by Barry Willis * San Francisco’s Ray of Light Theatre is giving Urinetown, the Musical a lot of love. Both a spoof of its own musical genre and an exploration of persistent social and environmental problems, the Tony winner by Mark Holmann and Greg Kotis is a tremendously engaging sharp-edged but blunt-force production running through…
My guests on the 07/30/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were Nicola Vann and Josh Wolonick from the Los Angeles-based Bardfly Theatre Co. for a chat about their production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. They’re bringing their site-specific production of the bard’s comedy to two North Bay venues – Kenwood’s…
by Cari Lynn Pace * It’s no secret that many actors, singers, and performers are the “working poor” in our arts culture. Rarely can they sustain their livelihood if they don’t have a backup job, particularly if illness strikes. In 1994 two mothers lived through the deaths of their struggling actor sons from AIDS. Barbara…
My guests on the 07/23/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were Lukas Raphael and Amanda Vitiello from the Jacobethan Theatre Workshop to talk about their season of “Shakespeare in the Park(ing Lot)”. They’ll be bringing a stripped-down, modern-dress version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to three locations this year – Santa Rosa…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Sonoma Arts Live’s season-closing Once Upon a Mattress holds plenty of delights. This Tony-award nominated 1959 musical with a book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller & Marshall Barer and lyrics by Barer and music by Mary Rogers runs through August 2. Based on the ageless fairy tale The Princess and…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Hairspray is the Tony Award-winning, Broadway-busting musical based on the same-titled 1988 movie by John Waters now running at San Francisco Playhouse. With a book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, Hairspray soars with music by Marc Shaiman and clever lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Whittman. Masterfully directed by Bill…
My guest on the 07/09/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM was Michael Gene Sullivan, writer of and performer in the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s latest theatrical poke in the eye of the establishment called WRECKAGE: A Musical Tragicomedy. The show is on tour throughout Northern California with stops in Sonoma County…
My guests on the second of two 07/02/26 “Theatre Thursday” segments on The Drive on 95.5 FM were writer/director Maureen O’Neill and performer Gregory Bailey from the 6th Street Playhouse workshop production of The (Unbelievably True) Story of Nicky O. The original rock musical has three performances at 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa on…
My guests on the first of two 07/02/26 “Theatre Thursday” segments on The Drive on 95.5 FM were Aaron LaVigne and Jenna Rubaii from the Transcendence Theatre Company presentation of Radio Recall: The Soundtrack of Your Life. I also had time to get Aaron to share a few thoughts on his working on the infamous…
Cites “cumulative effect of years of cuts, instability, neglect, and diminishing support”. by Harry Duke * Santa Rosa High School’s award-winning ArtQuest Theatre program has lost Jereme Anglin as a Theatre Arts teacher. In a lengthy letter of resignation submitted to the Santa Rosa High School Administration and Santa Rosa City Schools on June 29,…
by Harry Duke * Despite being adapted from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel, The Secret Garden, the Musical isn’t really a “children’s show” in the modern sense. It opens with the death of a young girl’s parents in a cholera epidemic and then focuses on a father’s inconsolable grief at the death of his…
My guests on the 06/25/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were cast members Tyler Anthony and Phoebe Pruitt from the Raven Players production of Little Shop of Horrors. The musical comedy runs at the Raven Performing Arts Center in Healdsburg through July 12. Click HERE for more info.
by Barry Willis * This coming weekend (June 26-28) closes Cinnabar Theater’s sumptuous production of The Secret Garden, an operetta of hope and triumph by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Norman. It’s 1906 and an orphan girl named Mary Lennox (Violet Spears) has returned to England from India, where…
by Harry Duke * Opera is the theatre art with which I have the least familiarity. Interestingly enough, the very first live performance of any kind that I remember attending as a child (excluding Disney on Ice) was a production of Bizet’s Carmen but since that 5th or 6th grade adventure, the number of opportunities…
My guests on the 06/18/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were stage director Elly Lichenstein and dramatic coloratura soprano Michelle Allie Drever from the Mercury Theater/Pocket Opera co-production of Giacomo Puccini’s La rondine. The opera runs in the little red schoolhouse on the hill in Petaluma through June 28, then travels…
North Bay Stage and Screen 