Eccentric families have long been a source of humor for popular entertainments from TV’s Addams Family to film’s Royal Tenenbaums. Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It with You may be the preeminent stage production on the subject and is one of the most produced plays since its premiere in 1936, but Noël Coward beat…
Large-scale, family-friendly musical theatre returns to the North Bay with the Spreckels Theatre Company’s production of Tuck Everlasting. The stage adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s 1975 children’s novel about immortality had a very brief life on Broadway in 2016. If the Spreckels production – running in Rohnert Park through May 21 – is any indication, the…
Lovers of musical theatre in general and the works of Stephen Sondheim in particular would do well to head out to Sonoma and catch Sonoma Arts Live’s Side by Side by Sondheim. The musical revue runs on the Rotary Stage in Andrews Hall through May 7. Like most musical revues, there’s not much of a…
When it comes to jukebox musicals, Always… Patsy Cline may be North Bay theatergoers’ favorite. That’s evidenced by the number of productions put on in the area in recent years. Sonoma Arts Live reprised their 2018 production late last year, and now Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse has mounted a Jared Sakren-directed production that runs…
One would think that the regular killing of students and staff on American school campuses would lead to some sort of meaningful change in how our nation deals with the issue of guns. Sadly, as we read the news reports and watch the horrifying video footage of the latest school shooting (as of the date…
Fans of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice have had a plethora of adaptations of the 19th century novel from which to choose, from the trio of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon theatrical extensions of the story to the recent gay-themed film Fire Island, which transported reasonable facsimiles of Austen’s characters from Hertfordshire, England to the…
Fans of corporate dramas like Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and Jerry Sterner’s Other People’s Money might do well to check out the last couple of performances of Dry Powder. The California in Santa Rosa is hosting the Left Edge Theatre production of the Sara Burgess drama through March 26. It’s set in the offices of…
A lot of “firsts” were achieved when Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway in 1959. It was the first time Broadway produced a play written by a Black woman and the first Broadway show helmed by a Black director. The show was a critical and commercial success and spawned a film…
Some Stephen Sondheim musicals are more recognizable and identifiable than others. Sweeney Todd? Murderous barber. Into the Woods? Fractured fairy tales. Assassins? Assassins. A Little Night Music? Ummm… clowns? Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, now running at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park through Feb. 26, received a dozen Tony nominations in 1973…
Sonoma Arts Live brings a little retro-television to the Rotary Stage in Sonoma with Sidekicked, a one-woman show about actress Vivian Vance. Vance is best known as America’s favorite TV neighbor Ethel Mertz, a character she played for nine seasons alongside Lucille Ball. The Michael Ross-directed show runs in Sonoma through Feb. 19. It’s 1960…
North Bay Stage and Screen 