Our reviews from HERE Arts Center.
Arias with a Twist at HERE Arts Center is a dazzling mix of puppetry, drag, comedy, and music that fully immerses the audience in its eccentric world. Joey Arias commands the intimate space with energetic performances and clever staging, bringing dynamic scale shifts and bold humor. This extravagant, lovingly crafted show celebrates the art of performance with both wild joy and touching moments.
The Menopause Monologues is a vibrant, fearless celebration of voices long left unheard. Blending comedy, music, dance, and deeply personal storytelling, it transforms a historically silenced topic into something urgent, human, and powerfully entertaining. Bold, compassionate, and joyfully theatrical, it invites conversation while building a shared, unforgettable experience.
Dear John is an intimate, one-woman journey that begins with a Facebook message and unfolds into a moving exploration of identity, family, and second chances. Blending humor, technology, and heartfelt storytelling, Rachel Lin delivers a captivating performance that bridges cultures and generations, reminding us how powerful it can be to reach out and reconnect.
Entangled turns a roadside gas station into a playground of quantum mystery, where time bends, people vanish, and the ordinary becomes strange. Blending comedy, movement, and sci-fi curiosity, the ensemble dives into questions of free will and coincidence. Playful, clever, and unpredictably fun, it’s downtown theatre that embraces chaos with charm.
The Magnificent Ms. Pham brings Vietnam’s ancient water puppetry tradition to life in a lyrical journey through family, migration, and the pull between tradition and change. Guided by music and striking visual storytelling, the piece traces one woman’s life across generations. A culturally rich finale to Puppetopia that celebrates heritage, history, and the quiet seeds of rebellion.
Ruby & Charlie is a wordless, soul-infused love story told through exquisite tabletop puppetry and live music. In just 45 minutes, two wooden figures make us laugh, ache, forgive, and dance through the rhythms of partnership. Tender, universal, and deeply human, it reminds us that love remains our greatest transformative force.
Parched turns a water-scarce future into a visually stunning, wordless puppet epic. With recycled creatures, cinematic lighting, and live music driving the action, Official Puppet Business craft a dystopian Wild West that feels thrilling and unsettling. Beneath the spectacle lies a timely warning about scarcity, survival, and the fragile future we are hurtling toward.
Set in the round and unfolding almost like an album played straight through, Dream Feed is an immersive, dreamlike concert-theatre experience powered by exquisite three-part harmonies. With stunning lighting, inventive instruments and themes spanning awakening, family, love, and death, it’s spine-tinglingly intimate, so affecting you’ll leave speechless and wanting to see it again.