by Cari Lynn Pace You won’t need any coffee to get fired up for this outrageous office comedy. With music and lyrics by Dolly Parton, and direction by Larry Williams, this show is an overtime winner. Novato Theater Company put in long hours to hire three female leads with confident voices and pencil-sharp acting skills.…
by Cari Lynn Pace Ross Valley Players now rehearse a play that’s spoken all in verse. Moliere’s ‘Tartuffe’ is a sensation; French to English script translation. Richard Wilbur uses rhyme to set the play in 60’s time. Tartuffe the hypocrite has power. He will take and all devour. Manipulating son and mother, They are warned…
by Cari Lynn Pace Lucky Penny Productions always seems to have such fun shows, with non-stop energy and over-the-top characters. This one is a real zinger! La Cage aux Folles is a madcap romp with zippy dancers in trippy costumes. It’s a drag nightclub, where genders are blurred by shiny costumes and lots of mascara.…
by Cari Lynn Pace The sleepy little wine tasting hamlet of Sonoma has a real rockin’ blues concert with Sonoma Arts Live’s latest production. A Night with Janis Joplin, originally produced on Broadway in 2013, is a stage full of classic blues re-enacted by powerhouse singers. They’re backed up with a 7-piece band raising the…
by Cari Lynn Pace Every star has a story to tell as she worked her way to the Broadway stage. Transcendence Theatre Company, the Sonoma home for stage and screen luminaries, realized these stories are fascinating for their fun and failures. They built a show around seven women who spanned seven decades of singing and…
by Cari Lynn Pace In Eureka Day, a multiculturally sensitive school set in Berkeley, enlightenment is virtuous and facts are probably suspicious. A mirror could reveal other hamlets where this theme reigns supreme. Whether you put your trust in the CDC, where RFK Jr. is the chief mountebank selling snake oil, or the medical professionals…
by Cari Lynn Pace A Chorus Line opens with a backstage look at dozens of dancers trying out for a part in a new show. The live music is energizing and brassy; the director of the audition is pushy and demanding. After dance eliminations, only seventeen remain onstage. They’re exhausted and nervous as they urgently…
The Marquee Theater Journalists Association, a North Bay-based critics group originally formed in 2015 but dormant since the pandemic, has announced their “rebooting” and the resumption of their annual theater awards program. The following message was emailed on September 1 to the leaders of the North Bay theatre community from MTJA member Harry Duke: Back…
by Cari Lynn Pace Where do playwrights come up with the ideas for such laughable plots? Featherbaby, David Templeton’s latest play, features a young woman and her foul-mouthed and aggressively possessive parrot, a bird who schemes to separate its owner from her suitors. Just imagine Spreckels Theatre Company having a casting call to audition actors…
By Cari Lynn Pace When I was 20, I listened to Carole King’s album Tapestry so often it’s a wonder the phonograph needle didn’t cut through to the other side. I sang along with the gusto of youth and the emotion of young love. I was nurtured by all the heartfelt lyrics to “It’s Too…
North Bay Stage and Screen 