Home is Where the Art Is

The sweet and heartfelt family story Painting Churches, winner of the John Gassner Award and Best Off-Broadway Play, is set in a Beacon Hill townhouse owned by Fanny and Gardner Church. As the play opens, the couple is packing, planning to move to a beach home on Cape Cod. Their daughter, Mags, an artist who lives in New York, arrives to help — and to paint their portrait. Gardner (Anderson Matthews), who has become frail, is also having memory problems and in his frustration recites poetry. Meanwhile, Fanny (Ellen Colton) has trouble holding onto a thought, and Mags (Eve Passeltiner) sees her role in the parent-child relationship changing. 

Painting Churches: Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.; Wednesday, 7 p.m. Through April 2. $25-$30. Majestic Theater, 131 Elm St., West Springfield. (413) 747-7797, majestictheater.com.

— Hunter Styles