Dead as a Dodo, and other Boston productions this weekend

Sometimes the magic of theater is watching a whole world appear out of almost nothing.

Correction: This article corrects the production company for We Had a World. It is The Huntington Theater.

We're just eclipsing the dead of winter. Snow banks on sidewalks are ebbing. Afternoon sun flirts with us for a few hours before disappearing. And the promise of spring is nearly close enough to tickle.

It's on nights like this that I most love being at the theater, escaping from the darkness of another winter night, in a scrum of people similarly brushing off the season.

And what better show to escape in right now than Dead as a Dodo, presented by ArtsEmerson through March 8 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre.

ArtsEmerson describes the story this way:

Set in a strange and playful underworld, Dead as a Dodo follows an extinct dodo and a skeleton boy who survive by digging for bones each day. When the dodo unexpectedly begins to grow feathers again, the pair are thrust into a chaotic adventure as they flee danger, confront the forces of life and death, and discover what it means to change while holding onto one another.

It's a compelling tale, but one that was sidelined for me by the visual magic of masterful choreography. Lights layer across the stage to create caves, forests, and shifting landscapes. Puppeteers move in tight coordination not only with each other but with the sound and the lighting itself. The score is just as carefully woven in — lovely and occasionally haunting, but also playful enough to draw laughs and linger in your head after the curtain call. The album is available on Apple Music. The effect is immersive and at times almost overwhelming — a world unfolding in motion, built from light, shadow, music, and extraordinary physical precision.

Dead as a Dodo was created by the award-winning theater company Wakka Wakka, led by Kirjan Waage and Gwendolyn Warnock. It premiered in Chicago in January 2024, and toured in 2025, including performances in New York at the city's annual Under the Radar festival. It is the third installment of the group's Animalia trilogy.

Sometimes the magic of theater is watching a whole world appear out of almost nothing. And isn't that what we're waiting for Spring to do right now?

Dead as a Dodo is playing through March 8 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Also showing this weekend

The Antiquities — Central Square Theater at the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts (South End)

In the not-so-distant future, a team of curators at the Museum of Late Human Antiquities painstakingly reconstruct the past: vinyl records, yoga mats, even grief itself. But as their exhibit grows, so do the cracks in their understanding of what it meant to be human. Jordan Harrison’s The Antiquities is a haunting and surprisingly funny meditation on memory, extinction, and the strangeness of humanity.

Opens this weekend.

The Bald Soprano and The Lesson — Actors’ Shakespeare Project at the BCA Plaza Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts (South End)

Everything is as it should be-or is it? Ridiculous on the surface but razor-sharp underneath, The Bald Soprano & The Lesson is a fast, funny, absurdist double feature. As the laughs pile up in The Bald Soprano, polite dinner party chatter unravels, propriety goes off the rails, and ultimately, conformity spirals into chaos. In The Lesson a hysterical tutoring session explodes into a nonsensical power struggle fueled by misplaced authority. The result is a frenetic theatrical tour-de-force that is simultaneously comedic and profound which asks audiences to laugh loudly but think deeply.

This weekend only.

We Had a World —  The Huntington at the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts (South End)

A dying woman calls her grandson and asks him to write a play about their family. “But I want you to promise me something,” she says. “Make it as bitter and vitriolic as possible.” In this searing, funny, and deeply personal play, the author of Prayer for the French Republic recreates thirty years of family fights, monstrous behavior, enduring love, and unexpected dishes of home-cooked spaetzle.

Closes March 15.

You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! — Boston Public Library, Copley Square (Back Bay)

Come one, come all to a sparkling celebration of life, death, and cosmic connection! When Greg receives a terminal cancer diagnosis (and weird dream visitations from Greta Thunberg), he finally understands his true purpose and races to save Mother Earth as climate catastrophe looms. Meanwhile, Viv tries to hold it all together, but really just wants to stop time and hide under the covers with her husband. And through it all, our emcee, M, charts their own path while Dad is dying, life is a drag, and the world keeps spinning.

Opens this weekend.

Zabel in Exile (Feb 19 – Mar 8, 2026) — Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (Fenway / BU campus)

Yerevan, 1937. Armenian writer and activist Zabel Yessayan sits in a Soviet prison cell, awaiting execution. But what exactly is her crime? Writing novels? Knowing how to speak French? Being a woman? As Zabel confronts her captors, past and present blur, and she reckons with the injustices she has witnessed and confronted—from schoolyard bullying to the horrors of genocide. Zabel in Exile is a searing memory play that honors the strength of a woman unafraid to stand up to tyranny and wrestles with whether it is possible to continue to believe in light during times of endless darkness.

Closes March 8.