Exotic “Grupo Corpo” Troupe Combines Exceptional Dancing with Brazilian and African Rhythm for a Spectacular Evening of Excitement and Adventure

October 30, 2023November 15, 2023 michaelhobanLeave a comment

“Grupo Corpo” Artistic Director – Paulo Pederneiras; Choreographer – Rodrigo Pederneiras; Presented by Celebrity Series at Boch Center Shubert Theatre. Run has ended.

By Shelley A. Sackett

Founded in 1975 by Paulo and Rodrigo Pederneiras, the Brazilian dance company Grupo Corpo (meaning “Body Group” in Portuguese) is renowned for its unparalleled blend of popular Brazilian culture, African rhythms, and classical technique.

At last Saturday night’s performance, the troupe treated its audience to a mesmerizing evening of ingenious choreography, tireless, virtuoso dancers, inventive lighting and stage design, and pulsating, tribal-tinged music by Bahian songwriter Gilberto Gil and the Brazilian jazz band, Metà Metà.

The concert was as thrilling, riveting and entertaining as it gets.

Hands Together, Thumbs Up, And Snap Twice For Wheelock’s ‘The Addams Family’

October 20, 2023November 15, 2023 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Cast of ‘The Addams Family’ at Wheelock Family Theatre

Wheelock Family Theatre at Boston University presents ‘The Addams Family’. Book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa. Nick Vargas (Director), David Freeman Coleman (Music Director), Larry Sousa (Choreographer), Jimmy Rotondo (Scenic Designer), Frank Meissner, Jr. (Lighting Designer), Zoë Sundra (Costume Designer), Jenn Butler (Props Designer), Jon King (Sound Designer), Akeem Celestine (Makeup Designer). At WFT@BU, 180 Riverway, Boston, through November 19, 2023.

by Linda Chin

After a warm pre-curtain welcome by Jeri Hammond (Director of Education) and Nick Vargas (Interim Artistic Director) the house lights dim, and the audience is abuzz with anticipation. Yet before the red velvet curtain opens to reveal the world of the show (and its sensational set by Jimmy Rotondo and lighting by Frank Meissner, Jr.) is another surprise. A disembodied hand emerges through the split in the curtain, eliciting some gasps from the crowd (from the younger, middle-aged, or senior patrons – or all three?). But the hand seems more shy, lost, and friendly than scary, lecherous, and frightening and happily finds its place in the spotlight center stage. When the first strains of music from the theme song, the “Buh-buh-buh-bump,” rise from the pit, the hand – right on cue – snaps its fingers twice, then the phrase repeats. The hand is noticeably happier when more of its new friends in the audience join in. Which many of us baby boomers (who grew up with the television show and this opening number on our black-and-white sets) do while giggling and singing along with kooky, ooky, childish glee.

Moonbox Productions’ ‘Sweeney Todd’ Sets The City On Fire

October 19, 2023October 19, 2023 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Joy Clark and Davron Monroe in Moonbox Productions ‘Sweeney Todd’

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Hugh Wheeler. Ryan Mardesich, Director/Co-Producer. Dan Ryan, Music Director/Conductor. Joy Clark, Choreographer. Cameron McEachern, Set Design. Kat C. Zhou, Lighting Design. Rebecca Glick, Costume Design. James Cannon, Sound Design. Lauren Corcuera, Properties Design. Margaret Clark, Fight Choreography. At Arrow Street Arts, Cambridge, through November 5.

by Linda Chin

With their intensely powerful Sweeney Todd christening the new black-box theatre at Arrow Street Arts in Cambridge, Moonbox Productions is “setting the city on fire.” Mercifully, not because all hell has broken loose in Harvard Square, with ‘rats in the grass!…or lunatics yelling!…or great black crows screeching!’ like in Sondheim’s London, 1846. But rather because, like when used in rap music or modern slang in 2023, the term ‘set the city on fire’ means a large number of people are excited and interested in what’s happening.

A Playfully Potent “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” at Umbrella Stage

October 15, 2023October 15, 2023 michaelhobanLeave a comment

“White Rabbit Red Rabbit”. By Nassim Soleimanpour. Presented by The Umbrella Stage Company, 40 Stow Street, Concord, through November 11.

By Michele Markarian

Born at the tail end of 1981 in the Islamic Republic of Iran, playwright Nassim Soleimanpour refused to participate in mandatory military service that, upon completion, would allow him to travel outside of Iran. In his isolation, he wrote “White Rabbit Red Rabbit,” a play that has been translated into more than thirty languages and performed all over the world. Part theater, part thought experiment (think Schrodinger’s cat), “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” is a lighthearted but pointed entry into a country the playwright cannot leave.

