by Cari Lynn Pace * I was hesitant to invite my friend to join me for Marin Theatre’s Bay Area premiere of The White Chip, now running in Mill Valley through Sep. 20. This semi-autobiographical comedy, written by Sean Daniels, is billed as “a humorous and human play about addiction and recovery.” The title refers…
by Barry Willis * The black-box Condiotti Theatre at Spreckels Performing Arts Center morphs into Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, a 17th-century courtroom, a torture chamber, an execution site, and more in Bill Cain’s Equivocation, now running in Rohnert Park through September 13. Adroitly directed by Spreckels’ artistic director Sheri Lee Miller, Cain’s 2009 play melds real…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Mercury Theater has done a masterful job presenting the hopes and dreams of a hardworking, self-sustaining seamstress in Intimate Apparel. This award-winning story by Lynn Nottage is presented by Mercury Theater at the old Cinnabar theater on top of a hill in Petaluma. The show runs through Sep. 13. It’s…
Beulah Vega guest hosted the 09/03/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM and interviewed cast member Mercedes Murphy and director Leontyne Mbele-Mbong from the Mercury Theater production of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel. The intimate drama runs in the little red schoolhouse on the hill in Petaluma through September 13. Click HERE for…
by Barry Willis * Playwright Lynn Nottage is a national treasure. Her plays such as Sweat, Clyde’s, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, and The Secret Life of Bees are always popular, always entertaining, and always thought-provoking. They tend to run in unexpected directions, which only partly explains their enormous appeal. Petaluma’s Mercury Theater is…
by Harry Duke * We live in a time when the need to attract an ever-dwindling audience to live theatre often leads to a company programming the latest Hollywood-style spectacle or musical adaptation of a well-known movie or television series. It’s either that or the old tried-and-true and very familiar. Shakespeare, anyone? It’s good to…
My guests on the 08/27/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were cast members Jeff Coté and Jereme Anglin from the Spreckels Theatre Company production of Equivocation. The political thriller set in Shakespeare’s time runs in the Condiotti Black Box Experimental Theater in the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park through…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific, now running at 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa through Sep. 20, debuted 75 years ago. Even though it harkens back to a simpler and more sanitized time, it still resonates today with romantic songs and a powerful message. Its strengths leads one to forgive…
by Cari Lynn Pace * I took my English friend with me to Marin Shakespeare Company’s current production of Julius Caesar in the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre at Dominican University (now running through Sep. 13). My friend was as riveted as I was with the staging and characters and joked “This is bloody good.” Indeed—Julius Caesar…
by Cari Lynn Pace Who should control – and profit from – a cure for all diseases in the world? Does the creation of such potential benefit belong in the hands of a joint venture firm who developed it? Who can be trusted to test its effectiveness, and if it works, who would distribute such…
My guests on the second of two 08/20/26 “Theatre Thursday” segments on The Drive on 95.5 FM were director/choreographer Malia Abayon and assistant director/choreographer HarriettePearl Fugitt from the 6th Street Playhouse production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. The show runs on the GK Hardt stage at 6th Street Playhouse through September 20. Click HERE…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Several Broadway stars escaped New York’s scorching heat to join a sensational cast of 24 and show up on the bucolic Sonoma stage under the stars in Transcendence Theatre Company’s Mamma Mia! The show features twenty-two songs and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, two members of the wildly…
My guests on the first of two 08/20/26 “Theatre Thursday” segments on The Drive on 95.5 FM were Jeff Coté and playwright Joseph Rodota for a discussion about 6th Street Playhouse’s Live Reading Series presentation of Chessman. Jeff filled us in on the Live Reading Series while Joe talked about his dramatization of the circumstances…
by Harry Duke * Transcendence Theatre Company closes out their 2026 Broadway Under the Stars series with the popular ABBA jukebox musical Mamma Mia! It’s the show’s first Sonoma County appearance after a couple of Marin County mountings including a 2018 production by The Mountain Play atop Mt. Tamalpais and a season-closing production just this…
by Barry Willis * San Francisco Playhouse has launched another incisive play from the talented Aaron Loeb, whose dark comedy Ideation went from a much-praised local phenomenon to a weeks-long run off-Broadway. That production was a disturbing look into the world of business consultants tasked with creating a foolproof way to dispose of millions of…
North Bay Stage and Screen 