Studio Theatre's current show is "A Chorus Line", the 1976 winner of Tony Award for Best Musical, Best Book and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It is a musical based on the lives and experiences of Broadway dancers. Original director/choreographer Michael Bennett wanted to do a show with the spotlight on the class of performers known as the gypsies. The action takes place in an empty theatre, on a bare stage, where the casting for a new Broadway musical is almost complete. For 17 dancers it is a chance of a lifetime. It's the one opportunity to do what they have always dreamed of, not to be the star but to get a job, to have the chance to dance. Through a series of interviews, from funny to heartbreaking, it ushers the audience into the lives of these dancers until the final 8 are chosen. The original show opened on April 15, 1975 and ran 6,137 performances, closing on April 28, 1990. Director Roger Machado Fournier creates a topnotch version of this show with his talented cast, the fabulous musical direction of Eli Bigelow and the energetic and fantastic choreography of Jen Bellanti. They create a terrific musical treat for Massachusetts audiences to savor.
This version of the show is performed without an intermission and it flows along beautifully.

Director Kristopher Lencowski from Brown University takes his 17 high school students on a whirlwind trip of one of the Bard's best known shows. It will help you escape from your current day problems into the magical world of the past. He has Puck enter from the audience, climbing on the backs of the seats in the audience. Puck invites the performers onstage with him, tips over a table explaining this is a balcony and for the audience to use their imaginations to participate in the hour and forty minute show that follows.

It’s a treat to see a play that’s intricately structured, yet tightly woven, fusing the past and present into a neatly tied package, while punctuating the fact that coincidence and human nature don’t change. Playwright Karen Zacarias has accomplished this feat in her latest play, “Legacy of Light,” currently making its New England premiere at Lyric Stage of Boston.

Karen Zacarias’ delightful LEGACY OF LIGHT (at the Lyric Stage Co. thru March 13th) is peppered with pretty contrivances. Her clever dramatic cloud chamber is infused with collisions: of scientific theories, of atoms, of centuries, of characters, even fistic phenomena.Dual stories three centuries apart surprise at every turn (I love guessing what will happen next!), linked by the extraordinary scholarship of the very real Emilie du Chatelet, whose calculations and interpretations of natural science in the 18th century surpassed that of her male counterparts. Learning about Chatelet by itself makes this play worth a visit…and in addition, it tickles the funny bone.

What held my attention, throughout, is Sarah Newhouse as Émilie du Châtelet --- to my surprise and delight.

Everything is timing, they say, and in Masha Obolensky’s riveting play, “Not Enough Air,” time fuses the past with a later past, consciousness and sub-consciousness, reality and imagination. If that sounds confusing - it should. This play isn’t a clear-cut mystery or psychological meandering. It’s about real people, a play within a play, a haunting picture of the past that conjures up yellow journalism and legal wrongdoing, tinged with gender bias. Obolensky,who is also a director, performer, teacher at Northeastern University and Middlesex Community College, and an MFA playwriting student at Boston University, has dug into the past, to the 1927 sensational murder trial of Long Island socialite Ruth Snyder, who was accused, with her lover Judd Gray, of murdering her husband, and was electrocuted.

As cold and metallic as the clanging prison doors that announce both of its acts, Masha Obolensky’s NOT ENOUGH AIR, in its East Coast premiere at The Nora Theatre, is a beautiful new American play --- as beautiful as Thomas Eakins’ painting “The Gross Clinic” or Frank Norris’ novel “McTeague” or a stroll through the corridors of Alcatraz (been there, done that). Through the eyes of courtroom journalist Sophie Treadwell, Ms. Obolensky gazes upon the Jazz Age murder trial of Ruth Snyder with the same unblinking gaze as that of the photographer who snapped the famous photo of Ms. Snyder being electrocuted; Ms. Obolensky then departs from the tabloid world and plunges into Ms. Treadwell’s tormented soul as she dramatizes the dead woman’s story as MACHINAL, one of those experimental, expressionistic plays of its time that dwindled to a theatre-footnote for decades but has resurfaced, again. You will need to hang on from the start for Ms. Obolensky often resorts to MACHINAL’s staccato, kaleidoscopic style but, blessedly, her Sophie is not the traditional passive onlooker: not only does she fight for her own voice to be heard as well as Ruth’s in the male world of 1920s journalism, she battles with her husband Mac (theirs is a Modern Marriage), with her Ruth-muse, and with her fragile nervous system (the play’s title applies to both women).

