by Cari Lynn Pace Conceived by Jeff Whitty and based on The Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney, Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse tackles the jukebox musical Head Over Heels with gusto. The Go-Go’s, the all-girl band whose music is featured, give us quite a music collection to enjoy. This mash-up of Shakespearean patois with raucous…
After a series of lightweight comedies and Broadway musicals, Cinnabar Theater gets serious with a production of Lucas Hnath’s The Christians. The theological drama runs in the Warren Theater on the campus of Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park through April 26. Folks walking into the usually sterile Warren Theater may be surprised by the…
Two hapless, small-time crooks hit the roads of South Carolina in search of their next “big” score in T-Bone n Weasel. The John Klein comedy is the latest theatrical presentation at The 222 in Healdsburg and concludes its short run with three performances through April 5. Pals T-Bone (Aldo Billingslea) and Weasel (Timothy Roy Redmond)…
by Cari Lynn Pace If you expect this rock music show to be loud and in-your-face, you are correct. What you may not expect is how Alanis Morissette’s emotional songs resonate in today’s angry world. Drug use? Sexual predators? Political privilege? Color bias? Lover infidelity? They’re all here, exploding from the intimate Novato Theater Company…
by Barry Willis In the early 1970s, in the wake of the phenomenal success of the groundbreaking musical “Hair” came a spate of hippie-era religious-themed productions—“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” and “Godspell” among them. This last-mentioned show is enjoying a revival with some contemporary updates at Lucky Penny Productions in Napa.…
by Barry Willis Teenage angst gets a full workout in ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| at American Conservatory Theater’s Strand Theater on Market Street in San Francisco, through April 19. Set in the East Bay, the story is about four girls in a summer music program, preparing for a final concert before they…
by Harry Duke After a couple of rabble-rousing, politically-bent productions, Petaluma’s Mercury Theater shifts to British comedy with their production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. The Michael Fontaine-directed production runs through Mar. 21. The play, written in 1930, has served as a vehicle for some of the top performers of the past century, including Elizabeth…
by Cari Lynn Pace If you are a fan of Stephen Sondheim, you will be delighted with this Throckmorton Theatre production of Company. If you don’t care for Sondheim’s repetitive musical style, you will still be delighted with this production. It’s a show filled with non-stop energy. Company focuses on bachelor Bobby’s 35th birthday and…
Berkeley Rep’s Uneven “All My Sons” by Barry Willis A week has passed since the press opener of Berkeley Rep’s revamp of Arthur Miller’s enduring family drama All My Sons. Presumably some of the hysteria around this production has faded a bit, but during opening week there was plenty of it among the critical community.…
by Harry Duke For centuries France has produced such famous playwrights as Molière, Beaumarchais, Rostand, Sartre, and Ionesco and such plays as Tartuffe, The Marriage of Figaro, Cyrano de Bergerac, No Exit, and Rhinoceros. And yet, according to the Guinness World Record organization, the most performed French play in the world is a 1960s sex…
North Bay Stage and Screen 