Scene in Boston

It's spooky season—and Greater Boston stages are getting in on the fun.

Whether you love a good scare or you're a little scared of being scared, this episode is for you. We talk with Covenant director Dawn M. Simmons and Bat Boy: The Musical director Jeremy Johnson about shadows,unsettling stories, and the exhilaration of experiencing it all together.

From a Southern Gothic thriller at SpeakEasy Stage to a camp horror musical at The Umbrella Arts Center, we explore what makes live theater frightening—and what these stories reveal about who we fear, who we blame, and who gets to belong. Plus, more local theater for Halloween and beyond.

Produced, as always, at Boston Arts Academy. Our program allows public schools high schoolers in Boston to intern in audio production and independent media, building careers for a lifetime.

This week on Scene in Boston, we kick off season two with WBUR theater critic Jacquinn Sinclair to talk about what's ahead on Greater Boston stages.

From family dramas and Gothic horror to hidden histories, musicals, and mysteries, we explore the connections across a packed theater season—and what might inspire you to try something new.

In our conversation, we discuss:

• the summer shows that stayed with us, including Eureka Day and A New Era • stories of women's activism, from Eleanor and The Wash to 1972 • how productions like Mexodus and Teatro La Plaza's Hamlet invite audiences into different histories and experiences • music, audience participation, and the joy of finding yourself in the middle of the story • and the shows on our calendars, including Purpose, Covenant, and a pair of Agatha Christie mysteries

We also introduce Scene in Boston's new season guide, with month-by-month listings, connections across productions, and recommendations from Boston's theater community. Find out how to get your copy at sceneinboston.org.

After ten episodes, about a dozen interviews, and more theater than we ever expected to see, we're wrapping up Season One of Scene in Boston.

In this special season finale, hosts Laura Amico and Lisa Talhamer look back on the productions, conversations, and ideas that shaped the first season. From workshop productions and intimate black box theaters to major musicals and ambitious new works, they reflect on what surprised them, what stayed with them, and why live performance feels especially meaningful right now.

Along the way, they revisit some of their favorite moments from the season, discuss the themes that emerged across Boston stages, and share a few ideas for what might be coming next.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Something Rotten – at Lyric Stage

• Dead as a Dodo – at ArtsEmerson

• Swept Away –SpeakEasy Stage

• The Outsiders – Broadway in Boston

• The Hills of California – at The Huntington

• Wonder – A.R.T.

• The Things Around Us – at ArtsEmerson

• Mexodus – off-Broadway piece coming to ART next season

• Ufot Family Cycle

• Medea – Boston University

• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee- The Hive Theater Company

• Breaking the Code – at Central Square Theater

• The Great Privation- Company One Theater

• You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!– Company One Theater

Looking ahead / upcoming plans

• Eureka Day – at The Huntington

• Black Swan – at A.R.T

• A Midsummer Night's Dream – Shakespeare on the Common, by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company

This week on Scene in Boston, we talk with director Dev Luthra about Weighting the Wait, Open Theater Project's new production created from writing circles with mothers impacted by gun violence.

Performed inside St. John's Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, the production uses movement, storytelling, ritual, and large-scale fabric artwork to transform the audience from observers into witnesses.

In our conversation, Dev discusses: • building theater from lived experience • storytelling as a form of connection and healing • the relationship between audience and performer • performing inside a sanctuary space • and what it means to "help carry the weight of tragedy" through community and art

In this episode of Scene in Boston, hosts Laura Amico and Lisa Thalhamer are joined by actor Miranda Jonté, who stars in (Re)Dressing Miss Havisham at Boston Playwrights' Theatre. The new solo play, written by John Minigan, reexamines the iconic Great Expectations character from her own perspective — asking what happens when women written off by literature get to tell their own stories.

Jonté talks about collaborating with Minigan, building a one-woman performance, blending literary analysis with detective work, and why the play pushes back against familiar narratives about aging, heartbreak, and women's lives. Along the way, Laura and Lisa connect the production to other shows this season, including Gem of the Ocean, Penelope, The Outsiders, and this season's ongoing interest in revisiting classic stories through contemporary eyes.

You can find tickets, show notes, and Boston-area theater listings at SceneInBoston.org.

In this episode of Scene in Boston, hosts Laura Amico and Lisa Thalhamer dive into Swept Away, SpeakEasy Stage Company's folk-rock musical set on an 1888 whaling ship leaving New Bedford. Featuring the music of The Avett Brothers, the show follows four survivors of a shipwreck as they confront questions of morality, mortality, and what it means to live a good life.

Director Jeremy Johnson and scenic designer Janie E. Howland join the hosts at Boston Arts Academy to unpack how this production brings the ocean to the stage. Johnson explains why The Avett Brothers' introspective, story-driven songs translate so powerfully to theater, turning a 90-minute, no-intermission musical into an emotionally rich journey through brotherhood, faith, and the ethics of survival. Howland discusses designing a world that is "pretty much at sea," using scale, sky, and lighting to evoke vastness rather than literal water.

