characters. Slate tackles a range of English accents, from Cockney to the King’s English, and character voices (man, woman, upper class, working class, and others) with rigorous skill. Her storytelling is gripping; her stage presence is absorbing; as we follow her narration, we forget she is the only actor on stage in this multicharacter, topsy-turvy gothic horror. 

The great character work Slate developed with Directors Symes and Begin make it easy to forget Blackhollow is a one-woman show. She does this by bestowing each character with individual ticks: Ashburn takes deep breaths through his nose before beginning an arrogant speech. Clara uses a higher-pitched Cockney accent and has a bold, sweet demeanor. Matron Tremmel stands like a malignant statue while looking down her nose at the subjects of her ire. Lucy Cull exists around and between these characters as a passive woman who fawns and freezes before ultimately fighting for her freedom. 

Blackhollow is further heightened by Symes’ colorful descriptions of the asylum and its residents. Superintendent Ashburn isn’t merely a despicable character. Rather, Symes illustrates Ashburne’s depravity with verbal flourishes; Ashburne has overly long fingernails, uses overly flowery words, and walks with a cane he doesn’t need. Here is a man with delusions of grandeur attending what Symes calls an understaffed institution with decaying wards. Symes describes the asylum’s Dr. Craven as a friendly nonce (enough said). 

Meanwhile, Symes lets the actions of his sympathetic characters express their personalities; they don’t need illustration: Nurse Grace works in the infirmary. She nurses Lucy Cull back to health. Clara, Lucy’s roommate, acts as Lucy’s refuge and savior between experiments. We don’t know what they look like, but we know the content of their characters. 

Speaking of characters and their stories, I don’t usually enjoy media of the horror genre. I make exceptions for feminist horror with revenge elements like this summer’s Paranormal Activity and Teeth the Musical (2024). I’m adding Blackhollow to my list. Everyone loves an underdog. Lucy Cull is as underdoggy as they get: She’s poor; she’s small; she’s powerless. And then, through the use of her intellect, she gets the upper hand. As much as I hate the abuse of women, I love their revenge stories more. 

Fiction or not, times have changed very little in 200 years. Whether it’s the systemic scourge of medical misogyny in Western medical practices or the drunken assault of coeds by frat brothers at Cornell and other Universities, men continue to have a rape problem. Fortunately for us, Symes and Begin’s play gives Lucy Cull a happy-ish ending. It’s not the happy ending of due process, but justice is gorily served. It punches up at the abusive men and women who perpetuate the abuse. Everyone who wrongs Lucy gets what’s coming to them. With knives. And psychosis. We love to see it. 

Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project 
By Gordon Greenberg & Steve Rosen
Directed by Christopher V. Edwards
Featuring: Thalia Gerloff, Doug Lockwood, Paul Melendy, Nicholas Papayoanou, Bobbie Steinbach

October 9 to November 1, 2026
The Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Run time: 100 minutes, no intermission

Critique by Diana Lu

WATERTOWN, Mass. — The 1995 Mel Brooks film Dracula: Dead and Loving It was a childhood favorite of mine, so Greenberg and Rosen had big shoes to fill. I’m happy to report that Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors exceeded even my most petulant-nostalgic expectations. It is witty and fresh. It is feminist and gay. Watching it gave me a sense of safety, clarity, and expansion, and I wondered how much more theatre could challenge us to, as the playbill put it, “be dangerous and alive.”

A sharp and hilarious sendup of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale, Dracula ACOT begins with fussy and faint hearted (i.e. stereotypically Victorian) real estate broker, Jonathan Harker (Paul Melendy),  traveling to Transylvania to close a lucrative deal and enhance his career prospects before wedding his childhood sweetheart—who is waaaaaay out of his league. In Dracula’s castle, Harker’s photo of fiancée Lucy Westfeldt (Thalia Gerloff), a feminist firebrand with an extremely attractive neck, immediately becomes the vampire’s obsession. This leads our orientalist trope villain to infiltrate England to seek her out, leaving a trail of death, disease, madness, and queerness in his quest to sate his lust, bloodlust, and dopamine receptors.

