Greater Boston’s Independent Theatres. 2023-24 Season

 The 2023-2024 Boston theatre season opened on a down note. After forty years, struggling through the pandemic and refocusing its mission to portray underrepresented voices, New Rep closed. Fortunately, theatre is regenerative, and newer companies are emerging. This compendium provides a snapshot of five of Boston’s independent theatre companies and highlights a representative production from their season. 

Moonbox Productions 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2023-24 

Sweeney Todd Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by Hugh Wheeler (13 Oct. -5 Nov.) 

Legally Blonde Music and Lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin, Book by Heather Hach (8 Dec. -31 Dec. ) 

The Manic Monologues Zachary Burton and Elisa Hofmeister (16 Feb. -25 Feb.) 

Mermaid Hour David Valdes (26 Apr. -19 May) 

Boston New Works Festival 2024 (22 Jun.-24 Jun.) 

Moonbox Productions’ dual vision is to create exceptional theatre using local talent and connect audiences with extraordinary service organizations. Since 2011, Moonbox has staged over twenty productions, each highlighting a local non-profit. Their range is astounding, from mainstage musicals featuring large casts, live orchestras, elaborate sets, exquisite costumes, and exuberant choreography to black box intimacy where actors in street clothes on a bare stage reveal unadorned trials of the human condition. 

Mermaid Hour fused Moonbox’s range in a gorgeous production of an intimate drama. The arresting set featured bands of fabric swirling in a vortex of sea greens and blues toward the stage floor, where a curvilinear counter, a plinth, and a few stools anchored the unfolding family trials. Vi, a twelve-year-old trans girl, pushes every limit of her age and identity. But the play focuses on her working-class parents, struggling to do right by a child far beyond expectation. Director Bridget Kathleen O’Leary kept the family interactions tight—actors faced each other more than the audience—mirroring the circular set and reinforcing their private struggles. 

Speakeasy Stage Company 

Boston, Massachusetts, 2023-24 

POTUS Selina Fillinger (15 Sep. -15 Oct.) 

The Band’s Visit Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek, Book by Itamar Moses (10 Nov.- 

17 Dec. ), co-production with The Huntington 

A Case for the Existence of God Samuel D. Hunter (26 Jan. -18 Feb.) 

Cost of Living Martina Majok (8 Mar.-30 Mar.) 

A Strange Loop Michael R. Jackson (26 Apr. - 25 May) 

Speakeasy’s thirty-third season continued the company’s tradition of reinterpreting recent Broadway successes for a Boston audience.  

Their exquisite production of the 2022 New York Drama Critic Award-winning, A Case for the Existence of God, portrayed two earnest though flawed men struggling to navigate a world littered with obstacles. Can God exist within a mortgage broker’s cubicle in Twin Falls, Idaho? The two men never left their chairs in the harshly lit, tightly bound set. Quick blackouts indicated passing time and place. They moved closer as each man’s shrinking opportunity drew him to the unlikely other. Under Melinda Lopez’s understated direction, every element shrank until the set literally burst apart, and a case was made for the existence of God. 

Lyric Stage 

Boston, Massachusetts 2023-24 

Assassins Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by John Weidman (15 Sep.-15  

Oct.) 

The Game’s Afoot Ken Ludwig (10 Nov. -17 Dec. ) 

Trouble in Mind Alice Childress (12 Jan.-4 Feb.) 

Thirst Ronán Noone (23 Feb.-17 Mar.) 

The Drowsy Chaperone Music & Lyrics by Lisa Lambert & Greg Morrison, 

Book by Bob Martin & Don McKellar (5 Apr.-12 May) 

Yellow Face, David Henry Hwang (31 May-23 Jun.) 

Artistic Director Courtney O’Connor celebrated Lyric Stage Boston’s 50th season with a full season of theatrical variety. In honor of the anniversary, the Lyric’s lobby was redecorated with custom wallpaper featuring scenes from notable productions. 

The Drowsy Chaperone highlighted what this little theatre company does best: make big stage musicals sparkle in an intimate setting. A curmudgeonly theater maven, in the present, spins his angst and his turntable through the prism of a 1920’s-era musical that comes to life in his grungy apartment. Paul Melendy, as Man-in-the-Chair, perfectly maneuvered the transitions from exuberant production numbers to narrative commentary. Each of the fifteen musical characters is a cliché, but the clichés clicked magnificently. The energy whirling around the 244-seat theater saturated the audience with everything we love about musical theatre. Delightful costumes, especially the four-tier swimming suit that unraveled heroine Janet during “Show Off.” Abundant tricks: tap dancing, roller skating, ridiculous incognitos. Impeccable comic timing: I guffawed until my belly ached. 

Central Square Theater 

Cambridge, Massachusetts 2023-24 

Angels in America, Part 2: Perestroika Tony Kushner (7 Sep. -8 Oct.) 

The Rocky Horror Show Richard O’Brien (28 Oct.-3 Dec.) 

Machine Learning Francisco Mendoza (25 Jan.-25 Feb.) 

Beyond Words Laura Maria Censabella (14 Mar.-14 Apr.) 

next to normal Brian Yorkey (30 May-23 Jun.) 

Central Square Theater (CST), under the consistent leadership of Executive Director Catherine Carr Kelly and Artistic Director Lee Mikeska Gardner, continued its focus on exploring social justice, science, and gender politics through theatre by producing five plays with unique perspectives. 

Beyond Words is a new play, produced in conjunction with Catalyst Collaborative at MIT, that tracks Dr. Irene Pepperberg and her work with Alex, an African Grey parrot, whom she prompts to meaningful communication and problem-solving. Smooth transitions and clever theatrical devices kept the audience engaged in the predictable, happy plot. Shyster scientists fixated on studying apes turn into them. Hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak no-evil muses create a Greek chorus of nay-sayers slow to appreciate Dr. Pepperberg’s remarkable science. A tennis match where Irene served up her findings was particularly satisfying.  

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre 

Boston, Massachusetts 2023-24 

Fringe Festival 2023-2024 Isabelle Sanatdar Stevens, Brandon Zang, Tina Esper, 

and Maggie Kearnan (22 Sep. -14 Oct. ) 

Mr. Parent Melinda Lopez and Maurice Emmanuel Parent (10 Oct. -22 Oct.) 

Kill The Magistrate Abbey Fenbert (4 Dec.) 

Driving in Circles Jay Eddy (21 Mar. -6 Apr.) 

Boston Theater Marathon (5 May) 

Hoops Eliana Pipes (21 May) 

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (BPT) has traditionally produced new plays written by students in Boston University’s MFA in Playwriting Program. This season, Artistic Director Megan Sandberg-Zakian expanded BPT’s focus by representing a wider range of the BU community. She grouped several plays by existing students into the Fringe Festivaland then offered full productions of new work by alumni and faculty. The result was more opportunities for more voices. 

Driving in Circles is a new play by BU alum Jay Eddy. Writer, singer, and actor Eddy told their personal story of abuse and healing with more vitality than pathos. The pace was frantic as stand-up comedy. Two backup musicians anchored the action at keyboard and drums, while Jay was everywhere: center stage, in the audience, and bouncing off the highway that curved up and away along the rear wall.  

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