They came to be known as "Sob-Sisters" --- every big-city newspaper paid one or two female reporters to find a "women's angle" on everything from flower-shows to husband-murderers. Masha Obolensky has created a stunning portrait of perhaps the classic model for these over-achieving workaholic "modern women": the journalist/playwright Sophie Treadwell. Solidly, cinematically directed by Melia Bensussen, the Nora Theatre's energetic cast captures the busy breakneck chaos of the "yellow journalism" '20s, when hemlines bounced from ankle to knee and marriage began at times to look like a flapper-trapping jail. At the center of this whirligig-story is Anne Gottlieb as this complicated writer deciding that in order to understand women's world, she has to write a play about it. And in this play about making a play, The Nora Theatre Company has a must-see hit on its hands.

Have you ever used the sort of ultimate Map-Quest that can show a satellite-photo so detailed you can actually pick out the house you live in? Well, in Jennifer Haley's "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom" that personalized map is the "virtual neighborhood" upon which game-addicted teens team-up against slaughterable zombies on a quest to enter their Final Door. Parents are worried because the kids spend every waking moment with their Game-Boys or X-Boxes and there's no communication between generations anymore. But, step by step, game and reality slowly merge until --- well, you don't want to know what's actually behind that Final Door --- do you?

After watching Apollinaire Theatre Co.’s one-act, freaky, fascinating production of Jennifer Haley’s “Neighborhood 3:Requisition of Doom,” I spoke with director-actor Danielle Fauteux-Jacques, discussing this play’s many veils and layers that keep the audience rapt throughout the show.
In the same genre of teen-age sci-fi horror flicks, where reality and virtual reality meld, this production goes further. It tackles teenagers’ obsession with video games, cell phones, and text messaging, to the point of excluding everything else. Fauteux-Jacques says the play is based on lack of communication between parents and their children, but also kids‘ communicating less in person with peers, and increasingly through electronics.

Sometimes, things sound and appear better than they really are. That’s the case with “boom,” a dark comedy about the end of the world and starting anew, written by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, playing now through March 13, in the New Repertory Theatre’s Downstage Black Box theater.
What isn’t surprising is Boston acclaimed actor Karen MacDonald, strutting her versatility after a brilliant, mind-boggling dramatic performance at Huntington Theater’s “All My Sons,” then easing into hilarity in this comedy. MacDonald, as narrator Barbara, is the glue that holds “boom” together. Barbara mans all lighting and sound controls on the sideline, while infusing some personal and educational observations about her historic exhibit. She beats drums, clangs bells, and feverishly pulls levers while complaining about her status at the museum where she works.
As she works away, controlling the action onstage, Zofia Gozynska as Jo and Scott Sweatt as Jules enact milestones in their final 267 days and moments of the world, as they battle hunger and each other, and try to retain their sanity. Although the plot is unlikely, Gozynska and Sweatt are likable, believable, and their timing and reactions are comedic.

Those of you familiar with the Kopit work, END OF THE WORLD WITH SYMPOSIUM TO FOLLOW, will be happy to hear that Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s apocalyptic BOOM (at New Rep through March 13th) is a lot funnier. But like the Kopit play, it’s a bit messy, chiefly because Nachtrieb wants to preserve a little kick (or should I say ‘splash’) for the end of his play. BOOM doesn’t need the set-up or the payoff because the story in between has legs (or rather, ‘fins’). Fish, specifically damsel fish, figure prominently in BOOM.

