Theater

Play by play: April 17, 2009

Plays from A to Z

By CAROLYN CLAY | April 14, 2009

OPENING

ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY | Boston Children's Theatre brings to the stage children's author Judith Viorst's 1998 musical version of her popular 1972 tome about the title kid and a particularly rotten if hardly extraordinary 24 hours. | Grand Lodge of Masons of Massachusetts, 186 Tremont St, Boston | 617.424.6634 | April 18–May 3 | Curtain 2 pm Wed-Sat [Wed-Thurs April 22-23 only] | $12-$20

DAME EDNA: MY FIRST LAST TOUR | The lavender-locked, gladioli-hurling female alter ego of Australian comic Barry Humphries returns with "her new and uniquely intimate offering, which she created on her private multi-million-acre, possum-infested luxury estate in her native Australia." Don't sit too near the front unless you're into audience participation, which, whether you're willing or not, will ensue, as Dame Edna unleashes her sequined splendor and confides her deepest thoughts. | Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston St, Boston | 800-982-2787 | April 16-19 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $50-$67.50

INAUGURAL HARVARD PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL | Playwright Christine (Trojan Barbie) Evans and American Repertory Theatre '08-'09 season director Gideon Lester, who together teach an advanced playwriting course at the ART's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, conceived the notion for this festival of staged readings of new works by student dramatists. | New College Theatre Rehearsal Studio, 10-12 Holyoke St, Cambridge | 617.495.8676 | April 23-26 | Curtain 5:30 + 7 pm Thurs-Fri | 2 + 3:30 + 5:30 + 7 pm Sat | 2 + 3:30 + 5 pm Sun | Free

MEN OF TORTUGA | Apollinaire Theatre Company presents the area premiere of Jason Wells's first play, which debuted in 2005 at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre. In Wells's "brutally hilarious satire, three power brokers scheme with a weapons specialist to eliminate their enemy. But when one of them takes a young idealist under his wing, his long-dormant conscience begins to reawaken, forcing the cabal to concoct even more outlandish scenarios of annihilation and ponder whether the ends justify their means." Danielle Fauteux Jacques directs. | Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St, Chelsea | 617.887.2336 | April 17–May 17 | Curtain 8 pm Fri-Sat | 3 pm Sun [May 10, 17] | $18 in advance; $20 at the door; $15 student rush

A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN | This Merrimack Repertory Theatre revival of Eugene O'Neill's redemptive drama is a co-production with Norfolk's Virginia Stage Company and is directed by Edward Morgan, who describes the encounter between drunk, self-loathing Jamie Tyrone and earth mother Josie Hogan as "part rollicking Irish comedy; part lyrical, soulful drama." | Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack St, Lowell | 978.654.4MRT | April 23–May 17 | Curtain 8 pm Wed-Fri + 2 pm Wed [April 29] | 4:30 + 8:30 pm Sat | 2 + 7 pm Sun | $26-$56; student, senior, discounts

NINE | Longwood Players take on the 1982 Tony Award-winning musical with book by Arthur Kopit and music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. It's based on the Fellini film 8½, in which a famous film director is besieged by the women in his life. Kevin Mark Kline directs. | Cambridge Family YMCA Theatre, 820 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 800.595.4849 | April 24–May 2 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Fri | 2 pm [May 2] + 8 pm Sat | $16-$25; $3 discount students, seniors

NOISES OFF | Malcolm Morrison is at the helm of this Hartford Stage production of British writer Michael Frayn's hilarious and precise backstage farce, which follows a touring production of a clichéd British sex farce as it unravels on the road. | Hartford Stage, 50 Church St, Hartford, Connecticut | 860.527.5151 | April 23–May 17 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues-Thurs + 2 pm Wed [May 6, 13] | 8 pm Fri | 2 pm [May 2, 16] + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm + 7:30 pm [no evening May 17] Sun | $23-$66; limited number $10 "Ten Spot" tickets; half-price "What a Rush!" tickets, at the box office two hours before curtain; $10 discount students, children

NUNSENSE | All in the Family vet Sally Struthers stars as Mother Superior in this 25th-anniversary tour of Dan Goggin's musical revue starring the Little Sisters of Hoboken. Goggin directs the production, which is presented by Reagle Players. | Robinson Theatre, 617 Lexington St, Waltham | 781.891.5600 | April 24-26 | Curtain 7:30 pm Fri | 2 + 7 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $35-$49; $1 discount seniors; youth 5-18 $10 with each paid adult ticket

PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE | Daniel Gidron directs this New Repertory Theatre staging of Steve Martin's droll 1993 rumination on creativity. The year is 1904, and a young Albert Einstein, on the brink of his Theory of Relativity, and a young Pablo Picasso, a few years from the leap of Les demoiselles d'Avignon, share drinks and ideas at the Paris boîte of the title. Neil A. Casey, Scott Sweatt, and Marianna Bassham head the cast. | Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown | 617.923.8487 | April 19–May 10 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues [April 21] | 7:30 pm Wed [no April 29] | 2 pm [April 30] + 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 3:30 + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm [no April 19] + 7:30 pm [no May 10] Sun | $35-$55; $7 discount seniors; $13 student rush

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ARTICLES BY CAROLYN CLAY

TWIN PEAKS | August 12, 2009
The bay of Ephesus laps Collins Avenue in Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's Latin-tinged, frisky if over-frenetic The Comedy of Errors (at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common through August 16). It is not across sands of subtlety but through a spray of salsa that the perpetrators of this 1930s-South-Beach-set riff on Shakespeare's early comedy pratfall.

SEASONS' GREETINGS | August 04, 2009
It may not be December 1963, but oh what a night is Jersey Boys (at the Shubert Theatre through September 26) for boomers wishing to enjoy the soundtrack of their youth set against a mix of Forever Plaid and GoodFellas .

HARE BELLES | July 28, 2009
With apologies to Winston Churchill, The Breath of Life is a cliché wrapped in an enigma — or two. On the face of it, award-winning British writer David Hare's ruthless yet sentimental two-hander (at Gloucester Stage through August 2) is a standard confrontation between a betrayed wife and her husband's long-time mistress.

QUAKE AND SHAKE | July 22, 2009
A tenderhearted yarn spinner tells an anxious little girl a story about a talking bear hawking honey. A nerdy young debt collector comes home to find a six-foot amphibian bent on recruiting him to save Tokyo from a natural disaster. Both scenarios emanate from the brain of award-winning Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.

VIOLET HOUR | June 23, 2009
The color purple describes both kids' icon Barney and a bruise. And sure enough, both child-friendly uplift and florid abrasion are wound into the sprawling, heartfelt musical based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer-winning 1982 novel about a beaten-down young black woman learning to value herself over the course of 40 years in the first half of the 20th century.

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