Tag Archives: SpeakEasy Stage

It can be difficult to buy a Christmas gift for someone who you feel already has everything they need or can buy whatever they may want or need. That is why Sergio and I more often than not, give the gift of a shared experience. A fun suggestion for that hard-to-buy friend or special someone would be to purchase tickets to a local show from one of Boston’s area production companies.

Below I’ve shared links to several (not all) Boston theater companies’ productions for early next year. Catching a show can make for a fun night out and give you something to look forward to in January after the holiday season has passed.

BONUS: When you purchase tickets to a show you don’t have to worry about any shipping delays from places like Amazon which have lately been missing their delivery windows.

American Repertory Theater (ART) || Real Women Have Curves runs through January 21, 2024

Summer 1987, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. After eighteen years under the roof of her immigrant parents, Ana is ready to spread her wings. Is it worth sacrificing the dreams of her family, who have sacrificed everything for her? See this empowering new musical that explores life’s unexpected curves.

Central Square Theater || Machine Learning runs January 25 – February 25, 2024

Artificial Intelligence is here. There’s no turning back. “Arnold” (named after the Terminator) is a nursing application created by wunderkind computer scientist Jorge to provide personalized treatment to Gabriel, his estranged and ailing father. As Arnold’s learning increases and Gabriel’s health deteriorates, Jorge must confront his responsibility as a son and accountability as a creator. 

The Huntington || Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight runs January 20 – March 3, 2024

“You’ve tried everything. Yoga. Acupuncture. Therapy. You floated in salt water in the pitch black dark. You juiced, you cleansed, you journaled, you cut, you volunteered. You ate only RINDS for three days and nights. You reached out, you looked within. You have tried. And yet here you are.” So begins a new play by Olivier Award-nominated playwright John Kolvenbach. Jim Ortlieb delivers a tour-de-force performance as a man desperate for connection, bent by isolation, and deeply in love with the audience itself.

Lyric Stage Company || Trouble in Mind runs January 12 – February 4, 2024

It’s 1955, and after enduring indignities and lost opportunities, Wiletta Mayer, a seasoned Black actress, is finally making her Broadway debut. Written by a white playwright, her star vehicle is the allegedly progressive “Chaos in Belleville,” which turns out to be anything but. Leading a cast of both younger and experienced actors, Wiletta challenges not only the soft racism of her white director but also the veiled prejudice that limits her aspirations and success. With warmth, humor, and sharp insight, this moving backstage look at identity and stereotypes cracks open searing truths about the American theater that remain heartbreakingly contemporary.

SpeakEasy Stage || A Case For The Existence of God runs January 26 – February 17, 2024

Inside an Idaho office cubicle, a mortgage broker (Keith) and a yogurt plant worker (Ryan) unexpectedly bring each other into their fragile worlds that revolve around their infant daughters. Ryan, white and divorced, wants to buy a plot of land that his family once owned in the hopes of making a stable life for his daughter. Keith, a Black, gay mortgage broker, wants to help Ryan, but is also dealing with challenges to his plans to adopt his foster child.  With humor, empathy, and deep compassion, playwright Samuel D. Hunter commingles these two lives in a beautiful story that is both intimate and epic at the same time. 

Each September I like to share the upcoming crop of live theater performances by Boston Theater comanies. The past 18-mos has been especially hard on Boston’s theater companies and I would really like to encourage everyone to show their support for these local companies who don’t enjoy the same level of financial support as the national touring shows that come to our Theater District.

While this list is not exhaustive, it does share in-person shows this fall from some of my favorite local theater companies. Attending these local shows is far more affordable than the national tours and they can make for an excellent date night or evening out with friends.

SpeakEasy Stage || The Sound Inside (Sept 24 – Oct 16)

In the seventeen years since she was last published, novelist Bella Baird has almost completely isolated herself from the world. But things change when she meets Christopher – a brilliant but enigmatic student in her creative writing class at Yale. As their friendship deepens, their lives and the stories they tell about themselves become intertwined in unpredictable ways, leading to a shocking request. Intensely intimate and deeply moving.

Lyric Stage Co. || Be Hear Now (Sept 24 – Oct 17)

Bari, a misanthrope who has returned to her hometown of East Cooperville, NY as she struggles to finish her thesis on nihilism. Working at a local fulfillment center, her despair has reached new heights When Bari begins experiencing emotions she never has felt before, she begins to have a different outlook on life. And when she discovers that the cause of these feelings may be killing her, Bari is forced to ask if she wants to go back to a life of nothing.

Central Square Theater || Queens Girl in the World (Sept 30 – Oct 31)

This Motown-infused story of Jacqueline Marie Butler, a Black teenager coming of age in the 1960s. Her joys, challenges, and heartbreak play out against the backdrop of the civil rights movement as she journeys from her familiar Queens neighborhood to a progressive, predominantly Jewish private school in Greenwich Village. Queens Girl in the World is a funny, heartfelt tour de force solo show with one actor portraying over a dozen characters.

Huntington Theater || Witch (Oct 15 – Nov 14)

This fiendishly funny new play follows an alluring devil named Scratch as he arrives in the country village of Edmonton, and he promises to make the darkest dreams of its locals come true in exchange for their souls. When he meets Elizabeth Sawyer, she should be the easiest to convince — she’s an outcast, branded as a witch for years. So why does she resist Scratch’s deal? This subversive, inventive work is a free adaptation of a 1621 Jacobean comedy recreated with a modern sensibility, and is “devilishly clever and deliciously laugh-packed”.

American Repertory Theater || MacBeth in Stride (Oct 23 – Nov 14)

WORLD PREMIERE – A dazzling theatrical event created and performed by Obie Award-winning artist Whitney White with a live band, Macbeth In Stride examines what it means to be an ambitious Black woman through the lens of one of Shakespeare’s most iconic characters. The first of White’s five-part series commissioned by A.R.T. excavating the women from Shakespeare’s canon, the production uses pop, rock, gospel, and R&B to trace the fatalistic arc of Lady Macbeth while lifting up contemporary Black female power, femininity, and desire.

NOTE: Proof of vaccination is required to attend many of these perrformances!