The brilliance of ASP’s staging was in its minimalism. Using nearly no props or set pieces, scenic designer Danielle Ibrahim and props manager Christina Ostner’s barely-there designs allowed Brian Lillethal’s lighting and Mackenzie Adamick’s sound choices to convey scenic environment as well as movement and mood. With so few distractions, the audience’s attention was totally focused on the cast’s standout performances, clad in Emma Stanard’s richly detailed Victorian costumes.

I’ll be honest, the main reason I came to this show was to see Paul Melendy as drag-Dracula, and his performance was indeed everything. From pink leather and fur entrance to double-tap death spiral, every one of Melendy’s scenes was the comedy gold I expected. I was just as impressed by the comedic talent of the rest of the cast. Nicholas Papayoanou was the standout performer for me, unfurling Harker’s persnickety straight man into vajazzled baby gay like an alchemic shift. His physical humor was on par with Melendy’s, and their scenes together were some of my favorites, though credit is also due to intimacy director Leanna Nielsen for that. At times the narrative pacing dragged a bit, but the cast was such a pleasure to watch that I didn’t mind. I’d watch two more hours of them speaking gibberish cockney in a make-believe bumpy carriage if I could.

The cast; photo by Benjamin Rose Photography

Another pleasant surprise is that I enjoyed the director’s notes as much as the play they accompany. I can’t remember that ever happening before. Then again, I can’t remember a playbill that so succinctly communicated its intentionality and creative commitment. This is a company that deeply understands itself, the play and its source material, critical theory, and craft, and wields its power for “connective, communal work.”

Christopher V. Edward’s direction amplified the script’s inclusiveness and generosity. Dracula’s foreignness and sexuality is transformed from monstrosity to vehicle for exploring oneself and finding more fulfilling love. Where the script leans on the tired gag of large-man-playing-ugly-woman, Doug Lockwood played Mina and Jean at the top of his intelligence, refusing to reduce his characters to a punchline of physique. The result is a staging with more depth and subversiveness. Because ultimately, beauty, intelligence, and humor are all forms of power, and gender conventions determine who is safely allowed to possess them, and in what combinations.

Thinking about this made me wonder how much further these gender constructs could be broken. The script says that any actor can play any role, but casting choices in every documented production have followed the script’s suggestions. But imagine a female Dracula or a nonbinary Lucy. Imagine that a hypermasculine woman is the character who is beautiful and desirable, while a waifish doctor finds love through intellectual respect rather than conventional attractiveness.

That I left the theater wondering about these possibilities is a rare delight. Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors invites its audience to laugh at the absurdity of our social norms and reminds us that they are limiting beliefs, not biological inevitabilities. It urges us to be more fully ourselves and more compassionate toward each other. To me, that’s the only performance worth participating in.

Karl Kenzler, Karen Killeen; photo by Liza Voll.

Presented by The Huntington
By Aaron Sorkin
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Harper Lee  
Directed by Huntington Artistic Director Loretta Greco 
Music and vocals by Ashley Frith

October 8 – November 8, 2026
The Huntington Theatre
264 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115

TL;DR: The “TKAM” play is different from the novel. The Huntington’s production is great! Hire disabled actors to play disabled characters. 

Content Advisories: Explicit racial slurs, theatrical haze, and sound of a gunshot. This link for more→.

Run Time: Schedule 3 and a half hours from arrival to exit.

BOSTON — Apropos of nothing, let’s dig in.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is playing at the Huntington Theatre in Boston. In it, three children tell the story of Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson and a township’s failure of justice for a Black man. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution guarantees due process, not justice. 

The Huntington’s summary of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is HERE. 

The BBC has a comprehensive examination of Harper Lee’s novel with illustrations HERE. 

For those wondering, this adaptation of the novel differs in several important ways. First, the story is told through three narrators: child and adult Scout (Karen Killeen), her brother Jem (Benjamin Izaak), and their new friend Dill (Andrew Stevens), instead of one, Scout. The play occurs over one summer instead of the book’s multiple seasons. We don’t see Miss Maudie’s house burn down or the destruction of the mad dog. Boo Radley (a solemn Jesse Hinson) remains, but his interactions with the children are reduced.    

