by Harry Duke * After a couple of rabble-rousing, politically-bent productions, Petaluma’s Mercury Theater shifts to British comedy with their production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. The Michael Fontaine-directed production runs through Mar. 21. The play, written in 1930, has served as a vehicle for some of the top performers of the past century, including…
by Harry Duke * For centuries France has produced such famous playwrights as Molière, Beaumarchais, Rostand, Sartre, and Ionesco and such plays as Tartuffe, The Marriage of Figaro, Cyrano de Bergerac, No Exit, and Rhinoceros. And yet, according to the Guinness World Record organization, the most performed French play in the world is a 1960s…
My guests on the 02/26/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 were Michael Fontaine and Zane Walters from the Mercury Theater production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. The show runs in “the little red schoolhouse on the hill” in Petaluma from March 6 through March 21. Click below to listen: ********** Click HERE…
My guests on the 02/19/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 were Isiah Carter and Lexus Fletcher from the Left Edge Theatre production of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South-West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915. The…
My guests on the 02/12/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 were Jake Druzgala and Orion Pudoff from the Spreckels Theatre Company production of Hands on a Hardbody. The show runs in the Codding Theater at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park through March 1. Click below to listen: ********** Click…
by Harry Duke * A middle-aged British woman, wife, and mother wonders whatever became of herself and sets out to rediscover life in Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine. Jennifer King stars in the one-woman show now running on the Rotary Stage in the Sonoma Community Center through Feb. 22. We meet Shirley in her Liverpool home…
by Harry Duke * An upside-down family gets right-sided with the help of a practically perfect nanny in P.L. Travers classic Mary Poppins. In between the 1964 Disney film adaption and its belated 2018 sequel, Cameron Mackintosh put together a Broadway musical that featured elements of the Disney film along with new material. Santa Rosa’s…
My guest on the second of two 02/05/26 “Theatre Thursday” segments on The Drive on 95.5 FM was Jennifer King, currently appearing in Sonoma Arts Live’s production of Shirley Valentine. The show runs on the Rotary Stage of the Sonoma Community Center in Sonoma through February 22. Click below to listen: ********** Click HERE for…
My guests on the first of two 02/05/26 “Theatre Thursday” segments on The Drive on 95.5 FM were Caroline Flett and Celina Kegerreis from the 6th Street Playhouse production of Mary Poppins. The show has two casts of main characters appearing on diffferent nights through March 1 in the GK Hardt Theatre of Santa Rosa’s…
My guests on the 01/29/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 were YWCA of Sonoma County Chief Executive Officer Madeleine Keegan-O’Connell and Press Democrat columnist Chris Smith to talk about their upcoming benefit performance of A. R. Gurney’s Love Letters. The one-night-only performance will be held Friday, February 13 in the Carsten Cabaret…
North Bay Stage and Screen 