“I get close to a hundred ‘screeners’ every year, and I religiously go through them all, watching every single film,” says Bill Jasper of Sonoma. As a retired CEO of Dolby Laboratories, Jasper has been an active voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1999. This year’s ceremony – which…
‘There is never an easy time to do something that has never been done before.” True enough. In author-playwright Mary Spletter’s world premiere, Arches, Balance and Light, those words are more than just encouraging advice offered to a determined young pioneer; they form a kind of philosophical spine to a play that, in its own right,…
David Pokorny once traveled the highways of America, living out of hotel rooms and telling jokes every night in comedy clubs large and small. Today, the stories he tells about that time on the road are priceless and often feature memories of working with major stand-up comics from Robin Williams and Bill Maher to Paula…
Last year, Spreckels Theater Company staged an unconventional revival of Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘Carousel,’ a play many have heard of but few have ever actually seen. Eschewing complex sets, shoreline scenery—and, you know, an actual carousel—director Gene Abravaya inverted the whole concept, hauling the orchestra up from the pit, and letting the show unfold in…
With just one more show to go in its inaugural season, Left Edge Theater has scheduled a season two announcement party like none other. On February 26 and 27, the decision of which shows the company stages next will be determined by audience vote. It’s a clever idea, and it was bound to happen eventually. It…
Impressively detailed and charmingly convincing, the magnificent bed-and-breakfast set for Sonoma Arts Live’s production of “Same Time, Next Year” features a prominently positioned king-size bed, adorned with fluffy pillows and a thick, gold comforter. Less than a week before its Feb. 12 opening night, members of the design crew scamper up and down ladders, adjusting…
“What I want audiences to take away from The Danish Girl is the fact that this, above all else, was a great love story.” The remarkably soft-spoken Tom Hooper, British director of numerous award-winning movies including Les Miserables and The King’s Speech, is addressing a roomful of reporters and photographers on the opening night of the Mill Valley Film Festival, where…
Mirrors are both set dressing and metaphor in a pair of recently opened plays in which the characters take a hard look at their world, their choices and their naked souls. Set in a tiny South African community in 1974, Athol Fugard’s three-actor The Road to Mecca, running at Main Stage West, was inspired by the…
“I bet Jane Austen is spinning in her grave right now,” I overheard a matronly woman gleefully stating to a bored box office attendant, just seconds after purchasing a ticket for ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.’ The kid behind the counter, slightly startled to have been addressed in such a conversational tone (and by someone so OLD), merely shrugged,…
“The whole idea of storytelling has always been very appealing to me,” says full-time winemaker and part-time storyteller Bill Reading. Reading, founder of Sonoma Portworks, smiles as he adds, “I think I’ve been interested in the power of stories even longer than I’ve been making wine.” It’s been 22 years since Sonoma-resident Reading founded his…
North Bay Stage and Screen 