by Barry Willis * Sonoma Arts Live continues its ambitious and mostly successful run of boy-meets-girl favorite The Light in the Piazza through May 10. A tale about an American woman and her daughter on a tour of Italy, with book by Craig Lucas and music by Adam Guettel, the stage show, based on the…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Sonoma Arts Live invites the audience to join a mother and daughter as they sightsee in Florence, Italy in this musical with lyrics by Adam Guettel based on Craig Lucas’s book. The stage, designed Laurynn Malilay and Sandra Ish, overflows with statuary, fountains, lush plantings, and a live band directed…
by Barry Willis * A corrupt businessman lands in Washington DC, intent on buying a Senator as part of an effort to get legislation passed to improve his fortune. Currying favor among the ruling class is one of humanity’s oldest tales, one that will never go away. The stage play of Garson Kanin’s Born Yesterday…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Conceived by Jeff Whitty and based on The Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney, Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse tackles the jukebox musical Head Over Heels with gusto. The Go-Go’s, the all-girl band whose music is featured, give us quite a music collection to enjoy. This mash-up of Shakespearean patois with…
by Cari Lynn Pace * If you expect this rock music show to be loud and in-your-face, you are correct. What you may not expect is how Alanis Morissette’s emotional songs resonate in today’s angry world. Drug use? Sexual predators? Political privilege? Color bias? Lover infidelity? They’re all here, exploding from the intimate Novato Theater…
by Barry Willis * In the early 1970s, in the wake of the phenomenal success of the groundbreaking musical “Hair” came a spate of hippie-era religious-themed productions—“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” and “Godspell” among them. This last-mentioned show is enjoying a revival with some contemporary updates at Lucky Penny Productions in…
by Barry Willis * Teenage angst gets a full workout in ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| at American Conservatory Theater’s Strand Theater on Market Street in San Francisco, through April 19. Set in the East Bay, the story is about four girls in a summer music program, preparing for a final concert before…
by Cari Lynn Pace * If you are a fan of Stephen Sondheim, you will be delighted with this Throckmorton Theatre production of Company. If you don’t care for Sondheim’s repetitive musical style, you will still be delighted with this production. It’s a show filled with non-stop energy. Company focuses on bachelor Bobby’s 35th birthday…
by Barry Willis * A week has passed since the press opener of Berkeley Rep’s revamp of Arthur Miller’s enduring family drama All My Sons. Presumably some of the hysteria around this production has faded a bit, but during opening week there was plenty of it among the critical community. “Transcendent,” “revelatory,” and “a magnum…
By Beulah F. Vega * Napa Valley College has opened it’s two weekend (02/27- 03/08) run of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. The almost three-hour-long show tells the story of a baker (Gabriel Logan Reyes) and his wife (Lindsay Stark) who must go into the woods to gather the ingredients needed to lift a curse…
North Bay Stage and Screen 