Jukebox musicals tend to be happy, peppy shows where the hits of an artist or a genre are strung together with a minimal story to create a fan-pleasing production. But what do you do with a story that ends with its star dead in the back seat of a Cadillac? Well, if you’re Randal Myler…
Welcome to Almost, Maine. You won’t find it on a map as its citizens were never organized enough to get it declared an official town. The almost-town has a mill, a bar, a snowmobiling club, and a couple of dozen residents whose main activity is falling in (or out) of love. That’s the premise behind…
Every thirty years or so, musical theatre manages to produce something to which the younger members of a generation latch onto. From Hair in the 1960’s through Hamilton today, composers and lyricists’ use of the music of their time has been an effective way to entice younger audiences into theaters. The 1990’s brought Jonathan Larson’s…
Santa Rosa’s Roustabout Theater is best known as one of the leading theatrical training and performance programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a focus on youth ages 11 to 20, their Apprentice Program and Summer Theater Camp productions lean toward lighter fare, like this summer’s scheduled production of The SpongeBob Musical. Roustabout also…
Napa’s Lucky Penny Community Arts Center has been transformed into a high school gymnasium dolled up for the prom for their presentation of Roger Bean’s The Marvelous Wonderettes. The nostalgic jukebox musical runs through Mar. 13. It’s 1958 and Springfield High’s Songleader Squad has been asked to entertain at the Senior Prom. The four perky…
A “classic” is defined as something judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind. In theatre, it can be a mark of a quality script that is at the mercy of the artists producing it. I’ve seen plenty of non-classic productions of classic plays. The Glass…
The name Maria Callas means little these days to people unversed in the world of opera, but to those in the know the American-born Greek soprano will always be “La Divina”. Callas passed away in 1977 at the age of 53. Memories of her might have faded completely from the stage but for playwright Terrence…
Remember the good ol’ days when all a teenage boy had to worry about was being drafted into the military, trained to kill, shipped off to a foreign land, and die defending corporate interests in the name of democracy? Well, you can relive the grand old ‘60’s by attending the 6th Street Playhouse production of…
Uncomfortable. Amused. Depressed. Angry. Confused. Challenged. Hopeful. Those are all states of mind and emotions I experienced while sitting in the audience of Pass Over, the Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu play that’s in the middle of its West Coast Premiere run at the Marin Theatre Company. The show that reopened a pandemic-shuttered Broadway runs in Mill Valley…
There may be no more venerable fictional character than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. From his first appearance in 1887’s A Study in Scarlet through a series of Hollywood adaptations and innumerable British television series, the deerstalker cap-clad detective and his associate Dr. Watson have entertained audiences for well over a century. The character…
North Bay Stage and Screen 