by Cari Lynn Pace Who should control – and profit from – a cure for all diseases in the world? Does the creation of such potential benefit belong in the hands of a joint venture firm who developed it? Who can be trusted to test its effectiveness, and if it works, who would distribute such…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Several Broadway stars escaped New York’s scorching heat to join a sensational cast of 24 and show up on the bucolic Sonoma stage under the stars in Transcendence Theatre Company’s Mamma Mia! The show features twenty-two songs and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, two members of the wildly…
by Harry Duke * Transcendence Theatre Company closes out their 2026 Broadway Under the Stars series with the popular ABBA jukebox musical Mamma Mia! It’s the show’s first Sonoma County appearance after a couple of Marin County mountings including a 2018 production by The Mountain Play atop Mt. Tamalpais and a season-closing production just this…
by Barry Willis * San Francisco Playhouse has launched another incisive play from the talented Aaron Loeb, whose dark comedy Ideation went from a much-praised local phenomenon to a weeks-long run off-Broadway. That production was a disturbing look into the world of business consultants tasked with creating a foolproof way to dispose of millions of…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Ray of Light Theatre’s Urinetown: The Musical opened on July 31 in San Francisco and has been filling The Barbary Stage with wildly enthusiastic audiences ever since. This show, with music and lyrics by Mark Hollmann and book and lyrics by Greg Kotis, has everything going for it: dazzling staging,…
by Harry Duke * Fans of Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 sci-fi thriller Total Recall (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) or, for the real cinephile, John Frankenheimer’s underrated 1966 sci-fi thriller Seconds (starring Rock Hudson, of all people) looking for something in the same vein would do well to seek out a production of Bay Area playwright Greg Lam’s…
by Harry Duke * Sandy Rustin’s The Cottage, now running at the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center through August 16, has all the hallmarks of a classic Noël Coward comedy: an early 20th-century setting, an English countryside abode, philandering spouses, lots of drinking and smoking, and witty banter delivered in British accents. That it was written…
by Barry Willis * San Francisco’s Ray of Light Theatre is giving Urinetown, the Musical a lot of love. Both a spoof of its own musical genre and an exploration of persistent social and environmental problems, the Tony winner by Mark Holmann and Greg Kotis is a tremendously engaging sharp-edged but blunt-force production running through…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Sonoma Arts Live’s season-closing Once Upon a Mattress holds plenty of delights. This Tony-award nominated 1959 musical with a book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller & Marshall Barer and lyrics by Barer and music by Mary Rogers runs through August 2. Based on the ageless fairy tale The Princess and…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Hairspray is the Tony Award-winning, Broadway-busting musical based on the same-titled 1988 movie by John Waters now running at San Francisco Playhouse. With a book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, Hairspray soars with music by Marc Shaiman and clever lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Whittman. Masterfully directed by Bill…
North Bay Stage and Screen 