The current show at Roger Williams University Theatre is "The Spitfire Grill", a musical with music and book by James Valcq, lyrics and book by Fred Alley and is based on the recent film by Lee David Ziotoff. The show takes place in rural Wisconsin in the town of Gilead and tells the story in musical format of a feisty parolee, Percy Talbott who follows a dream, based on a page from an old travel book. It promises autumn colors in the Copper Creek. She arrives in town and Sheriff Joe Sutter brings her through the streets to a ramshackle diner called The Spitfire Grill run by a crusty old widow, Hannah Ferguson who has a bad hip and a sharp tongue. Joe persuades Hannah to give her work as a waitress. Percy sets to work in a swirl of small town suspicions led by Effy, the postmistress who's also the village busybody. Hannah trips on the stairs and breaks her leg and she asks Percy to run it for her. Hannah does so against the wishes of her overly protective nephew, Caleb. Percy is joined at the Spitfire by Caleb's wife Shelby an excellent cook. Hannah asks Percy to leave a loaf of bread outside near a stump at the back of the Grill. It is picked up by a stranger who has a secret past in Gilead. The Grill is for sale because Hannah wishes to escape painful memories of the past, so Percy suggests Hannah raffle it off for a hundred dollars per entry and an essay about why they want the Grill. Soon the mail is arriving by the bagfuls and things are definitely cooking at the Spitfire Grill.

The University of Rhode Island's Theatre Department's third show is a new version of George Feydeau's French farce "A Flea in Her Ear" by David Ives. The play is considered one of the greatest French farces, perhaps the greatest farce ever written. Madame Raymonde Chandebise becomes obsessed with the notion her husband Victor's lack of interest in sex with her means he has taken to seeing other women. He is a placid and successful insurance executive. To find out if her suspicions are correct, she has her best friend, Lucienne, write an anonymous letter proposing a rendezvous at the disreputable Frisky Puss Hotel. Victor thinks the letter is for his coworker, the gigolo, Tournel. He sends him in his place to the rendezvous. Meanwhile, Camille, Victor's nephew, is overjoyed to have his speech impediment corrected by Dr. Finache. In celebration, he and the household cook, Antoinette, also hurry to the same hotel. They are followed by her jealous husband, Etienne, the Chandesbise's valet. The doctor decides to go there for an afternoon fling. Meanwhile Lucienne's jealous Spanish husband, Carlos shows up with pistols and Camille is unable to warn anyone because of his ridiculous speech impediment. A drunken bellboy Poche is an exact double of Victor. Raymonde thinking it is Victor, keeps trying to escape from the hotel with Tournel who incessantly tries to seduce her. A revolving bed keeps flinging them from room to room. All the people that went to the Hotel return to the Chandebise home utterly confused about what happened at the Frisky Puss with Ferralion, Poche and Eugenie putting in appearances there but since this a farce all things eventually work themselves out and Raymonde's flea in her ear disappears.

In the book the earthy contrast to Quixote's romanticism is his simple squire Sancho Panza. In "Man of La Mancha" however --- at least in the production at Auburndale's Turtle Lane Playhouse --- the conflict is much more obviously with a whore named Aldonza. Tracy Nygard, fists on hips, contradicts this "knight of the woeful countenance" (James Fitzpatrick) as he tries to transform her into "Dulcinea" --- his virginal lady love. When, accepting his ethereal view of reality, she attempts to minister to the wounds of the ruffians he has bested in combat, she is gruffly gang-raped for her pains. And even then Aldonza, and the audience, end the play insisting on the need for "An Impossible Dream".

Aside from its life as a star vehicle for the late, great Richard Kiley, MAN OF LA MANCHA never got much respect. The only revivals now are at small theater companies with a singer/actor versatile enough to carry the title role of Don Quixote. Lyric Stage had Christopher Chew and Turtle Lane Playhouse, luckily, has James Fitzpatrick.
It takes an extraordinary performer to transform himself in a trice from the poet, Cervantes, to the errant knight---and to have the audience clearly understand which is which. The TLP production has several strong performances: In addition to Fitzpatrick, Tracy Nygard emotes up a storm as the wench Don Quixote chooses as his inspiration and Shonna McEachern adds powerful vocals to director John MacKenzie’s production. MacKenzie and Michele Boll’s foreboding dungeon set is painstakingly rendered, moldy brick by brick, and kept in the dark except when Don Quixote lights up the proceedings.

