Theater

Play by Play: May 1, 2009

Plays from A to Z

By CAROLYN CLAY | April 28, 2009

OPENING

THE BACCHAE | Whistler in the Dark theater company takes on Euripides's tragedy, in which a celebration of the wine god gets way out of hand. Meg Taintor directs a translation by Northeastern professor Francis Blessington. | Rehearsal Hall A, Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | May 1-17 | Curtain 7:30 pm Wed-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 3 + 8 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $25; $15 students; two for one StageSource members Wed

BUNBURY: A SERIOUS PLAY FOR TRIVIAL PEOPLE | Tom Jacobson's "seriously clever metatheatrical comedy" goes all Stoppard on us by bringing minor (or imaginary) characters from classic drama to the forefront. "Tired of being swept to the sidelines of drama, Bunbury, Algernon's off-stage friend from The Importance of Being Earnest, and Rosaline, Romeo's off-stage first love, are determined to make an impact." Barlow Adamson and John Edward O'Brien are at the helm of this Mill 6 Collaborative production. | Factory Theater, 791 Tremont St, Boston | 866.811.4111 | May 1-17 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | 3 pm Sun [no May 3] | $17 in advance; $20 at the door

DEPORTED/A DREAM PLAY | New Repertory Theatre's New Voices series presents this staged reading of a new play by Joyce Van Dyke, author of A Girl's War and The Oil Thief. Judy Braha directs the piece, which, inspired by the story of Van Dyke's grandmother, a survivor of the Armenian genocide, incorporates survival oral-history interviews from the Armenian Library and Museum of America. Ken Baltin, Paula Langton, Marya Lowry, and Bobbie Steinbach are among the cast. A panel discussion follows. | Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown | 617.923.8487 | May 4 | Curtain 7:30 pm Mon | Free; $10 donation suggested

DORA THE EXPLORER LIVE! SEARCH FOR THE CITY OF LOST TOYS | Nickelodeon and Broadway Across America team up to present this touring show based on the popular pre-schooler TV series about a pint-sized Latina explorer. Former Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater co-artistic director Gip Hoppe is at the helm of the musical adventure whose heroine "is to kids what the Rolling Stones are to parents — she's one of the biggest stars in the world." | Opera House, 539 Washington St, Boston | 800.982.2787 | May 7-10 | Curtain 10:30 am + 2 pm Thurs | 10:30 am + 7 pm Fri | 11 am + 2 pm + 5 pm Sat-Sun | $21-$43.50

GAME3RS | As part of Cyberarts, a four-day festival at New England Institute of Art, Brian Bielawski reprises his performance of his and Walter G. Meyer's "one-man comedy about the secret life of gamers." Its protagonist is the ultimate gaming geek, an MIT dropout who works a real-life tech-support job to support his much more important virtual life. A reception precedes the performance, which is followed by a Q&A with actor, writer, and gamer Beilawski. | New England Institute of Art Center Building, 10 Brookline Place West, Brookline | April 30 | Curtain 7 pm Thurs, preceded by 6 pm reception | Free

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Mars vs. Venus
It’s been 21 years since Speed-the-Plow first milked the cravenness of Hollywood and the self-described “whores” who turn its celluloid tricks. But David Mamet’s scathing, staccato comedy has held up at least as well as Madonna, who made her Broadway debut in the original 1988 production.
Review: Cherry Docs kicks over a hate crime
Cherry Docs , which is getting its area premiere by New Repertory Theatre, is named for a pair of steel-tipped, rose-hued Doc Martens combat boots.
Play by Play: July 30, 2010
Opening this week: Bad Dates, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Rocky Horror Show, The Taster, and Violet.
Play by Play: August 13, 2010
Opening this week: As Bees in Honey Drown , Hairspray , and More Words! More Play! .
Review: Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation, Body Awareness, and The Aliens
Over the river and through the woods from Grover's Corners lies Shirley, VT, Green Mountain stand-in for college-centric Amherst, MA, where playwright Annie Baker grew up.
Review: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune
What could be more heartwarming for the holidays than a couple of middle-aged losers getting naked?
History and mystery
In 1975 in Philadelphia, R. Buckminster Fuller delivered a 42-hour talk titled "Everything I Know." Even in this day of marathon theater events, that might be a hard sell.
Review: Viktor Ullmann's The Emperor of Atlantis
The Boston Lyric Opera, with Boston Classical Orchestra music director Steven Lipsitt and a company of singers and designers largely new to Boston, has given us a memorable production of the opera that composer Viktor Ullmann and poet Petr Kien created in 1943 at the Terezín concentration camp, The Emperor of Atlantis, or Death Quits .
Review: La Casa de Pedro
There are many ways to stay under this column's radar.
Brian Crabtree's unified fragments
The 10 dance fragments looked like a close-knit family with a couple of fractious siblings.
Company One takes on Jason Grote's whirling 1001
Grote uses the same framing device as the original One Thousand and One Nights , which begins with Shahriyar (Nael Nacer) discovering his wife's infidelity and deciding that the only way to prevent his future wives from cheating is to marry virgins, deflower them, and execute them the next morning.
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ARTICLES BY CAROLYN CLAY

TIR NA’S LONESOME WEST, A.R.T.’S WOODY SEZ | May 22, 2012
Suffice it to say that Leenane is no city of brotherly love.

XANADU FROM SPEAKEASY; AVENUE Q AT LYRIC STAGE | May 15, 2012
Those who know their Coleridge will recall that: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately roller-dome decree."

FELDER’S MAESTRO; ORPHANS’ MARY POPPERS | May 07, 2012
Hershey Felder's Maestro: Leonard Bernstein (presented by ArtsEmerson on the Paramount Mainstage through May 20) begins with black-and-white footage of its subject lecturing vigorously on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

ASP TACKLES TROILUS AND CRESSIDA | May 01, 2012
"All's false in love and war" might be a maxim for Troilus and Cressida.

TIGERS AT ZEITGEIST; YESTERDAY AT CENTRAL SQUARE | April 25, 2012
Forget the elephant in the room. Depression is a big cat in Tigers Be Still, a relentlessly quirky yet endearing screwball tragicomedy by Kim Rosenstock that debuted at New York's Roundabout Underground in 2010 and is getting a sweet Boston premiere by Zeitgeist Stage Company (at the BCA Black Box through May 5).