Lyric Stage Company

 Front Porch Arts Collective and The Huntington announce the cast and creative team of K-I-S-S-I-N-G, their co-production of the world premiere play written by Massachusetts playwright and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Lenelle Moïse and directed by The Porch’s Co-Producing Artistic Director Dawn M. Simmons. Front Porch Arts Collective is in residence at The Huntington as part of a multi-year strategic partnership.

The Boston Theater Critics Association's 39th Elliot Norton Awards stream live May 23 at 8 PM. Winners of over two dozen categories will be announced during the virtual ceremony. John Douglas Thompson receives the Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence,

Unforgettable moments, laughter, discovery, and joy, he Lyric Stage 2022/23 Season is a season to share.

After a critically acclaimed run, the Lyric Stage Company of Boston announces that streaming of the World Premiere production of Mr. Parent by Melinda Lopez with Maurice Emmanuel Parent* and co-conceived and directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian° will begin on February 7 and be available through February 20.

The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse at Lyric Stage Company is not the usual family oriented family entertainment. This hilarious satire comments that some 50 million turkeys are slaughtered to feed the occasion. The only juveniles suited for this production are delinquents.

Where can you see the story of a barely-sentient being that promises everyone whatever they want but ends up eating them alive? No! Not on the nightly news- It’s The Lyric Stage Company of Boston’s revival of “Little Shop of Horrors” which is being staged through October 6 at 140 Clarendon Street in Boston’s Back Bay.

Lyric Stage Company of Boston announces its 45th season. The program of seven plays starts with a yet to be announced award winning musical from August 30 to October 6. The suspense is brutal.

Set in the Ritz-Carlton Boston in the late 1940s, Light Up the Sky is a backstage comedy about the eccentric, colorful artists and producers involved in breathing life into a Broadway-bound play. Here we witness that frightening moment of anticipation and terror just before an audience sees the opening performance. We view the grand, charismatic leading lady, the hopeful young playwright, the high-strung director, the boorish producer and his comical wife along with a monster mother in this affectionate, hilarious and even a bit corny look at what used to be referred to as the "legitimate" theatre. With a wonderful cast, it is an entertaining way to spend some time smiling in the dark.

From the author of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Intimate Apparel is a superb evocative portrait of Esther, an independent but lonely African American seamstress in early 20th-century New York. She earns her living sewing exquisite lingerie for wealthy white socialites uptown and whores downtown. After receiving a letter from a stranger who is laboring on the Panama Canal, she begins a long-distance courtship with him. Of course, he is not all that he initially seems. Disillusioned but unbroken, Esther reluctantly returns to her sewing to refashion her dreams. This is a wonderful Lyric Stage Company production.

Splendidly portrayed by Karen MacDonald, Molly Ivins was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal from deep in the heart of Texas,. She had a rapier wit that made her one of America’s highest-regarded political satirists and beloved rabble-rousers. Red Hot Patriot weaves personal anecdotes with Molly’s humor and wisdom, celebrating her courage and tenacity. This is especially true even when a complacent America wasn’t listening. She was a personable monument to First Amendment rights and virtues. This is a terrific play about an American original.

Told through an extensive and compelling correspondence between two of 20th century’s most important and celebrated American poets, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, this play on and with words is a different kind of love. It is a story of the spirit and imagination between artists and friends. This thirty-year friendship served to buoy each other up in life and art. Their often messy, addictive and sometimes unhealthy lives were profoundly impacted by the other. This is a lyrical, moving portrait of a friendship that eloquently transcends oceans, continents, and time.

Stephen Sondheim's Tony-Award winning Sweeney Todd is a macabre musical thriller that blends wit with a hauntingly beautiful score and grisly humor. Elegantly and wonderfully produced at the LyricStage, the musical follows the homicidal barber Sweeney Todd on his quest for justice and vengeance after years of unjust imprisonment and exile. With the aid of Mrs. Lovett, the twisted proprietor of a failing Fleet Street meat-pie shop, Todd sets out to avenge the terrible wrongs done to him and his family while adding filler to tasty pastry.

Add a rich girl, her richer mother, and a starving handsome artist boyfriend together, and what could possibly go wrong? When sheltered Claudine meets actor/director Henry, she falls head over heels for him. But her mother, a tough-talking, cynical celebrity financial guru, tries to crush her daughter's desires and ego. Is Henry everything her daughter deserves or is he only after her money? Rich Girl is a contemporary take on the classic play and film The Heiress. It is a clever comedy about a young woman and her relationships with a man, her mother, money and becoming who she really is.