Turtle Lane's current show is the Tony Award winning musical "Man of La Mancha" which is based on Miguel De Cervantes 16th Century novel, Don Quixote. It is set in the common room of a prison in Seville, Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. Don Quixote sees the world as he thinks it ought to be. He imagines he is a knight, his faithful servant his squire; together they will punish evildoers, restore justice, and bring chivalry back to society. His morals and standards of living bring current day audiences a look back on how people conducted themselves in the past and Quixote's ideals would be a refreshing change to the current day world which seems headed to hell in a hand basket.

Entertaining; very entertaining, but…..

If you'd like to know how women talk among one another with no men present you should get yourself over to the Boston Center for the Arts --- soon. The Wimberly performance space there is big enough to have a balcony, but the entire run of Lydia R. Diamond's "Stick Fly" which Huntington Theatre has brought up from D.C.'s Arena Stage may sell out before you can get there. If you're lucky enough to find a seat you may notice that this bouncy, sophisticated comedy of contemporary manners --- set in a rich inter-racial-family mansion on Martha's Vineyard --- sets different parts of its audience laughing at different lines. Black/White moneyed/poor young/old and men/women conflicts and confidences all crackle throughout this incisive and insightful examination of how we irritate one another --- and how we get along.

At first glance, the set of Zeitgeist’s “Private Fears in Public Places” doesn’t excite. A plain, wooden table with six chairs occupy the center of the floor, with a makeshift wooden bar behind it.
Dramatist Alan Ayckbourn’s characters aren’t outstanding, either. There are five middle-aged people, all lonely, living everyday lives in London, and a younger, Bible-toting woman who doesn’t grab our attention, either. They’re our friends, neighbors, cousins, who become linked together through circumstance, and, perhaps fate, with a few twists and turns that touch and affect their very existence.
What appears to be mundane evolves into an interconnected series of situations that are hidden beneath the surface, slowly surprising and, in one case, downright shocking us.

Alan Ayckbourn’s PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES is having a smashing outing at Zeitgeist Stage Company (through March 6th). Granted, this is not your usual laugh a minute Ayckbourn. Like a tasty stew, PRIVATE FEARS takes time to simmer. Ayckbourn places each ingredient into the broth and lets it bubble away happily. When it’s fully cooked, it turns out to be a savory mélange of humanity and hilarity.
Six Londoners brush past each other in their separate, little lives, hardly noticing anyone else, coping as best they can…some, more outrageously than others. When their trajectories start to intersect, Ayckbourn has a field day with the collisions and you’ll have a grand time anticipating what might happen.

As a prolific playwright, Alan Ayckbourn has been best known for his clever theatrical games. Two different families for instance, gave dinner-parties for the same couple at the same table in the same set; the "Communicating Doors" whirled philandering couples not into the next room but five then ten years into their futures. And in "Private Fears in Public Places" a bar with another table serves in addition as two homes and an office for three intertwining couples. In this case, however, it's not the set nor the game that takes centerstage, but the powerfully human emotions of people colliding as they come to life crises. For this carefully faceted gem, Zeitgeist's director David J. Miller has brought exquisite performances from a cast working comfortably and familiarly together.

The second show of Academy Players 55th season is Thorton Wilder's, 1938 Pulitzer Prize winning play "Our Town". Academy Players returns to its roots with this show, having used the Varnum Armory during their first few years. The show tells about life in "Grover's Corners, New Hampshire from 1901 to 1913. This version is intimate, engaging and timely. It features a female stage manager who not only explains the action of the characters but she becomes part of the show itself. Through the use of flashbacks, dialogue and direct monologues, the other characters reveal themselves to the audience and walk throughout the audience, interacting with them at times.

Theater is always an art of the possible. Genuine critics always demand that reach exceed grasp; reviewers often marvel that the miraculous illusion of a silk purse sometimes belies the sow's-ear of its construction; and, ignoring both, there is always an actual audience that tends, more or less, to be satisfied, and occasionally uplifted, by what reviewer and critic both see as mere artifice. Let's try a few examples:

Part of the problem with theater for kids is giving the grown-ups and parents something they too can enjoy. Some of the adult experience is in watching the kids "get" and enjoy the show; the more interesting that is, the less necessary it is to slide into the plot or performance any sop to the elders. Here, since the basic story can be fully described in three or so succinct sentences, Noah Smith's and Caitlin Stewart-Swift's concern was What To Add.

