It’s been fifteen months since local audiences could set foot inside a theatre. Pandemic-necessitated closures and restrictions have limited performing arts organizations to streaming their shows to remain active and connected to their patrons. Try as they might, though, that “style” of production is simply not a replacement for live, in-person theatre. With the availability…
A well-crafted theatre review should contain a hint of plot, introductions to the characters, and evaluations of the performances, direction, and stagecraft. This is all to give a potential audience member some idea what they can expect to experience should they spend some of their hard-earned money on a ticket with the caveat that each…
What do you get when you bring a group of theatre arts students together to produce a show and all you have to begin with is a title? You get a ‘devised play’ called overcome. It’s the Santa Rosa Junior College Theatre Arts Program’s Spring production and it streams on You Tube through May 2.…
I love short play festivals. You get a bunch of different stories and a bunch of different storytellers and, should there be a lemon in the bunch, welllll… it’s over in a few minutes and you move on to the next one. Left Edge Theatre is presenting their Hindsight 2021 Short Play Festival, featuring twelve…
I spent the weekend catching up on two high-profile, gay-themed streaming productions – Netflix’s The Boys in the Band and The Prom. The former is a star-studded remount of Mart Crowley’s ground-breaking 1968 Off-Broadway production (and William Friedkin’s 1970 film adaptation) directed by Joe Mantello with the latter being a star-studded remounting of the 2018…
With no date in sight for the resumption of live, in-house theatre, Left Edge Theatre becomes the first North Bay company to move forward with a full season of streaming productions beginning with Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Sweat. The show streams through Sept 27. The play opens with a parole officer (Corey Jackson)…
A young couple debates the merits of bringing a child into this environmentally-challenged world and then deal with the ramifications of their decision in Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs, the latest offering from Zoom Theatre. There’s one final performance scheduled for Sunday, May 10 at 5:00 pm PDT. Zoom Theatre is the brainchild of director Patrick Nims.…
With the shelter-in-place order estimated to be in effect for quite some time, many theatre companies have turned to streaming archival footage of shows previously produced to maintain a connection with their audiences. Bay Area director Patrick Nims has come up with a new entity that’s diving headfirst into the pandemic-necessitated world of on-line theatre.…
The renovation and remodeling of Santa Rosa Junior College’s 80-year old Burbank Auditorium is now complete. The venerable 600-seat theatre has been reconfigured into two performance venues; a 400-seat proscenium arch space and a 200-seat 3/4 thrust studio theatre. The JC’s Theatre Arts Department, which has had to take their shows “on the road” for…
In the pantheon of great American plays, Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie is surely in the upper tier. Perhaps the most personal of Williams’ works, its name recognition, small cast, simple setting, and straight-forward storytelling have made it a staple of community theatres. Its ease of staging, however, belies its complexity and the quality of…