One of the best changes Sorkin made was developing the characters of Tom Robinson (Rafael Jordan), a kind Black farm laborer, and Calpurnia (Patrice Jean-Baptiste), the Finches’ house matron and second mother to Scout and Jem. The play still concentrates on Atticus Finch (Karl Kenzler, with dignity, grace and quiet strength) while also expanding the novel’s conversations on poverty and race. Sorkin gives his audiences the benefit of the doubt that they can handle a mature, more nuanced conversation about systemic oppression, white fragility, and historic hate. 

Listen to this pretty lady. She sounds like summer. 

Alas, Sorkin’s could have been clearer with the play’s central theme. This adaptation comes short of communicating one vital statement from the novel: Don’t kill mockingbirds. Atticus Finch tells Scout, Jem and Dill not to shoot mockingbirds, because they harm no one (unlike other predatory birds which harass other birds and eat farmers’ crops – crops that the local farmers depend on to survive). Further, mockingbirds sing for everyone’s pleasure. That’s why it would be a sin to shoot them. He extends this to human beings he associates with mockingbird-like qualities: Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. This is where the novel gets its name.

For more information, look to the fine dramaturgy from Charles Haugland. Give Haugland’s playbill articles, “Continuing the Fight: Radical Justice and the ACLU,” about The Huntington’s partnership with the famous freedom fighting legal organization represented by Traci Griffith, racial justice director, and “Telling the Story: Harper Lee and Aaron Sorkin,” about the transition from Lee’s novel to Sorkin’s script, a read. He directly captures the messages and themes central to the play. Supplemental dramaturgy is also available towards the bottom of the Huntington’s Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird page. 

I preface my next topic with this: The Huntington’s production is excellent. From its Boston-based ensemble of local actors by Brett Duffy to its truly epic ham costumes by Celeste Jennings, this production exemplifies everything that’s right with Boston’s regional theatre. You don’t have to visit New York to find excellent, ground-breaking theatre.  

Onward: Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, includes a disabled character, Tom Robinson. He is accused of beating and sexually assaulting Mayella Ewell (Jackie Scholl, who delivers a devastating performance as a racist survivor of incest with misplaced rage). In Sorkin’s play, Robinson is also disabled. Robinson’s character arc and the play’s events hinge upon his disability. 

The Huntington’s production (and the hosting theatres before it) did not cast a disabled actor to play this disabled character. This is deeply disappointing. It’s especially so considering The Huntington hosted a production of Teenage Dick in 2021. It was chock-a-block brimming with disability representation. The disabled community calls this action “cripping up,” a term coined by playwright Katie O’Reilly. We compare it to Blackface and white-washing. As my community says, Nothing About Us Without Us. 

With great respect to actor Rafael Jordan who gives an impassioned performance as Tom Robinson, a disabled actor should have been cast in this role. Jordan is an excellent actor with brilliant stage presence. It is obvious to anyone who sees this production why he was cast. And yet. Black, disabled actors exist. Black actors with paralysis want to be hired. They are willing to travel to Boston. So, it blows this disabled critic’s mind that a Black, disabled actor wasn’t hired (nor a disability consultant/advocate for that matter). 

Rafael Jordan, the cast. Photo by Liza Voll.

It’s personally galling when I, a critic typing one-handed to write this article, shares a disability with the fictional character in question. (In my case, a cotton gin didn’t paralyze me, a male doctor with the medical skills of an unhatched mockingbird did. Aren’t I a lucky bitch?) It stands to reason that, if a Boston theatre critic with a paralyzed left arm can whine about this production from her laptop, then Black, similarly disabled actors all over the U.S. can perform in it. We are legion. 

I don’t begrudge Jordan or any of the other cast and crew members this gig. The theatre is already a tragically difficult career path. We all do our best, even this uppity virago with not enough time on her hands. 

Rather, I blame leadership. Boston theatre has been actively discussing disability equity since 1990 when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. Contracts exist to be negotiated. So, negotiate for disability representation on stage as you would ASL interpretation off it. The disabled community and our advocacy don’t cease to exist just because a dementated, orange would-be dictator* sits in a soiled diaper while cutting the National Endowment for the Arts for fun.

Huntington, your audience is watching. 

*We don’t claim him. 

