Back in the early 1960s, when movie legend Stanley Kubrick began writing a screenplay based on the novel Red Alert, a tense thriller about the potential for nuclear apocalypse between […]
Theater
YES, HONEY!
Group Therapy With Varla Jean Merman
In ‘Ready to Blow,’ Varla Jean tracks the source of her anxiety and yours
Steve and Joey, a couple from Philadelphia who have been married for seven years, are sitting in the front row of drag queen Varla Jean Merman’s show. They’re a young […]
THEATER REVIEW
‘The Ballad of Bobby Botswain’ Takes Two to Cure All Ills
A world premiere at Wellfleet’s Harbor Stage
Pretty much anything can happen when two guys start chatting over flamingo-tinis at a bar in Fort Worth, Texas. Or so it might seem, in the marvelous two-hander The Ballad […]
PLAYTIME
WHAT for Kids Serves Up Wisdom for These Times
A show that reminds grown-ups to look to young people for answers
Outside the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, eager children and resigned-looking adults find their seats. There are no lights to dim. Route 6 hums nearby. On a small patio stage flanked […]
PERFORMANCE
Improv Is About Everyone in the Room
Outer Cape troupe fills a gap in the local comedy scene
IMPROVincetown’s June 16 show began with an unusual advisory. “Normally at a show, you’re told to turn your phone off,” announced improv troupe member Katie Pentedemos. “But we want you […]
DRAG REVIEW
Qya Cristál Brings Art to Artifice
A performance that’s part autobiography, part political statement, and completely spellbinding
In the same way that the groom shouldn’t see the bride before the wedding, the audience probably shouldn’t see the drag queen before the show. It’s not about superstition — […]
THEATER REVIEW
Hooking Up With ‘Marry Me a Little’
WHAT offers a living ode to the late Stephen Sondheim
When Stephen Sondheim died last November, the loss to the world of musical theater was incalculable. Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!; Mame; La Cage aux Folles) may have been the master […]
THEATER REVIEW
Gender Is the Thing in ‘The Lady Hamlet’
Sarah Schulman’s witty new play premieres at the Provincetown Theater
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is not the manliest of tragic heroes. When the ghost of his father, the former King Hamlet of Denmark, accuses his brother Claudius, now king and Hamlet’s stepdad […]
THEATER REVIEW
The Harbor Stage Disinters Sam Shepard’s ‘Buried Child’
Catch a modern classic about a family’s painful decline
When Buried Child was first performed in 1978 in San Francisco and New York, its hipster playwright, Sam Shepard, was a fixture of the downtown arts scene, best known for […]
THEATER REVIEW
Straight White Men: A Spectacle of Privilege Deconstructed
WHAT opens its season with a play by Young Jean Lee
The current culture wars — in which straight white men are born privileged and BIPOC and queer minorities and women demand rights and representation — are all about power. The […]
THEATER REVIEW
Doing the Time Warp in Mae West’s ‘The Drag’
In the 1920s, having a gay old time was kind of complicated
“This side’s Friday,” vamp extraordinaire Mae West once quipped, pointing to her upper right thigh, then, pointing to her left thigh, “This side’s Sunday. Why don’t you come see me […]
THEATER
Behind the Scenes at ‘Beauty and the Beast’
Musical theater brings Provincetown Schools students together again
PROVINCETOWN — Dress rehearsal is about to begin, and students are dancing around stage lights and props with all the giddiness of an ensemble that’s preparing to take the stage […]
OPERA
Boston Lyric Opera Throws a Beach Wedding
Svadba draws inspiration from far-flung Truro and Serbia
Boston Lyric Opera’s production of composer Ana Sokolovic’s Svadba begins not with music but with the sound of the wind at Truro’s Ballston Beach where it was filmed in October. […]
OPERA
With Eurydice, the Met Doesn’t Look Back
Matthew Aucoin retells the myth with contemporary flair
In the third act of Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, the stony guardians of hell’s gates instruct Orpheus, “You can’t sing here unless you sing in a dead language.” The libretto, which […]
DRAG SHOW
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Provincetown’s drag queens prepare for Halloween
Brightly colored makeup palettes are spread across the bathroom counter as Mackenzie Miller puckers her lips while contouring her cheekbones. “When the makeup is done, you look in the mirror […]