"The Emperor's New Clothes" (6 - 21 February)

MAKESHIFT THEATRE COMPANY

@ The Regent Theatre, 7 Medford Street, ARLINGTON MA

1 (???) ???-????

Sometimes just the fact that theater is live is enough. Some Community Theater groups have no intentons beyond saying the lines, being someone else, and etertaining friends and neighbors and family in the result. Such theater can be addictive and keep people active for years. Rather than trying to out-perform movies or television or Broadway, there's a compact in such theatres it which the moment on stage is its own reward.

"Dracula" (12 - 27 February)

THEATRE @ FIRST

@ The Elizabeth Peabody House, 277 Broadway, SOMERVILLE MA

1(888)874-7554

This production, I think, intended to give performer and spectator a glimpse of what theater meant to Spain's most illustrious modern poet. Flamenco-style guitar and background-music and a feeling almost of ritual instead of reality were directly involved. A dialogue between a sumptuous figure of The Moon and a scruffily implacable figure of Death contrasted sharply with the farmer families who wore shoes only for formal occasions like a wedding. Earthy jokes contrasted with the oppressions of fate, love warred with duty, and young bodies paid the price. Reach of course outdistanced grasp --- theater is often the art of the possible --- but the power of the poet was, to all, obvious.

"Blood Wedding" (11 - 14 February)

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE

@ Studio Theatre, Curry Student Center, 360 Huntington Avenue, BOSTON MA

1(617)373-4700

The current show at MMAS is The New England Repertory Company's "The Food Chain" by Nicky Silver, a dark and bitingly funny look into the dysfunctional lives of five Manhattan dwellers. It is a two act farce in three different scenes. Social satire meets absurdist comedy in this hilarious show that centers on the actions of Amanda. She is a self-absorbed, neurotic and anorexic poet who calls a suicide hotline after her closed-mouthed, brooding film writer husband, Ford leaves her saying he needs "time to work". Amanda reaches Bea, a wacky volunteer at the crisis hotline who instead of offering comfort, complains about her own life and gives Amanda hilariously useless advice. Meanwhile, a few blocks away is Serge Stubin, a narcissistic runway model being tormented by a one-time lover, Otto, his food ''junkie'' stalker who can't seem to accept Serge's rejection. All five of these character's lives somehow come together in the end in a riotous web of laughter. In describing his play, Silver wrote, "It's like there are two happy people in every high school-the head cheerleader and the football quarterback, and the rest of us just sit on the sidelines picking our noses and eating." This show is an award winning comedy about the emotional food chain we have structured in today's society of instant gratification and obsession with appearances. It skewers America's preoccupation with beauty, sex, food and fashion.

The third show of Attleboro Community Theatre's 53rd season is the Massachusetts area premiere of "Rabbit Hole", a play by David Lindsay-Abaire which won him the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for drama in 2007. Becca and Howie Corbett have everything a family could want until a shattering accident turns their world upside down and leaves them drifting perilously apart.The show is a comic drama that focuses on a couple trying to cope with the death of their only child, a four year old, in an auto accident, while Becca's well meaning mother and off kilter sister attempt to lift their spirits and deal with their own problems, each in her own inimitable way. The couple's lives are further complicated when Jason, the young driver who killed their son contacts them seeking closure, too. A conversation between Becca and Jason includes a brief discussion of the theory of quantum immortality as described in a story he has written about a place where "rabbit holes" lead to parallel universes. However, the theme of the play is the way people handle grief, the death of the child, the suicide of a family member and not the theory or search for quantum immortality.

