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Guides
Boston has 6 Nutcrackers this season, and one is in French
The Nutcracker that Boston knows by heart owes its gentle story to France. As the French Library explains, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale was dark and complicated, and Alexandre Dumas, the author of The Three Musketeers, retold it in 1844 as the fairy tale that became Tchaikovsky’s ballet in St. Petersburg in 1892. This December that story shows up all over Greater Boston in six very different versions. One is a full classical ballet with a live orchestra, one moves the party to present-day downtown Boston, one is narrated in French for kids, one swings to Duke Ellington, and one comes to town for a single night with acrobats and giant puppets. Here’s when and where each one plays, what tickets cost where the venue lists a price, and which ones are made for kids. The big one runs Friday, Nov. 27 through Thursday, Dec. 31 at the Citizens Opera House. Mikko Nissinen’s production premiered in 2012 with hand-painted sets and more than 350 costumes made in Massachusetts and designed by Robert Perdziola. The Boston Ballet Orchestra plays Tchaikovsky’s score at every performance, and 83 students from Boston Ballet School dance alongside the company. Plan on about two hours with one intermission, and dress in layers, because the company keeps the theater warmer than usual for the dancers. Boston Ballet says it is the only official seller of tickets, so buy from its site. Groups of 10 or more can save up to 35%, and there is a sensory friendly performance designed for neurodiverse guests and anyone with sensory sensitivities. José Mateo Ballet Theatre brings its 38th annual Nutcracker to the Strand Theatre from Saturday, Dec. 5 through Sunday, Dec. 20. More than 100 kids ages 6 to 18 dance with professional guest artists every year, and Boston Magazine named it Best Family-Friendly Show in Best of Boston 2020. Mateo choreographed this version to Tchaikovsky’s score in 1988, and the company bills it as affordable. Anthony Williams’ Urban Nutcracker sets its winter scenes in present-day downtown Boston and blends Duke Ellington with Tchaikovsky. Classical ballet is the base, with tap, hip hop, flamenco and jazz mixed in. It plays the Boch Center’s Shubert Theatre from Saturday, Dec. 12 through Sunday, Dec. 20, with 10 performances including weekend matinees, and tickets start at $29 at the box office. The touring Nutcracker! production is in town for exactly one show, Friday, Dec. 11 at 7 PM at the Boch Center’s Wang Theatre. Now on its 33rd annual tour, it adds acrobatics and larger-than-life puppets to the ballet. Tickets start at $66 at the box office. On Wednesday, Dec. 9, the Arpeggione Ensemble plays a miniature Nutcracker at the French Library on Marlborough Street. Thomas Carroll’s arrangement fits Tchaikovsky’s full orchestral score into five musicians playing many more than five instruments, with narration in French from Dumas’s version, English subtitles and projected illustrations, so kids can follow along even if they don’t speak a word of French. Doors open at 5:30 PM for a holiday craft atelier for kids and families, the concert starts at 6 PM, and light refreshments follow. Tickets are $30, or $24 for members and French Library students, and kids under 14 get in at no charge with an adult. Berklee’s Holiday Spectacular on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 8 PM is a two-part night at the Berklee Performance Center on Massachusetts Avenue. The Gen-Next All-Stars open with arrangements of holiday songs, then the Diamond Cut Big Band plays Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite, his big band take on Tchaikovsky’s music. The box office at 136 Massachusetts Ave. is open noon to 6 PM Tuesday through Friday, plus two hours before the show.
