The Light in the Piazza, at the Huntington (Photo: Julieta Cervantes)
During harsh, dark, and cynical times like these, protecting the private sphere of the personal is especially challenging. That challenge grows when extreme political chicanery is coupled with DIASD—digitally induced attention span disorder, my on-the-fly acronym for the rampant epidemic we’re all enduring. It’s like the plumbing and the electricity failing on the same day. So many essential services—deeply personal yet publicly maintained—run on a shared grid. Regardless of our divided beliefs, we share a planet, a country, a collective identity, and a network of mutual support.
As downward-facing as many current trends may be, paradoxes and counterweights persist. The tension between hopelessness and hopefulness is ongoing. As the saying goes, more darkness means more light.
Perhaps this essential tension helps explain the abundance of musical theater offerings in Boston this spring.
At first glance, the genre’s unabashed emotionalism, stylized storytelling, and spontaneous bursts into song seem at odds with a culture steeped in detachment and suspicion. (A compelling counterpoint: the tour de force, jaw-dropping “cine-theater” production of The Picture of Dorian Gray now on Broadway. Wilde’s iconic 19th-century story becomes a fierce 21st-century unmasking of our distortions around self, youth, beauty, power, and dark energy.)
But it is this very tonal alternative that allows musical theater to thrive. In a world oversaturated with irony and mediated experience, musicals offer a rare space for genuine emotional catharsis, communal experience, and imaginative escape.
Though musicals hail from a bygone era, many contemporary creations have adapted to modern sensibilities. Hamilton blends hip-hop with history. Hadestown reframes myth through a socio-political lens. Historical musicals can be complex, subversive, and self-aware—acknowledging audience cynicism while inviting us to move past it. This balance makes musical theater both critical and celebratory, earnest and ironic.
Moreover, platforms like TikTok and YouTube have given musical theater renewed cultural visibility. Snippets go viral, fan interpretations proliferate, and communities coalesce around shared love. (A theater professor friend of mine notes that his students know every lyric of Hamilton—yet none have seen it staged.) This digital permeability collapses barriers between high art and pop culture.
The Huntington is closing an extraordinary season with its production of The Light in the Piazza. Directed by Artistic Director Loretta Greco, this Tony Award-winning 2005 musical—based on Elizabeth Spencer’s novel—follows a mother and daughter visiting Florence in the early 1950s. Book writer Craig Lucas noted:
“I was struck by the story as a metaphor for all parenting. Ultimately, you have to let your children go into the world as if they will be safe—even when we know they won’t be. It doesn’t matter if they are 18, 21, or 40. This seemed to me to be the stuff of the great fairy tales and fables of ancient times.”
With a lush score by Adam Guettel and a stellar cast, the production is visually anchored by Andrew Boyce’s exquisite set design. Boyce creates a dreamlike, emotionally resonant environment that aligns with the themes of vulnerability and growth. By prioritizing emotional tone over strict realism, his design blurs the boundaries between imagination and reality, deepening the storytelling’s impact. (The Light in the Piazza runs through June 15.)
Also wrapping up its season, the Lyric Stage is staging Hello, Dolly!, one of musical theater’s most beloved classics. Based on Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, Hello, Dolly! unfolds as a 19th-century marriage-plot comedy set in New York and Yonkers, brimming with hijinks and instantly recognizable songs. Directed by the multi-talented Maurice Emmanuel Parent—actor, singer, dancer, and educator—this production is high-wattage entertainment. The Lyric’s intimate stage bursts beyond its boundaries with exuberant energy. (Hello, Dolly! runs through June 22.)
American Repertory Theater is also producing a musical, but their springtime offering isn’t a revival. Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) makes its North American premiere after playing in London’s West End.
The story line is the familiar rom-com meet cute, but resemblance to the formulaic ends there. The entire production features just two characters–the brilliant soon-to-be stars Christiani Pitts (Robin) and Sam Tutty (Dougal)–as they cavort their way through New York City from Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to the Plaza Hotel. With their matched set of British and American Gen Z angst, Robin and Dougal are sharp witted and full of insights that are uncannily apropos to this moment in time. Soutra Gilmour’s set resembles a pile of luggage—a visual metaphor for the untethered and provisional quality of so many of our lives—and is ingeniously adapted as the story unfolds. Having musicians upstage makes for a night of full-bodied musical theatre, one that is both heartwarming as well as soberingly real. Written by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, Two Strangers is destined to be a hit.(The run continues through June 29.) [Note: This response to Two Strangers was added after publication, on May 28.]
Ultimately, musical theater coexists with postmodern cynicism by refusing to surrender to it. In an age of irony, it offers sincerity. It reclaims space for wonder, vulnerability, and collective storytelling—reminding us that people still long to be moved. All of these productions were played to sold-out houses. And as my theater companion said on the way out: “Who doesn’t want to step out of life and just be delighted for two hours?”