It is said that for the first hundred years after it, the birth of Jesus was commemorated on what we now call the 6th of January --- but it was preceded in Rome by the great heathan festival the Saturnalia, which was much closer to the Winter Solstice. And so, it's said, the canny clergy --- who were not above canonizing St. Bridgit, mark you --- moved the Christ's Mass back a dozen days. Some of the faithful resisted this heresy, and even more recently in the Netherlands they save the Real Presents for the original date. And then some rationalized the mess, saying the Jesus born on 25 December was a mere mortal until the mystical gifts of the Magi (earthly gold, the funeral spice myrrh, etc.) converted him into The Christ. And the England of the '90s was such a time when it was a good idea to go with the flow or be burnt as a heretic. But Master Wilm Shagsberd, what never spelt 'is name the same twice, whipped up a goodly comedy to play on that later date, and made the butt of much merriment a stuffed-shirt Puritan like the ones soon to set sail for Massachusetts and cause King and Queen all sorts of bother. Luckily, none of this erudition marrs the glorious romp that Brian McEleney and Trinity Rep are playing down in the sunny southlands of Providence. Bravo!

George Stiles and Anthony Drewe’s cheeky barnyard musical, HONK! (based on Hans Christian Anderson’s THE UGLY DUCKLING) is getting a high flying production at Wheelock Family Theatre (playing through Feb. 28th) Director Jane Staab’s energized cast includes some of Boston’s top performers—working side by side with a passel of talented kids as fish, ducklings and assorted fauna. The musical will appeal to children for its silly antics but adults will find it refreshingly irreverent…and vegetarians (like me) will be overjoyed with its pro-animal stance: All the creatures on the farm know that “people are bad news!” Poor Mayor Turkey (Gary Thomas Ng) is positively phobic over the thought of Thanksgiving.

When British composer George Stiles and author-lyricist Anthony Drewe’s delightful musical, “Honk!,” crossed the pond to perform at North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly in 2000, it was an instant smash hit there. “Honk!” had won the coveted Olivier Award for Best Musical that February, beating out “Mamma Mia” and “The Lion King”. I met Drewe and Stiles in Beverly then, and their infectious enthusiasm, coupled with their mega-talent and likable personalities, was a clarion call to their growing success.

dt> "Honk!" (29 January - 28 February)

Journey back about 350 years ago when Blackbeard was the scourge of the Atlantic coast and when "booty" had an entirely different meaning, when men were men and so were some of the women. Blackbeard amassed a fortune in his lifetime, but now he is dead and the audience must elect a new king, which pirate will become Pirate King. "Blackbeard's Booty" is a new form of dinner theatre that is interactive and improvised. The show is loosely written and directed by Frank O'Donnell who stars as Sir Francis Drake where he leads his cast of some of the funniest and fiercest pirates to plunder the Seven Seas. This show is bawdy and naughty as well as being a fun evening of entertainment with a delicious dinner served with it.

When I came up out of the subway in the heart of Harvard Square, there were two guys --- a drummer with a shaved head and shades and a maybe younger sax man --- over by the kiosk, and they were good. The sax had a hint of Paul Desmond in it, but after a while I recognized that they were well along into variations on Gerschwin's "Summertime". I dropped a buck into a yawning bass-drum-cover, apologising for my penury, and mentioned that it seemed to me that they'd reversed roles with the sax doing melodic rhythm and the drum-set almost carrying the melody itself. The drummer complimented my ear and admitted, with only two of them, there were a lot of holes to fill.

I had nearly an hour, so I retreated up against a pole, my back to the traffic, when they launched into the next tune where they shared the work more equally, and I noticed that a series of at least half a dozen passing toddlers each in turn stopped and stared in hypnotized fascination at the source of live music, some with appreciative murmurs from their parents. I don't dance, but my body swayed in rhythm to the chord-changes and the beat liking what it heard, so before I pushed on I fished out another buck and as I dropped it in admitted "Hell, it's only money man" and as they played we three smiled.

It was still early so I stopped off at The Harvard Book Store's underground second-hand shop hoping some new book would nip me in the pinkie, but it didn't happen, and neither of the books I hoped might turn up --- Russell Hoban's "PILGERMAN" nor Thornton Wilder's "THE CABALA" --- were there nor upstairs in the new-books Fiction section. (The Harvard Bookstore was my first real job, after coming to Cambridge from New Jersey. Once, on a dare from fellow book-pushers, I answered the phone "Harvard Boo Store, may I scare you?"; the patron merely replied "Yes, I'm looking for..." responding to my politely professional tone rather than my words.)

