The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre was closing a very short run here in Boston, only four performances at the Boch Center Wang Theater from April 28-May 1 when my wife Madeleine and I sat together on aisle seats, row L for the Sunday matinee. It was a gorgeously warm and sunny spring day as we walked down Tremont Street from the Park Street Red Line stop, savoring views of Boston Common budding into a feast of green as troops of students were passing us by in gossamer spring dresses with gossamer youth gaiety. It was no sacrifice at all to enter the indoor spaces of a theater since we’d already had a very pleasant walk and Alvin Ailey Dance is always a rare, complex pleasure. They always have so many layered artistic impressions that they always make it seem, to this writer, as though he’d have to have a suite of hands all typing at once to articulate his … [Read more...] about ALVIN AILEY THEATRE KEEPS AMERICAN DANCE MOVING; “LET’S DANCE BOSTON!” CAPS CELEBRITY SERIES SEASON

With characters that seem to echo every facet of Shakespeare’s era — boisterous, sensual, quicksilver passionate, vengeful, generous, jealous, the Lyric Stage Company’s presentation of Lauren Gunderson’s “The Book of Will” is hilariously enjoyable. It’s impossible not to join in, tentatively, at first, even wonderingly — asking yourself, “who are these people” — then you grasp that they are not only “The Kings Men,” a company of outstandingly dedicated actors but their own men, never really off stage, and never more onstage than when they are playing, often along with Shakespeare himself, the bard’s own realistic fantasies. A handful plus of “The Kings Men” and their women are most often gathered around a wooden trestle table. With the Globe Theatre in the background, they lean in with their elbows on the table top — except when lifting them to quaff from a full tankard — which is … [Read more...] about THE BOOK OF WILL HAS LYRIC STAGE COMPANY AUDIENCES LAUGHING