5 ways to meet singles in Boston without another night of swiping
A dating profile can only tell you so much. Someone can have excellent photos, a respectable job and a very strong opinion about oysters, and you still have no idea whether you would enjoy sitting across from them. Meeting in person gives you something useful immediately: an actual conversation. Boston has organized dating events for that, along with classes, running groups and sports leagues that let you get to know people while doing something you like. The trick is choosing the setting that suits you. If you want everyone there to be looking for a date, buy a ticket to a dating event. If you would rather let a connection develop over time, give yourself a regular reason to leave the house. 1. Book a speed-dating night SpeedBoston Dating offers a fairly direct solution to the problem of spending an evening wondering whether the person you are talking to is single. You book a dating event, meet the other attendees and have a series of short conversations. According to the organizer, each rotation lasts six to seven minutes. That is enough time to get past your names and jobs, without committing your entire night to a conversation that clearly isn’t going anywhere. You make selections through a mobile scorecard, with until midnight to submit your choices. The organizer then lets you view your matches through its platform. Check the current event schedule for the venue, ticket price and eligibility details, because those belong to the individual event. Pick a date you can actually attend, then arrive ready to talk rather than treating the evening as an audition. 2. Join a sports league as a free agent Boston Ski & Sports Club runs adult recreational leagues across Greater Boston, including bowling, kickball, soccer and volleyball. You can register as a free agent, so you do not need to assemble an entire team before joining. Free agents are placed on teams whenever possible, and leagues typically involve one game a week on a consistent night throughout the season. Locations and divisions vary, so check both the venue and skill level before signing up. This is a good route if you like the idea of seeing familiar people more than once. The first week can be introductions, the next can be actual conversation, and you have a shared activity without having to manufacture one. These are sports leagues, so you should want to play the sport. A recreational division that fits your ability is a better choice than pretending you are suddenly very serious about competitive volleyball. 3. Run with Heartbreak Heartbreak Hill Running Company hosts free weekly runs in the Boston area. Its Thursday Signature Speed sessions start at 6:30 p.m. from local stores and include a coached warmup, drills and cooldown. The sessions cover roughly four to six miles, so this is for people who want to run, rather than a walking meetup with running shoes involved. Check the Boston running page for the current locations and session details before heading over. The appeal is having a regular group and a clear reason to be there. You can talk before the workout, learn a few names and come back the following week without needing a dramatic opening line. You might meet someone you want to date, or you might meet people who make your Thursday better. Both are good reasons to keep showing up. 4. Take a class you actually want to take Cambridge Center for Adult Education offers classes in areas including cooking, art, languages, writing and performing arts. Browse the current catalog and choose something you would be interested in even if every other student were married. A course that meets several times gives you more chances to get comfortable with the group. Cooking and art classes also give you something specific to discuss, which helps if starting a conversation with a stranger usually feels like work. Read the course description carefully. Some classes are one-night workshops, others run for several sessions, and prices, materials and prerequisites differ. The point is to give your social life a bit more room. You learn something, meet people outside your usual circle and have a plan that is more interesting than refreshing a dating app. 5. Volunteer with Boston Cares Boston Cares coordinates volunteer projects around Greater Boston, with opportunities to get involved in community work alongside other volunteers. For adults joining its volunteer calendar, the process includes creating an account and completing an orientation. There is a one-time activation fee of $25 for individuals, with a $15 rate for students, seniors and unemployed volunteers. Choose a project because you care about the work and can commit to it. Volunteering gives you an opportunity to spend time with people who share an interest in helping, but it is not an organized singles event. It can still be a worthwhile way to expand your circle, particularly if you return regularly and get to know other volunteers. A bigger social life creates more opportunities for introductions, friendships and, sometimes, dates. You do not need to book a speed-dating night, join a league and become a runner by next Thursday. Choose one thing that appeals to you and make room for it. If you meet someone you like, suggest something simple and specific: coffee after class, a drink another evening or a walk when you are both free. You have already had a conversation, which is a pretty good place to start.
Get to know Boston
Fenway Park is the oldest active MLB ballpark
Fenway Park has been the Red Sox’s home since 1912. It remains the oldest active ballpark in Major League Baseball, ahead of Chicago’s Wrigley Field, which opened in 1914. The age shows in the brickwork, the narrow seats and the steel column that can insert itself into your view of the pitcher. It also shows in how the park fits into Boston. Streets run tight against its walls. Apartments, restaurants and bars surround it. On game days, the crowd starts well outside the gates, spilling through Kenmore Square and along Lansdowne Street. You are visiting a ballpark built for another era. Fenway makes very little effort to hide that. Fenway Park’s first game went into extra innings The first regular-season game took place on April 20, 1912. Boston beat the New York Highlanders, the team now called the Yankees, 7–6 in 11 innings. Tris Speaker drove in the winning run. The crowd presented its own complications. According to SABR’s account of opening day, spectators stood behind ropes in the outfield, and balls hit into that overflow crowd counted as doubles. Fenway was finding unusual ways to affect a baseball game from the start. The opening came five days after the Titanic sank, with coverage of the disaster overshadowing the ballpark’s debut. Boston’s season ended on a happier note: 105 regular-season wins and a World Series victory over the New York Giants. The Red Sox had moved from the Huntington Avenue Grounds, their home since 1901. The