(L-R) Claire Kennard, Lindsay Lee Alhady, Major Attaway, Delaney Benson, and Meridien Terrell in the North American Tour of SPAMALOT. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

Presented by Boch Center Wang Theatre
Book and Lyrics by Eric Idle
Music by John Du Prez & Eric Idle
Directed & Choreographed by Josh Rhodes
Music Directed by Jonathan W. Gorst

October 8 – 11, 2026
Boch Center Wang Theatre
270 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116

Runtime: 2 hours and 20 minutes, including intermission.

Review by Helen Ganley

BOSTON — Arthurian Legend – a literary colossus within British history. The lore encompasses the trials, feats, and follies of King Arthur and his knights within the kingdom of Camelot. These narratives bestow their readers with messages of honor and chivalry. Spamalot, based around these foundational mythologies… Does not … (in the best way!) Spamalot, or as it’s properly titled and subtitled, Monty Python’s Spamalot; A musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” takes inspiration from an already vaudevillian and slapstick movie and cranks the silliness up tenfold in the way only theater can. Although the main quest is reminiscent of the original fables, King Arthur and his knights seek the holy grail, the show’s series of vignettes shows the team encountering outrageous and nonsensical barriers.

The knights of the Round Table are a ragtag team, including Sir Robin (Sean Bell), Sir Lancelot (Chris Collins-Pisano), Sir Galahad (Leo Roberts), and Sir Bedevere (Ellis C. Dawson III). Bell is animated and flamboyant, his coquettish cowardice discarded during his impressive rendition of “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway.” The quartet brings distinct and enthralling energy, creating almost a sense of surprise at their masterful harmonies during “Knights of the Round Table.”

Reigning over his knights is King Arthur (Major Attaway) and his guiding compass, The Lady of the Lake (Amanda Robles). Attaway has nonchalant energy that creates a tonal hilarity from its contrast to the outrageousness occurring onstage. Robles is a vocal dynamo, showcasing operatic soprano, jazzy riffs, and classic Broadway vibrato during “Diva’s Lament.”

A notable standout was Steven Telsey as, well, eight different roles. Although differentiated through costumes and makeup, Telsey was unmistakable throughout the show with his telltale physicality and vocal chops. Whenever he was onstage, I found myself pointing to my companion, indicating that he was back onstage, which never failed to excite us both.

Technically, the show is a tour de force. The orchestra backs the entire production (Jonathan W. Grost), although occasionally a bit loud, while intricate projections dance across the set (Paul Tate DePoo III). Each costume (Jen Caprio) is tactful and distinct, especially The Lady of the Lake’s shimmering sequins and blue velvet robe. Spamalot is as ridiculous as it is entertaining – for both fans of the movie and those who
haven’t seen it (e.g., me). The Boch Center Wang Theatre’s production is sure to make you want to get up and sing along… which you should prepare to do!

Photo of cast by Jim Sabitus.

Presented by the Umbrella Stage Company 
Story and Book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming 
Music and Lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe
Directed by Jeremy Johnson
Music directed by Jeff Kimball
Choreography by Sara Andreas

September 25 – November 8, 2026
Umbrella Arts
40 Stow St.
Concord, MA 01742

Online playbill

Approximate run-time: 1h 55m, 15m intermission

Critique by Diana Lu

CONCORD, Mass. — Bat Boy: the Musical has the dubious yet rarefied honor of being the worst show I’ve ever seen. This is not altogether bad publicity: it’s managed to stay rent-free in my brain all week. I fully expect to think about this show at least once a month for the rest of my life. Perhaps not my Roman Empire, but certainly my Portuguese, or Dutch East Indies Empire.

Inspired by an infamous 1992 tabloid, this 1997 off-Broadway musical tells the story of a half-human, half-bat child found in a cave. The bat boy (Johnny Shea) is taken in by a village veterinarian’s kindly wife (Amy Barker), who teaches him manners, BBC English, and how to give and receive love. The fanatically religious townsfolk alternately revile and accept the Bat Boy, whose primary conflict is wrestling with his deadly vampiric nature. Mayhem and hilarity ensue.

Johnny Shea’s lead performance was the best thing about the show. He played Edgar the Bat Boy with sincerity and gravitas that grounded the outlandish mess around him. Watching him serve high tea in a British accent while wearing vampire fangs, pointy ears and a bald cap was also the most camp the show managed to muster.