Zooming out, the episode situates Swept Away within a broader wave of current productions that center male and non-binary ensembles and more vulnerable depictions of masculinity. Johnson reflects on how this and other recent works challenge harmful models of "toughness" by showing men as tender, emotionally open, and spiritually searching. Laura and Lisa connect the show to other Boston productions and to a wider fascination with water onstage — from rain effects to illusionistic stagecraft — that continues to captivate audiences.

The hosts close with recommendations for local theater, museum exhibits, and regional history that deepen the experience of seeing Swept Away, inviting listeners to engage with Boston's thriving arts ecosystem.

Hosts Laura Amico and Lisa Thalhamer step inside the process of writing new plays—how stories move from idea to page to stage, and what it takes to build something that doesn't yet exist.

They talk with Boston playwrights about shaping characters, navigating collaboration, and developing work in real time, as scripts evolve through workshops, rehearsals, and conversation with artists and audiences. The discussion opens up the often-invisible work behind new theater: revision, risk, and the challenge of writing something that feels urgent and alive.

Along the way, Laura and Lisa connect these conversations to the broader landscape of new work in Boston, exploring how plays are developed across institutions and what it means to create theater that speaks to this moment—and to the audiences it hopes to reach.

Also Mentioned:

Lifted, as part of the Ufot Family Cycle

The Outsiders

Beauty and the Beast

Charlotte's Web

Little Women

Pride and Prejudice

The Odyssey

The Moderate

When Playwrights Kill

Black Swan

Weighting the Weight

The Secret Sharer

In this episode of Scene in Boston, hosts Laura Amico and Lisa Thalhamer sit down with award-winning actor and educator Kadahj Bennett ahead of his role as Caesar Wilkes in August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, produced this spring by Actors Shakespeare Project. The episode is a deep dive into why Wilson's work feels urgently alive right now, and what happens when theater meets the community it's speaking to.

Kadahj — who chairs the theater department at Boston Arts Academy and has performed at the Huntington, Speakeasy Stage, and ART — unpacks the themes that make Gem of the Ocean feel startlingly present today: wealth disparity, extrajudicial violence, the meaning of freedom, and the ways women are the backbone of their communities and yet still pushed to the margins. The conversation also explores the structure of Wilson's ten-play American Century Cycle, the show-by-show excitement audiences felt when those plays were first being released, and why Aunt Esther — one of Wilson's most mythic characters — makes her first chronological appearance here.

In this episode of Scene in Boston, hosts Laura Amico and Lisa Thalhamer take a step back from individual productions to explore a bigger question: what's happening in our brains when we sit in an audience—and how do we get better at it?

The episode features neuroscientist Antonia Hamilton, who studies social cognition and communication. She explains how watching live performance activates the parts of our brains responsible for reading emotion, intention, and behavior—and why those skills aren't passive, but learned. Theater, she argues, becomes a kind of training ground for attention and empathy, helping us practice how we understand other people.

The conversation looks at how audiences interpret what's happening onstage—from facial expressions and tone of voice to pauses and physical movement—and how those signals build meaning in real time. Along the way, Laura and Lisa reflect on their own experiences as theatergoers, and how learning to "read" a performance can deepen the experience of being in the room.

The hosts also discuss recent and upcoming productions in Boston, including shows with short runs that highlight both the richness and the challenges of keeping up with the city's theater scene. From experimental solo performances to new plays and returning productions, the episode offers a snapshot of what's on stage now—and why it's worth paying attention.

Mentioned in this episode and on stage now/soon:

Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous Lyric Stage Company of Boston Running March 20 – April 12, 2026

Charlotte's Web Wheelock Family Theater Running April 3-26

The Outsiders Broadway in Boston Running March 31-April12

The Antiquities SpeakEasy Stage Running March 6-28

Breaking the Code Central Square Theater April 2-26

Also Mentioned:

The Things Around Us ArtsEmerson (now available as a recorded album)

Dead as a DodoArtsEmerson

Library Lion

Calderwood Pavillion

How does our idea of immigration change when it's not a journey with a clear destination, but a life spent learning who you are in the space between two homes?

In this episode of Scene in Boston, a Boston theatre podcast, hosts Laura Amico and Lisa Thalhamer step into the world of playwright Mfoniso Udofia's Ufot Family Cycle, a nine-play epic tracing one Nigerian American family across 100 years, continents, and generations. Guest Kevin Becerra of The Huntington Theatre Company reveals how these plays shimmer with easter eggs, bilingual Ibibio–English storytelling, and deeply human characters that feel like someone you know. Along the way, they spotlight the new workshop production Lifted, the broader Ufot Family Cycle running across multiple Boston theaters, and touch on what's next in Boston theatre, from Broadway in Boston titles like Maybe Happy Ending and Death Becomes Her to upcoming work at the Huntington and ArtsEmerson—all part of the citywide collaboration bringing this cycle to stages and neighborhoods across Greater Boston.