‘HANGMEN’ at the GAMM

October 15, 2023December 26, 2023 michaelhobanLeave a comment

The cast of Gamm Theatre’s production of “The Hangmen.” Photo by Cat Laine

Reviewed by Tony Annicone

The second show of Gamm Theatre’s 39th season is the New England Premiere of “Hangmen” by Martin McDonagh. This show is a fictional story set in 1965 when the death penalty had just been abolished in the UK. In a small town in Northern England, everyone wants to know what the second-best hangman in the country, Harry Wade, whose profession has just been made illegal, has to say about it. When the news breaks, Harry’s pub is overrun with a gang of misfits and a cub reporter eager to garner a quote from Harry himself. Harry’s guilt-ridden former assistant, Syd, is also in attendance. However, when a constantly smiling, inscrutable visitor, Mooney, appears, everyone becomes inquisitive about this stranger’s mysterious motives. Even though serious topics are discussed, McDonagh keeps the comedy flowing even in the most dire circumstances. Director Tony Estrella casts these 11 roles wonderfully and elicits both comic and dramatic performances from one and all. He is aided in his task by Jessica Hill Kidd, who designed a prison area on the top of a lovely British bar that looks so realistic you’d go up there and order a pint for yourself. The terrific fight choreography is by Normand Beauregard with lighting design by James Horban, terrific sound design by Hunter Spoede with realistic thunder and rain, and the 1960s costumes by Katie Hand. Stage manager Robin Grady keeps things running smoothly all night long.

True Crime Meets Rock n’ Roll in Umbrella’s ‘Lizzie’

October 4, 2023October 5, 2023 michaelhoban1 Comment

Cast of ‘*Lizzie: The Musical’* at the Umbrella Stage Company. Photos by Jim Sabitus

‘Lizzie: The Musical’ – Music by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt; Lyrics by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Tim Maner; Book by Tim Maner; Additional Music by Tim Maner; Additional Lyrics by Alan Stevens Hewitt; Based on an original concept by Alan Stevens Hewitt; Orchestrations by Alan Stevens Hewitt. Produced by Brian Boruta; Directed and Choreographed by Ilyse Robbins; Music Director Lianne Bunting; Lighting Designer SeifAllah Salotto Cristobal; Sound Designer James Cannon; Scenic Designer Erik D. Diaz; Costume Designer Bethany Mullins. Presented by The Umbrella Stage Company at 40 Stow St., Concord, MA, through November 5^th.

by Mike Hoban

“Lizzie Borden took an axe,

And gave her mother forty whacks,

When she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.”

That gruesome child’s rhyme from the late 19^th century is both the inspiration and the opening lines from Lizzie: The Musical, Umbrella Stage Company’s early Halloween present to rock musical fans. This punk rock-flavored headbanger of a show shakes up the genre much the way the 1973 musical stage production of The Rocky Horror Show did 50 years earlier. Only instead of being fueled by dark humor and (then) norm-pushing sexcapades, it’s a far more serious feminist revenge story – and just as entertaining.

Huntington’s “Fat Ham” Is A Raucous and Resonant Reinvention of Shakespeare’s Masterpiece, “Hamlet”

October 3, 2023October 12, 2023 michaelhoban2 Comments

Cast of ‘Fat Ham’ The Huntington Theatre. Photos by T Charles Erickson

‘Fat Ham’ — Written by James Ijames. Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, Scenic Design by Luciana Stecconni, Costume Design by Celeste Jennings, Sound Design by Aubrey Dube, Lighting Design by Xiangfu Xiao. Presented by The Huntington Theatre in association with Alliance Theatre and Front Porch Arts Collective at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont St., through Sunday, October 29, 2023.

By Shelley A. Sackett

“Fat Ham,” winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize Award for best drama, is much more than a modern-day riff on “Hamlet,” one of Shakepeare’s most quoted, performed and adapted plays. Using the bones of the Bard’s tragedy as a structural anchor, the exceptionally talented playwright, James Ijames, has fleshed it out with analogous characters whose feet are firmly planted in the here and now and whose modern-day nightmares and dreams reflect both the mundane and the existential.

A Sweet Treat at Ogunquit: ‘Tootsie’ Rolls with Laughter

October 2, 2023October 2, 2023 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Music & Lyrics by David Yazbeck. Book by Robert Horn. Directed by Larry Raben. Choreography by Jennifer Rias. Music Direction by Andrew David Sotomayor. Scenic Design by Christine Peters. Lighting Design by Richard Latta. Costume Design by William Ivery Long. Sound Design by Kevin Heard. Wig Design by Roxanne De Luna. At Ogunquit Playhouse, 10 Main Street, Ogunquit, ME through October 29, 2023.

by Linda Chin

The Tony Award-winning musical comedy Tootsie, now enjoying its regional premiere at the Ogunquit Playhouse, is an adaptation of the now 40-year-old movie starring Dustin Hoffman in a red wig, glasses, and the now iconic gown with red sequins. Tootsie is Michael Dorsey, a talented 40-year-old actor who’s talented and deeply committed to his craft but whose arrogance and know-it-all attitude have alienated producers, directors, and colleagues alike. Desperate to work, Dorsey disguises himself as a woman, adopts a female persona, names himself Dorothy Michaels, and lands a role in a soap opera. The star-studded cast of characters – including Dorsey’s agent George (Sydney Pollack), friend/ex-girlfriend Sandy (Teri Garr), and television co-star Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange) – are not made aware of this charade; the only person he confides in is his deadpanning roommate, Jeff Slater, played in the movie by Bill Murray.