Amy Barker is a stellar actor who played Meredith with tenderness and complexity that made her character’s gradual reveals throughout the second act believable. Maria Silva Norris’s portrayal of Reverend Hightower was as hilarious as her gospel solo was breathtaking. 

Cameron McEachern and Sarabeth Spector created a set that coherently morphed from bat cave to church pews to living room to enchanted forest with minimal props. Meagan Bello’s costumes combined with Briana Fallon’s choreography created clear and intentional transitions of the actors from one character to another that became some of the funniest moments of the show.

In general, the cast and crew did the best they could with a difficult book. I also think intentional camp is especially difficult to pull off in theater because the medium is already so…well, theatrical. It’s hard to hit the right balance of exaggeration and seriousness that camp requires when everything already has to be exaggerated to even be readable from the nosebleed seats.

In Bat Boy’s case, the directorial choices often felt too cartoonishly unserious and self-aware to effectively convey a camp aesthetic. My main grievance about this is that it makes the problems with the book more glaring. I won’t even go into the narrative messiness. It’s the asymmetrical treatment of men’s vs. women’s humanity that really bothers me about this show.

Bat Boy is a supernatural metaphor for a lot of painful experiences of queerness, particularly of gay men in the 80s and 90s: AIDS stigma, isolation and othering, institutional persecution. The book was written with the intent to portray these traumas safely filtered through the aesthetized lens of camp, and to its credit, does so effectively.

The female characters, on the other hand, are rendered at best as infrastructure in a man’s story, simultaneously hypervisible as spectacle and invisible as narrative. They are the primary drivers of Edgar’s healing narrative in a naturalized way that erases the labor required for that healing process. And the story just rawdogs the suffering of Meredith, Shelley, and even Mrs. Taylor, often for comedic effect.

A different approach to camp might have allowed this production to make up for some of the compassion the book misses, but it didn’t. This is particularly sad as a failure in artistic direction because there is so much more public awareness of care work and sexual violence today than when Bat Boy was written 30 years ago. I don’t begrudge the writers for having the blind spots they did in 1997. But there is no excuse for a production team that demonstrates zero interest in looking directly at them in 2026.

Photo via www.cactusheadpuppets.com/touring-shows

Presented by Puppet Showplace Theater
By CactusHead Puppets
Featuring John Regan and Megan Regan

November 11, 14, & 15, 2026
32 Station Street
Brookline, MA 02445

Review by Maegan Clearwood

BROOKLINE – As artists and arts institutions struggle to secure funding more than ever, Puppet Showplace Theater offers a critically important program: The Incubator for New Work, which provides time, space, and feedback for puppeteers to tinker with new projects.

I was lucky enough to see one of these burgeoning creations, a preview performance of Dig Down Deep: A Cave Adventure by CactusHead Puppets. It was a particularly unique opportunity to see a work-in-progress, because the most valuable feedback in the room came from the children in the front rows.

As evidenced by the giggliness in the room, Dig Down Deep certainly has enough gags, playfulness, and puppetry magic to keep any young audience engaged.

The adventure follows Jamie, a child who loves learning about science, but struggles with social and sensory challenges at school. They refuge in a cave, where two companions – Fish and Echo – let Jamie be themself. Jamie is called to adventure when Echo disappears, leading them into the deepest, darkest depths of the cave.

The audience is introduced to the world of the play before Jamie’s story begins, as John and Megan heave a boulder onto a platform, then break it open to reveal the cave inside. There are some amusing slapstick moments during this opening bit, but I noticed the audience getting quite restless toward the end, so the opening may benefit from some trimming.

John and Megan Regan manipulate a variety of puppets along Jamie’s journey, most of which are quite small: Jamie treks up and down John’s arms to reach the cave and leaps from one child’s open hand to the next as they search for Echo. The use of bodies as set pieces is one of the play’s most enchanting elements, stretching the bounds of the audience’s imagination and transporting us to a world where any object can come alive.

John and Megan’s vocalizations for the puppets are cute, but often mumbled, making it hard to understand what the characters are saying. They are accompanied by delightful spooky sound design, giving the cave an otherworldly dimension.