new park took its name from the Fenway neighborhood. The Green Monster wasn’t always green The left-field wall stands roughly 37 feet high, with the foul line marked at 310 feet from home plate. Its height can turn a potential home run into a ball rattling back toward an outfielder. Its proximity can reward a fly ball that would stay in the park elsewhere. The wall was once covered in advertising. It received its green paint in 1947, the same year Fenway introduced night baseball. Seats arrived on top in 2003. Below them, the manually operated scoreboard remains part of the game. Someone still has to change those numbers. The rest of the outfield refuses to settle into a predictable shape. Right field reaches just 302 feet at Pesky’s Pole, named for longtime Red Sox player and coach Johnny Pesky. The deepest center-field corner stretches to 420 feet. A ball’s destination matters as much as how hard it was hit. Boston nearly replaced it Fenway’s survival was a choice. In 1999, Red Sox management announced plans for a replacement ballpark across the street. Preservation advocates organized, and financing the proposal proved difficult. The ownership group that bought the team in 2002 chose renovation. As SABR’s ballpark history documents, a structural study found the existing park viable, and substantial investment followed. Fenway had already undergone a major rebuild in 1934. The surviving wooden grandstand seats date to that renovation, rather than opening day. Later improvements expanded concourses and added seating without erasing the park’s recognizable shape. The result is a working stadium with more than a century of alterations. Some brought better facilities. None made every seat comfortable. More than a baseball field Fenway has accommodated football, soccer, hockey, concerts and political speeches. The Boston Patriots played home games here from 1963 through 1968, decades before their Foxborough years became the default association. Baseball supplies the moments most fans remember, including Carlton Fisk waving his home run fair in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Fenway also hosted the first two games of the 2004 World Series, when Boston finally ended its 86-year championship drought. The clinching win happened in St. Louis. Going to a game or taking a tour For the full experience, go when the Red Sox are playing. Arrive with time to walk around the neighborhood rather than heading straight from the train to your seat. Official tours offer another way inside, with access subject to availability. Check the particular tour before booking. The address is 4 Jersey Street. The MBTA’s Fenway directions identify Kenmore on the Green Line’s B, C and D branches as a nearby stop. Fenway station on the D branch is also within walking distance. Commuter rail passengers can use Lansdowne on the Worcester Line. Before buying game tickets, check the view from the actual section, row and seat. Grandstand support columns are part of the architecture, but you don’t have to spend nine innings admiring one.
Why Bostonians say “wicked” so much
“Wicked good” is a compliment. “Wicked expensive” is a complaint. The same word does both jobs without any concern for whether the subject deserves praise. In Boston, “wicked” often means very or extremely. It turns up the volume on whatever comes next. Say someone is wicked tired and you mean they are very tired, not that they have become a worse person. The meaning comes from how the word is being used. That is the useful thing to know before attempting a Boston impression. You can pronounce every R and still use the word correctly. You can also drop every R and put “wicked” in a sentence where it sounds like you learned to speak from a souvenir sweatshirt. Why Bostonians say wicked before almost anything In this usage, “wicked” is an intensifier. Merriam-Webster records its adverbial meaning alongside the older adjective meaning morally bad. The two uses can occupy the same language without confusion. A wicked person and a wicked good sandwich are different propositions. Think of “wicked cold,” “wicked funny” or “wicked crowded.” The word strengthens the description. It does not tell you whether to like the thing being described. Someone saying the restaurant was wicked busy might be recommending it, explaining a long wait, or wishing they had stayed home. The placement is more important than putting on an accent. “That was wicked good” has the familiar local construction. “That was wicked,” meaning excellent, is another slang use, but it does a different grammatical job. Adding the word everywhere will not make every sentence sound more Boston. The Puritans do not get automatic credit Boston’s reputation makes an origin story involving stern Puritans tempting. But the fact that an old word existed in England does not prove that seventeenth-century settlers brought this particular local use with them. The language program A Way with Words discusses “wicked” as a New England intensifier. That regional association is useful. It does not supply the name of the first person who said it, or a neat date when everyone in Massachusetts agreed to start. There is no need to invent a founding ceremony. People repeat words they hear in their families and communities, and a familiar expression can feel entirely ordinary to one speaker and immediately regional to another. “Wicked” works perfectly well without a colonial certificate of authenticity. Ordering a frappe does not require dropping an R Other local words need a little more translation. A frappe is a thick milkshake; the familiar New England pronunciation rhymes with “cap.” The spelling can make visitors expect a different word, especially if they are thinking of a coffee drink. For an order, the menu is more useful than a debate over terminology. Ask what is in the drink if the distinction matters. Regional vocabulary is interesting until it becomes the reason you receive something other than the ice cream you wanted. “Bubbler” means a drinking fountain, with a history that reaches beyond Massachusetts. Our bubbler explainer separates the regional word from a frequently repeated manufacturing story. Calling it a water fountain is also a perfectly effective way to ask for water. Vocabulary is not the same as an accent The Boston accent concerns sounds: which R’s a speaker pronounces, what happens between words, and how vowels are formed. Vocabulary concerns the words chosen. They overlap in conversation, but one does not require the other. A person raised here might say “wicked” constantly, occasionally, or never. Another might arrive from elsewhere and pick it up. Neither case is a useful citizenship test. Boston contains more than one way of speaking, and ordinary conversation is less uniform than the movie version. If the word is new to you, listen to what follows it. Good, bad, fast, slow, cheap, expensive: the next word does the describing. “Wicked” just makes sure you heard.