Entertainment

Actors’ Shakespeare Project Brings Vibrant “Midsummer Night’s Dream” to Watertown

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The cast of Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Mosesian Center for the Arts. Photo by Nile Scott Studios. Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” takes full advantage of the intimate confines of the Mosesian Center of the Arts to provide audience members with a 360 degree experience of music, lights, confetti, and mist to accompany the Bard’s ethereal play. “Midsummer” is the final play in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s 2024-25 season, and the first in its new home. The theater company recently moved to the MCA in Watertown to be the company in residence.

Entertainment

Actors’ Shakespeare Project Plays Receive 12 Award Nominations

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Watertown-based Actors’ Shakespeare Project received 12 nominations for the 2025 Boston Theater Critics Association Awards. See the announcement from ASP below. As we reach the tail end of our 2024-25 Season, it’s validating to feel the love from critics. While we don’t create theatre for the awards, we have to admit … they sure don’t hurt.That’s why we’re so grateful to the Boston Theatre Critics’ Association and the Elliot Norton Award Committee for all our accolades for our recent productions!Here are all twelve nominations that ASP productions garnered this cycle:

Romeo and JulietOutstanding PlayOutstanding Lighting Design – Deb SullivanOutstanding Sound Design – Jesse Hinson

August Wilson’s The Piano LessonOutstanding PlayOutstanding Director – Christopher V. EdwardsOutstanding Lead Performance – Omar RobinsonOutstanding Featured Performance – Anthony T. GossOutstanding Featured Performance – Jade GuerraOutstanding Featured Performance – “ranney”Outstanding Scenic Design – Jon SavageOutstanding Lighting Design – Isaak OlsonOutstanding Ensemble

And thank you to everyone who made these amazing productions possible — from the actors, to the designers, to the technicians, to the box office team, to the audience members who have been with us for over twenty years — we mean it when we say: we could not do it without you.Congratulations to all our fellow nominees — click the link below to see a full list of nominees. be sure to join us on June 2 at Huntington Theatre for the Elliot Norton Awards!

Entertainment

Two Plays Coming to Watertown in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s 2025-26 Season

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The 2025-26 season for Actors’ Shakespeare Project features three plays, two of which will go on stage at Watertown’s Mosesian Center for the Arts. See details in the announcement from the theater company below. Actors’ Shakespeare Project is proud to announce our 2025-26 Season line-up. We hope you’ll join us for three masterpieces of literature that invite audiences and artists to reflect on how narratives shape identity, and how art can dismantle the walls that confine us.These three productions form a tapestry of defiance: Macbeth exposes the mechanics of control. Little Women redefines who gets to tell their story. Gem of the Ocean reclaims marginalized histories.Our current season — wrapping up with A Midsummer Night’s Dream this month — has been one of our biggest and most successful yet, with our momentous move to Watertown ushering in a new era for ASP, and new opportunities on the horizon.The best way to help ASP continue to build on this success is becoming a subscriber today. Subscribers never pay ticket fees, can switch their seats at any time free of charge, and save up to 30% on single ticket prices.

Entertainment

Actors’ Shakspeare Project Brings “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” to Mosesian Center

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The following announcement was provided by the Actors’ Shakespeare Project:

Actors’ Shakespeare Project closes out their blockbuster 2024-25 Season with their first-ever performance at their new home in Watertown, The Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts. From April 11 through May 4, ASP will present their latest production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Elliot Norton Award-winning director and ASP Resident Artist Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Join the Bard’s colorful cast of characters as they flit, frolic, and stumble their way through the woods, aided by moonlight and magic. Inspired by the club culture of late ‘90s and early ‘00s New York City, Maurice Emmanuel Parent’s invigorating new take on this classic play flips the romantic entanglement of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on its head and brings Shakespeare’s most popular comedy into vivid technicolor. Whether you seek to guffaw at the mechanicals, tangle with the love quadrangle, or conjure in the fairy court, this production will enchant long-time Shakespeare lovers and newcomers alike.

Entertainment

Three Watertown Actors Take the Stage for Production of “Into the Woods”

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Watertown’s Marcelle Durrenberger (left) as The Witch with Emma Quinlan as Rapunzel, in rehearsal. (Photo by Colleen Locke, Weston Friendly Society)

The following announcement was provided by Weston Friendly Society:

Three Watertown residents will take the stage April 5-12 in Weston Friendly Society’s “Into the Woods.” Playing the role played by Meryl Streep in the 2014 film, Marcelle Durrenberger is The Witch who sets things in motion by promising to undo a curse so that she can be beautiful. Cinderella’s two stepsisters are also Watertown residents. Jill Craig plays Florinda and Allie Villa plays Lucinda.

Entertainment

Watertown High School Musical, “Anything Goes,” Hits the Mosesian Center Stage

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This year’s Watertown High School Musical, “Anything Goes,” will go on stage at the Mosesian Center for the Arts from Feb. 28 to March 2. See the information provided by the school below. Come enjoy an evening of live musical comedy performed by the students of Watertown High School. Anything Goes is a story of laughter and love with a little intrigue to boat (boot!). The show is presented in two acts with a 15-minute intermission.

Entertainment

Perkins Announces Live Audio Description at Theatrical Performances the Boston Area

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Perkins School for the Blind announced that live audio descriptions for blind and visually impaired audiences at theater and dance performances around the Boston area at venues including the American Repertory Theater, Broadway in Boston, the Colonial Theater, The Huntington Theatre Company, and the Hanover Theatre. Perkins provided the following announcement:

We’re excited to share the 2024-25 season’s live theater productions with audio description (AD), running from October 2024 through August 2025. To read the full season schedule, which is growing every year with more and more productions and venues in Massachusetts. click the link at the bottom. Performances are listed by venue and then by the name of the show and date.

Around Town

REVIEW: SAATh Festival 2024 Brings South Asian Theater to Watertown

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Powerful and complex: Dipanwitha Bhattacharya and Jaideep Banerjee of ENAD Theatre in the Bangla play ‘An (Extra)Ordinary Incident’. Photo by Beena Sarwar. By Beena Sarwar

I went to see “Madho” last night with my mother at the Third South Asia Theatre festival, SAATh 2024, in the Boston area. A musical play set in Lahore, it is written and directed by Sarbpreet Singh, an engineer by profession whose passion is music and storytelling. Based on the timeless tale of the Sufi poet Shah Hussain and the Brahmin youth Madho Laal, who became known as one entity, the story also highlights the syncretic culture of this region.