I’ve been really bad about chronicling the 2025-2026 Cap Rep/Proctors season. Part of it is that there is often little time from seeing the production to the end of the run. The other factor is that when I see a play or musical I don’t love, it’s harder for me to write.
But now that the season is largely over, I’ll take a shot. Know that we had season tickets only for Capital Rep, but that comes with a crossover ticket to Proctors. And we went to one other Proctors show.
Becky Nurse of Salem, September 27, 2025, at 2:00 PM, Cap Rep. I liked the IDEA of Sara Ruhl’s exploration of history, literature, and feminism in juxtaposition with the Salem witch trials.
Becky (Brenny Campbell) gives a lecture to a school group at the Salem Museum of Witchcraft, but she can’t stick with the script and gets fired by her boss, Shelby (Briana Gibson Reeves).
She ends up visiting a witch (Kathy McCafferty) or hanging out at the local bar with her high school boyfriend Bob (James Joseph O’Neill), in each case, seeking advice. Meanwhile, Becky’s daughter Gail (Alexandra Szeto-Joe) is just getting out of rehab.
My wife and I liked the second act far more than the first, which was mired by too many scene changes that wrecked the flow. Act 2 was more mystical, metaphysical, and fascinating.
A killer show
Murder for Two: Holiday Edition on November 29, 2025, at 2:00 PM, Cap Rep. An eclectic group of characters arrives at an old New England mansion for the surprise birthday party of a celebrated novelist. But the novelist is killed! Who done it?
An eager young policeman (Anthony Norman) is tasked with solving the crime. He interviews the dozen guests (ALL played by Joe Kinosian, who wrote the music a decade and a half ago).
From Steve Barnes’ review in the Times Union: “Directed at The Rep by Scott Weinstein… ‘Murder for Two’ speeds along. Mayhem increases as the show progresses — kudos to set designer Czerton Lim and the production team for pulling off multiple special effects — and showcases Kinosian’s strengths in giving each of his dozen characters a distinct physicality and voice: An imperious angle of the head and an outstretched leg signal a ballerina’s presence, the writer’s niece flirts with the officer by peppering him with questions, the kids walk on their knees and wear the same hat differently.”
I thought it was hysterical. My wife liked it well enough.
Archduke on March 14, 2026, at 2:00 PM, Cap Rep. I wrote about this. Thumbs up.
Former royal?
Dodi & Diana on April 25, 2026, at 2:00 PM, Cap Rep. A married couple, Jason (Shaun Anthony) and Samira (Jessica Damouni), together for about a decade, spend three days alone in a Paris hotel room. This is based on the advice of Jason’s astrologer, who believes them to be “the astrological doubles of Diana Spencer and Dodi Fayed.”
We had to agree with Steve Barnes’ review: “Strong work from the actors, designers, and director cannot fully redeem a script that is at times tedious and/or exasperating in ‘Dodi & Diana,’ a play that’s neither as sexy nor provocative as author Kareem Fahmy seems to intend.”
Near the end, they do, sort of, become the title characters, but that was confusing as well.
Billy Shakes, shaken
& Juliet on May 1, 2026, at 7 PM, Proctors. My wife was given a ticket for the “What If Juliet Didn’t Die” jukebox musical. So I bought one, but we were not seated together.
The audience reaction, particularly in the front rows of the theater, was instantly engaged. By contrast, the guy sitting next to me hardly reacted at all until the second act.
Will Shakespeare (CJ Elder) thinks he has a big hit on his hands with Romeo and Juliet. But his wife, Anne Hathaway (Crystal Kellogg), thinks the ending is terrible. She suggests that he could rewrite it? Might she help him?
The saved Juliet (Fabiola Caraballo Quijada) decides that maybe killing herself over a boy she knew for “four days — almost” isn’t very smart. Since her parents decide that Juliet should “hie thee to a nunnery,” Juliet runs away with her nurse, Angelique (Kathryn Allison), and reinvents herself.
I liked it pretty well, particularly as the pieces started to fall into place.
Also, a book and a movie
The Outsiders, May 24, 2026, at 2:00 PM, Proctors. No, I never read S.E. Hinton’s coming-of-age tale or its 1983 film adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola.
The story is narrated by 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis (Nolan White). Ponyboy gets jumped by a group of Socs (think frat boys) for seeing “Cool Hand Luke” at the movie theater on their side of town. We meet the Greasers: his big brothers, Darrel, forced to work after the Curtises’ parents died in a car crash, and high school dropout Sodapop; prankster Two-Bit; Johnny Cade, who is brutalized by his father when the abuse isn’t dumped on his mother; and Dallas, who has a police record to prove it.
There is also Ace, who my wife rightly notes was analogous to Anybodys in ‘West Side Story,’ but no particular function beyond being the token girl Greaser. In fact, there were a few WSS tropes, which didn’t bother me.
At the drive-in, Ponyboy meets Cherry, the red-headed girlfriend of the Socs’ de facto leader Bob. Cherry and Ponyboy bond over their shared love of sunsets, but this connection ticks off Bob.
Telling more seems unnecessary. It was a very good production.
Last up this season, Mystic Pizza.