The foyer of Zero Arrow was repainted and hung in blacks as an entrance corridor; at the entry was a box-office table, above it an enormous glass-beads chandelier. I was four minutes early so I retreated to a neutral corner and read to the end of a tale in "AUCASSIN & NICOLETTE AND OTHER MEDIEVAL ROMANCES AND LEGENDS" until ten-of curtain-time, then inquired whether my partner in crime had picked up our tickets. I left his, took my own ("We'll be letting people in at eight") and joined a line stretching nearly a block toward Central Square. A bouncer-ish guy came along affixing paper ribbons around everyone's left wrist ("And when will the doctor see me?" I quipped), and eventually the line edged by dribs and drabs into the black tunnel from which boringly regular ear-blasting base-notes erupted. Apparently Disco is, unfortunately, not yet dead.

Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 11:05:08 -0500
From: Christine Connor
Subject: Your book

Hi Larry,
Just finished your book. It is amazing how the world has changed since '82! Not just typewriters/computers but the liaison between professor and nineteen year old, which once would scarcely raise an eyebrow, no longer!

The desire to create and share art remains timeless however.... and that impulse is very much alive in your story .

Two suggestions,first,I think there also might be a play in here. Secondly, don't know if you are aware but you can send a copy of a self published book to Amazon, set your price and they will list and sell it for you. You get 30% I believe, better than most royalties I think . Anyway, a thought.
. Thanks for the copy and keep writing!
C

"ARTIST IN RESIDENCE" (144 pp. PerfectBound Paperback $20.00)

Available at HARVARD BOOK STORE's

Espresso-Books Machine

1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Harvard Square, CAMBRIDGE

1 (617) 661-1515 [Toll Free: 1 (800) 542-READ]

"Shear Madness --- 25th Anniversary Season" (31 January 1980-….)

Carl A Rossi reviews "Shear Madness --- 25th Anniversary Season"

The Charles Playhouse Stage II, 74 Warrenton Street, BOSTON, MA

1 (617) 426-5225

"The King's Feast" ( open-ended run on Friday and Saturday evenings)

Tony Annicone's review

KING'S FEAST. INC.

Hose Company No. 6, 636 Central Avenue, PAWTUCKET R I

1 (401) 722-7220

[Automatic removal after ONE week]

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RENT
March 19 - April 18
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For information call 781-871-2787

The Company Theatre
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Norwell, MA 02061
(781) 871-2787 (ARTS)

 

 

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"Lea DeLaria"

with
Lea DeLaria

Piano and Musical Direction … Janette Mason
Bass … Kendell Eddy
Drums … Austin McMann

Singer-comedienne Lea DeLaria brought her jazz and hilarity to the BCA’s Deane Hall for three evenings, kicking off the Huntington’s new cabaret series, “Upstairs at the Calderwood” --- the Old Girl, of all companies, is out to prove to Beantowners that, yes, there is life at an hour when most local theatergoers head home after applauding a curtain call and how wise, good and clever to begin with Ms. DeLaria who makes me laugh heartily as no one else can, onstage or off, and whose every note of scat is a well-hammered nail on the musical line. Twice have I seen Ms. DeLaria perform in Provincetown where she alternated in-your-face monologues with clear, sparkling vocals --- “Chords of steel!” she proclaimed to me, afterwards --- but Boston is not Provincetown and I wondered how this bull(dyke) would fare in our china shop. Happily, Ms. DeLaria is so layered an artist that, like a starfish cut in half, she could regenerate herself into a jolly big sister that the whole family could love, with just enough naughtiness to make her audience squirm with delight (i.e. walking amongst the women, with mistletoe, while singing “Christmas Kisses”) --- in Provincetown, Ms. DeLaria is a comedienne who sings; here, she was a singer who made us laugh which is comforting to know for not only will Boston always be Boston but the political winds are shifting to more hopeful, optimistic ones and Ms. Delaria, like many a stand-up comic, may find herself passing from Old Comedy to New (a year from now, who would want to be reminded of our outgoing President?). But even a Lea-Lite is better than no Lea, at all, and may Ms. DeLaria always find time for Boston within her busy-busy schedule and, of course, there is always Provincetown in the summer should you want to experience her in full, unleashed merriment.