When playwright August Wilson passed away in 2005, he left behind a body of work that has become a staple of the American theatre. As much a documentarian as a poet and author, the ten plays (Jitney, Fences, et al.) of Wilson’s Century (or Pittsburgh) Cycle chronicle the twentieth century African-American experience mostly through the…
Theatre companies love to produce theatre about theatre. 6th Street Playhouse gets in the act with Ken Ludwig’s 1995 door-slamming farce Moon Over Buffalo, running through February 3. Buffalo’s Erlanger Theater is hosting the repertory company of George and Charlotte Hay (Dodds Delzell & Madeleine Ashe), grade-B actors and grade-A hams who never made it…
Dear Evan Hansen, I attended the opening night performance of the San Francisco run of your national tour at the Curran Theatre. I’ve heard a lot about your show – the six Tonys (including Best Musical) and the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. I’ve seen the songs performed on various television shows and many…
For years, Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater has closed out the year with a musical cabaret show. Past years’ productions have celebrated the work of musical artists from Edith Piaf to Mahalia Jackson to Frank Sinatra. This year, the work of classic American tunesmith Cole Porter takes center stage via Love Linda, a look at Porter through…
One-person shows with a holiday theme tend to skew toward the male variety, whether it’s a show about a disgruntled department store Christmas elf (David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries) or a single dad desperate to maintain the fiction of Santa Claus with his children (David Templeton’s Polar Bears). Even Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol has been…
There’s no more proven commodity for community theatres than Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. A reliable audience-pleaser since its 1965 Broadway debut, the story of mismatched roommates has been adapted for film and television numerous times and Simon himself rewrote it for an all-female cast. The Ross Valley Players production running through December 16 is…
I doubt any of the tykes attending the 6th Street Playhouse production of Annie have any idea of its origins as a newspaper comic strip which ran for 86 years. Their exposure undoubtably comes from the 1982 film or its television remakes which all have their genesis from the 1977 Broadway musical. That the show…
For Marin audiences seeking some live holiday-themed entertainment, local theatre companies are presenting a couple of non-traditional seasonal shows. Audiences can choose between an ecclesiastical musical and a one-man holiday reminiscence. In 1985, writer/composer Dan Goggin adapted his line of greeting cards that featured nuns saying outrageous things into a cabaret show and then an…
Movies and television have long been a haven for sequels and spin-offs. Live theatre? Not so much. Which is why it’s interesting that North Bay theatres have programmed three such shows for the holiday season. Marin Theatre Company is presenting the latest installment of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s Christmas at Pemberley extensions of Pride…
Calling Wendy MacLeod’s The House of Yes a “family” show – while accurate – is not entirely truthful. Calling it a “fucked-up family” show would be infinitely more precise. The jet-black comedy is running now at Sebastopol’s Main Stage West through December 16. Meet Mrs. Pascal (Laura Jorgensen), the matriarch of a family that has…
North Bay Stage and Screen 