OPENING
BETRAYAL | Another Country Productions and the Factory Theatre team up for Howard Pinter’s 1978 play that, running backward in time, from 1977 to 1968, is less about Emma’s betrayal of husband Robert with married lover Jerry than it is about the lies with which we betray ourselves as well as others. Gail Phaneuf directs a cast of Wayne Fritsche, Lyralen Kaye, Robert Kropf, and James Wilcox. | Boston Center for the Arts, Calderwood Pavilion, Rehearsal Hall A, 527 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | May 20–June 7 | Curtain 2 pm [May 26] + 7:30 pm Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 3 pm [no May 29] + 8 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $28-$35; $27 students, seniors
ELLIOT NORTON AWARDS | Karen MacDonald (currently excelling in all seven roles in The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead — see below) will receive the Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, and Tony Shalhoub and Brooke Adams will be in attendance, at this the 28th annual award ceremony presented by the Boston Theater Critics Association. | Paramount Theatre, 539 Washington St, Boston | May 17 | Curtain 7 pm | $20
“EMERGING AMERICA” | This collaborative effort of the American Repertory Theater, the Huntington Theatre Company, and the Institute of Contemporary Art is being described as “an annual festival devoted to supporting and launching new voices in American theater.” It’ll start Friday at the ICA with Disfarmer at 7:30 pm and then the festival kickoff party at 9:30 pm. On Saturday, there’s a double bill of Amy Herzog’s Love Song in Two Voices and Steven Levenson’s Seven Minutes in Heaven at the BCA’s Calderwood Pavilion (1 + 4 pm) and then a series at Club Oberon in Harvard Square: Mrs. Smith Presents . . . a Benefit for the Carlyle Foundation Empowerment School for People and Cats with Severe and Persistent Challenges, by David Hanbury and Michael Goldfried, and featuring Ryan Landry (4 pm); Live from the Edge, a fusion theater piece created by the multidisciplinary Universes ensemble (6 pm); Particularly in the Heartland, a piece created by the NYC-based TEAM ensemble (8 pm); Post-Living Ante-Action Theater (Club Remix), created by My Barbarian, an LA-based performance collective (10:15 pm); and the ART’s The Donkey Show in a special midnight edition. On Sunday, the Huntington will host a festival brunch with live music (noon–2:30 pm), and then it’s back to Club Oberon: an encore performance of Particularly in the Heartland (4 pm); Vicious Dogs on Premises, created by Witness Relocation (6:15 pm); an encore performance of Live from the Edge (8 pm); and finally a festival featuring Decode, the creation of Salvatore LaRussa Dance Theatre. Throughout the weekend, the festival tent will be open outside Club Oberon. | emergingamericafestival.org | May 14-16 | ticket prices vary; see Web site
FAMILY STORIES | Whistler in the Dark closes its fifth season with Serbian playwright Biljana Srbljanovic’s 1998 work, which uses a quartet of adult actors playing children playing house to paint a grotesque Punch & Judy portrait of trickle-down, war-numbed life under corrupt, nationalist dictator Slobodan Milosevic. The play, which got its North American premiere from Cambridge’s short-lived Market Theatre back in 2002, is episodic and somewhat repetitive, and the attempt to override cruel comedy with tragedy at the end feels forced. But like its harsh, adult-mocking pubescents playing Donna Reed on a dung heap, Family Stories packs a punch. Meg Taintor directs; Melissa Barker, Danny Bryck, Nate Gundy, and Jen O’Connor are in the cast. | Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont St, Boston | May 14-30 | Curtain 7:30 pm Wed-Thurs | 8 pm Fri-Sat | 3 pm Sun | $20; $10 students
