by Harry Duke * With summer drawing to close, local theatre companies are prepping their houses for a robust 2026/27 season. Live theatre productions in Northern Sonoma County will include the usual mixture of the tried and true along with a sprinkling of newer works to keep things interesting for the frequent theatre-goer. Healdsburg’s Raven…
by Harry Duke * With summer drawing to close, local theatre companies are prepping their houses for a robust 2026/27 season. Live theatre productions in Marin will include the usual mixture of the tried and true along with a sprinkling of North Bay premieres to keep things interesting for the frequent theatre-goer. Mill Valley’s Marin…
by Harry Duke * With summer drawing to close, North Bay theatre companies are prepping their houses for a robust 2026 – 2027 season. Live theatre productions in Sonoma and Napa counties will include the usual mixture of the tried and true along with a sprinkling of North Bay premieres to keep things interesting for…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Ray of Light Theatre’s Urinetown: The Musical opened on July 31 in San Francisco and has been filling The Barbary Stage with wildly enthusiastic audiences ever since. This show, with music and lyrics by Mark Hollmann and book and lyrics by Greg Kotis, has everything going for it: dazzling staging,…
by Harry Duke * Fans of Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 sci-fi thriller Total Recall (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) or, for the real cinephile, John Frankenheimer’s underrated 1966 sci-fi thriller Seconds (starring Rock Hudson, of all people) looking for something in the same vein would do well to seek out a production of Bay Area playwright Greg Lam’s…
My guest on the 08/06/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM was Lori Haley Fox from the upcoming Transcendence Theatre Company presentation of Mamma Mia! Lori appeared in the original West End production, the National Touring company, the Broadway production, and the Meryl Streep movie version of the musical! The ABBA musical…
by Harry Duke * Sandy Rustin’s The Cottage, now running at the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center through August 16, has all the hallmarks of a classic Noël Coward comedy: an early 20th-century setting, an English countryside abode, philandering spouses, lots of drinking and smoking, and witty banter delivered in British accents. That it was written…
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…
North Bay Stage and Screen 