Jamie is a compelling protagonist by means of representation. Although never explicitly stated, they are implied to be nonbinary and autistic. It’s heartening (and important, particularly given the young audience) to see Jamie navigate the world in their own way.

Jamie’s internal journey needs clarification, particularly during the ending, which wraps up the plot but neglects the overarching message. The play opens like a fable, with a direct introduction to the story’s status quo and central conflict, so it feels unbalanced when it ends on such an open-ended note. I was hungry for a return to Jamie’s life outside the cave so we could see how much they changed.

Dig Deep Down has its official premier in November, so audiences can embark on this adventure with Jamie again quite soon.

Image via SAATh Fest.

Off-Kendrick’s South Asian-American Theater Festival (Saath-fest)
Presented by Off-Kendrick

September 18-20, 2026
The Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Review by Diana Lu

WATERTOWN, Mass. — SAATh is not just an acronym; the name also means “to come together.” The South Asian American Theatre festival therefore is a rare occasion that South Asian storytelling communities all over America can come together and be centered. 

SAATh-fest is the flagship event for Off-Kendrick, a non-profit experimental theater group founded in 2008 by Bengali Bostonians. Kendrick means “center” in Bengali, so Off-Kendrick means off-center in Benglish. In the 18 years since its founding, Off-Kendrick has grown from a small group focusing on Bengali plays about the immigrant experience to an established cultural authority bringing original plays written and performed by artists across the South Asian diaspora to stages in New England.

This year’s Saath-fest appears to be Off-Kendrick’s most ambitious and impressive event yet. The festival featured theater written and performed by South Asian artists from Chicago to New Jersey to Boston, representing a great diversity of South Asian ethnicities, regions, and languages. 

The themes of the plays maintained Saath’s commitment to women’s stories, supporting children and their artistic growth in theatre, and also broadened to include South Asian perspectives and connections with East Asian communities. This year’s headliner play for both Saturday and Sunday was about the consequences of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and another play explored the iconic “butterfly dream” paradigm for questioning reality by Chinese philosopher Chuang Tse.

Each play was thought-provoking and well performed as standalone pieces, exploring universal themes with specificity and depth, and covered the past, present, and future of South Asia and beyond. Standouts for me included the student-choreographed tiger dance in The River Swells, part of the Kids-Kendrick section written and performed by young artists of Boston. American Bhoot featured a talented all-female cast narrating a harrowing tale of one immigrant mother’s journey from Wall Street associate to unhoused and starving, the result of narcissistic abuse and two patriarchal societies that failed her. Thaniyavarthanam was similarly themed, showing how one’s family system can be both the source of love, support, and protection, yet also the source of unimaginable harm. Modern Love Jaisa, was a charming collection of desi American romance vignettes that reminded me of Love, Actually.

Each play was followed by a discussion with the artists and directors, which imbued a sense of intracommunity dialogue and connection between storytellers and audience throughout the festival. I was particularly moved by the panel discussion with Kids-Kendrick playwriting workshop leaders. They spoke to the importance of community support in fostering creativity and storytelling for diaspora children. The audience full of doting parents seemed to really appreciate that perspective and it was personally inspiring for me to hear.

At the same time, I found the festival’s organization surprisingly frustrating, especially considering this was the fifth year of SAATh. Though the individual performances were deeply engaging, this energy didn’t build because it wasn’t ever carried from one play to the next. Transitions lacked energy, flow and efficiency. Both days I attended were so behind schedule that the audience was confused and needed to be continually corralled. Because of the scheduling issues, I didn’t have time to stay for the final play either night. 

The overall experience felt disappointingly amateurish, which was a disservice to the ambitious artistic vision of the event. I hope this improves in the future, because the festival itself has so much going for it. Off-Kendrick’s stated purpose for SAATh-fest is to bring diverse South Asian communities together through theater, storytelling, and dialogue. I was personally impressed and inspired by the work I saw, and I feel there is so much potential for SAATh to connect with wider audiences and communities. That all makes the audience experience and the infrastructure surrounding the performances just as important as the artistic programming.

SAATh has already created something unique and important: a space where South Asian artists and audiences can come together, see themselves reflected, and experience the connection of common humanity. With a stronger sense of cohesion and care in the festival’s execution, Off-Kendrick could become the major South Asian theater festival I know  it has the potential to be.

