Phil Straub is not a flashy guy. He’s quiet, which is why he’s good with horses. In director Tom Donahue’s powerful documentary ‘Thank You For Your Service,’ Straub is one of several U.S. veterans who appear to discuss the experience of being a warrior returning from war. For Straub, one of the ways he’s found to heal…
“Theater is storytelling,” says director Libby Oberlin, describing the conspicuously non-theatrical approach she’s taken to staging Sonoma Arts Live’s latest production, “Love, Loss and What I Wore.” “So the way we’re presenting it,” she says, “is a celebration of the art and tradition of on-stage storytelling.” Written by the sister-sister team of Norah Ephron (“When…
Well. It’s begun. As happens at the beginning of each new year, a number of theaters are starting to announce the shows that will make up the next theatrical season. First out of the gate is Novato Theater Company, which earlier this week sent out a press release describing its 2016-17 season, along with an open…
“I watch a lot of football,” proclaimed Jessie Neilson, of San Francisco’s Opera on Tap, where her official title is “co-managing diva.” “So many of the commercials they play during football games use classical music, and a lot of those pieces are from operas,” she said. “Whenever a football commercial needs something dramatic, it’s almost…
Rating: ★★★½ (Out of five) — (Theater-at-Large) A strong ensemble of North Bay performers, bolstered by uniformly fine singing voices, is the primary magic ingredient in Theater-at-Large’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. Resurrected for a reprise run at Spreckels Performing Arts Center, this is an encore staging of the delightfully dark fairy-tale mashup that…
“When I first decided to invest in making the movie,” says Gary Nelson, of the feature film “First Girl I Loved,” “my wife said, ‘Gary, you know what investing in films is like. You might as well take that money and put it on a street corner for someone to stumble over, somebody who’ll end…
Rating: ★★★★ (Out of five) — Cinnabar Theater “Sometimes,” exhorts actress Sharon E. Scott, stirringly embodying the rich voice and sassy-sweet attitude of the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. “Sometimes, God turns your life upside down—so you can help turn things right side up.” In the sensational, heartbreaking and soul-lifting biographical theater piece Mahalia Jackson: Just…
January 6 — In a recently distributed message from Frank Chong, President of the Santa Rosa Junior College, it was announced that the school’s much-used Burbank Auditorium – home to SRJC’s Theater Arts program and the popular Summer Repertory Theatre program – will be getting a long-delayed upgrade and remodeling. Using grant money’s set aside for the improvement…
Much in the way that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the most talked-about movie of 2015, the North Bay theater scene already has its share of shows that are receiving major advance buzz. Stephen Sondheim’s dark-tinged musical fairy tale Into the Woods is staged often but rarely well. The music is hard, the cast is large, and there is…
As a New Year’s Eve project, I decided to pull together a picture for each show I saw somewhere, within the North Bay or beyond, in 2015. It turned out NOT to be a short, simple project, and by the time 2015 turned into 2015, I was only a third of the way through. So…
North Bay Stage and Screen 