Boston Theatre District

Boston: A theater fan's guide

&Mdash; With its historic buildings and big, green Boston Commons for people-watching, this city just plain feels dramatic. It's no surprise that it's home to a wealth of theaters.

Unfortunately, some of them no longer house live theater productions. The Wilbur, built in 1940, is now a performance venue (Mary Chapin Carpenter takes the stage Aug. 18) , and at an old theater at 690 Washington St., you can now get some pretty good dim sum. (It's now Empire Garden Chinese restaurant.)

Still, there's plenty of live theater left in Boston, vigorously supported by its academic community. The Huntington Theatre Company (264 Huntington Ave., huntingtontheatre.org) , the 30-year-old professional theater affiliated with Boston University , is one of my own favorites. This fall's season opens Sept. 10 with Leonard Bernstein's musical interpretation of Voltaire's "Candide."

Emerson College is responsible for restoring the Cutler Majestic Theatre (219 Tremont St.), built in 1903, as well as the Paramount Theater (559 Washington St.), a 1930s movie theater. Part of the Paramount is now the intimate Black Box Theatre. All three of these venues are used for live theater performances as well as other events. See what's playing at artsemerson.org.

The Shubert, built in 1910, is home to the Lyric Opera (Verdi's "Macbeth" opens Nov. 4). In the offseason it hosts concerts and touring Broadway productions.

Cambridge boasts the esteemed American Repertory Company (64 Brattle St., americanrepertorytheater.org) , where "Porgy and Bess" opens Aug. 17 with a terrific cast: Audra McDonald, Norm Lewis and David Alan Grier.

For another couple of weeks, you can still see Shakespeare's works performed in an enchanting setting on the Boston Common (www.commshakes.org).

And, of course, if you're up for a long-running show such as "Shear Madness" or "Blue Man Group," Boston offers those, too. The touring production of "South Pacific" arrives at the Boston Opera House on Sept. 27. Look up the entire current roster of shows on boston-theater.com.

For productions in the Boston theater district proper, roughly south of Boston Common (although it splays out east and west), your best bet is to stay in the Back Bay area, and it's full of hotels. I'm going to suggest two theater-and-hotel combos, though, that you might particularly enjoy.

For the aforementioned Huntington Theatre, my go-to hotel is the Colonnade Boston (120 Huntington Ave., 617-424-7000, colonnadehotel.com) , which offers very comfortable, contemporary rooms in a full-service hotel that also has the only rooftop pool (with a bar, of course) in Boston. Rooms start at $209 — not bad for Boston, which tends to be quite expensive.

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