Anthony T. Goss as Johnny and Deannah “DRIPP” Blemur as Avery. Photo: Benjamin Rose Photography

Presented by SpeakEast Stage Company
By York Walker
Directed by Dawn M. Simmons
Featuring: Crystin Gilmore, Anthony T. Goss, Sydney Alicia Jackson, Deannah “DRIPP” Blemur, Kayla Sessoms

Sep. 25 through Oct. 17, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts

Critique by Kitty Drexel

TLDR: The cast & crew had a rough night on Wednesday. Covenant is Sinners meets Paranormal. Sorta.

BOSTON — Sometimes, the well-prepared elements of a play don’t meld during a performance. Only the muses know why. That appeared to be the case of the cast and crew of SpeakEasy’s Covenant on Wednesday evening: Actors lost their energy halfway through their lines and looked uneasy on stage, a sound cue misfired, tech persons were accidentally revealed during set changes. To these we say, let she who’s never persisted through a wonky performance cast the first stone.

We, the audience, can chalk these foibles up to the mysteries of live theatre. Mistakes happened; the actors kept going. They finished strong, and that’s what matters most. We commend the Covenant cast and crew for their hard work turning the production around. It isn’t easy and displays both good technique and a solid community foundation.    

From what we surmise, Covenant is based on the myth and fact of Delta bluesman Robert Johnson.  Folk history says Johnson made a midnight deal with the Devil at a crossroads to sing and play the guitar. He left home unable to play. He returned six months later with some skill. Rumors spread like wildfire. The truth is more mundane: Johnson found a human teacher. (Or, perhaps, a gremlin convincingly dressed as a human teacher…) He made some recordings. He passed away at the ripe age of 27. 

Johnson’s story and more helpful information are found on the SpeakEasy’s dramaturgy website. I wish SpeakEasy had put more significance on the Johnson myth. One needs to know about it to appreciate this play. I urge potential members to check out the dramaturgy website before attending. Read about Johnson online because his myth adds necessary context to the production. As SpeakEasy has reduced its playbill pages to reduce its carbon footprint, we must now take initiative to complete our pre-show education. 

Covenant dreams of being the small stage version of Sinners meets Paranormal – minus the vampires and jump scares. In this play, Johnny “Honeycomb” James (Anthony T Goss) returns home to Hartwell County, Georgia after making it big as a juke joint singer and traveling musician. It’s 1936, and he’s come home to marry his childhood crush, Avery (Deannah Dripp Blemur). Avery wants to leave her small town with Johnny, but her god-fearing Mama (Crystin Gilmore, who wields christianity like a weapon) refuses to allow it. As Avery and Mama play out their mother/daughter dispute in their unhappy home, Avery’s sister, Violet (Sydney Alicia Jackson), and Violet’s best friend, Ruthie (Kayla Sessoms), witness their falling out. Covenant is a play about the secrets we keep and stories we don’t tell. 

To be completely frank (with all due respect to Goss’s many talents), if Honeycomb James sold his soul for the voice and playing we heard on Wednesday night, Honeycomb was solidly conned. And, depending on your perspective, that’s the entire point. Honeycomb might have been a smooth-talking cutiepie with nice hands who made a deal with a fallen angel, or he was a young man with an okay voice and an untuned guitar. It doesn’t matter whether Honeycomb actually made a deal. It matters that people believed he did. Rumors like that attract patrons. A venue owner knows that big crowds mean more money in their pockets. 

If you see this production, you’ll discover that Honeycomb’s story is the least interesting plot thread of this play. I will only say that the production takes a surprisingly queer turn. When we say the LGBTQ+ community has always existed everywhere, we mean it. 

As explained above, this performance took its time to blossom on Wednesday night. The production excelled during the cast’s inter-scene monologues. In them, each character divulges their darkest day through third-person narrative. Each actor gets to tell the story that broke their character’s heart. We watch them break all over again. It’s tragic and beautiful.  

This SpeakEasy production isn’t my favorite. Covenant is a curious beast; it has little scares and big surprises. There are freakier Halloween experiences out there for folks looking for a big scare. It isn’t for everyone, but it might be for you. 

Can’t pay full price for tickets? Try any of SpeakEasy’s discount programs.