Brian McEleney

Latest Articles

Trinity’s compelling Christmas Carol

Comfort and joy
The more things stay the same, the more they change. At least that's the way they've been having it with Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol at Trinity Repertory Company for 35 years.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 30, 2011

Review: Poe vs. Poe in Trinity's Strange Tale

I Is Another
What's left to spook us these days? Crime shows display forensic detail that has inured us to blood.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 18, 2011

Review: Trinity Rep’s Crucible is potent

Hidden agendas
The Crucible is a profoundly moving story, especially when inhabited by the talents at Trinity Repertory Company. This is the third time the group has taken on Arthur Miller's masterwork of American theater, the last a quarter-century ago.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 17, 2011

Preview: Trinity Rep takes The Crucible to the streets

Truth and consequences
Arthur Miller's The Crucible was a seminal work of American theater, taking a shameful passage of history — the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century — and melding it in the audience's consciousness with a contemporary parallel — the Red Scare hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which prompted a Hollywood blacklist of suspects.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 02, 2011

Trinity's rollicking Absurd Person Singular

All about Eves
Very strange. It's as though British playwright Alan Ayckbourn had come to Trinity Rep, studied its veteran acting company, laughed heartily at the amusing talent on display, then went home and wrote Absurd Person Singular for six of the actors.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 27, 2010

Trinity's Absurd Person Singular

Trinity nails down Alan Ayckbourn
As playwriting goes, there's prolific and then there's prolific. There's, say, Shakespeare with his piddling 38 plays. And then there's someone like Alan Ayckbourn: 73 full-length babies, and counting.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 14, 2010

Play by play: May 7, 2010

Theater listings, May 7, 2010
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 04, 2010

Play by play: April 30, 2010

Theater listings, week of April 30, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 28, 2010

Play by play: April 23, 2010

Theater listings, week of April 23, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 21, 2010

Dynamic duo

Trinity Rep’s over-the-top The Odd Couple
There are King Oedipus and his mom, there are Romeo and Juliet, and there are Oscar and Felix.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 21, 2010

Play by play: April 16, 2010

Theater listings for the week of April 16, 2010
Theater listings for the week of April 16, 2010
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 15, 2010

A life on the boards

Trinity’s Fred Sullivan, Jr. hits 100
An actor who has done 100 productions at the same theater?
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 14, 2010

Play by play: April 9, 2010

Theater listings, April 9, 2010
Theater listings, April 9, 2010
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 06, 2010

Play by Play: March 5, 2010

Theater listings, March 5, 2010
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | March 03, 2010

Play by play, February 26, 2010

Theater listings, week of February 26, 2010
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 24, 2010

Play by play: February 19, 2010

Theatre listings, week of February 19, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 17, 2010

Play by play: February 12, 2010

Theater listings, February 12, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 09, 2010

Present laughter

Trinity throws a Twelfth Night party
Director Brian McEleney returns to Trinity Repertory Company for a raucous Twelfth Night that hums with energy, drollery, and a makeshift score that meshes Shakespearean ditty with such seasonal fripperies as "Auld Lang Syne" and the Mariah Carey hit "All I Want for Christmas Is You."
By CAROLYN CLAY | February 10, 2010

Play by play: February 5, 2010

Plays from A to Z
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 03, 2010

Play by Play: January 29, 2010

Theater listings, January 29, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 27, 2010

Looking back, going forward

A diverse display for 2010
Economic recession and post-racial themes abound in Boston’s early 2010 theater repertoire.
By MADDY MYERS | January 13, 2010

Being Scrooge

Timothy Crowe on Dickens’s ‘life-changing message’
Over the 33 years that Trinity Rep has been staging A Christmas Carol , many actors playing Ebenezer Scrooge have growled and grumped, cantankered, and curmugeoned around the stage.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 02, 2009

Play by play: March 6, 2009

Plays from A to Z
A compilation of theater productions in and around Boston
By CAROLYN CLAY | March 03, 2009

Play by Play: February 27, 2009

Plays A to Z
A compilation of theater productions in and around Boston
By CAROLYN CLAY | February 24, 2009

Play by play: February 20, 2009

Plays A to Z
A compilation of theater productions in and around Boston
By CAROLYN CLAY | February 17, 2009

Play by play: February 13, 2009

Plays A to Z
A compilation of theater productions in and around Boston
By CAROLYN CLAY | February 11, 2009

Social studies

Trinity brings new life to A Raisin In the Sun
She was simply trying to shape an incident in her life into convincing theater.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 04, 2009

Play by Play: February 6, 2009

Plays A through Z
A compilation of theater productions in and around Boston
By CAROLYN CLAY | February 09, 2009

Making magic

Rediscovering the thrill of discovery
Ever since the Greeks learned to keep their masks on straight and not bump into the statuary, theaters and theatergoers have been learning more and more about how the magic works.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 23, 2008

Fightin' words

Trinity Rep’s thoroughly modern Dreams of Antigone
The trouble with Greek tragedies is that they tend to be Greek to us.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 02, 2008