Play by play: January 8, 2010

Plays from A to Z
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  January 6, 2010

OPENING

ALL MY SONS | The Huntington Theatre Company starts off the new year with Arthur Miller's New York Drama Critics' Circle Award–winning 1947 drama about a businessman who prospered in World War II by selling plane-engine parts to the armed forces but now harbors an ugly secret. Will Lyman plays the troubled Joe Keller; Karen MacDonald is his adamant wife, Kate; Lee Aaron Rosen is their younger son, Chris; and Diane Davis is the woman Chris is planning to marry — a woman who was formerly engaged to the Kellers' elder son, Larry, who's MIA. David Esbjornson directs. | Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston | 617.266.0800 | January 8–February 7 | Curtain 7:30 pm [no January 19] Tues | 2 pm [January 20, February 3] + 7:30 pm [7 pm January 13] Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 pm [no January 9] + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm [no January 10] + 7 pm [January 10, 24] Sun | $20-$82.50

BOYCE & MELINDA'S INVESTMENT STRATEGIES FOR THE POST-MONEY WORLD | "It's the year 2020, and President Palin's faith-based economy has collapsed. Where can you turn?" Why, to this "hilarious musical-comedy and financial seminar" from Gip Hoppe, author of Jackie: An American Life. The original score, by Hoppe and Chandler Travis, features "investment-savvy tunes" including "Rockin' the Money/Rollin' the Green," "Toxic Assets," "All the Best Things in Life," and "New America." Former ART stalwart Will Lebow plays Boyce; Julie Perkins reprises her Melinda from the production last summer at Payomet Performing Arts Center in Truro. | Boston Center for the Arts, Calderwood Pavilion, Virginia Wimberly Theatre, 527 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | January 14-31 | Curtain 8 pm Tues-Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 1 + 5 pm Sun | $35; $31.50 seniors; $25 students

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) | Flat Earth Theatre takes us on the now familiar high-speed, three-actor romp of all the Bard's works, as Titus Andronicus hosts a cooking show, the Tudor monarchs face off in the BCS championship game, and an audience member gets the opportunity to play Ophelia. Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield star. | Piano Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont St, Boston |www.brownpapertickets.com| January 8-16 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | 2 pm Sun | $15; $10 students, seniors

FABULOSO | John Kolvenbach's play is about what happens to a vaguely disappointing marriage when a couple of maniacs show up at the door insisting they're family. Once the light dawns that this wild ride is in fact a comic metaphor for the bedlam that comes with having children, the play seems both clever and rather sweet. It got its world premiere from Wellfleet Harbor Actors' Theater last year; now it turns up at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, with Jeremiah Wiggins and Rebecca Harris as Teddy and Kate, the couple in the one-bedroom apartment, and Ed Jewett and Amy Kim Waschke as Arthur and Samantha; Kyle Fabel directs. | Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 132 Warren St, Lowell | 978.654.4MRT | January 7-31 | Curtain 2 pm [January 13] + 7:30 pm Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 pm [no January 9] + 8 pm Sat | 2 + 7 pm [no evening January 31] Sun | $26-$56

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Related: Play by Play: January 1, 2010, Looking back, going forward, American dreams, More more >
  Topics: Theater , Boston Center for the Arts, Paul Daigneault, Benjamin Evett,  More more >
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