North Bay theatre patrons are well aware of the number of performances cancelled because of the Kincade fire and the PG&E power shutoffs. What they may not know is the impact those factors had on shows in the middle of their rehearsal process. There’s no doubt that loss of critical time can be attributed to…
It’s been almost 85 years since two of Marin’s oldest theatre companies joined forces to present a full theatrical production. Apparently, it worked so well that the Mountain Play and the Ross Valley Players have decided to do it again. Their co-production of She Loves Me, the 1963 musical adaptation of the 1937 Hungarian play…
Author Roald Dahl’s children’s stories usually feature an exceptional child living in an unexceptional world of abusive adults and oppressive institutions. Whether it’s James traveling in a giant peach or Charlie touring a chocolate factory, the young protagonists usually triumph with the help of a loving grown-up. That formula is at work again in Matilda…
Writers have been dressing up the “boy meets girl, boy loses girl” trope for centuries now from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to every Hallmark Channel movie. Playwright Jeffrey Sweet took his shot at it twenty years ago with Bluff, running now at The Belrose in San Rafael through November 16. Sweet, long connected with Chicago…
Local theatres seem to be in a New York state of mind with two very different shows set in the Big Apple running on North Bay stages. 6th Street Playhouse brings the somewhat ironically titled Wait Until Dark to their Monroe Stage while Left Edge Theatre puts their audiences somewhere Between Riverside and Crazy. Wait…
Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd is an exceedingly difficult show to produce. More opera than musical (San Francisco Opera actually did a production in 2015), the vocal demands alone create a significant casting challenge for most theatre companies. The complexities of Sondheim’s score and the requirements of the set design add to the…
It’s been more than two decades since 21-year-old college student Matthew Shephard was kidnapped, beaten, tortured, tied to a fence and left to die in a remote area near Laramie, Wyoming. The savageness and “How could it happen here?” nature of the crime grabbed the world’s attention and Shephard’s funeral and subsequent trials of the…
If being hit on the head by a piece of sponge form toast or across the face by a flying condom isn’t your cup of tea, then perhaps you’ll want to avoid Marin Musical Theatre Company’s The Rocky Horror Show, which has two remaining performances at The Playhouse in San Anselmo on All Hallows’ Eve.…
The term “MacGuffin” was popularized by film director Alfred Hitchcock to describe objects or events that took place in his films that were necessary to begin the plot and motivate the characters but were essentially irrelevant. It may be harsh to refer to a baby as a MacGuffin, but the title character in Luna Gale,…
Intense drama. Complex characters. Challenging themes. You won’t find any of these in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, running through Oct. 27 at Rohnert Park’s Spreckels Performing Arts Center. What you will find is a very entertaining, macabre musical that is a perfect theatrical compliment to the Halloween season. Upon his mother’s passing,…
