There aren’t a lot of plays that explore Native American history or the modern-day social and political issues that continue to challenge that community. Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sovereignty, running at the Marin Theatre Company through Oct. 20, attempts to do both in about two hours. Sarah Ridge Polson (Elizabeth Frances) returns to the Cherokee Nation…
In sports, the term ‘ringer’ generally refers to the practice of using a clearly superior competitor in order to gain an unfair advantage. In theatrical terms, it can be used to describe the importation of outside talent in the hope of drawing a larger-than-normal audience. In both cases, the hope is that the player/performer will…
When Little Shop of Horrors opened in New York in 1982, it was in a small 98-seat Off-Off-Broadway theatre. Its success led to its move Off-Broadway to Manhattan’s 299-seat Orpheum Theatre where it ran for five years. It had a chance to move to the Great White Way, but playwright/lyricist Howard Ashman felt the show…
It’s a virtual Merman-palooza in the North Bay as two theatre companies present ‘musical fables’ with Ethel Merman connections. Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse has Gypsy running through Oct. 20 while Sonoma Arts Live has Merman’s Apprentice, an original musical with a fictional Merman character, running through Oct. 13. Merman’s Apprentice is a throw-back to…
Halloween comes early to North Bay stages with two productions more commonly seen around that particular holiday. Monte Rio’s Curtain Call Theatre recreates The Haunting of Hill House through Sep. 28 while Healdsburg’s Raven Players present the serial-killing comedy Arsenic and Old Lace through Sep. 29. Shirley Jackson’s 1958 novel The Haunting of Hill House…
In a recent conversation about on-stage diversity (and the lack thereof in the North Bay), a local theatre company’s Artistic Director posed this question: “When will you know when we’ve achieved it?” My response: “When I look at a cast photo and no one stands out.” A cast photo from the Marin Shakespeare Company production…
Two very different comedies are nearing the end of their runs on North Bay stages and both are worth catching if you can. Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater is staging the popular musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors while Sebastopol’s Main Stage West is presenting Annie Baker’s Body Awareness. Both shows run through September 22. Baker’s play…
Two very different comedies are nearing the end of their runs on North Bay stages and both are worth catching if you can. Sebastopol’s Main Stage West is presenting Annie Baker’s Body Awareness while Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater is staging the popular musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors. Both shows run through September 22. You can’t…
When something becomes popular enough to be successfully parodied, what made the original source material so popular tends to be forgotten. Case in point – the British murder mystery as exemplified by the works of Agatha Christie. Christie wrote 66 detective novels (many featuring the characters of Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot), 14 short story…
While technically not set in a courtroom, Tom Topor’s Nuts, running now at Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre through Sept. 29, has all the elements of a classic courtroom drama – a defendant, a judge, a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, and witnesses. However, the question of Innocence or guilt of a crime is not…