Considered one of the greatest American drama's of the 20th Century, since it was first performed in 1949, Death of a Salesman has been recognized as an iconic event of the American theatre. The aging, failing and delusional Willy Loman makes his living riding on a smile and a shoeshine. Playwright Arthur Miller redefined the tragic hero as a man whose dreams are both insupportably grand and pathetically insubstantial. Boston's Lyric Stage Company brilliantly portrays this epic statement of promise and loss and the American Dream unfulfilled.

Working is a musical based upon Studs Terkel's great 1974 volume recording the voices of working men and women from every walk of life. It uses song and dance to portray their stories. Capturing their likes and dislikes, regrets and problems, as well as sadness and happinesses on the job, various distinguished Broadway composers have based their melodies and lyrics on Terkel's prose. This production goes beyond the book to update the work environment both generationally and attitudinally to the 21st Century's new workplace experience. Instead of celebrating work, unfortunately, though the music and performances are pleasant, the subject matter was just too big for the Lyric Stage Company's production.

Though Becky's midlife isn't exactly unhappy, she needs something. But from her car dealership desk, she can't help but wonder what else is out there. And then she accidentally finds out. When a wealthy suitor presumes she is a widow, she finds herself leading a double life. It quickly accelerates out of control. With very real and yet fantasy characters and places, this play is a witty comedy of manners and expectations. Becky takes an unexpected ride from doldrums to adventure in an often clever and amusing way.

Water by the Spoonful is the beautifully written and performed Pulitzer Prize winning play by Quira Alegria Hudes. It is a visual and verbal montage of lives in crisis. Seemingly unrelated characters search for connection in a difficult world. They are looking for hope from their newly found family. Their troubled souls look for and try to find connection and redemption. This wonderful drama embraces great empathy and humor as well as a bit of hope.

Last year, this show was a hit on Broadway after great runs in London and throughout the UK. Apparently, the energy and rhythm of the Broadway production and talented lead James Corden made this show a crowd pleaser. For his performance Cordon won a Tony. His physical humor is a hard act to follow. One Man, Two Govnors is billed as a celebration of British comedy. Rather than, as expected a laugh-out-loud mix of satire, songs and slapstick, this Lyric Stage Company production takes a rather long time to develop its form. However, there are a few standout performances that make it worth the price of admission.

Sometimes there is a rare theatrical event that is brilliantly performed and directed, thoroughly entertaining and totally wonderful. The Lyric Stage Company's On The Town is one of these. It is the story of three young WWII American sailors with one day in New York City to see sights, meet a special girl, and literally have the time of their lives. Leonard Bernstein's score melds perfectly with the witty book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green to create a magical musical experience. Directed by an inspired Spiro Veloudos, this show revival is as good as it gets. It could transfer directly to Broadway with little or no changes. Run to get tickets. It is that brilliant.

The Boston Theater Critics Association (BTCA) announces its nominations for the 31st Annual Elliot Norton Awards. The awards, which recognize excellence in Greater Boston theater, will be presented on Monday, May 13, at 7 p.m. at the Paramount Mainstage, 559 Washington Street, Boston.

Following a two year tour of Women of Will the founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company, Tina Packer, returns with The Beauty Queen of Leenane co starring Elizabeth Aspenlieder. Last summer Olympia Dukakis and John Douglas Thompson had hit shows with The Tempest and Satchmo at the Waldorf. This summer they will perform together in the 20th century classic Mother Courage.

Adapted by Chaim Potok & Aaron Posner from the novel by Chaim Potok, this drama is sometimes moving and provocative coming of age story that follows two boys from different cultural groups as their relationships with each other, their families, and their own spirituality evolve in 1940s Brooklyn. It is a story of acceptance and understanding.

When it was first produced in 1885, the Mikado brilliantly resurrected the careers of Gilbert and Sullivan. It brought the recently unveiled exotic far away Japan to a very understandably human level. It is universally considered Gilbert & Sullivan’s most beloved work. With a contemporary twist, wonderfully and energetically staged by Spiro Veloudos, this is a witty musical satire of social mores and politics that is as contemporary today as it was 125 years ago. In great voice, the cast sings mischievous and clever 2012 American-election-year rhyming patter and lyrics.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), Huntington Theatre Company, and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston announce additional events and offerings as part of the third Emerging America— an annual festival featuring groundbreaking performance by American artists June 21 to 24.

Based more than a bit on Sesame Street, Avenue Q is a fun and funny adult musical that tells the story of a recent college grad Princeton who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way down on gritty Avenue Q. Looking for his purpose in life, through a variety of characters, clever songs, jokes and situations, he eventually discovers it. The show contains bad language, puppet nudity and felt creature sex. This is not for the little ones, but teenagers will think that it is cool. It is selling out fast.